The train horn blared outside, so loud that everyone inside and out of the train cars covered their ears, trying in vain to block out the noise. “Damn,” Liam screamed over the noise. “How long is that thing going to go off?” His question went unanswered as no one in the train car could actually hear him.
The horn continued for another minute before falling silent. Carefully everyone removed their hands from the ears, keeping them close in case the engineers decided to let loose again. Nothing came and everyone relaxed for a moment.
“Stryker team, check your weapons.” Most of the team went straight to work, checking and double checking the slides and magazines on their carbine rifles. Ammo was counted and recounted, unpacked and repacked to ensure easy access and event distribution of weight. These were the veterans, those who had been on a Stryker team before. The new recruits, Freshmeat as they were called, remained still. Either because of fear or arrogance, none of them thought it necessary to go through the motions. They would soon realize why they were wrong.
Liam smacked the closest recruit to Jim. “Get busy Freshmeat. Those ammo clips aren’t going to check themselves.” The recruit started immediately through the routines they had all been trained on. Across the car came a snort from another recruit.
“Why are we busting our chops right now,” he said. “We’re going to be here for a long time, right? What’s the rush?” Almost before the recruit had finished, the frost of the volleys rang out. The over-confident recruit nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound. Liam laughed.
“Because we never know if they,” and he pointed to the roof of other train car were the Heavy Attack Force was stationed, “will do their job or not. When we have to save their ass, you want to make sure that your equipment is working before the readers get here…not after.” The recruit looked up at the roof for a short time, listening to the steady stream of gunfire, then quickly bent to checking his own equipment.
Liam looked mover to Alex, shaking his head. “Freshmeat,” he quipped. “Never fails.”
For the next six hours Alex and his Stryker team hunkered down in the bowels on the armored train car, waiting for the Heavy Strike Force to finish their phase of the operation and give the all clear for Alex and the other Stryker teams to head out. All clear was a relative term, though. While the Heavy Attack Force could clear out a large portion of the free roaming zombies in the city, they could do nothing about those zombies that were trapped within buildings, in cars or by obstacles. It was up to the Stryker teams to walk into the cities and clear those out.
The cracks and pops from the rifles above seemed endless. The longer the assault continued, the more the new recruits began to get jumpy. Alex had the Stryker team check and recheck the condition of their weapons and ammo every half hour. The routine achieved two goals. The first was so that everyone knew exactly what they had, where, and in what condition. The second was more for the new recruits. The more they kept busy, the less they likely they were to focus on what was going on outside. This was the time when most new recruits broke, not out in the field. The constant barrage of gunfire was enough to wear down most men.
Alex and Liam kept a close eye on each of the six new members of the Stryker team, looking for any signs of a break. Both men noticed Jeremy and his increasing nervousness. The two leaders eyed on another, knowing what each of them was thinking. This boy was going to break. It was only a matter of time, and the longer those guns continued, the closer he came to breaking.
Alex nodded his head towards the young recruit. “He going to make it?” he asked above the noise from above. Liam looked closely at the boy. Looking back to Alex, Liam shook his head.
The pounding noise of the guns continued outside, constant and unrelenting. But the sound that soon accompanied them was worse by far. The unmistakable moans of the dead could now be heard over the barrage of gunfire. Alex and Liam stood and moved together to the north side of the rail car. Peering through the gun ports in the wall, they looked out on a sight they had hope they wouldn’t see. Thousands of walking dead were converging on the train they now occupied, and the guns above didn’t look as though they were going to be enough.
“Check your gear,” Alex commanded. “Everyone to a gun port. We may be fighting sooner than later.” This last command, and the implication that went with it, was too much for the already breaking recruit. The boy began screaming and thrashing around, finally reaching the limit of what his nerves could stand.
“Oh god! Oh god! We’re all going to die! Oh god we’re going to die!”
“Shut him up” Alex ordered. The screams from the boy were having an effect on the remaining recruits. Their faces screwed up in terror at the scene before them.
“We’re all going to…”
The boy’s screams were quickly silenced by a hand clamping firmly across his mouth. Another man, Dr. Cahn, ran quickly across the interior of the rail car, plunging a needle into the boy’s thigh. Almost instantly, the boy stopped moving. Hayden slowly removed his hand from the boy’s mouth, prepared to once more cover the screams if he continued. The boy remained silent.
Dr. Cahn checked the boy’s pulse then turned and nodded to Alex. “He’s out, and he won’t be going anywhere for a while.”
“Good,” Alex responded. “Everyone to their station. Prepare for attack.” With the hysterical boy now quiet, the Alex’s orders seemed to snap the others out of their shock. Each of the remaining five recruits set to their task quickly, then moved to their assigned place within the rail car.
Each man had trained for this possibility, and the armored military train had been designed for just such a scenario. When a military train entered an infested city, the train’s horns where blown to attract any free roaming zombies in the area. The Heavy Attack Force was then deployed to shooter positions on top of the rail cars. Shooters were place shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides of the rail car. The rifle scopes were modified to allow each shooter only a narrow field of vision in front of them. Each shooter had been heavily trained to only shoot zombies which entered into their narrow field of fire, with only a five degree variation to either side of their field of fire. This technique should, in theory, provide a kill zone spanning the entire wide of the rail car. Four shooters were stationed at the corners of each of the rail cars to provide a rotating field of coverage for the areas between rail cars.
Inside each rail car were two additional teams. The first were members of the Heavy Attack Force and were stationed at each of the two ladders which provided access to the roof. If a shooters shot-to-kill ratio dropped significantly, observers monitoring the shooters up top would call for a replacement, allowing the affected shooter some time to rest before returning. The second group stationed within the rail cars were the Beta Strike teams. The Beta Strike teams were divided into two groups, rescue and cleanse. The rescue teams were tasked with locating and extracting survivors in the cities. Cleansing teams, the larger of the two Beta Strike teams, were to locate and eradicate any pockets of zombies. It was the cleansing Strike teams that suffered the highest number of casualties. This was Alex’s team.
The gunfire outside of the rail car seemed to intensify, if that were even possible. Calls came down from the observers above, ordering the relief Heavy Attack forces up top. “That’s not normal procedure,” Liam said to Alex, confusion crossing his face.
“Just what about any of this has ever seemed normal?” Liam shrugged back at Alex’s comment, realizing the truth of the situation.
“Okay,” he said back, “you got me there. Let me rephrase. That’s not ‘standard’ procedure.” It was Alex’s turn to shrug.
“Guess they are trying something new. I don’t mind, really. It’ll keep us out of the mess just a little longer.” Liam and Alex continued to monitor the fight outside through the gun ports in the walls. The extra firepower seemed stem the hordes of walking dead bearing down on them. Soon the relief force was once again making it’s way back inside the safety of the rail car, and within the hour the guns up top began to quiet. Not long after, only the sporadic pops and cracks from the riflemen outside could be heard. Alex began it issue his final commands. “Last check of equipment, gentlemen. We’re up next.”
