World War Z

And there was fog. I didn’t know fog could be so thick that far inland. I always wanted to ask a climatologist or someone about that. The whole front might get slammed, sometimes for days. Just sitting there in zero visibility, occasionally one of your Ks would start barking or a man down the line would shout “Contact!” You’d hear the moan and then the shapes would appear. Hard enough just standing still and waiting for them. I saw a movie once, this BBC documentary about how because the UK was so foggy, the British army would never stop. There was a scene, where the cameras caught a real firefight, just sparks from their weapons and hazy silhouettes going down. They didn’t need that extra creepy soundtrack. It freaked me out just to watch.

It also slowed us down to have to keep pace with the other countries, the Mexicans and Canucks. Neither army had the manpower to liberate their entire country. The deal was that they’d keep our borders clear while we get our house in order. Once the U.S. was secure, we’d give them everything they need. That was the start of the UN multinational force, but I was discharged long before those days. For me, it always felt like hurry up and wait, creeping along through rough terrain or built-up areas. Oh, and you wa

The strategy was always to surround the target area. We’d set up semipermanent defenses, recon with everything from satellites to sniffer Ks, do whatever we could to call Zack out, and go in only after we were sure no more of them were coming. Smart and safe and relatively easy. Yeah, right!

As far as surrounding the “area,” someone wa

Even in winter, it’s not like everything was safe and snuggly. I was in Army Group North. At first I thought we were golden, you know. Six months out of the year, I wouldn’t have to see a live G, eight months actually, given what wartime weather was like. I thought, hey, once the temp drops, we’re little more than garbage men: find ’em, Lobo ’em, mark ’em for burial once the ground begins to thaw, no problem. But I should be Lobo’d for thinking that Zack was the only bad guy out there.

We had quislings, just like the real thing, but winterized. We had these Human Reclamation units, pretty much just glorified animal control. They’d do their best to dart any quislings we came across, tie ’em down, ship ’em to rehabilitation clinics, back when we thought we could rehabilitate them.

Ferals were a much more dangerous threat. A lot of them weren’t kids anymore, some were teenagers, some full grown. They were fast, smart, and if they chose fight instead of flight, they could really mess up your day. Of course, HR would always try and dart them, and, of course, that didn’t always work. When a two-hundred-pound feral bull is charging balls out for your ass, a couple CCs of tranq ain’t go

Man, feral packs, that freaked me out more than anything else. I’m not just talking dogs. Dogs you knew how to deal with. Dogs always telegraphed their attacks. I’m talking “Flies” : F-Lions, cats, like part mountain Lion, part ice age saberfuck. Maybe they were mountain lions, some sure looked like them, or maybe just the spawn of house cats that had to be super badass just to make it. I’ve heard that they grew bigger up north, some law of nature or evolution. I don’t really get the whole ecology thing, not past a few prewar nature shows. I hear it’s because rats were, like, the new cows; fast and smart enough to get away from Zack, livin’ on corpses, breeding by the millions in trees and ruins. They’d gotten pretty badass themselves, so anything tough enough to hunt them has to be a whole lot badder. That’s an F-lion for you, about twice the size of a prewar puffball, teeth, claws, and a real, real jonesing for warm blood.

That must have been a hazard for the sniffer dogs.

Are you kidding? They loved it, even the little dachmutts, made ’em feel like dogs again. I’m talking about us, getting jumped from a tree limb, or a roof. They didn’t charge you like F-hounds, they just waited, took their sweet time until you were too close to raise a weapon.

Outside of Mi

[He refers to the scar on his cheek.]

I guess the only real casualty that day was my shorts. Between the bite-proof BDUs and body armor we’d started wearing, the vest, the helmet. . .

I hadn’t worn a hard cover in so long, you forget how uncomfortable it is when you’re used to going soft top.

Did ferals, feral people that is, know how to use firearms?

They didn’t know how to do anything human, that’s why they were ferals. No, the body armor was for protection against some of the regular people we found. I’m not talking organized rebels, just the odd LaMOE, Last Man on Earth. There was always one or two in every town, some dude, or chick, who managed to survive. I read somewhere that the United States had the highest number of them in the world, something about our individualistic nature or something. They hadn’t seen real people in so long, a lot of the initial shooting was just accidental or reflex. Most of the time we managed to talk them down. Those we actually called RCs, Robinson Crusoes — that was the polite term for the ones who were cool.

The ones we called LaMOEs, those were the ones who were a little too used to being king. King of what, I don’t know, Gs and quislings and crazy F’Critters, but I guess in their mind they were living the good life, and here we were to take it all away. That’s how I got nailed.

We were closing on the Sears Tower in Chicago. Chicago, that was enough nightmares for three lifetimes. It was the middle of winter, wind whipping off the lake so hard you could barely stand, and suddenly I felt Thor’s hammer smash me in the head. Slug from a high-powered hunting rifle. I never complained about our hard covers anymore after that. The gang in the tower, they had their little kingdom, and they weren’t giving it up for anyone. That was one of the few times we went full convent; SAWs, nades, that’s when the Bradleys started making a comeback.

After Chicago, the brass knew we were now in a full, multithreat environment. It was back to hard covers and body armor, even in summer. Thanks, Windy City. Each squad was issued pamphlets with the “Threat Pyramid,”

It was ranked according to probability, not lethality. Zack at the bottom, then F’Crttters, ferals, quislings, and finally LaMOEs. I know a lot of guys from AG South like to bitch about how they always had it tougher on their end, ’cause, for us, winter took care of Zack’s whole threat level. Yeah, sure, and replaced it with another one: winter!