Zombie Killers: Ice & Fire by John Holmes, Ryan Szimanski Read Free Book Online

end it for you quick. Either way, you’re not coming with us. Do you understand? Make your choice, right now.” I pulled the tape off again.
    “I’m sorry, I was tired. I didn’t mean it.” He was crying now.
    “That doesn’t matter. Jesus Christ, face this like a man. Make up your mind.” Outside, I heard a zombie howl.
    “Please, take me with you. I’m begging you, Sarge.”
    “No. Make up your mind.”  He stopped sniffling and crying, and then he spit in my face.
    “OK. I’m leaving you for the Z’s.” I started to get up, and he said “Wait, wait, OK. OK, just let me stand up.” 
    I helped him to his feet, and he stood straight. “Do it, you asshole.  I should have stuck it to that redheaded whore when I had the chance. That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You pissed off that I grabbed your woman’s ass?”
    “No. You wouldn’t understand. I’ll lie to your parents and tell them you died well” I said, lifted my gun and fired, once in the head. He fell to the floor like a sack of potatoes, all the life gone out of him in an instant. I couldn’t have shot him in the heart, he was wearing body armor. For a second, I stared down at him. Then I turned and grabbed my ruck, stuffing my sleeping bag in and making sure the shotgun was secured across the top and picked up my rifle. Doc secured his gear also, but then stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
    “Nick, you did the right thing” he said, looking down at Collaton’s body in the dim light. “If he did it once, he’d do it again, and next time, it wouldn’t be one person dead, though that’s enough. It’s a different world, brother.”
    I looked at him for a long second, and I could still smell the acrid smoke from my pistol and the bitter coppery tang of fresh blood, the smell of crap from his bowels letting go.
    “This different world sucks, Doc, it really does.” I hadn’t wanted to do what I just did, and maybe there could have been some other way, but right now, four other people depended on me making the decisions, right or wrong, and that’s just the way it was. I knew I would be dreaming about this for a long time. Maybe he would even become one of the ghosts that tormented me. I hoped not.  
    “True story, brother. Now, we gotta go.” I nodded and went out into the hallway and down the stairs to relieve Ahmed. The rest of the team joined me in less than a minute.
    “Brit, did you see anything outside?” She had gone up to the attic, and looked out using the Infrared scope on Hernandez’ rifle.
    “Yeah, there three jokers camped out across the street, hiding behind some wrecked cars. I saw a zombie sniffing around down the street. Out back is clear, so far as I can tell.”
    “OK, out the front we go then.”
    Brit’s eyebrows shot up. “Out the front?”
    “Yeah. These guys have been surviving the zombie apocalypse for more than six months on their own. Guaranteed that there is an ambush waiting for us out back. Ahmed, you know what to do.”
    He didn’t even answer me, just moved over into the living room and took up a firing position. I readied a flashbang, pulling the pin and holding it in my hand. Doc held onto the doorknob, and counted down from three. At two, I let the spoon pop out of the flashbang. On one, he pulled the door open and I threw the grenade as hard as I could at the cars across the street. Doc slammed the door shut just as an arrow whispered through the doorway. Jonesy, standing behind Doc, said “Ow” under his breath. We all looked down and covered our eyes, and the CRACK of the stun grenade rattled the windows.
    A second later, Ahmed’s rifle coughed, twice, then once again. I opened the door and rushed out into the cold night.
    Outside, a half-moon illuminated the street. Two bodies lay on the far side of the pavement, and one man dragged himself slowly along the ground. Doc fired his pistol into him as we went past, more a mercy than ending a threat. 
    The reason for the mercy