When Sergeant “Shoot on Sight” Susan left the Forward Operating Base at Nature Park with a team of Marines, it was supposed to be a simple subdue, capture, & extract mission. Her team’s purpose was to go collect a specimen for the Doc in charge of coming up with a cure for this infection. They knew that they would have to leave the contained area to go find what they were looking for. They had been informed that a group of zombies were gathered inside of the rodeo grounds and that it should be a simple task of snagging a straggler from the group to bring it back to the FOB.
They had left the FOB and proceeded to the rodeo just a short distance away in Humvees. The Sergeant’s team was armed with enough tranquilizer darts to put down a herd of elephants, and their firearms in case things went from bad to worse in a hurry.
It didn’t take long before they identified a target, a formerly-young-man, now-turned-zombie that had strayed a good 100 yards from the group. The Sergeant loaded a tranquilizer gun and with remarkable accuracy, shot the dart into the zombie’s upper right thigh. It was out before it could gurgle another breath.
As they drove up to bag the poor soul, the Lieutenant in charge ordered a pair of Privates and a Corporal to restrain the zombie and then place him in the body bag they had brought with them. They quickly cuffed the zombie’s hands and feet together, and placed him inside the bag. Then, as Private Ramirez went to zip the bag the zombie snapped back into raging consciousness.
“WHAT THE—?!” Ramirez yelled, and then the zombie quickly lunged after the Private and bit him in the shoulder.
Thrashing on the ground to free itself from the cuffs, the zombie desperately tried to attack its other captors. But they had already backed away too far for it to reach them. However, Private Ramirez was quickly gaining a new identity as zombie Ramirez and rushed his former teammates.
Then with reflexes born from years of training and experience, the Sergeant snapped out her side arm and fired off two quick shots to put both the former Private and zombie down before they could attack the other members of the team.
“How is that even possible?!” Corporal Jones asked. “That dart would have put a normal man out for two days!”
“Don’t know. Take it up with the egg-heads when we get back to base.” The Lieutenant replied.
“It probably has something to do with the infection. Maybe it changes our metabolism rate or something when we get infected.” Sergeant Susan said as she holstered her sidearm.
“Maybe,” said the Lieutenant. “Guess we’ll find out when we—“
“HEY, WE AREN’T DONE HERE! HOSTILES APPROACHING FAST FROM THE EAST!” yelled Jones.
And sure enough, the masses that had been gathered for the Rexburg Rodeo earlier that day were now bearing down on them at full zombie sprint.
“What are the rules of engagement in this situation LT?!” yelled one of the privates, perched in the open cabin of the Humvee.
“RULES?! OPEN FIRE YOU IDIOT!” the Lieutenant yelled back. “Jones, get on the mini-gun and plaster those targets! Sergeant, drive! Everyone else, load up. Make for the FOB!”
The remaining five team members loaded up into the Humvee and leveraged every firing position they could. The charging horde was only 30 yards away by the time Jones had the mini-gun firing. The Sergeant peeled the Humvee out and made for the gate entry to the rodeo grounds.
“CALL OUT TARGETS FOR JONES!” the LT yelled. “CHECK ALL DIRECTIONS FOR INCOMING HOSTILES!”
And just as he called it out, one of the zombies that had wandered from the mass group came hurdling out of nowhere and ‘supermanned’ Corporal Jones off the mini-gun and into the bed of the Humvee. In less than a second only the Sergeant and LT were left with self-conscious minds still in their possession.
Both of them were forced to bail out of the Humvee as their zombified teammates started to crawl through the roof opening where the mini gun was installed.
The Humvee continued to roll forward toward the entry of the rodeo grounds. But now without a driver, it kept going until it crashed into a booth and rolled itself over onto its top.
Sergeant Susan and the LT quickly regroup, but are faced with a critical decision to make. Both of them are quickly running out of ammo, and are down to their last magazines respectively. Do they run the risk of going to the Humvee, finish off the zombies inside, grab more ammunition and weapons, and then fight their way back to the FOB? Or do they take their chances on ammo and use the distraction that the Humvee caused to run to the FOB, only a short distance away?