Rise of the Undead 1943 Read Free Page B

“Why you snot nosed little
. . . ”
    A bullet hits Pender in the chest with a smack of tearing
flesh. Harris stops and turns around. Pender looks down at the neat hole over
his heart and then up to Harris. His eyes blaze in their last moments of life,
and the young lieutenant can see that those eyes blame him for his death.
Harris stares into those eyes, doubt and fear pushing aside his cocky bravado
and confidence in the face of mortal combat. He reaches out to take Pender, to
try and do something when another round hits Pender in the heart and sprays the
young officer with blood.
    “Cover!” Pilch screams.
    A bullet hits one of the Americans in the neck, and he goes
down gurgling for breath, weapon discarded and hands vainly trying to stop the
river of blood pouring from his throat. The rest of the men dive behind rocks
for cover as more rounds whine in. Harris watches Pender’s lifeless face as his
limp corpse falls backwards to the ground. More bullets zing by, kicking up
dirt and debris.
    Pilch looks to Harris, “Hey, sir.”
    Harris looks down at his uniform and sees that he’s covered
in Pender’s blood. He stands motionless and stunned looking at the blood as
bullets smack the ground near him.
    “Sir?” Pilch calls over.
    Harris is too shocked to respond. He looks up to the young
American that was hit in the throat; his neck is in shreds, and blood is running
like a fountain from his wound and mouth as he kicks and squirms in vain. A
bullet hits one of the new recruits in the face, and his helmet sails free with
most of the back of his head.
    Harris opens his mouth to speak, to give an order but
nothing comes out.
    Monte and the rest of the men come charging in, “Open up,
open up!” Monte screams.
    Pilch looks down the scope of his sniper rifle and fires,
the round sparks on the rocks inches from a German, “But the Lieutenant didn’t
say we could,” he chides as he lines up another shot. He has the distance now
and holds his breath, relaxes, and fires. The German takes the round in the
head, “He runs it by the books, ya’ know.”
    A round clips Harris in the shoulder, and he snaps out of
his trance, spins and starts firing wildly. Lead by Monte, the veterans fire
carefully aimed shots and keep their cool while the new recruits spray out fire
carelessly.
    Another German goes down.
    “Got’em!” Oddball calls from behind a rock.
    “Bull-shit, I got ‘em,” Lewis calls.
    “You lyin’ sack of shit…” Oddball starts when another
American goes down with a shot in the head. Oddball watches the man’s feet
twitching in his death dance and drops his argument with Lewis. The last German
tumbles from the rocks after the bark of Pilchs’ rifle, and the sounds of
gunfire and crack of bullets subside to the quiet howl of the desert sands as
fast as it had begun.
    Smith kneels by the lifeless body of Pender, “Monte,
Sergeant Pender is down!”
    Harris glances over, “Leave ‘em and move forward.”
    “But . . . ”
    “I said move out!”
    Monte gently pulls Smith away from the body, and the men
move into the camp. Monte looks back to Pender’s corpse and then turns to the
men with a sigh, “Check those tents.”
    Johnson looks back to Pender and the other dead Americans, “We
ain’t just gonna leave him back . . . ”
    “Johnson!” Monte snaps.
    Johnson clamps his mouth shut and moves toward a tent.
Harris looks to the archway and stops. The wind howls, kicking up the sand. Monte
stops, seeing a leather book half buried at his feet.
    Pilch, Oddball, and Johnson move toward one of the tents.
Pilch eyes Yusif and Camir suspiciously, “Two of ‘em now.”
    Oddball smiles, “Relax. Sarge said they’re on our side.”
    “Shit. Monte ain’t no Sergeant in my book. Just a second
string Corporal.”
    Johnson nods in agreement, “Yup.”
    Johnson and Oddball enter the tent while Pilch moves to
inspect the dead German that fell from the rocks. Pilch rolls the dead German
over to see his