Urban Warfare Operations Engaging Revenants- Phase 1: The Tactical Drive By

goddamn! some days i really love my fucking job.  so we're still in the middle of locking down chicago, il.  sappers have set up a wall around the entire city.  nothing gets in, nothing gets out without our say so.  the navy and coast guard are constantly patrolling the rivers and lakes.  the evacuation procedures have officially ended, although we expect to recover hold outs barricaded here and there.  now we can fucking get this party started.

urban ops are fucking scary, man.  you never know where the enemy might be hiding, what sort of situation you'll find yourself in and just intense fighting in houses, buildings and streets can get.  they've always been hard to execute and every time you're sent on one, it's nothing like ones before it.  every one is its own special clusterfuck.  well, turns out some of guys calling the shots are a helluva lot sharper than we give them credit for.  our division commander admitted to being a horror film buff and had always been thinking of all sorts of freaky scenarios as intellectual exercises for decades.  if there's a god, i sure as fuck hope this man is rewarded something fierce, because his plans were simply fucking brilliant.  a lot of deaths were prevented basically because our CO likes scary movies and abstract puzzles.  that's practically fucking unbelievable of a coincidence, right?  but i'm getting off the topic here... so here's how we spent our day...

i'm pretty sure most of you have found yourself running into more goddamned zombies at one time and if you have, that's a sight that'll give bad dreams for the rest of your life.  vulnerable, exposed, outnumbered... it's never a good thing and panic is really all there is to do.

let me tell ya, running into swarms like that when you're riding around in a fucking Stryker IFV flips that instinctual response from flight to fight like nothing else, haha.  i've ridden inside them a few times back in Siberia, but i was never with a BCT that used them for everything.  my first time on a machine gun turret in one of that 8 wheeled bad ass motherfuckers was during the first push into the city to begin sweep and clear operations.

after we established a perimeter around the city, the next step was to clear it of the Revenants still occupying the place.  step 1 was to clear them off the streets.  so we were loaded up into the Strykers and sent in to basically patrol an assigned area and blow away everything in sight. 

i don't think i've ever felt so much like a bad ass, riding high up on top on an IFV with a 50 caliber M2 heavy machine gun ready to fuck shit up.  we felt like fucking hammers of god sent to smite our enemies with a fucking vengeance.  we felt tough for a change, we had a plan and the resources to put it in action.  we felt like we had a chance at pulling this off and proving every zombie movie ever made horrifically goddamned wrong.  we were bloodthirsty, angrier than hell and ready to take back what they had taken from us.  and then we were given the go to do exactly that.  we even laughed when the gates closed behind us, locking us in the city.  

the sun had just started to come up when we started rolling into the city.  thinking about it now, it was like a new day was starting after all the death and carnage and we were making a stand to put an end to the nightmare.  it's fucking strange how little shit like that plays with your morale, but there it is.

i was in the lead Stryker in the forward position, so i had a front row seat at seeing the hell that chicago had fallen into since the whole thing started.  i'll spare you the details, but you can bet your ass, it sure as fuck wasn't pretty.  we cranked up some ass kicking music to keep us pumped and hopefully to bait some fuckers out since we weren't sure yet what attracted them.

our first contact came fifteen minutes into our patrol.  and it was fucking beautiful.

we had turned a corner from one major street onto another at the edge of our sector and could see a group of maybe ten or so several blocks ahead.  my team leader told me to hold off until we were closer before i could smear their asses across the pavement.  a second or two later, they spotted us and started heading towards us in their freaky ass glitching motions.  i'll tell ya, seeing it in broad daylight does NOT make it any less unnerving.  the hair on the back of my neck raised as i watched them.  Revenants started coming out of places to join the mob.  we covered a block and the swarm had doubled.  another block and it was half again larger.  when we'd reached three blocks away, there had be sixty or more of the bastards heading towards us.

but maybe a third of them were moving faster, smoother and in more control... we still had no idea why or what it meant.  maybe a different type of condition or some variance based on the victim was in play, we had no idea and all the high IQ assholes still alive were stashed in government labs trying to figure it out.  anyways...

holy shit, getting a good look at these fuckers in the sunlight made my fucking skin crawl.  they were bloody, torn up, missing limbs, dragging their guts around, bones sticking out of them... just fucking nasty.  but that was nothing compared to the expressions on their dead faces and what i know i saw in their colorless eyes as they stared at me.

the IFV slowed down and stopped while they were still a block away.  my TL, Corporal Hester, shouted from below me to ventilate the sons a bitches already and i was officially on the fucking clock.

now, i had been told why were doing things a certain way, but until you see it yourself, you'll never really understand the beauty of a brilliant strategist's plans.  and when i opened up with that huge motherfucking machine gun, i instantly knew that our commanding officers were not fucking around.  

the fifty cal didn't just put holes into the god forsaken fuckers.  it literally blew them apart.  even though we all knew that head shots permanently dropped them, the devastation of the huge fucking gun fucking guaranteed that if a zombie survived the gunfire, there wasn't much left of it to pose much of a threat.  holy hell, it was fucking awesome.  it was the first time i'd ever fired the M2 in combat and it was one of greatest moments of my life, as sad and fucked up as that sounds, lol.

in less than thirty seconds, i had blown apart every single Revenant that was in the open.  i have no idea how many were down hard, but it had to have been a good portion.  

after making sure there was nothing still standing in the street, i called clear and we actually drove over the pile of bodies, haha.  felt good to hear them crunching under the tires, like grinding in the 'fuck you'.  once on the other side of the gore covered area, we pulled up again and waited another minute to see if more dead assholes would show up.  the truck behind us stayed on the other side of the layer of flesh chunks, keeping it between the vehicles.  and while the other gunner and i kept watch, teams exited from both Strykers and very fucking carefully checked the wreckage for surviving undead.  the dismounted guys simply shot any zombie still twitching point blank with their 9mm sidearms.  they still had their rifles and shotguns, just in case.  i didn't count the number of times i heard the little M9s pop off a round, but it wasn't very many.  

we are officially not keeping track of our confirmed kills of Revenants.  something about how they used to be upstanding American citizens or some bullshit.  i'll admit to you that i kinda wish we were- i think today alone i racked up more kills than during my entire Siberian deployment, where i'd first been in combat.  call it a professional soldier's sense of pride, haha.

once they were damn near positive the bodies would be staying dead, some digital photos were taken and the exact location was marked on GPS.  special teams of technicians were being put together to clean up the messes while doing research on the whole thing.  we haven't been informed of that whole thing just yet, mostly because we, and i'm quoting my platoon sergeant's response when i asked about it, 'are just grunts who shouldn't be so worried about what another unit is doing, we need to keep our minds on our goddamned job- which is make the city habitable again.  if we do our job right, we give the lab coat goons enough bodies to work with anyways.' 

apparently, i'm too curious for my own good, and he took a moment out of our mission briefing to make an example out of me, which made my day, lol.  the asshole even made sure he hit a nerve.  he said, 'boy, you need to keep your fucking mouth shut.  stop trying to think, goddamn it.  that's what people with actual brains are for, and you are not among them.  your job is to kill, their job is think of how dumb fucks like you can kill more better for what you're getting paid.  shut your fucking mouth and worry about your team for a fucking change.  they get dead on you the way all your other ones have, you might not get another one.'

we tried to keep our clean up times under ten minutes so we could cover more ground.  and cover ground we did, all fucking day until a half hour shy of sundown.  our convoy hit maybe 10 or so swarms that averaged between 20-50 individuals during our patrol.  we didn't know what kind of effect it would have later that night or the next day.  even if we would've known, i'm not so sure what we could've done differently.  

but that'll have to wait until next time, kids.  we're starting structural clearing maneuvers in 36 hours after a quick training session and safety briefing.  and i've got a bottle of jack daniels that my TL and i 're-allocated to the war effort' the other day, and he and i have decided that we've too many fully functioning brain cells in need of the services provided by excessive amounts of whiskey.

i hope someone out there is reading these, looking for hope beyond basic survival.  don't give up, you're not alone.  it shouldn't be too long before i can provide locations nationwide where you can find the militarized urban centers that are being set up.  ya'll keep kicking ass, we'll keep kicking ass and i'll meet you in the middle.  first round's on me.  if you're no longer among us, the last round's on me, too.

-Specialist Case