Part 3
I was freezing my ass off. I was up to my ass in snow, on the side of a mountain. All around me, the snow was stained red, with the center of each stain being a frozen body. Some wearing vintage American uniforms, some Chinese. The Korean war, then...Another slice of the 20th century, another abattoir in another land.
I shouldered my M1 carbine, and started downhill, toward a smouldering tank on the side of a road in the distance. By the time I reached the tank, I couldn't feel my feet...But the tank was still hot as hell from the fire that had raged through it, and I was able to warm up a bit. It began snowing fairly heavily as I fished a smoke out of my pocket and lit up. As I took a long first drag, I heard an engine; a vehicle approaching. I chambered a round in my rifle and moved behind the tank.
A "Willy" jeep came into sight through the snowstorm, with two people in the front. As they approached, I recognized the driver as the curly-haired woman I had just recently seen. Another woman was in the passenger seat, and both of them were dressed in American military uniforms, with red crosses on armbands. I stepped out from behind the tank as they pulled up.
"Nice to see you again", I said, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"We came to get you before you freeze to death", the curly-haired woman said. "Get in."
I got in the back, and the other woman handed me a blanket. I wrapped it around my shoulders, as the jeep lurched back into gear and slowly proceeded down the road.
The other woman looked back at me and said, "You know, you really have to stop this shit." I just puffed on my smoke and looked at her, and she continued, "The 20th century has been over for 14 years. It's dead. Or it should be."
"And would be", the curly-haired woman broke in, "If you would stop keeping the fucking thing alive. Do you have any IDEA how much trouble this is causing?"
I wasn't paying attention to her. I was looking past her, up the road. Another group of dead soldiers, from both sides, lay strewn about the road...But as I watched, they started to stir. One, then another, slowly rose to their feet. The curly-haired woman saw them, and gunned the engine, slewing around them. One reached toward her, and I shot it in the head, pitching it back in the snow. We left the others behind, as they shambled futilely after us.
"JESUS CHRIST", she said, "Don't you see what you're fucking doing?"
"I know exactly what I'm doing", I said, "I am keeping the monsters of the last century nailed into their coffins. What I don't know is WHY. I also don't know why it's always fucking cold and fucking filthy and miserable. Didn't they have wars in the tropics, too?"
"No", the other woman said, "That's not what's happening."
"So you say", I replied, "For all I know, you two are tied up in this mess. Part of the problem, maybe."
"What?"
"Pull over", I said, pointing my carbine at the curly-haired woman, "You pull over, I get out, you fuck off."
"Of all the paranoid bullshit..."
"Just fucking pull over." She did. I got out of the jeep, but kept the blanket. "Now fuck off back to wherever you Goddamn came from."
"You're an asshole."
"Yeah, I know. Get lost."
The woman put the jeep back into gear and mashed the gas pedal, and drove off around a corner. Gradually, the sound of her engine faded away. I moved into a small copse of trees and waited for the zombies to catch up, wrapped in the blanket and counting how many rounds I had on me.
To be continued
