World War Z_ An Oral History of the Zombie War ( PDFDrive )

chased off feral packs, twice they really got into it. I watched Perdy go after this
two-hundred-pound mastiff, grab its skull in her jaws, you could actually hear the crack over the
harness’s surveillance mic.
The toughest part for me was making sure Maze stuck to the mission. She always wanted to
fight. [Smiles down at the sleeping dachshund.] They were good escorts, always made sure
she got to her target objective, waited for her, and always got her home safely. You know they
even took down a few Gs in transit.
But isn’t Z flesh toxic?
Oh yeah…no, no, no, they never bit. That would have been fatal. You’d see a lot of dead Ks in the
beginning of the war, just lying there, no wounds, and you knew they’d bitten infected flesh. That’s
one of the reasons training was so important. They had to know how to defend themselves. Zack’s
got a lot of physical advantages, but balance isn’t one of them. The bigger Ks could always hit
between the shoulder blades or the small of the back, just knock them on their faces. The minis had
the option of tripping, getting underfoot, or launching themselves at the knee-pit. Maze always
preferred that, dropped ’em right on their backs!
[The dog stirs.]
[To Maze.] Oh, sorry, little miss. [Strokes the back of her neck.]
[To me.] By the time Zack got back up, you’d bought yourself five, maybe ten, fifteen seconds.
We had our share of casualties. Some Ks would have a fall, break a bone…If they were close to
friendly forces, their handler could pick them up pretty easily, get them to safety. Most of the time
they even returned to active duty.
What about the other times?
If they were too far, a Lure or an LRP…too far for rescue and too close to Zack…we petitioned for
Mercy Charges, little explosive packs strapped to the harness so we could detonate them if it
looked like there wasn’t any chance of rescue. We never got them. “A waste of valuable
resources.” Cocksuckers. Putting a wounded soldier out of his misery was a waste but turning them
into Fragmuts, now, that they’d consider!
Excuse me?
“Fragmuts.” That was the unofficial name for the program that almost, almost got the green light.
Some staff asshole’d read that the Russians had used “mine dogs” during World War II, strapped
explosives to their backs and trained them to run under Nazi tanks. The only reason Ivan ended
his program was the same reason we never began ours: the situation was no longer desperate
enough. How fucking desperate do you have to be?