21.12.2022 Views

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

It's the book world war Z fr pdf drive

It's the book world war Z fr pdf drive

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

always attracted at least a handful of them. We didn’t know a swarm was nearby. One of our

sentries sounded off, we headed for his beacon, and we were suddenly inundated. Horrible thing to

fight hand-to-hand underwater. The bottom churns up, your visibility is shot, like fighting inside a

glass of milk. Zombies don’t just die when you hit them, most of the time they disintegrate,

fragments of muscle, organ, brain matter, mixed up with the silt and swirling around you. Kids

today…fuckin’ A, I sound like my pops, but it’s true, the kids today, the new ADS divers in the Mark

3s and 4s, they have this “ZeVDeK”—Zero Visibility Detection Kit—with color-imaging sonar and

low-light optics. The picture is relayed through a heads-up display right on your face bowl like a

fighter plane. Throw in a pair of stereo hydrophones and you’ve got a real sensory advantage over

Zack. That was not the case when I first went exo. We couldn’t see, we couldn’t hear—we couldn’t

even feel if a G was trying to grab us from behind.

Why was that?

Because the one fundamental flaw of an ADS is complete tactile blackout. The simple fact that the

suit is hard means you can’t feel anything from the outside world, even if a G has his hands right

on you. Unless Zack is actively tugging, trying to pull you back or flip you around, you may not

know he’s there until his face is right up against yours. That night at Troll…our helmet lights only

made the problem worse by throwing up a glare that was only broken by an undead hand or face.

That was the only time I was ever spooked…not scared, you understand, just spooked, swinging in

this liquid chalk and suddenly a rotting face is jammed against my face bowl.

The civilian oil workers, they wouldn’t go back to work, even under threat of reprisals, until we,

their escorts, were better armed. They’d lost enough of their people already, ambushed out of the

darkness. Can’t imagine what that must have been like. You’re in this dry suit, working in near

pitch-black, eyes stinging from the light of the welding torch, body numb from the cold or else

burning from the hot water pumped through the system. Suddenly you feel these hands, or teeth.

You struggle, call for help, try to fight or swim as they pull you up. Maybe a few body parts will rise

to the surface, maybe they’ll just pull up a severed lifeline. That was how the DSCC came into

being as an official outfit. Our first mission was to protect the rig divers, keep the oil flowing. Later

we expanded to beachhead sanitation and harbor clearing.

What is beachhead sanitation?

Basically, helping the jarheads get ashore. What we learned during Bermuda, our first amphibious

landing, was that the beachhead was coming under constant attack by Gs walking out of the surf.

We had to establish a perimeter, a semicircular net around the proposed landing area that was

deep enough for ships to pass over, but high enough to keep out Zack.

That’s where we came in. Two weeks before the landings took place, a ship would anchor several

miles offshore and start banging away with their active sonar. That was to draw Zack away from

the beach.

Wouldn’t that sonar also lure in zombies from deeper water?

The brass told us that was an “acceptable risk.” I think they didn’t have anything better. That’s

why it was an ADS op, too risky for mesh divers. You knew that masses were gathering under that

pinging ship, and that once they went silent, you’d be the brightest target out there. It actually

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!