The Age of Zombies: Sergeant Jones Read Online Free PDF Page B

Grantha tackled him to the ground and drove a bowie knife through his skull.
    Grantha was satisfied with the kill. He slipped the knife out from the skull. It glistened in the flicker of the oil lamp. Little tidbits of pinkish-beige brain remained on the knife. Grantha licked it off clean. The other children started to scream, and were silenced one by one. One by one. One by one.
    After all life was extinguished in the apartment, the soldiers started their feast. With barbaric strength they cracked the skulls of their victims open and ravenously scooped the brains into their mouths. Their sharp, jagged, yellowed teeth tore through the gray matter like stones battering soft mud. After their fill, they raided the apartment's pantry. They found a bottle of date wine and passed it around, quenching the thirst of their kill, and sparking another round of their curious appetite.
    The soldiers repeated this routine over and over throughout the next three hours. In total, seven apartments were raided. They racked up forty two casualties. Mostly women and children. One young man, who had no children, but whose wife was pregnant, fought valiantly to his death. He cried out to his wife with his last words, “In the heavens, we will meet again my love! In the heavens we will meet again! By Allah! We will meet again!” The soldiers let out a guttural, primal roar of laughter at these words and Bhutar snapped his neck. He dug out the valiant husband’s brains right in front of his expecting wife.
    By midnight, the soldiers were done. They congratulated each other on their exploits. Now that they were well fed they could begin to expertly plot their mission and tie up the loose ends of their scheme. There was plenty of work that had to get done. For although the corporate suits reported directly to them, they also had a direct report. Radoula and Boul were expecting seven thousand heads. No more, no less. Grantha, Bhutar, and Zamul were ultimately in charge of the operation. And there was no room for error in executing this mission. They would have to perform flawlessly.
    Grantha slipped out his phone and dialed Joru at his hotel. “The meal was grand,” the soldier said. “I wish you could've joined us. In any case, we will meet up in three days to discuss the progress of the operation. Both of our teams have work to do.”
    “And the work will be done,” Joru said plainly. “That’s my word.”
    The soldiers arrived at an impromptu bunker positioned underneath one of the oldest remaining hotels in Damascus. They laid their heads down and achieved some of the greatest rest any of the soldiers had had in some time. They worked for their meal.
    They earned the right to head off and shake hands with the sandman.

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    Chapter Three
    Betrayed
    Jones was the happiest man alive on this night. He was going to surprise Vanessa by coming home a whole week early from deployment. He requested the early release and it was granted by special mandate from his direct report.
    He was ready to leave the horrors of the Middle East behind. Afghanistan was the Graveyard of Empires, but he wasn’t going to let it become his own. He took great care to wash away the savagery of combat. A normal tour was hard enough, but this last one was much more than that. Jones was still processing the encounter with those giants monsters. Big Boy died and he was still grieving for his friend.
    He couldn’t bring all that home to Emma Jo. It wasn’t fair to Vanessa if he brought it to her, either. And there was no way that the memory of the giants would hamper the exquisite pleasure that waited for him in seeing his family again. When he was home, Jones felt like a full man again. He felt like the world was right, and he knew his place in it.
    The trip back to Eugene, Oregon from Afghanistan took thirty seven hours. Jones was sluggish, having only caught a couple hours of shuteye, but the prospect of wrapping his arms around the woman he loved, a woman that had