The following report was received at ZWN today: dated 6/01/08
ZWN is not responsible for factual errors or any other content liability in this report:

Posted 6/01/08
Submitted by: Cheston "Rifle" Keck

1st Tactical Response Team

OP: Border Twilight

First, let me apologize about the name, not my idea. We have just gotten home from our first operation as a zombie hunting team. We are a 5 man team made up of family and good friends. There is Big Country (my brother), Big K, Ghost, Finger, and Rifle (myself) right now. I wish I could say things went wonderful for us, but they didn't. It started a month ago when we got a call from the Columbus, NM police. They just want some extra help working the US/Mexico boarder. It would be them, the county sheriffs department, and us. Simple work, ridding in with them to help secure any body coming across the boarder. They had heard that Necro's were being smuggled into the country and want some "professional" helping dealing with them if they found. We had put up our ad about a week before and were looking for some light stuff to get some field time under our belts, simple milk run.

Arrival

We arrived mid-day into Columbus and meet with the county sheriff and the police chief. They filled us in with what was going on. In the past week, there had been an a lot more illegal traffic across the board and not enough people to catch them all. They wanted us to help add to there man-power plus responded to any stops that they thought were more than just drugs. The team looked at each other and just nodded our heads, "It's a deal" I told the police chief and shook his hand.

We went out to his office and meet the locals that we would be working with for the next month. They were a small group that gladly accepted the help, the sheriff smiled and left…very quickly followed by the police chief. Officer Watkens walked over to me and introduced himself to me, I will always remember him. We talked shop and they were shocked to learn that this was our first operation and that none of us had killed a necro before. We went out for some dinner before our first night of work with the team that we would be working with.

When we left dinner, an odd looking man came up to us and asked us about being the Zombie Hunters that had just came to town. We said yes, and he just smiled. "Good luck, you'll need it" he said and walked away.

Calm before the storm

For over two weeks, we sat around each night waiting for something to happen. Lots of traffic my butt, I would always think. We had one or two calls a week as we patrolled our area for the night. One was a group of illegal immigrates that were too worn out and underfed that they were mistaken for zombies. Some drugs here and their, or a coyote that moved at the wrong time and got nailed by one of our shotguns. Nothing big and fast like we were expecting.

One night that strange man came to my room at the motel. "They moved off," he told me

"Who," I asked

"The Zombie Smugglers, they are afraid that you will kill the cargo," he said and left.

The next day I went to the police chief and told him about the plan the team had made in order to get somebody that might be smuggling necros. We would leave, make a big deal out of it in the papers. The reality was, we would camp-out in the middle of nowhere and wait for calls that truly needed us. He agreed and we left to our little hidden spot in the desert.

Desert Fire Fight

Five days after we had set-up our base camp, came a chilling call over the radio. "CPD to anyone receiving, we are pinned down just south of millers point, taking heavy fire." We looked at each other and had our gear on in less than a minute. The trip would take us about 20 minute's off-roading it the whole way. We double checked everything on the way, our weapons (mainly shotguns, pistols, and our three modified SKS rifles) were placed hot and safety's off. We soon started hearing gun fire, then about 3 minutes later it stopped. "TFT to CPD, our eta is 5 minutes. Please respond," Ghost called over the radio. A garbled transmission came though, but it sounded like, "stay away…federal troops."

We stopped everything about ½ a mile away and jogged the rest. We stopped on a small vista point and took a look through the pair of NVG's we had. Big K reported that he saw Mexican Troops taking money from a man in plains clothes while the others searched the two dead bodies. Finger checked out GPS coordinates, making sure we were still in the USA and sure enough we were about a mile from the border and on the US side. We waited and watched the Mexican troops leave, only to be followed by three other cars that pulled up.

As the people in the cars came out, we made our way down to get in close to the smugglers. We could hold them here until the cavalry arrived. We got into place as they started to get ready to leave, when two dune buggies came out of no where. The smugglers opened fire on them, as two trucks came into view also. From the beds of the trucks came gun fire. One of the trucks turned towards us, we were caught in the headlights and soon gun fire was coming our way also.

We opened fire on the truck with three SKS rifles, scoring a lucky hit on the driver causing the truck to come to a stop. Everyone from the back jumped out as we started moving forwards. A couple of them went down as they went for cover. They started to yell some sort of rhetoric at us along with gun fire. Finger was hit in the leg by one of them. After about five minutes of exchange, the small group stopped firing. We rushed forwards and secured the weapons from the dead, mostly off the shelf AK's and hunting rifles.

Our focus turned to the second truck that was exchanging fire with what was left of the smugglers. We radioed what was going, and were told that the closest back-up was still 20 minutes away.

We proceeded to close in on the second truck, with the two dune buggies on the far side of it, and set up a skirmish line, having Finger watch out back. They had somehow managed to mount a full auto M60 and were using it to pin down the smugglers. Big Country was able to take out the gunner with a head shot while Ghost and myself started picking of those that were assisting the gunner. Another 10 minute gun fight erupted as we and the smugglers dealt with the forces that came in on the attack. Once they were down, we swept the area they were firing from.

The smugglers started to come over to us, probably happy that they had the help, and weren't prepared to meet with us when they saw who we were. We took this opportunity to convince all but one of the remaining smugglers, into custody. The 'one' had pulled a gun when we announced who we were and managed to get a shot off, grazing myself on the arm, and was meet with two quick rounds from Big K's shotgun. They wouldn't tell us what they were smuggling, and when we went to open the van one shouted, "Don't! They will kill us all!" Ghost used some persuasion on him and told us what they were caring. Inside the big truck was a load of M-Bomb drugs and two kids that where zombies because they wanted to try the stuff. They figured that they could sell the two as an added bonus.

When the locals arrived, we did a though search of the area. Those that attacked were from some radical group that saw Necro's and those transporting going against the will of god, got to love religious zealots. We had to find some some way of dealing with two zombies in the van without the possibility of causing the virus to get loose. The locals didn't want to go near the thing until the zombies were re-killed. I went ahead and volunteered to open the door while Big K, Ghost, and Big County stood by with their shotguns to dispatch them before they could attack me. All in one big movement, I opened the door and two seconds later shotgun blasts went off as I dove down. It took 5 rounds, but both were killed and luckily non of us were bite or had contaminated blood hit us. As a precaution, I went with Finger to Silver City Regional by air and was placed in quarantine with a private room and a nurse that would come and check on me.

After Action

Finger and myself took part of the debriefing via video conference from the hospital. The team was both heavily blamed and recognized for our actions. More agencies had hit town in two days that I was at the hospital, DEA, FBI, Boarder Patrol, and a Homeland Security weenie. DEA personal that were there could give us real street value of the drugs as this was one of the first large M-Bomb busts to be made, or that he was willing to say. The religious zealots that attacked were from a group calling its self "New Dawn". They believe that the Nerco Virus is Gods way of starting the end of times and that they are his chosen ones to spread the virus until Jesus's return. To make matters worse, the FBI claimed to have been watching that cell and wanted to catch them with the drugs, I had a few choice words for them about the lack of help response not only to our situation but also to the two local sheriffs that were gunned down by the Mexican Military. At that point the FBI and Boarder Patrol both stated that there never was any foreign military on US soil.

I returned home two days ago, 100% clean of the necro virus, along with Finger. The FBI was nice enough to let us use one of their Lear Jets for the ride home. Big Country told me when we arrived that our actions had brought us about a nice bonus from the government and that US Boarder Patrol was offering us a contract along the California boarder. We were able to talk our sister into leaving her job as a local EMT to join our team. The team is planning on shipping out in the next two weeks to California as soon as we work on some new tactics and buy some more modern assault rifles.

The following comment by Captain 'Hawk' Heath does not necessarily represent the views of ZWN. It's editor or staff.
:

Thanks for the report Cheston, seems like you finally got your action. Could have been a lot worse. At least you were not thrown in too deep. You also got a frustrating but ultimatly valuable lesson in the confusion and uncooperation of different departments, and governments. Welcome to my world.

Stay frosty.

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Zombie Hunter Reports

'Big Al's' Alternative approach to Zombie eradication......or use or loose your brains.
Posted: 10/11/09

So Captain 'Hawk' is away on another covert op. and instead of the usual deafening silence from this column whilst he's gone, I thought I'd lend a hand. Have to admit this isn't my area of expertise, but ZWN did make a compelling argument for my contribution. (They paid me).

So I thought I would suggest a few 'alternative' methods for killing Necro's with extreme prejudice. Now, Captain 'H' has already covered the top ten golden rules for close combat Zombie fighting. I want to go a step further and offer a few of my own random suggestions. I hope to God that you never have cause to use any of these, but if you do then write and let me know how it saved your life. I will know it saved your life because it either did or your dead (or undead)

1. If you have a rapid firing gun, spray the Necro from behind. Try to take out their whole spine. Sounds disgusting but I have yet to see a Zombie still able to walk after it's spine has been shattered.

2. 'Flaming Zombie' Throw a Molotov cocktail or any incendiary device into a closed pack of Necro's and watch them set each other on fire. They don't have the smarts to extinguish the flames so they just bump into each other passing it along.

3. Live in a Zombie hot spot? Want a good defense against home invasion? Walls are great, fences not so great. Think Medieval defenses. Think dug out ditch loaded with spikes sticking right up. The Z's are so dumb they will just walk into it, fall and skewer themselves. Never get out. But you need to clean them out occasionally to stop the pit filling up. Best possible version would be to make the spikes out of long pieces of metal rebar. The necros impale themselves as planned, then you torch the whole pit. Have a Zombie barbeque. Cleans the pit out but keeps the spikes intact.

4. Every other week I talk to someone who wants to use a Samurai sword. Well, ok. Use it. It's not a bad weapon. In fact it's just like any other weapon, it's as good or as bad as the person using it. My only advise is don't try to hack the Zombie like it's a video game. This is a melee weapon. Stay out of reach. You go in low. Preferably from behind. From the stooped position swing at it's ankles. Cut it's feet off. Or if you cannot get so low then hack at it's knees. It's that simple. Once it's down it's toast. And stop posing in front of the mirror.

5. Household objects - Spray paint in the eyes will blind the f*****rs. Won't kill them but it will disable them. Do not waste your time throwing sh*t at it. (except the Batman sound track LP of course). It wastes your energy. Creates a clutter that may impead esscape and unless it's a heavy object will not do anything other than attract other nearby Zombies.

6. Getting the common thread here? Try to methodically disable your threat.Take away it's mobility. Then when it's down, you can rationally choose how to re kill it)

7. Another home defense suggestion (told you this was random) - Good old fashioned barbed wire. A Zombie will never figure out how to unravel from it. It may decide to leave part of itself behind though, so have a second line of defense if it gets through.

8. This isn't so much a suggestion. More of a warning. I knew this complete idiot once who actually welded swords to the hub of his car wheels. You know, like the Romans did with their chariots. Looked great. We were all impressed. Till he took it for a spin. The force of the rotation sent one launching off into space. Fortunately no one caught it on reentry. The others seemed ok. He drove up close to a group of herding Necro's. See that should tell you a fatal flaw right there. He had to drive in close for it to work. It was unnecessary and just showing off. Anyway, his equally idiotic friend in a camera car catching the action, caught a blade to their tire instead. It sent the camera car careening into the pack of Z's. Moral is....well, you can either A. See what the moral is or B. Your the guy who's thinking how to spot weld your kitchen knives to your car right now aren't you

9. And finally (nearly made it to 10), if you absolutely, positively have to hand to hand a Zombie, Do NOT try to fight it at arms length. It's not a bar fight. Run at it and launch yourself right into it. Head down and leap. land in it's chest. Unless it's a fat bastard you will bowl it over and be able to run past it out of harms way. If you really, really have to stop it good, then go on and stomp it's head whilst it's down there. (I know you want to). Don't chicken out half way through because you will just end up running and jumping into it's arms.

Stay frosty (as Captain 'Hawk' would say if he were here.