The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

The first time Roland Toth ever shot another human being, it
didn’t quite work out as he imagined it would. It was the day
everything started going to hell.

Roland was a NASA engineer who worked on optics for the space agency.
He had moved to the sunburn state from his home in West Virginia some
thirty years ago with big dreams. He wanted to be one of the guys who
epitomized the “Right Stuff.”  The guys in the white
shirts who solved massive problems for the space program at short
notice, and came out looking like heroes.  It happened with him a
couple of times, but lately, with budget cuts and two major accidents,
the space agency was virtually at a standstill. Roland was reduced to
designing long range optical sights for aircraft. Important to be sure,
these devices allowed chase planes to keep an eye on the space shuttle
from up to thirty miles down range. However, he couldn’t help but
think it just wasn’t like the old days.

That fateful day, he and his friends heard many frenzied reports of
everyday folks going crazy and killing their neighbors.  Toth
figured it was some kind of illegal drug that was laced with rat poison
or something. The mild-mannered man of science didn’t believe in
monsters. He knew there had to be some logical explanation or
something. Certainly, it wasn’t the walking dead. It couldn’t be,
could it?

Checking out early that Friday, as he headed for the gate of Cape
Canaveral, Roland saw lines of heavily armed Air Force Security
Policemen lining the fence. They were locked and loaded, belts of
ammunition in their 50 caliber machine guns, and magazines in their
rifles. The main guard shack didn’t want to open the gate, but he
begged and pleaded and looked sad enough that the young serviceman took
pity on him. “Be careful sir, “ the young man cautioned.
“We don’t know what the fuck is going on out there.”

The streets of Cocoa Beach were clogged with wrecked cars, trucks and
other delivery vehicles. At an intersection, Roland saw an overturned
ambulance with the back doors splayed open. He could see a female
patient in just a hospital gown locked in struggle with a paramedic.
The woman seemed to be chewing on his neck, and blood was spraying in
all directions. What the hell was happening? A confused Florida State
Trooper fired a shotgun into the ambulance, and suddenly, Roland knew
it was time to get home. He hit the cell phone speed dial button and
got his wife Maria on the second
Ring.

“Roland, there is some crazy man out across the street fighting
with Manuel, and he’s got him down in the ground doing something
to him. Where are you?” Manuel was their Cuban neighbor, a bull
of a man, was a construction worker and sometime kick boxer.
“I’m a few minutes out honey, you got your gun?” His
wife came to firearms late in life, but took to all sorts of revolvers
after a break in next door. “I’ve got my 357. And I want to
get the shotgun, but get your ass home, I’m scared.”

As he turned into Galley Circle, Roland saw something he had never seen
before. Two bloody, older men had his neighbor on the ground, and
seemed to be trying to tear his arms off. He grabbed his Glock 26 out
of the center console of his truck, and sprinted for the front door.
One of the attackers looked up at the running man, and tried to get up
and pursue. However, the being promptly fell down, as his leg was
broken or hanging limp.  Roland made it into the door, and
sprinted for the bedroom. “Get some food and water and head for
the safe room honey, grab the shotgun and the shells too. Take them
ALL.”

Jerking open his gun closet, Roland grabbed his Marlin 45-70 Guide gun
and a belt of ammo. He bought the large bore lever action rifle in
anticipation of a chance to hunt feral hogs in the Everglades. A trip
that never materialized, the man was glad to the rifle now.  As he
shoved the long, copper rounds into the magazine, Roland watched the
lunatics across the street and wondered how long it would be before
they attacked his house.

Pulling the caps off his Redfield Scout Scope, Roland jacked a 500
grain Buffalo Bore handload into the chamber and sighted out a crack in
the screen door at what he thought was the most violent of the crazy
killers. His chosen target was a large, black man. The goblin wore
green work pants and a torn green work shirt with one sleeve torn off.
The killer knelt over his victim ripping at the woman’s throat,
oblivious to his soon-to-be violent demise.

Come on fucker; stick your head up,
Roland thought as he sighted in on the man. The killer raised his head,
and it seemed as though he looked right at him with dead eyes. Roland
put the crosshairs on his foes chest, just below his neck, right around
his breastbone, and squeezed the trigger. The recoil was stout, but he
didn’t notice. The round traveled the seventy yards across the
street in an instant and hammered the glassy-eyed killer. The bullet
passed through the thing’s chest, and an arterial spray could be
seen in Roland’s scope. The lead missile screamed on downrange,
shattering the side windows of a Ford Freestar van before coming to
rest in a fence post. He was dead. By God, he had to be. Didn’t
he?

The shooter could feel his heart beating like a bass drum in his chest
as he fired. Roland was a small man, and smoked way too much. On a good
day, He was not an athlete, and today the stress of shooting what he
thought was another human being was almost more than he could bear. And
yet, the goblin had attacked and slain his friend. The man who had
slipped him fine counterfeit Cuban cigars over the years and brought
over tasty, rich, deserts on holidays was surely dead. For no apparent
reason, he kept his eye on the target through the scope for ten
additional seconds. What he saw would haunt him for some time to come.

The dead man’s feet, one of which was bare, and the other, which
was clad in a ratty tennis shoe, started to move. One foot flopped up
and down a few times, then the right leg bent. Within a second or two,
as if he were terribly drunk, the zombie started to rise. One leg, then
another bent, and the figure was on its knees, showing its back to
Roland. Through the scope, the man could see a massive hole in its
back. In any normal situation, a paramedic would be zipping the body
into a bag, and homicide detectives would begin collecting information
and interrogating suspects. Today, there would be no such intervention.
Roland was on his own.

The undead figure grabbed at a streetlight to stand up, and eventually
righted itself. Roland, knowing this wasn’t right, and thinking
back to the news reports of dead people rising, suddenly changed his
mindset. He knew he had to put this thing down.

Suddenly, his dozen or so tactical shooting classes and the knowledge
within kicked in. Ok, he didn’t go down. What do I do now?
Mozambique drill…Mozambique.  Roland jacked a new round
into the chamber of his Marlin and got back on target. He sighted
between the eyes of the now-dead stranger, focusing on the
thing’s torn nose. When the target was clear, the man fired. The
big game bullet blasted across the street and struck the zombie’s
head right where Roland aimed. Whether he had shot the thing in the
nose, or the chin, it didn’t matter, the head exploded in a spray
of brown and red. The human that once was, had been released from
torment.

 While focusing on the one goblin, Roland had lost sight of two
other undead who were also feasting on his friend. A dead, elderly
woman, dressed in a torn pink housecoat, with her neck torn out, was
within twenty feet of him, and would be on him soon. An explosion
suddenly deafened him, over his head, and something hot went down the
back of his shirt.

“Get away from my husband, you BITCH,” Maria screamed to no
one in particular, as she fired her 12 GA. Remington 870-riot gun at
the female goblin. As she fired the shotgun, she pumped the action,
fired again, and repeated the action. Hot, empty shot shell casings
rained down on her husband. Damn, he thought, she DOES know how to
shoot. The female zombie went down in front of his wife’s car,
and he was surprised to momentarily focus on the dead woman’s
feet. They were clad in blood stained formerly white bunny slippers. He
looked up at the white picket fence next to the car, and the massive
smear of blood and brains that was oozing down the side and had a funny
thought. How the hell am I gonna get that stain off there?

The final zombie as far as they knew had managed to crawl, and limp
across the yard and into the street. He did this as the same time as a
Melbourne Fire Rescue attack pumper came screaming down the street, and
ran over the zombie, throwing it’s body under the wheels of the
truck. The momentum of the 20-ton rescue vehicle caused the head of the
dead thing to slip under the rear wheels, flattening the zombie’s
skull. For some reason Roland never discovered the truck kept going,
and turned north, sirens wailing like a frightened child.

From the moment Roland grabbed his rifle, to the death of the last of
the zombie pack, the encounter spanned less than four minutes.

As the couple slammed barred security doors shut, locked them, grabbed
supplies, and headed for the safe room, Roland Toth wasn’t sure
what he, and his wife would do next.

March 15, 2005, Palm Bay, Florida

Roland Toth and his wife spent the preceeding five days hiding in their
safe room not sure exactly what their next move would be. The safe room
was build around an interior spare bedroom they had never used. He and
some friends had designed strong doors and walls in an effort to make a
room Toth and his wife could retreat to in the event they were unable
to bug out during a hurricane. The room was very comfortable, with
bathroom, television, and radio. The television anchormen from his area
stations became more concerned and frantic as the hours ticked away.
One by one, the various local stations disappeared from the air, with
technical difficulty notices on the screen.

Ladies and gentlemen, authorities,
including Governor Bush’s office, have informed this reporter
that the instances of  crazed citizens attacking and murdering
their friends and neighbors have lessened. This station is, however,
monitoring police radio traffic, and has discovered just the opposite.
Police on Melbourne Beach, for instance, are reported to be battling
crowds of what they describe as insane persons. They were forced to
shoot and kill many of these subjects, but report the attackers are
getting back up, seemingly unaffected by the bullet wounds.

Just moments after that report, the reporters seemed to become
animated, and shots rang out in the studio. The main studio camera
seemed to spin around, and screams were heard. No further reports were
heard from Florida Coast News Channel. Fox News switched moved their
studios from Washington to Edwards Air Force Base.

We can report the following cities seem to have severed contact with the outside world, The Fox News reporter noted. Seattle,
Roanoke, Cincinnatti, Newark, and no major city in California can be
contacted by authorities. Other major metropolitan areas report pitched
battles with assailants who seem to be immune to bullets. Let’s
check in with reporter Rob Margolin, who is imbedded with units of the
82nd Airborne division outside Little Rock, Arkansas, Rob, are you
there?

The reporter, who seemed very concerned, was reporting from the top of
a Home Depot on the outskirts of Little Rock. As his cameraman panned
around, jittery soldiers could be seen firing rifles at the undead, who
were standing in the parking lot, looking up at the defenders, unaware
that they could be killed. An A-10 Warthog jet screamed over and fired
its cannon at a group of the zombies. The BUDDAH BOOM
of the gatling gun was deafening, even a half-mile away. The camera
picked up the explosion of the cannon shells vaporizing a group of
undead, who, a scant five days earlier, had been alive, and healthy.

Laurie, this is Rob, the soldiers
protecting us have said we cannot hold this position for much longer,
and a helicopter is on the way to pick us up. These brave men and women
are scared, it’s clear. Five minutes ago, a specialist from Taos,
New Mexico, who I interviewed yesterday, accidentally fell off the roof
in the midst of these attackers. Laurie, it is difficult for me to
adequately describe what these subjects did to that great young man.
All I can say is, I hope he didn’t suffer for long. I can tell
you one thing, and this fact needs to be emphasized to our viewers. If
they are able to obtain firearms, our viewers are urged to shoot the
attackers in the head. Try and shoot between the eyes, soldiers tell
us. The attackers seem to be immune to injury to any gunshot wounds
anywhere else other than the brain area. This reporter was given a 9mm
pistol and is prepared to shoot if necessary. Laurie, I don’t
want to shoot anyone, but I also want to get home to my family.

The next morning, Maria turned on their television, and all channels
seemed to either be off the air, or running emergency broadcast system
messages, over and over. Sporatic gunfire erupted throughout their
neighborhood the next day, and occasionally, one vehicle, or another,
could be heard speeding down their street. The couple slept, prayed,
and wondered what to do next.

According to his watch, Roland determined it was two days since the
madness began. For two hours, he listened for noises outside the safe
room door, and wondered if anyone, or anything had entered. Finally,
boredom and curiosity caused them to make a plan. “Ok honey, we
need to get out of here, don’t you think,” he asked his
wife. “What if one of those damn things are outside the door?
What if a dozen of  them are out there?” He really
didn’t think anything was in the house but them. However, there
was no reason to take chances. He loaded both of their shotguns, his
AK-47, and her SKS. Their Surefire lights were working, and as a last
resort, his machete was propped up against the wall. They, of course,
were carrying their handguns. Burt Gummer didn’t have anything on
the Toth family in terms of being prepared.

The process of opening the door was tense and slow. As the last lock
was turned and he twisted the doorknob, the engineer had his Kimber
1911 in hand, with his index finger on the switch of the attached
tactical light. The long hall to their secure room was dark, and the
aroma ripe with the smell of a Florida home that hadn’t run air
conditioning for two days. It was deathly quiet as well. He holstered
his handgun and transitioned to his 870. Flipping on the attached
tactical light, Roland crept down the hall, his wife right behind him.
She clutched his AK, finger on the trigger, sweeping the two rooms to
their left.  So far, so good. At the end of the hall, to the left,
was their living room. The patio door lay at the end of that. The
couple’s feet were soundless on their tile floor.
 
What they saw sent chills through the couple. Across the yard, and on
the other side of their fence, Roland saw black smoke, lots of it. The
wooded area behind their home was ablaze. A house has caught fire, and
there’s no one to put it out, he thought. We have to get outta
here, and fast.

“Get your medicine and pack us whatever food we have, it’s
time to leave. I’ll get the guns,” he told his wife.
“We need to leave, like right now.” Within twenty minutes,
the pair were ready to move. Roland bypassed the question of what to
pack by pretty much emptying the contents of his dresser drawers into
three large duffles. Along with those, he took the family sleeping bags
and other creature comforts, like four bottles of scotch. Hey, if
nothing else, we will have something to put us to sleep at night.

The couple chose their weapons carefully. Roland took both his 9mm
Glocks, his custom Wilson 1911 and Colt Trooper. They both took their
shotguns, a Ruger 10-22, and his AK.

Roland’s 2005 Ford F-350 duelly pickup truck was originally
designed for construction company superintendents or people pulling
horse trailers. It was a huge truck, but due to the diesel engine and
twin 40-gallon fuel tanks, the vehicle had a six hundred-mile range.
The club cab second set of seats was comfortable enough to sleep in,
and since most motels were not closed permanently due to all the
customers being flesh-eating zombies, their accommodations were
limited.

They would sleep in shifts. West Virginia wasn’t that far, they
could make it in 14 hours, if they could get some more Diesel along the
way.