by bret Wellman
-This is Forty-third and Sixth, we've lost control over here. Third calvary is falling back—
"Alright, boys," said the leader. "We are gonna hold the line for another thirty seconds and then fall back."
Nobody objected.
Dan could see the other guardsmen a block down the road, fleeing deeper into the safe zone. A few seconds later the zombies came flooding through the intersection in pursuit. A few stumbled away from the flow of their comrades and began moving in Dan's direction. Although they were still a way off, if the guardsmen didn't fall back soon they would have to fight in three different directions. That wasn't good because they were about to lose control with just two directions.
Dan wound up and punched a zombie that had managed to get over the barricade unscathed. Barns helped him to stomp it to death after it fell to the ground.
"Okay, let's fall back!" called the lead guardsman.
Dan was caught off guard by the platoon’s reaction time; they were up and running before the guy had even finished the sentence. This left Barns and Dan alone as zombies began to pour over the barricade.
"Run!" Dan yelled, willing his worn out body into action.
His legs felt like rubber underneath him, it was as if somebody had strapped weights to his back. He did his best to ignore it and push on. All his exertions since the beginning of the outbreak were adding up. He was going to need a month to recover, if he ever survived that was.
Zoey was ahead of them, keeping pace with the back line of the guardsmen. Dan could hear the incessant moans creeping up behind him. They sent a shiver through him, pushing him to keep moving.
The pavement seemed to lag underneath him as his feet slapped against it. He knew it was only one block to the next barricade but it felt like miles. Barns kept pace with him and together they approached the line of cop cars blocking the road.
They were still fifty feet away when the guardsmen began leaping and sliding over the cars, to safety. They were thirty feet away when Zoey crawled across the hood of one of the cruisers. When they reached ten feet out, Dan looked up to see glass bottles that were on fire, flying over his head. Someone was throwing the Molotov cocktails.
When Dan reached the police cruisers he dove head first, landing on the hood and sliding across. Three or four hands grabbed and pulled him to safety. As soon as he was on the other side, the street erupted with the sound of gunfire. His ears rang with the sound of it.
Twenty police officers began to unload their pistols on the incoming horde. The guardsmen were also using up what was left of their ammo, while the firefighters continued to launch Molotov cocktails. There were men sniping from the windows, a few swinging axes at any zombie trying to climb over the hood of the cruisers, and some standing in the back, replenishing ammo when needed.
It was perhaps one of the loudest things Dan had ever experienced. The gunfire echoed off the surrounding buildings from both theirs and the other barricades that blocked the other streets leading to the library.
Looking back, Dan watched a guardsman lead a group of civilians around the corner of the library, trying to get them inside of the third and final barricade. They looked frightened, their faces were pale white as they stared in Dan's direction.
In front of him and forty feet past the barricade, the streets had erupted in flames. They licked up and down the buildings and burned any zombie that dared to walk through them. Bullets ripped through the zombies, killing any that made it far enough.
The servicemen and women looked strained; all their faces were tight, their teeth clenched. Everybody was giving hell and doing everything they could.
Still, the zombies came.
Chapter 28
Dan emptied a clip he had been handed. The momentum of repeatedly firing had pulled his aim upward; he had to fight to keep it down. He managed to take down six zombies before waiting for more ammunition. Zoey took her time as she fired, squaring her shoulders and keeping both eyes open. Barns stood there not shooting at all, waiting for the zombies to get close enough that he wouldn't miss; that would probably be when the barrel was touching their dead foreheads.
"What the hell are we gonna do?" one of the cops yelled. "What the fuck are we gonna do?"
"We are gonna keep shooting," responded one of the guardsmen.
"Zoey," said Dan.
"Not now Dan, I need to concentrate."
He watched her as she focused, firing off two shots. A bead of sweat rolled across her temple and down her jaw.
He could not help but feel disheartened; the pistols they all were using were very sloppy when compared to the guardsmen's rifles. Were there not twice as many men shooting, they would have had to fall back almost immediately. As it was, the guardsmen were running low on ammunition for their own pistols, guns that Dan had learned were called M-nines.
"Good shot!" Dan said to Zoey after she dropped three zombies with one bullet. She would have gotten four but the bullet did not have enough force and ended up lodging itself into the forehead of a very battered male zombie.
Zoey just turned and winked at him.
The streets were a wild blaze because of the Molotov cocktails; it did not stop the zombies, but it did slow them down. The heat coming from the fire, both the flaming bodies and the gas on the ground, raised the temperature in front of the barricade. Unfortunately those flames began to die as soon as the last bottle was thrown. After that, and without the flames dissolving them, the zombies began to make noticeable headway.
There were still a few people left to evacuate from the park when it came time to fall back. Dan was surprised when it happened; they were actually holding their own pretty well, and would have been able to for a good while longer. Apparently that was not the case for some of the other barricades.
It began in the streets farthest away, towards the end of the park. They were running low on ammunition and decided it would be safer to save what little they had for the final push. The servicemen and women all began the mad dash towards the last barricade. They screamed into multiple two-way radios, letting everybody else know what they were doing. Dan cursed, knowing it meant he was going to have to fall back as well. One step closer to death, he mused.
From his spot on the corner of the street, Dan could see pretty well around the library. He could see into Bryant Park and the streets behind it, to the few civilians who had yet to evacuate, and to the servicemen and women sprinting right past them.
The people in the park scrambled to keep up as the zombies came flooding out into the open space, their stumbling jog good enough to prey on the slow.
Dan watched and waited, wondering when his group was going to get the order to fall back. They couldn't do it too soon, they were closer to the final barricade and the zombies they were holding back would cut off the others before they could make it. If they waited too long, they would be cut off by the zombies that were chasing the others. If Dan had to choose one scenario, it would have been the former because the latter sounded like one hell of a bitch.
"We fall back on my mark," one of the guardsmen yelled over all the noise.
Everybody who had ammunition kept firing; they also kept one eye on the guardsmen. The zombies continued to fall like water at the edge of a waterfall, only the shots became slightly sloppier.
As the front line of zombies fell, they tripped up the second layer. The second layer would then stumble and fall under the next wave of bullets. This would cause the third layer to go down instead. Having been missed by a volley of bullets, the second layer of zombies would stand up and continue charging the barricade. Because of this strange pattern, they were able to make it much closer than any of the other zombies. Some even got close enough to touch the barricade, a few getting tangled in the barbed wire.
Dan was certain that during those times, when he could smell the zombies’ decaying breath because they were so close, that was when it was most frightening.
It took only a few seconds for the people behind the barricade to take care of t
his advancing wave, but in that time the other zombies were able to move up a few feet.
"Ready... mark!"
In a matter of seconds, they went from being thirty or forty people holding the barricade to a stampede of humans running for their lives. This time around, Dan made sure he was ready to keep up. In fact he had ended up somewhere in the middle of the pack, which caused a new concern to rise up inside of him. What if I trip and get stampeded to death?
The stragglers, the few civilians still in Bryant Park, had not moved fast enough and were being caught by the first of the zombies. They cried for help as chunks of their flesh were ripped away. It may have seemed cruel but everybody else ignored them and kept running.
Dan's group met headlong with the other groups as they passed the corner of the library; the timing had been precise. Behind them, the nearest zombie was trailing by at least forty yards. From there it was only a matter of crossing the front of the library and hopping the police cars at the front of the barricade.
The number of people drastically increased as they met with the other groups from the opposite side of the library. There were so many men and women that they began to bottleneck in front of the barricade, trying to find safe places to cross over where there was no barbed wire. That meant that they could only cross where the police cruisers had been parked.
Dan felt himself being pushed and shoved as the crowd around him began to panic. It took only seconds for him to lose sight of Barns and Zoey. Everybody was jockeying for position, the competition slowing them down even more. There were a few people that even began to throw punches. If something good didn’t happen fast, they weren't going to make it. There were too many people all trying to get in at once and the zombies were going to catch them because of it.
Dan yelled and began shoving forward. He was angry at how stupid they had been to let themselves get all bottled up like they had. They were beginning to panic, he sensed, the entire crowd was about to lose its head.
From somewhere inside of the barricade guns began to go off. They were followed by the familiar sound of skulls exploding and bodies hitting the pavement. That was when Dan heard something new—water. It was being sent out in two heavy streams from the fire trucks. The firemen held their hoses steady, pushing back the zombies as if they were killing a fire.
Dan felt himself move one step at a time as their massive group poured into the barricade. People dove over the police cruisers, sliding across the hood and tumbling down on the other side. Some were too slow and were shoved back down as the people behind landed on top of them.
"Dan!" He could hear Zoey yell as he climbed over the hood of one of the police cruisers at the front of the barricade.
For a moment he stared at the plow trucks and the way they angled towards the cop cars he was now crawling across. With a start he realized why the two cruisers had been parked at the mouth of the barricade. Before, Dan had thought it was because they had run out of sandbags and barbed wire. Now he realized it was because they were a gate of sorts, waiting for the right time to be smashed open.
"Zoey," he said as she jumped into his arms. She was shaking.
"I thought we were going to die," she said.
"Seems to be the feeling of choice these days."
"Hooo doggy," Barns bellowed as he crossed into the barricade. "Dey right behind me!"
Dan grabbed his hand and helped him across. "It's alright big guy, we got yah."
There were people all around them, all trying to help the rest of the people get into the barricade. They were doing a pretty good job; between them, the bullets and the fire hose, it looked like everyone was going to make it safely.
“Come on, help me get some more people in here,” said Dan, turning back toward the cruiser.
They turned and grabbed the first person they saw, a guy on the ground with a bloody nose. They helped pull him to his feet before reaching over the hood for the next person.
A few minutes later only the dead stood on the other side of the barricade. They stumbled up from every direction, their numbers being fed from every connecting street in the area; they poured in by the thousands.
Dan made sure he held Zoey tight and stuck close to Barns as they were ushered inside the library by a cop. The cop was a short blond guy who kept insisting that no civilians should be outside.
Dicky was close to the front doors when they walked in. He was directing a bunch of cops as they carried boxes of weapons and ammunition. Dan caught a glimpse of the weapons and was surprised to see that they were not police or army grade. They were shotguns, pistols of every shape and form, knives, blunt objects, and even Randy's swords; they were all the weapons that had been confiscated.
"Hey," Dan said as they passed. "I want my sword back."
Dicky stopped what he was doing to look at him; he seemed to think about it for a moment. "I need them."
"Not my problem, Dicky."
"Dan," Zoey whispered.
"If those things get in, it will be your problem, Dan," said Dicky.
Dan could feel anger and frustration broiling inside, threatening to spill out of him like a volcano at a science fair. "It doesn't matter what you do, those things are getting in here, and when they do I'm not gonna die unarmed. Now give me my fucking sword."
Dicky looked pissed, he turned and yanked a double-barrel shotgun from one of the boxes and tossed it to Dan. "It's filled with buckshot, don't blow your head off," he said and turned back to directing his cops.
Dan fumbled with the gun for a moment, trying to figure out how to check for bullets. He eventually figured it out and cracked the gun open. There were two shells in the chamber.
"Two bullets," Dan said.
Dicky walked up and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. "I could just toss you out to die. Be grateful you little shit."
"Fuck you, Dicky," said Dan.
Dicky gritted his teeth and shoved him before turning back to his men. "I need a few guys to start rounding up the civilians. I want them all inside the plow trucks and ready for transport within the next twenty minutes."
Dan wanted to protest some more but let it go. He silently cursed the piddly amount of ammunition he was given. If he had been given his sword like he had been promised, he wouldn't need any ammunition!
"I still got all my bullets, Dan," Barns said enthusiastically.
"That's real good, Barns," Dan said, doing a poor job of hiding the frustration in his voice. His shoulders slumped as he clicked the gun closed. He felt like a rat locked in a cage; the cat was near.
"Is we in trouble?" Barns asked.
"The proper word is fucked," said Dan. "We are fucked."
Chapter 29
Dan stood on the steps and watched the last of the people being loaded up into the plow trucks. In the end there had been more civilians than there was room in the back of the trucks. The people who had scratched and clawed their way to the front of the line were the only ones getting a free ride out of hell.
Dan had stayed back, he didn't want to live knowing he had stolen someone else's seat. No, he would never be right with himself if he did that. He was disappointed to see Zoey and Barns following his lead. He tried to argue with them, unfortunately in the time it had taken them to turn away, their seats had already been taken.
Beyond the trucks where the fire engines sprayed water and everyone else was shooting outward, a few police officers ran around with the samurai swords. They killed any zombie that began to climb into the ever-dwindling safe zone. Outside, the zombies bashed into their defenses like the ocean when it tries to take back the shore.
"Pull out your violin," Dan said under his breath. "The Titanic is going down."
"What?" Zoey asked.
"Nothing," he said, and began looking around for Dicky. He spotted the man at the left edge of the barricade, shooting an old revolver into the mass of zombies.
"Dicky," Dan yelled down to him. When Dicky looked, he yelled that he was sorry. Dicky only nodded before turn
ing back to his work.
"Are you ready?" Zoey asked. She was checking Barns’ gun; he had given it to her saying that she would be better with it.
"Fuck, no," said Dan. "But I guess it's as good a day to die as any."
Zoey nodded, "True."
"What about all dese people?" asked Barns, gesturing to the civilians still in the library. There were about forty of them. "They gone die too?"
Dan couldn't bring himself to meet his eyes, "I hope not, man, I hope not."
"Dat because we ain't gone let 'em," said Barns.
Dan looked up. "You sound like a man with a plan."
Barns shook his head. "Shit, no, I ain't no good fo' thinkin' no mo'. Dat's what I got you fo'."
Dan laughed. "What do you expect me to..." He trailed off. The answer had struck him in the form of two sparkling red fire engines. The things were thousands of pounds worth of four wheel drive with a whole lot of roof space.
"Dicky!" he yelled, running down the steps.
Dicky didn't look at him as he approached, instead he kept firing.
"What is your plan to protect everyone that didn't fit into the plow trucks?" Dan asked.
Dicky dropped the spent shell casings onto the floor and reached into his pocket for fresh ammunition; he loaded them into the revolver one bullet at a time. "The plan is to die fighting, haven't you figured that out yet?"
"Yeah, that," said Dan. "Or we could load everybody onto the fire trucks and bust ass out of here."
Dicky looked up and over at the fire trucks, pondering, "well, fuck me running." He fired one shot into the zombies, then walked off to see if he could turn Dan's idea into an actual plan. A minute later Operation Fire Fortress was underway.
There were fifteen people set atop each fire truck by the time they had it figured out. When the time came, the servicemen and women would be up there too. Dicky and a few guardsmen scraped up the last of the civilian ammunition to be used on the ride out.
Dan was on the roof of one of the fire trucks, shotgun in his lap, grasping the giant white ladder for support. Zoey had her arm laced through his and Barns sat in front of him. He felt like he was at a theme park, sitting in a rollercoaster cart, waiting for that moment when it would take off. The people around him were scared; all of them sported white knuckle grips, none talked.
