Wyatt marched over to the lead Abrams and clambered on top of it. He flung the hatch open and ordered his armor crewman.
“Take down that wall and kill every fucking one of them. Now.”
The crewman grinned menacingly and turned to the main cannon of the Abrams.
“Sabot up. On the way!”
CHAPTER 16
Cornbread popped his ears, trying to remember what hearing felt like. He’d spent the last few years messing with all manner of explosives, ammo, and most other things that caused a bang, but for the second time in the last six months, he’d over done it. The high-pitched ringing didn’t abate quickly, so he decided to take a look instead.
It wasn’t a pretty sight.
Judging by the faces of the victims that were still alive, the explosion had done precisely what he planned it would. Bloody stumps where arms and legs used to be were being waved about by the zealots. The recently detached limbs were scattered all over the place. Legs, arms, and a few decapitated heads littered the road. The faces screamed in agony and pain, but Cornbread couldn’t hear them. He didn’t need to.
Dazed, he stood up and aimed his shotgun, the custom flechette rounds that he’d made chambered and ready to go. If anything was living after that explosion, they wouldn’t be for long. Within a few seconds, his hearing started to slowly come back, his left ear hissing loudly; he busted his eardrum. He reached up and touched the area lightly, his fingers coming back with blood. No mind, he was still in the fight.
The first of the survivors began firing at him. Ducking down behind the wall, he braced against the cold metal, knowing it wouldn’t stop most rifle rounds. He could feel the vibrations of the rounds as they struck the wall. When he felt a momentary pause, he popped up quickly, ready to put twelve-gauge justice into the trespassers.
He shouldered the Mossberg and scanned for movement. It didn’t take long for him to see his first target. The mountain men that Father Rife commanded may have been the masters of the woods, but they were for shit when it came to urban tactics. The first man was against an old house on the side of the road. Cornbread aimed and squeezed off the round. The shotgun bucked against his shoulder, and the man fell. The 10-penny nails tore through him and nailed parts of his anatomy to the once-white wood behind him.
Cornbread racked another round and searched for another next target.
Rounds pinged against the metal once more. The loud blast from the Mossberg would give away his position, but he didn’t care. The religious nutjobs at the receiving end had bought and paid for their gifts for years now. It was time for some payback. No more taking their food, no more terrorizing their people.
A round tore through Cornbread’s upper thigh, lodging itself just shy of his femoral artery.
“Fuck!” he screamed, kneeling down quickly on the affected limb. Keeping his wits about him, he searched for the source of the shot. More gunfire erupted from the road in front of him, but he couldn’t tell precisely where the shots were coming from.
“Come on, you assholes! Get some!”
The twelve gauge bucked time after time as he emptied the five round tube, firing indiscriminately at the approaching zealots. Two rounds found targets, dropping their unfortunate receivers.
Blood ran down his leg, soaking the fabric and slowly forming a puddle at his feet. More rounds zipped by, occasionally hitting the thin metal behind him. Most of the rounds were .22 caliber, barely making a sound as they hit. Father Rife and his people weren’t much on scavenging, so the .22 rounds were just about all they possessed.
Cornbread ducked down and fumbled into his pockets, procuring a handful of his custom twelve-gauge rounds. Some were hot glue with sewing needles, others were Joe’s personal favorite, the “buck fifty” rounds stuffed with dimes. Whatever he had left was going into the shotgun, problem was there weren’t many left.
Cornbread started to get dizzy. His face flushed and a warm sensation ran all over his body. He knew what was coming. His body was starting to shunt away all the blood from his extremities and into his core. It was the body’s way of telling him that he didn’t have a lot of time left. Once his vision started to fade, that was going to be all she wrote for the big man.
He fumbled the shells into the gun and racked the first one. Wearily, he got to his feet, his legs shaking and palms sweaty. He brought up the shotgun and laid it on the top of the flimsy metal barrier to steady himself. He squinted away sweat from his eyes and looked for a target.
“C’mon, Aaron. You’ve got this. Just have to keep them away for a few more…”
Ping!
Cornbread fired towards the sound of the shot.
Ping! Ping!
Two more rounds sent down range in the general location of the shots. He was very dizzy now, having a very hard time holding himself up. In the first few hours of the zombie apocalypse, he’d lost his hand, but that hadn’t stopped him from laying waste to thousands of undead over the last decade. Throughout his time in Tazewell, he’d done his best to make sure that the citizens were safe from harm and safe from the dregs of the outside world. He’d fought the good fight, but now it was time to throw in the towel. Leaning against the wall, he checked his Mossberg. Empty.
Well, shit. Looks like the end of the road…
Cornbread still had one trick left up his sleeve, though.
He stood slowly, holding his bloody hand up in surrender.
“Truce! I surrender! Just let me throw my stuff down and I give up!” He yelled.
Rife’s men were caught off guard, as was Father Rife himself. They slowly peeked around from trees, houses, and other random spots along the road. Father Rife shoved two of his miscreants out of the way and stepped out into the open defiantly.
“Have you seen the light? Have you given yourself up to the one God? Your sinner friends may burn, but you my son have a choice! Throw down your arms and step aside!” Rife yelled from the middle of the road.
Cornbread nodded. “Oh, yessir, I have seen the light! I want to go forth and spread the good word, enlighten the savages, and all that shit! I just have one question to ask before I go.”
Rife nodded. “Ask, my son!”
Cornbread knelt down and grabbed his favorite item, one that had taken out Peacemakers in Kentucky a few months back. It was a very innocuous item, one that did not draw much attention when thrown. It was a flattened basketball. Cornbread gripped it and tossed it into the middle of the road about fifty feet from Father Rife.
Rife looked at it, puzzled.
Cornbread raised the clacker for the C4, staring at his flattened basketball IED.
“You fuckers up for some one-on-one?”
He pressed the detonator.
* * *
Curtis, Keith, and Kody could still hear the pounding against the wall as they reached the LMTVs. The two trucks had been in the parking lot of the chow hall, a former grocery store. Since unloading most of the ordnance, the trucks had sat derelict, only to be used in case of emergency. The word “emergency” had taken on quite a different meaning over the last ten years, but a pair of tanks, a horde of zombies, and a couple hundred religious zealots fit the definition nicely.
“This is a crazy fucking idea. You know that, right? I just wanted to make sure you two heard me back there,” Kody said sarcastically.
Curtis grabbed hold of the door to the first LMTV and flung it open. “Yeah, I heard you, brother. Don’t think it’s gonna change anyone’s mind right now, though.”
Kody looked to Keith. “Can you talk some sense into this crazy fucker?”
Keith shrugged his shoulders. “Like I know what the hell I’m doing right now? Seems a little hypocritical at the moment. Doesn’t it?”
Kody climbed up to meet Curtis in the cab. “Look, if we blow this thing, any chance of getting away cleanly goes out the door with it. Do you really want to…?”
As if on cue, a noise split the air like the crack of thunder. Kody jumped down from the LMTV and tried to l
ocate the source of the sound. It didn’t take him long. The walls enclosing the town were made of sturdy power poles, most of them dug six to ten feet into the ground. The resulting base gave the wall a sturdy foundation to work with. Ten years ago, those poles were nearly indestructible.
They were starting to give way.
The wall flexed and bowed. Like a giant, sick juice machine blood began to pour from the defects in the wood and metal. The undead were pressing against it so hard that body fluids were being squeezed through the tiniest cracks. Erased of any self-preservation, the undead were smashing against the wall, bowing it to the point of failure.
It didn’t take long.
Another loud crack filled the air, and Kody saw the offending pole. It was splintering at ground level. The wall eased back, and then forward again. This time, it did not hold. Wood splinters along with blood, guts, and a flood of undead came pouring through it. The wall hit the ground with a thunderous boom.
The gates of Tazewell were open.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands of undead streamed through, climbing over one another to get to the middle of town. The stench of rot and decay hit the three men like a concussive blast. Kody stepped forward, unable to process what he saw. Fear gripped him in panic.
“We are so totally fucked.”
CHAPTER 17
Joe watched Wyatt in morbid amazement. Whatever Captain White had said to him hadn’t gone over well. Wyatt raised his sidearm to White’s forehead and cocked the hammer back. There was no deal in place. Wyatt looked much like he had sized up his opponent and upon seeing there wasn’t much resistance, calmly retreated back to his tanks.
And Joe had stood right where he was and let him do just that.
He’d been had.
A single shot pierced the air.
While he couldn’t figure out exactly where it came from, it was most definitely from outside the walls. The echo of the shot was followed by a large explosion, followed by more gunfire, both coming from the same direction. In an instant, the area became a battleground.
Rick raised his rifle, aiming directly for Wyatt’s head. He was going to end the charade, once and for all. It was difficult for him to hold a steady bead on Wyatt, but his target was close enough to where any shot would be a death sentence.
“I got you now, you bastard…” Rick mumbled under his breath.
Joe watched his son line up the shot and there wasn’t a damn thing he was going to do about it. They’d been ambushed, plain and simple. It wasn’t the quickest or most surprising, but it was effective nonetheless.
“Kill him,” Joe said coldly.
Rick eased his finger on the trigger and squeezed.
The gun went off.
The shot went wide.
It missed mainly due to the thunderous rumble underneath their feet. For a split second, it felt like an earthquake. The boom sounded like a bomb going off, followed by a large crashing sound. At the last second, Rick flinched, sending the .308 round sailing.
Joe spun around and grabbed his radio. “What the hell was that? Anybody?”
“Joe, the wall just came down! There’s thousands of zombies coming in! We got to get the hell out of here! Now!” Joe couldn’t tell who was on the other end of the radio, but it was male and scared shitless. He and Rick both jumped down from the wall, tumbling onto the ground below.
It was a good thing they did.
The wall behind him exploded in a shower of wood and mangled metal. The Abrams had fired a round directly into the wall where they bad both just been standing. What was once a haven for the good people of Tazewell now stood a gaping hole. A wall down on one side of town, a hole blown in the other, and the citizens caught in the middle.
Joe’s ears were ringing, shit was falling down all around him, and he had nary a fucking clue what to do. Absentmindedly, he glanced down at his hands. His rifle was still there, as were both hands to support it, thankfully. Blinking away some of the dust, he grabbed his rifle and turned towards where the wall once stood. No sense in getting all teary-eyed about it now. Tazewell was fucking gone. The best he could do now was to make sure that the fuckers that took his home away paid for what they’d done. Life was too short nowadays to dwell on what might have been done. The compartmentalization that had been his friend would eventually be his downfall, but not here and not now.
Joe brought up his rifle and swung it towards the wall. What greeted him there wasn’t going to be taken care of with an M4. Both tanks were rolling towards him with increasing quickness. As he was aiming at the armored Abrams, he felt something grab his shirt and yank.
“Dad! Fucking run!” Rick yelled through the ringing in Joe’s ears.
Where is that damn dog of his? Oh yeah, fucking walkers got him, Joe thought absently. Rick had developed a quick and lasting relationship with Kane, a German Shepherd they’d ran across in Kentucky a few months back. A couple days after the breach in the wall, Rick and Kane were scouting around town, looking for weak spots in the wall. Kane got a little overzealous about chasing down some dinner – two rabbits – and had gotten ambushed by several zombies mired up in vines growing near the wall. It was a gruesome way to lose such a well-trained dog, but the undead felt no sympathy.
Joe scrambled to his feet, trying to get them to work as fast as Rick’s were. His son was a step or two ahead of him and still dragging him along. They quickly hit their stride and ran towards the east side of town, away from the armored menace bearing down on them. Said armored assholes fired another round at them, sailing over their heads and obliterating a two-story house off to their left. Wood and plaster flew in all directions, covering the area in a fog of building materials.
Joe’s heart pounded and his feet lost some traction, but he kept going. Running away was their only option now. Not one to back down from a fight, he was certain that this one wouldn’t end well, regardless of the direction they took. It was going to take some kind of big damn miracle for them to get out unscathed. Unbeknownst to him, he’d already lost two men, and surely would lose more in the next ten minutes. No time for mourning. As he had said before: survival instinct is a motherfucker. You either got it, or you don’t.
The Abrams rumbled into position behind him. From the vibration of the ground, it wasn’t far off. Joe didn’t bother looking back, fearing what he might see. Despite the roar of the Abrams, he could still hear when the fifty caliber coaxial heavy machine gun fired up. The unmistakable chugging sound of the Ma Deuce fired up on his heels. Bits of asphalt and gravel peppered the ground all around him, assaulting his face and hands. In a brief moment of levity, he was able to look up and see a brick house off to his right. While it wouldn’t offer a hell of a lot of protection, the Abrams would have a hell of a time traversing the lengthy hill. If he could get to the other side of the house quick enough, maybe he could lose the tail and give the tank the slip. Joe shoved Rick towards the road, pointing to the structure on the hill.
“Go, goddammit, go! Get inside!”
Rick didn’t question his father’s order. He immediately turned towards the lengthy staircase leading up to the house. The stairs were steep as hell, and there were about thirty or forty of them. The section of town that the residence sat in was incomplete ten years ago, and hadn’t seen much work since then. A “fixer-upper” in its day, there wasn’t much use in putting down new hardwood floors when the entire structure could fall at any moment. It wasn’t the best cover, but it was decent concealment.
Rick pounded the stairs, taking two and three at a time. About every other step crumbled under his feet, but by some miracle, he managed to stay on his feet. He pounded the stairs while the Ma Deuce pounded the earth behind him. Too afraid to look back, he didn’t stop until he reached the top. Exhausted, he hit the ground and rolled over, drawing his Glock 17 and aiming. For a brief moment, he thought the worst. His father should have been right behind him, hot on his heels. A split second later, Joe crested the top of the stairs, spinning to avoid Rick’s i
tchy trigger finger. He hit the ground hard beside his son.
“Fuck!” Joe yelled as he impacted a chunk of misplaced concrete the size of a football. He immediately spun over to his back and waited for a moment.
“I hope you have a good idea!” Rick yelled over the din of the Abrams engine. He shoved the Glock back into its holster and looking for the tank.
“Yeah, I do! Lost the tail, didn’t we?” Joe hollered back, getting to his feet and helping Rick to his. “Get inside the house! We wait and see if the tank follows. If he doesn’t, we sneak out the back door. I’ve got to get to Angel and we need to get to the hospital.” Joe didn’t waste time, trotting up to the front door of the house. He kicked the decrepit door in without even trying the handle. The well-aged door fell away
“We might not make it to the hospital. We don’t even know where the ZBRA chopper is coming from! How much longer do we have?”
Joe glanced down at his watch. “About twelve minutes, give or take a few.”
“Give or take a few might mean the difference between catching a ride and not catching a ride,” Rick quipped. He went to a window and peered through the curtains. “Tank doesn’t seem to be moving. I’d say they’re trying to decide whether or not to pursue us.”
Joe was already moving to the back of the house. From the other side of town, gunfire popped every few seconds, reminding him of the severity of the situation. Being removed from the action for a few minutes did something to him. He’d always had a hard time with staying focused on one task at a time, a kind of adult ADHD or something like that. Focusing wasn’t his problem right now, not knowing what was going on out in town was the bigger issue. He ran through the washroom at the rear of the house and to the back door. Outside the back door, the wall loomed. There was about ten feet of space between the back door and the wall, just enough to work with.
Rick came trotting up behind him. “Tank sounds like it’s heading towards the east end of town. Sounds like the wall came down over near there. We’re gonna be swimming in dead fuckers if we try to go that way, though.”
Six Feet From Hell (Book 6): End Game Page 10
