“Not like we have a hell of a lot of choice, bud. Hospital is that way, and hopefully Angel is too. I just hope…dammit. Who the hell did I send to get her? Where did I tell them to go? Fuck!” Joe said. He stared at the floor for a brief moment. Rick placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“Balboa, Reggie, and Boyd are supposed to be getting her. Calm down and take a deep breath, Dad. Boyd may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he follows orders pretty well. Let’s worry about how we’re gonna get to the hospital right now,” Rick said calmly. His demeanor lied about his age. He was much more adjusted to handling the tense situations; it was all he’d known since he was nine years old. Now an official adult, he was wise beyond his years – if a little ill-tempered every now and again.
Joe nodded. “You’re right. Let’s get outta here and beat feet to the hospital. We’ll grab whoever we can and haul ass. The hospital is on a hill; it’s defendable if nothing else.”
“Those tanks will make short work of it,” Rick replied.
“Yeah, they will. I guess we’re gonna have to booby trap the road again. Seemed to work on the LAV a couple months back. Those Abrams’ armor is thicker, though. Ideally, we’d need more C4 and I bet we don’t have much left.”
“Dad, I don’t think we have a hell of a lot of anything left. Whatever we use, it’s gonna need to be damn good to work against those things.”
Joe opened the back door, sweeping his rifle up as he did. Nothing to the left, nothing to the right. “We don’t have to destroy them, just cripple ‘em. We get a small block of C4 and get it into one of the tracks and boom! No more mobility.”
“Sounds good. Let’s go. We can discuss it on the way,” Rick said.
They headed towards screams and sound of gunfire.
CHAPTER 18
The world was going to hell a little quicker than usual.
Roman couldn’t be happier.
The seasoned SWAT officer hadn’t had a run-in with this much carnage in quite some time. Being stuck in a warehouse in Kentucky hadn’t given him much opportunity to return to the job that he was so accustomed to doing. He had a duty to protect and serve, even if that meant dying in the process.
Roman racked his tried-and-true 870MCS after firing another round into the skull of a zombie that didn’t have much left. The elements had not been kind to most of the horde, actually. A good portion of them were nearly black from head to toe, covered in dirt, grime, dried blood, and an assortment of unidentifiable stains.
Roman aimed and fired again. Rack, aim, fire, repeat.
Brains flew from skulls, bone fragments skittered against the pavement, and the ground became covered in a substance that looked like an oil spill. The more undead came through the gaping hole in the wall, the more the town became their feasting grounds. Outside the walls, the undead numbered in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, but inside the walls, they were ants carrying away a carcass, and the town was that carcass. Within the next half hour or so, the town was going to be picked clean of anything living.
Roman was there to make sure there was plenty for the buzzards to eat.
The 870 clicked empty. In the chaos of the moment, he didn’t have time to do his usual shot count. Against his better judgement, he opted not to reload his shotgun, instead grabbing his police-issue Sig P226 chambered in .40 S&W. Ammo for the gun was hard to come by, but he had enough on his person to take care of a few dozen more.
The distinct sound of a shovel hitting flesh behind him diverted his attention.
“Like I said…Who’s running?”
Roman lowered his Sig. “I think you might need something better than a shovel, Laura.”
“I think she has the right idea,” Laura said, pointing to her cohort.
Angel swung her weapon, an aluminum baseball bat, and connected with an armless walker. The bat smacked away a sizeable chunk of the creature’s jaw with a sickening crunch and it dropped to the ground.
“Roman! Where’s Joe?” Angel yelled, backing up towards Laura and Roman.
Roman backpedaled, firing several shots at a group of zombies slowly shambling towards the three. “I don’t know! Goddamn tank blew the wall down, goddamn zombies knocked down the other side! Laura and I were trying to get back to help!”
“Roman! Look out!” Laura yelled.
A zombie had gotten within grabbing distance of Roman. Before he could react, the creature had already clamped down on his right elbow. The undead were slow and stupid, but they still bit like a sonofabitch. The creature tore away a hunk of Roman’s forearm as he struggled to get away.
“Goddamnit!” he yelled, tearing away from the zombie. With a swift swing, he brought the butt of the Sig up and bashed the side of the offending zombie’s head, staggering it back. As soon as it was clear from him, he aimed and fired a single round to its skull.
“Oh God! Roman!” Angel yelled.
Roman staggered ahead. “Come on! I’m sure Joe wants you to get to safety. Ain’t no hope for me now.”
The rumble of a diesel engine behind them prompted a little quicker pace. Angel and Laura started to run away from the sound, fearing another one of Wyatt’s vehicles bearing down on them. Roman whistled loudly, stopping the two women in their tracks.
“Friendlies! Jump on!”
Curtis drove and Kody rode in the back of the lead LMTV. The big truck slowed down. Kody dropped the gate on the back and reached down.
“Come on! Grab hold!” Kody yelled.
Laura jumped on the side of the first LMTV, grabbing hold of the passenger’s side door handle and pulling herself up. Angel didn’t think she would be able to grab hold, so she opted to grab Kody’s hand as the truck pulled alongside. Kody yanked with all his might and pulled her off her feet. As soon as she could, she grabbed the tarp covering the back of the truck.
“Come on! There you go!” Kody yelled.
Angel tumbled down onto the metal floor, knocking the wind out of her. She rolled over and tried to catch her breath. Little dots of black popped up in her vision for a few moments, but as she caught her breath, they slowly dissipated.
“You all right?” Kody asked.
Angel nodded. The stress of the situation didn’t give her a good enough reason to speak. The burning in her chest didn’t help matters any, either. Joe was nowhere to be found, and the only other citizens she’d seen were currently riding along with her. Five people out of forty-seven. Not great odds.
Five? No, six. Right? Where the hell did Roman go?
Angel scrambled to her knees and quickly got to the back of the truck. She flung the tarp open. What? Where did the other truck go? As if to answer her, the LMTV came to a halt and another man jumped into the back, nearly toppling over Angel as she watched.
“Dammit! We need to get out of here!”
“Keith? Where the hell did Roman go?” Kody asked, scanning for the SWAT officer. “And where the hell did the truck go?”
Keith panted. “Roman was bit, said that he should be the one to take the truck. I told him that the truck was wired to blow! We better get clear before it does!”
Kody ran to the front of the bed of the LMTV and beat against the cab. “Haul ass! Roman has the truck! Go! Go! Go!”
* * *
Larry ran.
He ran not just for the fact that there was a sixty-ton piece of armor on his ass, but he ran to his family. Before the tanks had arrived, he’d instructed them to grab what they could carry and head to the hospital. Now that the town was lost to the dead and General Wyatt, there was little time to regroup and come up with something viable. It was time to run, and run fast. Regroup could happen later…maybe. There were a handful of places they’d decided to meet up at if something like this ever happened, but it’d been so long since they’d discussed the possibility that half of them probably forgot about them.
Fuck it. Save yourself, save your family, and get the fuck out of here. It’s your safety that matters now.
Exercise wasn�
��t Larry’s forte, but he’d done what he could to keep in decent shape at best. He’d been one of the few that had kept his cardio in check. He hadn’t run much, but made it a point to walk as much as he could afford to. Making runs outside of town called for plenty of stamina, and he was calling on that stamina right now.
He could still feel the rumble of the tank under his feet. He wasn’t a military expert, so there was no way to tell how far away it was, but he couldn’t see it. That was a start. As soon as he got to the wall, though, he heard the pop of gunfire. Wyatt couldn’t have brought a whole lot of help, but the automatic gunfire staccato wasn’t coming from Tazewell citizens. They didn’t have access to those kinds of weapons.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” a familiar voice yelled from off to his right. Larry stopped long enough to catch his breath and see Boyd chugging towards him in full sprint.
“Boyd! Where’s Paige? Where’s my boys?” Larry screamed.
“Hospital! Where’s Joe?” Boyd yelled back. He came to a skidding halt in front of Larry and tried to catch his breath. “Where the fuck is everyone?” Boyd said between breaths.
“I think most of them made it up to the hospital. Are you a hundred percent sure Paige made it up there?”
Boyd nodded vehemently. “Yep. Saw her and your boys go up there. Laura and Roman were making sure things were on the up and up with them, then they were coming back to town. Let’s go, Larry. There’s nothing left! They’re gonna kill us all!”
Larry didn’t want to admit it, even though he’d just thought it, but Boyd was right. It was over. All he had were the clothes on his back and the rifle in his hands. ZBRA was something he wasn’t completely familiar with, but from what Joe had talked about, he got the impression they had plenty to help with. He could only hope that held true.
“Fuck me, Larry! Look! Let’s go!” Boyd yelled.
Larry looked up to what had drawn Boyd’s attention. The gaping hole in the wall that the undead had forced down was about a quarter mile down the road to their right, but they had a clear line of sight to the area. When the dead spilled into to town, they had followed the sound of gunfire coming from the other side of town, farther down from Larry and Boyd’s current position. The lack of anything in that direction had fanned out a sizeable portion of the horde. Instead of following the path of least resistance, they followed the path of whatever the fuck they wanted.
A wall of rotting flesh turned their attention towards Boyd and Larry. There was a half-dozen zombies within fifty feet already. Larry brought his AR-15 up and lined up his shot. One after another, he dropped the undead closest to him. Boyd did the same, firing a round, ratcheting the lever-action 30-30, and squeezing off another. The limited ammo in the 30-30 put Boyd out of the fight quickly. He drew a timeworn Smith and Wesson .357 Highway Patrolman and emptied the cylinder as well.
Larry dropped his mag and searched his person for another. Patting pocket after pocket, he started to panic. Empty. Not just empty, but completely fucking empty. Out of ammo and options, he tugged at Boyd’s shirt.
“Well’s dry, Boyd! Time to get the fuck out of here!” Larry yelled. As the undead drew closer, he realized that he was yelling not out of excitement or fear, but out of necessity. His voice barely rose above the constant growl of pissed of zombies.
A hiss, close by, drew Larry’s attention away from the menacing horde. Another few snaps confirmed his suspicion. They were taking fire. He instinctively ducked down, covering his head.
“Shit! Boyd! Come on!” Larry grabbed Boyd’s shirt and tugged him towards the wall.
But Boyd wasn’t moving.
The twenty-one-year-old Boyd, who lived most of his adult life in the apocalypse, grew up killing zombies, and had been the first one to volunteer for most anything, turned towards Larry slowly. A single rifle round had found its way into Boyd’s face, puncturing a perfect hole just below his right eye. The force from the shot had dislodged his right eye, and it sat lifelessly on the side of his nose. He stood for a moment, a frozen cyclops of a man, unable to move or speak. Larry was frozen as well, horrified by what was in front of him.
Boyd said something, but Larry couldn’t tell what. The words were slathered with blood; it ran from the hole in his face and dribbled from his mouth. Larry let go of Boyd’s shirt. The young man took a step and a half, and then promptly collapsed into a heap at Larry’s feet.
Larry backpedaled. Alone, out of ammo, and hundreds more hungry undead bearing down on him, he turned and ran like his life depended on it. That is, until he looked up and saw something that damn near made him pass out. Up and to his right, he saw something that should not have been there, something that should have been gone long before now. Standing on the edge of the second floor of the oft-used community motel was someone that shouldn’t have been there.
Huddled on the edge of the railing stood his two sons.
And his wife, screaming for him.
* * *
Cornbread woke up – so to speak – lying flat on his back. Once more, he’d underestimated the blast radius of his homemade IED. Not that it mattered. He couldn’t hear, could barely see, and was fairly certain that he was bleeding both internally and externally. He didn’t have long, maybe a few minutes. The warmth of decompensated shock started to come over him. Raising his head, he looked down to his feet. The wetness in the leg of his pants was spreading. He was bleeding out. As he gazed past his feet, he saw the remains of his handiwork.
The followers who weren’t blown all to shit were taking out their unholy undead vengeance on the rest. Bodies missing legs and arms tried helplessly to get away from their fellow zealots, to no avail. Armless zombies gnawed and ate their way through their own people, spraying the already saturated area with more and more blood and guts. Miraculously, Father Rife had managed to survive both blasts and the gunfire, but he was not unscathed. He stood in the middle of four or five of his followers, his face and hands bloodied.
“Do not turn against one another! My people! Do not let the heathens infect you with their poisoned, perverse ways!” Rife screamed at a handful of shuffling undead.
The zombies couldn’t have cared less about what the crazy bastard was saying.
“All is well! Everything is…aaahhh!” Rife screamed as the group bit down on his outstretched arms.
Before Cornbread finally faded away, he watched as the undead tore away one of Father’s Rife’s arms, holding it triumphantly in the air. Not all of the zombies were eating, however. The ones that were left turned their attention to the gaping hole in the wall that Cornbread had created. Cornbread closed his eyes, unable to keep them open any longer.
No more fighting.
The undead ignored his lifeless body as they walked over him and into town.
CHAPTER 19
Joe and Rick were making decent progress across town, hugging the wall most of the way. The sound of gunfire was slowly starting to die away. The combination of little ammo and time to prepare didn’t give the people a lot to work with. Most of them were already at the hospital, but he and Rick were still a half-mile away. Normally, traversing the rest of the way wouldn’t be a problem, but with the dying sound of gunfire, it was difficult to tell which areas would be safe and which ones weren’t. Although the tanks were a hell of a noisemaker while running, the 105mm main cannon worked just fine while it sat derelict. Like a snake ready to strike, you wouldn’t be able to tell you were about to die until it was ready to attack.
Rick’s AR-10 wasn’t useful for any kind of twitch reaction, and didn’t do well in close quarters, so Joe lead the way with his M4. Before leaving the house they’d stopped at, Rick gave him the remaining three magazines and reloaded the AR-10. Semi-automatic as it may be, it was better served engaging long-distance enemies.
They stalked behind rows of houses, trying to get to the other end of town. The undead were staying concentrated in the middle of town, aimlessly wandering about, so keeping to the edge was paramount. They’d seen no indicati
on that any of Father Rife’s people had made it this far, so the lack of enemies was unsettling at best.
Joe kept his rifle raised, scanning back and forth every few seconds. There was no time to slack off. That half-second it took to raise the weapon might mean the difference between living and dying. Joe’s heart still pounded in his chest, unable to stem the flow of adrenaline. He remembered back to his Army days of learning stress shooting. The military way of practicing that was to do push-ups until you could barely lift your arms and then trying to shoot. The shaking and uneasiness of muscle failure was akin to the adrenaline rush of having to return fire under less-than-optimal conditions. While the concept of shooting back wasn’t something he was rusty at, this was something altogether different. He was – for the first time in quite a while – scared shitless.
“Help! Joe! Rick!”
Joe recognized the voice. It was Jim O’Malley, the Kentuckians leader and recent Tazewell transplant. Joe darted his rifle to the sound. A little over twenty yards away, he saw the Kentuckian lying on the ground, obviously wounded from someone or something.
Joe and Rick moved forward quickly, closing the gap with Jim’s body in a few seconds.
“Jim! What happened?” Joe said. He knelt down to the man who had helped him survive a snowstorm in the dead of winter. Had it not been for Jim and his people, it was hard to tell what might have happened to them last winter.
Jim reached up and took Joe’s hand. Blood was oozing from a gunshot directly in the middle of Jim’s chest. It was a mortal wound for the old man; he didn’t have much time left.
“I’m sorry, Joe. Those Peacemaker assholes got me. I know I don’t have long, so do me a favor, friend,” Jim said. He coughed, bloody spittle flying from his mouth and coating his teeth with crimson.
“Anything, Jim. What is it, buddy?”
Six Feet From Hell (Book 6): End Game Page 11
