by J. Thorn
“Get us out of here!” The stress in Rachel’s voice snapped my attention to the herd of infected that were lumbering towards us, now only twenty yards away.
I made one last desperate attempt to move the gear selector, but it was stuck fast in reverse. Probably a two dollar pin in the transmission linkage, but it didn’t matter what the cause was.
Popping my door open I jumped down to the pavement, glad that I’d had the foresight to have Rachel and I load all our magazines into the tactical vests we were wearing. While Rachel scrambled across the seat and out my open door I yanked the back door open and grabbed our back packs, shrugging into mine quickly then helping Rachel into hers. I grabbed the shotgun out of the front seat, slammed the door and we started running just as the faster males reached the far side of the truck.
I didn’t know where we were going, just knew that we had to get away from the herd before any females spotted us. Loaded like we were there was no way we could outrun them.
Setting a steady fast jogging pace that would put distance quickly between us and the herd we headed back east. I ran with my assault rifle slung across my back and the shotgun held ready across my chest. The Mossberg was loaded with buckshot alternating with slugs and any infected I engaged would go down with one shot. The kinetic energy of either buckshot or slugs delivered at close range would be enough to stop anything smaller than a grizzly bear, and the bear would think twice about continuing an attack.
We opened some distance between us and the herd, Rachel slowing when we had a good hundred yard buffer.
“Don’t slow down,” I said without breaking stride. “There’s got to be females in that herd and we need to get as far away as fast as possible.”
As if my warning had been prophetic there was a scream from behind us that made the hair on my arms stand on end. I glanced over my shoulder to see two females sprinting after us. They must have been further up in the herd when we first made contact and it took them this long to force their way through the crush of bodies and break out into the open where their speed made them such dangerous hunters.
"Keep going,” I shouted to Rachel as I reversed directions and raised the shotgun.
The lead female was about twenty five yards away when I fired the first round of buckshot. The mass of BB sized pellets slammed into her chest and very nearly stopped her cold in her tracks. She stumbled then fell to the pavement without a sound. I racked the shotgun slide, ejecting the spent shell which hit the asphalt with a hollow plastic sound then feeding the next shell into the chamber. This was a slug and I fired at the second female that was racing towards me and no more than twenty yards away.
The slug tore into her left shoulder causing damage that would have put any normal person down and most likely out for good. Her body jerked to the left with the impact and when she turned back I could see that her left arm was being held to her shoulder by only a few tendons and strings of flesh. The slug had completely destroyed the bone and muscle at the socket, but other than momentarily slowing from the impact she ignored the wound and continued on.
I racked the slide again, firing at no more than five yards. This shell was buckshot and the full force of the blast hit her in the face. Her face disappeared and most of her head disintegrated, her body continuing with forward momentum until it came to rest on the pavement at my feet.
I noted the lesson about severe injuries not being enough to stop an infected, scanned for more females then turned and ran after Rachel. I ran at a fast pace and caught her quickly, passing her and urging her to run faster to match my pace.
Rachel looked like she was in good shape, but I didn’t know if that was dancing muscle with poor cardio conditioning to back it up. So far she was staying with me, but we hadn’t run a quarter of a mile yet and adrenalin will carry you a good distance before poor conditioning becomes evident.
Ahead of us several males stumbled out of the woods, most of them losing their balance and falling onto the pavement before stumbling to their feet and coming towards the sound we were making as we ran down the middle of the road.
“Behind me,” I said to Rachel as we approached the group. They were spread out just enough to effectively cover the road from shoulder to shoulder, and I didn’t want to take us into the woods.
Rachel fell in close behind me as we neared the first infected, a scrawny man wearing nothing but filthy white underwear. Without breaking stride I smashed the shotgun barrel into the side of his head, knocking him to the side and to his knees. The group started to collapse in on us as I hit two more infected with the shotgun. We were almost clear when I heard a clatter and cry from Rachel.
Stopping and spinning around I saw her on the ground. One of the infected I had knocked down had grabbed her ankle and was trying to pull her to him with grunts and hisses as she kicked at his head with her free foot. She couldn’t get a good angle and the kicks were bouncing off with apparently no effect.
I fired the shotgun at an infected coming at me with his arms raised like a kid pretending to be a Halloween ghost. His head dissolved in a spray of blood and bone from the heavy shotgun slug and I snapped a kick into the chest of another infected that was shambling at me. He fell backwards and I stepped over the infected that had grabbed Rachel, pulled my pistol and fired a single shot into his head.
The grip on Rachel’s ankle immediately loosened and she kicked free and scrambled to her feet. We stood back to back at the center of a group of eight infected. I had wanted to move quickly and conserve ammo, but the scream of an approaching female spurred me to action. Raising the pistol I fired five shots and five bodies hit the ground like sacks of wet sand.
“Move!” I shouted to Rachel and we ran east again. Another scream from behind lent wings to our feet and Rachel began to pull away from me, long hair flying behind her in the wind. I made a mental note to have her tie her hair up in a bun so an infected couldn’t get a handful of it and drag her to the ground, then I had to spin around to fight when another female screamed right behind us.
The female had been closer than I thought and as I turned I was hit in the chest by a body that knocked me flat on my back, whooshing all my breath out of my lungs. I landed with the shotgun across my chest and I was able to get it up and between me and the snapping teeth of the female infected that was on top of me. I pushed for all I was worth and she flipped backwards off of me.
I scrabbled around on the ground, trying to get my breath and my feet back under me. I had only risen to a knee when the female launched at me again. Twisting to the side I clubbed her with the shotgun and knocked her to the ground in a tangle of limbs. As she struggled to get back to her feet Rachel stepped behind her and shot her in the back of the head with her 9 mm pistol. The body flopped to the ground and twitched once, then lay still.
Behind us the herd was closing the distance, now down to less than fifty yards. More males were coming out of the woods and behind the leading edge of the herd I could hear multiple screams from females as they worked their way towards us. Picking myself up I started running again, following Rachel who didn’t need to be told this time.
We ran for what felt like an hour but was actually probably closer to ten minutes. The herd still followed, but was dropping further and further behind. The occasional male was still coming out of the woods, but we were able to either dodge them or knock them aside and keep up our pace.
We crested a rise and I called a brief halt to survey our situation. Behind us a good half a mile was the leading edge of the herd that was in pursuit. Between us and the herd were a few dozen lumbering males that had stumbled out of the woods. What concerned me most were the figures out in front of the herd that were sprinting towards us. I couldn’t make out details at the distance, but they had to be female infected, and I counted at least twenty of them before I turned and started running again.
Twenty or more females would run us to ground and overwhelm us if we were caught in the open. I’m good with a gun, but I don’t know anyon
e that’s good enough to fend off that many attackers on the open road. We needed somewhere to not only make a defense, but hopefully hide from the herd so that we didn’t become trapped.
Ahead I could see a road that cut into the woods at a 90 degree angle and a small blue sign with white lettering. I wasn’t close enough to read the sign, but I remembered passing it earlier and that it was a road to a marina on a large lake. The same lake I had seen on the map that we were trying to get around.
I pointed at the road and Rachel nodded her head in agreement or understanding. I didn’t really care which one at the moment. As we approached the intersection the shoulder widened out into a level, grassy field. Cutting the corner off the intersection we charged into the field. I was slowing, but not as much as Rachel who was starting to drop behind. Between weapons, ammo and packs I had at least one hundred pounds distributed across my body, and Rachel probably had close to seventy. I used to train with this kind of weight, but it had been a lot of years.
We cleared the field and pounded back onto the pavement just as a chorus of screams broke out behind us. I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw a group of females that had cleared the rise in the road and was in hot pursuit. I dug deep and pushed harder, taking advantage of the slight downhill slope of the road as it dropped down to the lake. Rachel matched my pace but she was breathing like a steam engine and I knew she didn’t have many reserves left.
Several infected and three shotgun blasts later we pounded around a curve in the road and I dropped the Mossberg on the pavement. It was empty and I needed to shed some weight. I brought the assault rifle around to my front, made sure the safety was off and ran for all I was worth.
Screams behind us sounded much closer than I would have thought possible, but I didn’t want to lose speed by looking back. Ahead we could see the road ending in a large marina, over a hundred boats moored on the blue lake.
More screams and I knew we’d have to fight. The females were closing and would be on us before we made the marina.
“Find a boat and get it started,” I yelled to Rachel as I started to slow.
“What are you doing?” She looked over her shoulder at me, terror in her eyes.
“Buying us time. Now go. I’ll be right behind you.”
I skidded to a stop, turned and dropped to my right knee as I brought the rifle up. There were nine females in close pursuit, danger close as we used to say, a larger group perhaps another two hundred yards behind them.
Just like I’d been trained so many years ago, I kept both eyes open, brought the rifle up and acquired my first target at which I immediately fired. The closest female dropped to the pavement, a neat red hole in her forehead. I acquired my next target and fired, noting in my mind that it was down as I was already acquiring my next target.
I fired a total of eleven rounds to bring down nine infected with head shots, with the last one dropping close enough to me that I could smell the stench coming off its body. Damn fine shooting if I say so myself.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Rachel approaching a large white cabin cruiser, pull her pistol and shoot an infected before boarding. We needed more time. I scanned the area around me and made note of several males dressed in dirty coveralls that were approaching from my left. I had time to deal with them a little later. Right now I had more females coming in fast.
I started picking targets and putting them down, occasionally having to use a second shot to do the job. Hey, you try hitting something the size of a human head that is running at you full speed. It’s not as easy as it looks in the movies.
I had dropped another dozen females when I had to change magazines. Old training paid off and I swapped mags in under a second and resumed firing. I was stopping a lot of infected, but I wasn’t holding my own. The females were too many and too fast for one shooter to hold off indefinitely. Slowly, the distance shrank until I was getting nervous. I hadn’t forgotten the males approaching from my left, but I couldn’t take my attention off the females. I sent five more rounds downrange then heard the sweetest sound I could imagine, a boat horn.
I shot the three closest females, leapt to my feet and started running. The pavement sloped more steeply here, ending at a chain link gate that stood open allowing access to a wooden dock. The dock was over two hundred yards long with additional wooden docks spaced periodically at right angles to create spots for what must have been 300 boats of all sizes.
I skidded as I approached the gate, grabbing the chain link and slamming the gate shut behind me. The gate swung out towards the pavement, so less than two seconds later when the first female slammed against the gate it rattled but held. She screamed at me and tried to force her arms through the chain link to reach me. Quickly more females started crashing against the gate and fence, their combined screams deafening.
I trotted down the main dock towards the boat Rachel had boarded. The boat was in the first slip closest to the main dock and would have to be backed out of the slip and motored down the side channel for a good distance before reaching the open lake. A sharp 90 degree turn at the end of the dock meant we’d have to take it slow and be close to the dock and other boats when we made the turn.
Rachel was visible on the flying bridge of the boat which sat well above all of the surrounding boats. She’d found us a large cabin cruiser and I could hear the low, throaty rumble of the engine as I pounded down the dock.
Rachel was yelling but I couldn’t understand what she was trying to tell me. She resorted to pointing and I looked over my shoulder to see one of the females finish scaling the fence and drop to the dock. Soon the others were following and I picked up my speed.
They were only forty yards or so behind me as I reached the boat and there was no way I could get it untied, board and sail to safety without all of them swarming aboard. I raced to the bow line, releasing it from the heavy cleat bolted to the dock, then rushed to release the stern line.
“I’ll hold them. Pick me up at the end of the dock.” I yelled to Rachel.
I didn’t wait to see what she was doing. Dropping back onto my knee in the center of the dock I raised the rifle and acquired my first target. In the half second between acquisition and firing I saw what had probably been a pretty suburban soccer mom with long blonde hair. A fraction of a second later my bullet shattered her skull and her body tumbled to the dock.
The dock was a better place tactically than the open road. Here the infected were funneled onto a surface no more than six feet wide which made acquiring targets much more efficient. Acquire – Fire – Acquire – Fire. I burned through thirty rounds and now the flood of infected was hampered by the growing pile of bodies. They had to slow to climb the pile and when they did they made themselves an easier target.
Females were still arriving and climbing the fence, but I was keeping them a steady twenty yards away. Unfortunately I didn’t have unlimited ammunition. Swapping mags I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw that Rachel had cleared the end of the side dock and was slowly approaching the end of the main dock. Firing four more shots that brought down four infected I stood up and ran for the end of the dock.
The screams behind me rose in volume, perhaps in frustration at their escaping prey. I ran hard, probably harder than I have ever run in my life. I could see the big boat negotiate the final turn then surge forward towards the main dock. I ran past the final side dock and now only blue lake water surrounded the wooden planks I ran on. I was less than 10 feet from the end of the dock when a scream sounded right behind me and a body crashed into me knocking both of us flat on the dock before we skidded over the edge and into the water.
20
The infected clung to my pack as we sank, the hundred plus pounds of gear I wore dragging us down. After what seemed an eternity my toes and then my knees settled onto the muddy bottom of the lake. I was thrashing, trying to break the grip the infected had on me, but she clung tight.
Gathering my legs I pushed against the lake bottom and arched back
wards hoping to crush her into the mud and break free. Instead of flipping over backwards we smashed into something solid that loosened her grip slightly. It took me a moment, but when I realized it was one of the giant wooden pilings that supported the dock I used all the strength in my legs to keep ramming us backwards into the piling.
My lungs were on fire and felt ready to burst when she finally released me. I thrashed away from her and pushed for the surface, needing air more than I was worried about her.
Swimming with heavy packs and weapons strapped to your body may sound impossible, but not only can it be done but the military trains all of its Special Forces operators how to do it. However, having been trained years ago and executing on that training now were two different things. I didn’t think I would make it and was preparing to dump my pack when my face broke the surface and I was able to draw a deep breath.
I had surfaced under the dock and quickly grabbed on to a brace so I could keep my head above water. The infected that had gone into the water with me bobbed to the surface a moment later, face down and not moving. I didn’t believe my smashing her into the piling had killed her, rather thought that she had drowned.
Right above my head were dozens of infected females milling around on the dock. The occasional scream pierced the air, but it didn’t seem like they had spotted me. The rumble of the boat motor grew as Rachel approached the end of the dock, but she veered away as one of the females launched herself at the boat. The infected came up short and hit the water with a splash. She thrashed violently for almost a minute before going still and bobbing on the surface.
They couldn’t swim! And I realized that they didn’t recognize the danger of the water as more of them leapt off the end of the dock in an attempt to reach Rachel who now had the boat sitting 30 feet out in the lake. I waved from my hiding place but she couldn’t see me.
