“Well, maybe start out with flowers.” Gunny laughed. “Chicks like flowers and stuff.”
Griz shut down the big Cat in the middle of downtown Lakota, right in front of the courthouse. The men and women hopped off the lowboy and gathered into their assigned teams. They’d spent hours practicing yesterday at the grain elevator with empty weapons and volunteers jumping out at them, trying to tag them before they were “shot.” By the end of the day, if the people pretending to be the zombies played by the rules and attacked when they first heard sounds, none of them were getting anywhere near the shooters. The tactics were simple. Knock on the door, shoot through the wood at head level when you heard them on the other side. It was going to do a lot of damage to the structures but holes in the wood could be fixed. Being bitten couldn’t. The men and women were capable but opening doors and then dealing with the undead as they stormed out was a lot more dangerous. One person in each team had a .22 rifle or pistol and it was the primary weapon. The shotguns and rifles were for when the little guns couldn’t get the job done. Doing it this way, they hoped to minimize damage, maximize kills and reduce the chance of stray bullets going through walls and into another building, possibly hitting a friendly.
The teams spread out and Gunny could hear the quiet pops of .22 rounds going off around them in the houses after a few minutes. His team was going to take the downtown area. Two square blocks of formidable stone and brick buildings. The courthouse, the police station, the stores and restaurants on Main Street. Multi-story, vaguely Victorian style structures built near the turn of the century with plenty of nooks and crannies and thick, heavy doors.
He and Griz checked over the boys. Lars, Stabby and Scratch were ready. They were armored in leather, bristling with weapons and anxious to get started. They headed up the stairs to the courthouse. Might as well do the hardest one first. There might actually be survivors hiding in the basement, the doors were formidable enough to hold the raging masses back. The oversized front entrance was unlocked and Griz banged on the thick wood with the butt of his rifle while Scratch called out “Here zombie, zombie, zombie.”
They stepped back, fanning out in a semi-circle and shouldering their rifles, ready if more than one or two came running out. A .22 round wouldn’t penetrate these solid oak doors and if there were small handfuls of them, they thought this is where they’d be. In the public buildings. They wanted something with a little more knockdown power if a few of them came running out at once so the team had M-4’s or full-size AR’s. They heard a scream and the doors sprang open almost immediately, slamming against the stops and bouncing back. Two were leaping in air and roaring, pouncing at the fresh flesh. Everyone opened up, double tapping them and both crumpled to the steps. They heard more of them coming from the depths of the courthouse, heard their unearthly screams and quickly glanced at each other. This was more than a handful. This was a LOT more than a handful.
“Last chance to break for the truck!” Gunny said, looking quickly at each of them. “Lars? You good?”
“I’m feeling tippy tappy, got a song in my heart and the strength of 10,000 men.” He replied, tucking his AR in a little tighter and peering through the sights at the slowly closing doors.
“Stabby, Scratch?” Gunny asked, knowing what was coming, wanting to make sure they did too and were fully committed. If one man turned and ran, broke the wall of lead they were going to be laying down, it would leave the rest of them wide open.
“Not as good as him.” Stabby said “but I’m just tickety-boo.”
He aimed down the iron sights, quickly going over everything he’d learned about shooting these past days. He was as ready as he’d ever be, the small sniff of powder leaving him tingly and itching to go.
“Once more into the breach, dear friends.” He said under his breath, moving his finger from the guard to the trigger.
Scratch just nodded, his eyes never leaving the target zone.
Gunny repositioned his jacket, making sure he had fast access to his Glock if it came down to that. He didn’t have to ask Griz. He’d seen him angle his magazines just the way he liked them so he wouldn’t waste even a half second during reloads. He was all business. It was killing time.
The doors shuddered open again as the undead slammed against them, pouring out onto the steps. They opened fire when the first runner appeared, the sounds of their heavy guns ripped the morning air. They double tapped and bodies fell, creating an obstacle the others had to climb over. There were masses of them and they kept coming. The five men were targeting and taking them out lightning fast.
Boomboom, next face.
Boomboom, next face.
Boomboom, next face.
It sounded like machine guns shooting up the courthouse, they were firing so rapidly, almost like the burp of a chain gun.
Heads exploded and bodies crumpled. They were piling up, actually making a wall the undead had to climb and jump over. They did with frenzied abandon. They leaped, fell, broke bones and bounded up again, ignoring everything except the fresh blood just yards in front of them.
“Shite!” Stabby yelled, targeting two more women with ravaged bodies, torn dresses and hungry mouths. “I didn’t think there’d be this bloody many of them!”
“Magazine!” Lars yelled and Gunny quickly covered his sector while he swapped out, letting the spent mag fall to the marble steps then Gunny was empty himself, the bolt locking to the rear. He swapped out fast, muscle memory bringing it all back. His hands knew the ways of war. His eyes scanned for the next target as his finger hit the mag release. He snap-twisted the carbine hard right and flung the spent magazine aside. Before it hit the ground, he had the fresh one out of his pocket and slammed in the well. He thumbed the bolt release and in less than one fluid second was sending lead into the side of a man’s head who was leaping, arms outstretched towards Lars.
Stabby had dropped his rifle when the mag ran dry and was going at them toe to toe, his blades slashing and gouging as a group of them roared and followed him as he was slowly forced down the stairs one at a time. The claws strapped to his arms were flying, punching through faces and ripping open stomachs, putrid coils of guts spilling out and causing them to trip over themselves. They leaped at him and he met them with metal, eviscerating and flinging them aside.
Scratch had run out of ammo and with his arm, he couldn’t reload as fast as the others so he let his rifle fall to the ground and started swinging with both arms, refusing to give ground. Gunny heard him roar “Leeeeeroooyyyy Jeeennnkkkkkinnnnns!” as he dove into the fray, the wicked cold spike plowing through heads and the knuckle duster gauntlet exploding skulls with its brute force. He swung wildly, the horde streaming through the doors seeming to never end, black blood spray covering him. They all backed down the steps as one, forced into slow retreat as the undead kept coming. The wall of bullets kept tearing them apart, the thunder of lead louder than their screams of hunger. Lars let his M-4 fall, the barrel jammed through a man’s mouth and out the back of his head, when the second magazine ran dry and he fumbled a reload. He pulled his pistols, the Berettas spitting fire and lead, and started stacking bodies. At this close range he couldn’t miss, even with his off hand. Gunny flicked his third magazine to the side, slid another home and continued to hammer away at the undead. The roar of the solid wall of gunfire was deafening and drowned out the earthly screaming until they were nearly on top of them. They backed down towards the street together, bullets flying, blades slashing, zombies roaring, men cursing, blood spraying and bodies falling. The fastest ones were down, the undead streaming out of the building now were festering with flies and crawling with maggots in their week's old wounds. Some stumbled and were slow to recover. All were chewed up and broken in one way or another. As Gunny and the crew hit the sidewalk, continuing to slowly back up, he and Griz were still blasting away at them. They were flipping magazines aside in combat reloads so fast there was no break in the volley of bullets shattering bones and brains or spent brass s
kittering across the pavement. All three of the boys were in hand to hand, blades, spikes and fists flying in blurs of carnage, blood and spoiled human liquids that stained the stairs. Stabby punched one of his claws up through a little girl's open mouth up into her brain as he speared to the inside of her ribs with the other and slung her into the arms of the rotting city clerk. Scratch had a woman in a tattered police uniform lock her jaws down on his metal arm as he crushed the side of her head with the 3-spiked knuckle duster. Gray chunks, blackened eyes and rancid blood exploded outward, drenching him again with foul-smelling slop. Lars boot stomped the back of a businessman’s head against the marble steps, his teeth breaking out and flying along with an explosion of gloppy liquid from his shattered skull. When his first set of Beretta’s were empty, he let them fall and grabbed the other two from the drop leg holsters.
Griz double tapped the clerk still struggling to free himself from the little girls spilling intestines then looked for the next target. The stairs were littered with corpses two and three deep, a small river of blood streamed down and pooled on the sidewalk.
The runners were dead.
The shamblers were dead.
Now came the crawlers. Whispered screams from torn open throats, clawing and ravenous for meat with bodies too damaged to do much more than pull themselves along. There were dozens of them spilling out of the doors, scrabbling like chitinous venom filled worms on bone broke arms and splintered legs. Lars stomped and stabbed, his pistols empty and forgotten, wallowing in the gore of the ruined and crippled. Stabby slashed, his powerful strokes cleaving heads from bodies and spearing skulls. Blood sprayed Rorschach patterns and Jackson Pollock paintings on everything around him. Scratch was brutal in his attacks, flailing and slicing and pounding them into motionless heaps of twice dead flesh. Their frenzy was high, their bloodlust and rage had them pumped to the nth degree and adrenaline raced through their veins.
They were invincible.
Unstoppable.
Ready to fight for hours.
Berzerkers slashing a path towards Valhalla.
Savage Zulu Warriors crushing everything in their path.
Royal Gurkhas carving down the dead with bloody kukris.
But finally, after hours of the sun standing still for them, there were no more coming from the darkness beyond the doors. They felt like they had battled for days, for eons and they still weren’t ready to quit. They wanted more.
Griz and Gunny waited, scanning, carbines shouldered, elbows tucked. Behind him he heard someone throwing up and a quick glance showed him it was Bastille in the cab of Griz’s Kenworth, hanging his head out of the barred window, puke running down the side of the door. His camera was still running.
“Wasn’t expecting quite that many.” Gunny said.
He dropped the half-empty magazine and slapped in a fresh one, still scanning. Waiting for the second wave.
They heard the sounds of boots slapping the pavement as some of the teams that had gone to clear houses ran to their aid. They were there within minutes of hearing the eruption of sustained gunfire.
“Sumbitch.” was all Hot Rod could say as he eyed the river of blood and the ripped, torn piles of corpses. They stared in disbelief at the hundreds of bodies spilled all the way from the doors of the courthouse, down the wide stairs and onto the sidewalk.
Griz whooped at the top of his lungs in a victory roar. “Man!” he bellowed to the heavens. “I haven’t seen this kind of action since Ramadi!” then stepped back out of the pooling blood, not wanting to get his boots dirty.
Deputy Collins ran up and skidded to a halt beside him, her pistol drawn and gazing at the massacre. She’d heard the wall of gunfire and when it hadn’t stopped after a few seconds, like the rest of the teams, she knew they had uncovered a huge nest of them. They’d all come running to help. She was two blocks away and she was afraid by the time they got there, it would be too late. With that much screaming and roaring and the unending explosion of guns, she knew they would be overrun. Knew they would be taken down and ravaged by the Horde. That big, dumb jerk Griz was going to get himself killed.
But there he was, larger than life, grinning at her like he had just won the biggest teddy bear at a county fair. Nothing special. Like anybody could have survived an onslaught of a hundred undead. She knew if it had been anyone else other than him and Gunny, they would have been shredded. She didn’t know whether to collapse in relief or punch him in the face for being so careless.
“Idiot.” she said, scowled at him and stomped off.
He almost smacked her backside again, still high from the rush of cheating Lady Death but then thought better of it at the last second.
Lars, Stabby and Scratch were covered in oozing slime. All three of them were trying to fling or wipe various bits of guts or flesh off of their blades, claws and hair. Their clothes were soaked, their faces were spattered and they reeked of death two weeks old. The people that had run up quickly stepped away from them, waving their hands in front of their faces to shoo away the stink.
Gunny placed his foot up on the low boy and used a corner of his shemagh to wipe a dot of blood from his boot as Griz looked himself over to see if there were any errant bits of splash on him. He pretended to shoot his cuffs then flicked an imaginary piece of lint from his sleeve.
“Dang.” Gunny said as he examined his boot. “That left a spot. Any of y’all have some shoe polish?”
They both grinned at the boys who stood glowering at them, still panting heavily, covered in gore and smelling like something the dog drug in and the cat left alone.
Chapter 20
The boys hustled over to the fountain in the town square as Gunny and Griz reloaded everyone’s magazines and cleaned the gunk off of the weapons that had been discarded in the heat of battle.
“Wish we’d find a good gun store.” Griz complained as he thumbed fresh rounds into the magazines.
“I could really use a Mag-Packer. My thumb ain’t used to this.”
Gunny was using a few of Griz’s polishing rags to wipe down the mags he’d fished out of the bloody soup.
“Maybe you can ask Collins to kiss it, make it feel better.” he said. “But I would like to find some more magazines, at least. These old Mil Specs are about worn out.”
“Yeah,” Griz agreed. “I’d rather have some Magpuls over these things. They’re probably twenty years old.”
Their team was the only one in town that had more than one mag each, the rest had to make do with reloading on the fly if needed.
Bastille had recovered and was complaining under his breath as he wiped vomit off the truck with a rag Griz had tossed him. They kept an eye on the doors, ensuring nothing else came out.
The boys used the slightly scummy water still in the bottom of the fountain to splash the worst of the muck off of themselves then hurried back to the lowboy. Everyone loaded up on magazines, smeared Burt’s under their noses then mounted the steps, trying to avoid the most disgusting of the rotting bodies and not slip on the spilled innards. It was fouler than any killing floor in the nastiest slaughter house. The worst of it had to be over though. Now they hoped it would be just one’s and two’s trapped in offices to deal with.
They took the stairs all the way to the top floor, the fourth, and started clearing room by room. The offices and courtrooms were empty and they soon found themselves turning on flashlights and descending into the basement. They could hear them at the far end of the building, still moaning and scratching at a door. They made some noise and the broken remains of the few who were too damaged to even climb the stairs started towards them. It was a pathetic sight, there was very little left of them. With sighs of resignation, they lowered their weapons, met them in the middle and put them out of their misery with blades. The noise of rifles in confined corridors was deafening and these sad excuses for zombies didn’t warrant it.
“They were clawing at the door at the end of the hall.” Stabby said. “Probably some survivors in there.
”
“Could be.” Griz said “But we clear as we go. Don’t want any surprises popping out behind us.”
They made their way down the corridor, knocking and checking each room until they finally stood in front of a steel door with a faded black and yellow sign reading ‘Fallout Shelter’ affixed to it. Shining their lights around, it was obvious from the bits of torn clothes, spilled blood and occasional clumps of hair, the teeming pack had been gathered here.
“That’s a good sign.” Gunny said, trying the door and finding it locked. “If the people inside have turned, I doubt that horde would have still been hanging around.”
“Fingers crossed.” Lars said and pounded out ‘shave and a haircut’ on the door.
They waited, listening for a moment or two then he pounded it out again, yelling “anybody home?”
This time there was a response. ‘Two bits’ came back and he hollered back. “It’s clear out here, you can open up.”
The response was muffled through the heavy fallout doors that had been installed during the cold war. Probably in the ‘50’s.
They had to strain to hear but made out “Who is it? Who are you? What do you want?”
Gunny rolled his eyes. “What is it with people nowadays?” he asked no one in particular, a little annoyed at the lack of appreciation for their efforts.
“Nothing.” He yelled back at the door. “We’re going to finish clearing your town while you cower down here in the dark. We’ll see you up top, if you decide to come out.”
He shook his head and started back towards the stairs.
“C’mon, boys.” He said. “Let’s hit the police station next, see if they have any goodies to get.”
They went out a side entrance, not wanting to wade through the charnel house on the front steps.
The station was typical of a small town. Open floor plan with a reception area on the main floor and holding cells on the lower level, offices on the second story. When they opened the door a dozen undead came stumbling at them. They let them come outside then put them down with quick, merciful thrusts. They cleared from the top down, finding nothing still alive. Or dead, for that matter. The building was completely empty. The cells were a different story. The oversized metal door was propped open and weak light filtered down to the bottom of the staircase.
Zombie Road (Book 2): Bloodbath on the Blacktop Page 17
