by Mark Gordon
Chapter 83
The Battle Begins
Matt reached the kitchen as Dylan and Montana emerged from the bedroom with their weapons. Bonnie was standing by the table gripping a pistol, while the other hand was clamped protectively around Gabby, who had her head buried in her mother’s torso.
“Are you ready?” asked Dylan, as the sounds of gunfire and screaming continued outside the window.
“Let’s go!” screamed Matt, as he grabbed his gun and yelled back to Sally. “Stay here with Bonnie and protect Gabby. Arm yourself and lock the doors! We’ll be back!”
Matt, Dylan and Montana raced through the front door and down the path to the fence. The followers had established a rudimentary line of defense and the night was suddenly alive with the cacophony of gunfire as the feeders emerged, like crazed white ghosts, out of the darkness. The followers had been taken by surprise, and were putting up a good fight, but for each feeder that was struck down, another would materialise out of the darkness and advance just as ferociously. Matt found a spot in the line and joined the fray. To his right was a young woman he’d never seen before, releasing short bursts of fire from some kind of automatic weapon. Her face was set like stone as she aimed and fired with alarming efficiency. Encouraged by her success, Matt stood by her side, aimed his weapon, and pulled the trigger, sending one feeder to its death. Almost immediately, another took its place and again Matt fired, putting the creature down. Dylan and Montana had by now also taken up positions nearby, and were letting loose round after round of shells, but still the creatures attacked, despite suffering numerous casualties.
“Too many!” screamed Matt, over the din, as his weapon ran out of ammunition.
“Keep shooting! They’re all coming from the same direction!” roared Dylan, as a feeder’s head exploded just metres away, before collapsing to the ground dead.
As Matt reloaded, he analysed the situation, while Montana let loose a spray of sub-machine gun bullets at two nearby feeders. Dylan was right! The feeders were attacking in one column from the direction of the road! They had no strategy and were not attacking from the flanks at all, but still their sheer numbers were proving too much for the makeshift army. Even if the ammunition held out and the tactics of the creatures didn’t change, Matt didn’t think it would be possible to outlast the beasts and survive this battle. With his weapon reloaded, he looked down the road at the oncoming horde and drew a bead on the nearest feeder. He pulled the trigger, and a large red bloom appeared on the creature’s chest, as it cartwheeled into the weeds. Another feeder appeared in its place, Matt aimed, and it too was dispatched in a bloody heap.
“This is hopeless!” he screamed, sensing the futility of their fight.
“We have no choice, do we?” cried Dylan, “Just keep shooting!”
Suddenly, there was another shooter at Matt’s side, picking off feeders with a pistol. “Matt! You need to get her out of her while you can!” came the female voice, close to his ear.
Matt glanced around. It was Jean, the woman Bonnie had pointed out earlier as the unofficial spokesperson for the group.
“Did you hear me!” she repeated. “For god’s sake, get Gabby out of here!”
“What are you talking about?” he roared over the unceasing gunfire. “Where would we go?”
“Anywhere! Away! We may not hang on here! There are too many!”
He stopped shooting for a second and looked at the woman. The terror in her eyes was absolute. She nodded her head as if to say, “do it”, and Matt realised that she was right. All of these people had come to protect Gabby’s life, for reasons that he didn’t fully comprehend, and Matt suddenly understood that the farm would never be a viable option for survival in the long term - his argument with the others earlier in the afternoon was only ever going to delay the inevitable. The time to move on had arrived. He gave Jean a thumbs-up sign, and scurried over to Dylan’s position, as the woman resumed shooting.
Dylan had just cut a feeder in half with a spray of bullets as Matt reached him. “We need to get Gabby out of here!” he screamed in his ear over the barrage of gunfire.
“Where?”
“Back through the hills! There’s no other way out!”
“Okay!” Dylan screamed as a particularly robust feeder hit the ground near their feet, riddled with bullet holes.
“Let’s go then!” urged Matt. “We can’t wait!”
“No! You go! I’m staying to fight!”
“What? You have to come! I need you!”
“No you don’t! You’ll be fine!” he yelled, as he popped another creature between the eyes. “I’ll catch up later! Diamond Creek, right?”
Matt stared at the man who had become his closest friend. Leaving him behind would be like committing him to a death sentence but there was no time for a discussion.
“Okay! I’ll see you later!” he said, giving him a thump on the back before moving away. He went straight to Montana’s position and was proud to see that she was holding her own in the battle, standing shoulder to shoulder with a middle-aged man who was firing at the advancing creatures as Montana reloaded her weapon.
“Where have you been?” she asked.
“Never mind that,” he screamed above the din, “It’s time to go! We have to get Gabby out of here! The others will stay and fight! It will give us a chance to get away through the hills!”
“What are you talking about?” she shrieked, taking aim at another feeder.
“We need to save Gabby! We need to run!”
Montana drew a line of sight with her gun and blasted one of the creatures into oblivion, as the man beside her screamed, “Good girl!”
“Montana! Come on!” bellowed Matt desperately.
“I’m not coming!” she yelled. “They need me here!”
“What?” screamed Matt, before firing his weapon. “Are you serious?”
“Matt, there are children here. I won’t leave them!”
She turned and smiled at him, and in a flash he realised that she had made her mind up and nothing he could say would change it.
“Get Gabby and the others, and get out of here,” she yelled above the noise of the battle, “We’ll be fine!”
Then, before Matt had a chance to argue, a feeder that had somehow managed to dodge the reign of bullets, was through the defensive line of the followers, and racing towards the house. Matt turned and chased. Goodbyes would have to wait.
-
Inside the house, Bonnie filled a large sports bag with as many weapons as she could carry. She took the bag and threw it onto the floor before grabbing the keys to the quad bike from its hook on the wall.
“Stay in the kitchen, honey,” she told Gabby. “I need to speak to Sally for a minute.”
“Mummy, I want to stay with you! Please!”
“No sweetie, stay here. I won’t be long.”
Bonnie hugged her daughter, and sat her down under the kitchen table with Elvis, before heading into the lounge room, where Sally was keeping a vigil at the window.
“Is it bad?” Bonnie asked.
“Yes! Of course it is!” replied Sally, frantically. “What if they get through?”
“If they do, we’re not hanging around okay? We’re getting Gabby out of here. To do that, though, I’m going to have to knock that fence down at the back, just in case. We’re never going to get out the front way.”
“God! Are you sure? The fence is protecting us!”
“Not any more it isn’t. It’s got us trapped. I’m going to drive the truck through it. Stay with Gabby - she’s in the kitchen with Elvis. If you see a feeder, shoot! I won’t be long.”
And with that, Bonnie was running back to the kitchen, intent on bringing down the fence that had once been a symbol of their security.
“Stay there!” she yelled at Gabby, as she raced through the kitchen, pulling the door closed behind her, as the gunshots continued to boom through the night like the noise of a thousand drummers.
She r
an to the big shed and climbed up into the old truck and grabbed the keys from under the sun visor, before firing up the ignition. The old vehicle rumbled to life in a huge cloud of blue smoke, and when Bonnie flipped on the headlights, and reversed out of the shed, the effect was like something from a third-rate rock concert. She stopped the truck as close as she could to the farmhouse, and shifted into first gear. She hoped desperately that she could get up enough speed to knock the fence down in one go, but if it took multiple attempts, then she was willing to do that. The headlights shone brightly across grass as she revved the engine, dropped the clutch and put her foot on the accelerator. The truck moved slowly at first, but as she shifted up through the gears she picked up speed. She braced for the impact as the truck slammed into the fence.
-
As Sally watched the chaos of the battle outside, she couldn’t help but wonder how the feeders were able to tolerate being in the same vicinity as Gabby all of a sudden. They had never been this close to her before. What had changed? Had they become stronger? Or had it just taken all this time to find her. The strong lights that were illuminating the hellish scene outside the fence weren’t even acting as a deterrent any more! She watched as feeder after feeder entered the combat zone and wondered how it would be possible to hold them all at bay. It seemed hopeless. Then, as she was about to leave the window to check on Gabby, the pale figure of a feeder burst away from the mayhem, seemingly unnoticed, and began sprinting across the silvery grass towards the house - fast and with an extreme sense of purpose. Sally grabbed her shotgun, and ran to the front door, intent on confronting the creature head on, before blasting it into the next world, but when she opened the door it was nowhere to be seen. Where the hell had it gone? Had they really gotten that fast? She turned and raced back to the kitchen, but only arrived in time to see the creature smash through the back door, before sliding under the table to where Gabby lay curled up, screaming in horror. Everything was moving too fast for Sally now, and before she realised what was happening, the feeder had scooped Gabby up into its powerful, sinewy arms and was heading back out through the door, as Elvis growled furiously and tried to latch onto its legs. Sally raised her weapon and fired at the creature’s back, but it was gone into the night before the first bullet hit the wall.
“Nooooo!” she screamed, as she raced to the empty doorway.
Her mind was a torrent of fear, anger and self-loathing as she considered all of the ways she had just failed Gabby, but she ran after the beast anyway, knowing that she had no other choice. Gabby was still screaming, so Sally locked onto that sound and speared into the dark after it, knowing that she was willing to die if that’s what it took. She sprinted around the side of the house, and saw the creature running past Matt’s father’s grave, slowed only a little by Gabby’s weight. The shooting continued outside the fence and Sally knew that everybody was so caught up in the battle that they hadn’t even noticed the creature running towards the exit with the little girl in its arms. If it reached the gate, it would disappear into the night with the girl and nobody would even notice. She raised her gun, but it was pointless! The shot she would need to make to hit a moving target from this distance was almost impossible, and Gabby was in the firing line anyway. Then, suddenly, just as the creature got closer to the gate, and Sally thought that it was going to succeed in its brazen attempt to steal the girl, a muzzle flash appeared out of nowhere and the feeder stopped in its tracks, teetering, but upright, with Gabby still held to its leathery chest.
Sally ran to where the feeder was standing, as Matt appeared out of the shadows, breathing heavily, his face filled with terror. The top part of the feeder’s head had been blown off by Matt’s shot, but still the beast stood, determined to hang on to its prize. Sally ran to the feeder as Gabby fainted, while Matt held the barrel of his gun up to what was left of the creature’s head. Sally pulled Gabby from the clutches of the beast as Matt pulled the trigger once more, sending pieces of white flesh and bone on a short, lonely journey through the cold night air.
“Is she okay?” he asked, realising that Gabby was not moving.
“Yes, I think she’s just fainted.”
“Good!” he yelled, glancing over at the followers, who were still engaged in a brutal conflict outside the fence, trying to save the life of Gabby, for a reason that was as fundamental as it was unfathomable. The cause seemed hopeless as bullets ripped into the relentless hordes of advancing feeders, but for the briefest of moments, amongst the confusion, Matt thought he saw Montana’s face, looking over in his direction. Then, just as suddenly, she was gone again, lost amongst the commotion of battle.
“It’s time to leave!” he roared, turning his back on the struggle.
He grabbed Sally by the arm and they ran together back up to the house and into the kitchen, where they found Bonnie looking frantically for Gabby.
“Oh my god!” she cried, “I thought they had her!”
“No!” said Matt, snatching the keys of his father’s motorbike from the hook on the wall. “We have her! Now let’s get out of here.”
