by Thonas Rand
“Negative, hold the wall, I’m sending reinforcements—”
“—No!” John tried to cut-in, but the commander didn’t release the radio signal.
“—This is Commander Reed, fire teams report to the wall immediately! Over.”
A couple dozen soldiers readied their weapons and headed for the wall…
After he released the radio, John tried to stop them—“This is Mandall, fire teams stay off the wall, they haven’t seen us yet, stay off the wall! Over.”
Some of them stopped but most of the soldiers ran up all the stairs and climbed the ladders to get up there, and as soon as the first ones were in plain sight of the horde—
The dead went INSANE!
“He just killed us! That old sonuvabitch just killed us!” John said in anger.
They surged with purpose and came at the wall in a unity of rage.
The soldiers fired down at the undead and the soldiers in the guard shacks emerged and joined them. Dozens of the undead were killed as heads exploded in a giant turkey shoot, but it wasn’t even making a dent in the turmoil of thousands of growling heads and cold arms that were clawing at the wall for entry.
Hayward began firing at them as well, but John just stood there and watched what he knew to be an exercise in futility. The wall began to shake back and forth from the force of so many dead.
John grabbed Hayward by the shoulder. “Hayward, stop.”
He kept firing in a panic.
“Hayward, stop firing!”
He finally did, but he was angry. “What, goddamnit! Why?”
“We can’t win this,” John said calmly.
“What do you mean, we can’t win this? We have to try!”
“Look!” John pointed out at the parking lot fence.
Hayward looked and couldn’t believe what he saw, so he used his riflescope—THOUSANDS more of them were flooding in from the streets, it was the entire dead city of Oxnard coming in to get them. “Oh my God, oh my sweet lord!” he gasped.
“We don’t have enough ammo to defeat all of them, Hayward, we have to go.”
“We can’t just leave!” he replied.
Suddenly, they lost their balance as the trailer they were standing on was jolted—
It moved.
The massive force of all the undead began to push the eighteen-wheeler trailer inward…
“Oh fuck!” Hayward cursed.
“Listen to me, there’s too many of them, they’re gonna get in! I want you to get to the Black Hawk and start’er up.”
“Yeah,” Hayward said shocked, as he looked at all the putrid mouths below.
“Hayward, come on, man, snap out of it, get going!”
“Okay, okay, what about you?”
“I’m right behind you, just get the bird in the air.”
“Okay, just don’t take too long!”
“I won’t, now go!” John told him.
Hayward ran down the trailer to the front of the truck.
John used his radio. “Listen up, they’re pushing in the gate, I need a driver in the truck to back it up. Over.”
Hayward got the front of the truck, jumped on its hood, slid off, and ran toward the rear of the peninsula to his helicopter that was a quarter of a mile away. A random soldier heard John’s call and ran to the truck, he got in and started the ignition, the diesel engine rumbled to life. He put the huge truck in reverse and gave it gas, which started to move it back, but then the energy from the dead that pushed on the back of the trailer stopped it. The tires began to turn in place and burn rubber. When John saw that the truck couldn’t back up, he reached into the tent and pulled out a remote detonator.
“This is John Mandall to the entire camp: Evacuate, I repeat, evacuate the camp. Over.”
The commander responded. “Mandall, you don’t have that authority, follow orders and hold the wall! Over.”
“Listen, you ignorant bastard, the gate is failing, do you hear me? They’re gonna get in! All civilians evacuate, now! Over and out.”
That’s all that the civilians needed to hear; they immediately began to scramble to get the hell out of there.
John armed the detonator. “This is Mandall, step away from the wall’s edge, I’m setting off the claymores. Over,” he said into the radio.
The soldiers stopped firing and stepped back, once John saw that they were clear, he pushed the button—
Claymore antipersonnel landmines that were planted on the outside every fifty feet at the wall’s base exploded in succession, but there were so many undead at the wall, that the explosions were like blisters of bodies that were blasted into the air and came back down in pieces. The hundreds that were destroyed were immediately replaced with hundreds more.
It was useless.
The soldiers continued to fire, and they began to throw grenades in the surge, but they weren’t slowing them down and more of them kept coming from the city. The dead realized the weakness of the trailer gate, and they began to claw and push at it with purpose. The truck driver was still trying to back the truck against the power of the dead, but the truck wheels were still spinning in burning rubber.
And the truck was still moving forward.
Inch by inch…
Foot by foot…
The steel plating on the back of the truck trailer loosened, and the dead pulled some of it off—
They were in…
Dozens began to crawl under the trailer…
“Shit!” John said when he saw them getting in. “They’re in, they’re getting under the truck! Everyone to the truck! They’re in! They’re inside the camp!” he shouted in the radio.
The corpses jammed under the truck and spilled out into the camp from under the sides of the trailer. Dozens of soldiers converged on the situation and opened fire on them, but there were too many of them.
Hayward was running like mad, but he was only halfway to his helicopter and all around him people were trying to escape in every direction, it was a mass exodus of hysteria.
John yelled into his radio, “Everyone off the wall, get to the truck to defend the gate! Now!”
All the soldiers on the wall rushed down and joined the effort to stop the dead. John ran down the length of the trailer and jumped down to the ground, a stench charged at him right away, but he was able to shoot it dead. John backed up and joined the other 200 soldiers that formed a circular wall around the truck to stop them. Hundreds of rounds were being spent, but it wasn’t enough to stop the advance of the undead, more were coming in than they could kill. They were oozing out from under the trailer like a rotting sludge and bullets were hitting them constantly, but they kept coming through.
Pushing through the barrage of projectiles…
The ones that were shot in their chests and arms reacted violently and bit at where the bullets struck them…
Legs were being blasted off, but they kept coming…
Crawling like amputated demons…
Arms shot off, but they wouldn’t stop…
Not until the brain was destroyed…
They kept coming…
They were still pushing the truck forward and it was almost to the inner edge of the containers.
Just a couple more inches…
And it would be open soon…
“Pull back, everyone pull back!” John shouted into the radio.
The soldiers began to retreat, but slowly as they walked backward and continued to fire at the corpses.
John saw the driver still in the truck. “Get out of there, damnit!” he yelled.
The driver jumped out and the truck’s engine idled with no foot on the accelerator pedal.
With no power—
The dead pushed in the truck more quickly and the trailer past the containers and many dead arms reached in, some piled up on others to grab at anything they could reach. Hundreds piled up and spilled over the top of the trailer.
“Pull back farther, double-time! Now! Now!” John shouted.
The trailer was past the containers enough for the dead to squeeze through, they were in such a ravenous state that they pushed themselves through with such force, that many ripped their own skins off to get in. Then the gap was wide enough for them to run through single file.
Then it widened enough for them to run in two-by-two and this human ark would soon be filled.
“Fire in the hole!” John shouted.
He activated the remote detonator and the entire truck trailer EXPLODED in a massive detonation that threw many of the soldiers to the ground. The eruption of explosives splintered the trailer in the blink of an eye and destroyed hundreds of the dead. It also blasted the top containers by the trailer and they tumbled down and crushed dozens of the ghouls.
A quarter mile away, at the storage tank where the Black Hawk helicopter waited—Hayward was on the stairs climbing up the tank when he stopped and covered his face from the huge blast. “Holy shit! Fuck! Fuck!” he yelled and then kept on climbing.
All around the blast area, many body pieces fell all over and reported each impact like the sound of falling sandbags. John was thrown to the floor as well, he got to his feet, he was disorientated, but he quickly got over it as he looked at the results of the trailer bomb—it was completely destroyed and blasted into the ground, now it was a giant crater of black smoke and fire. Only the engine of the truck was left intact as it burned in a pool of flames. Bodies and chunks of flesh were everywhere, and as the smoke cleared, the dead continued to come through the destroyed gate. Even though they had to run through a huge firestorm, they came through, some made it, and others were lit ablaze. Some came through partially on fire and others were completely immolated as they ran in.
But they kept coming…
So many rushed in that they actually smothered out the fires by their sheer volume, it was a caustic flow of tons of dead sewage.
“Retreat!” John ordered. “Run, goddamnit! Get out of here! Run for your lives!”
The soldiers made a break for it, but so many of the undead were already on top of most of them. Some tried to run and fire their weapons, but they were overrun quickly. Multiple screams of agony began to fill the night air, along with the smell of blood, accompanied by its metallic taste. The screams of civilians followed, many of which were children.
The dead only knew the need to feed and nothing of mercy.
John was accosted by a group of thirty of them; he fired at a few and then did the only thing that he could do—he ran.
He ran for his life…
Straight for Hayward and the chopper…
Hayward jumped into the pilot’s seat and flipped on the controls to spool up the two engines, but nothing happened.
His face wrinkled hard with worry. “What the hell?” he tried again, but nothing. “What? What is it?” he thought hard and then realized the problem; “Shit, you idiot, Hayward!” he said in frustration.
He pulled two electrical fuses out his pocket and inserted them into the instrument panel’s fuse box. He worked the controls and the instrument panel came to life, along with the engines. The helicopter’s rotor blades began to move. Slowly…
Hayward saw the attack of thousands of the dead coming through the defeated wall.
“Come on!” he said to the rotor blades.
“We’re coming with you!” a voice demanded.
Hayward turned to a pistol barrel stuck in his face through the door window—it was a desperate soldier—along with two other soldiers, another male, and a female of Korean descent.
“Briggs, get that gun out of my face!” Hayward said.
“We’re coming with you or I swear I’ll kill you!” Briggs said and he meant it.
Hayward got angry. “Kill me? Do you know how to fly this helicopter?”
“No.”
“What about you two?” Hayward said to Briggs’ buddies and they said nothing. “Kill me and who’s gonna fly, huh?”
“We’re coming with you!” Briggs said.
“Briggs, you’re lucky I’m not an asshole, like you! Now get that gun out of my face and get in!”
The three of them climbed in the back as the helicopter’s blades reached full speed. Hayward worked the controls, the Black Hawk lifted into the air, and he hovered the aircraft several feet above the tank. A couple other helicopters took off and immediately left the area.
“What’re we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!” Lee, the female soldier said.
“I’m waiting for John,” Hayward answered.
“He’s probably dead, let’s go!” Briggs said.
“He’s not dead!”
“Damn it, Hayward, let’s go!”
“We’re not leaving until John gets here, Briggs, so shut up and man the mini-gun!” Hayward shouted as he turned the helicopter’s side with the mini-gun toward the camp.
“What do I shoot at? I can’t tell who’s normal and who’s not down there!” Briggs said.
“Fire on the ones at the wall, they’re definitely all infected!” Hayward said.
Briggs activated the mini-gun and its large barrel that consisted of seven rotating barrels spun superfast, he took aim and fired the weapon—a stream of high-caliber bullets streaked out—accompanied by the sound that it produced, which was a high-speed BZZZ of a large industrial tree cutter. The bullets melted the undead into goo like a laser-cutting torch; Briggs fired short controlled bursts to keep the weapon from overheating.
John was almost at the storage tank when he looked up and saw the helicopter gunner firing, white-hot rounds flashed over his head as he ran. He still had over twenty of the dead on his tail and they were gaining on him…
Hayward saw John. “There he is! Get ready, Briggs, he’s coming up hot!”
He spun the helicopter around and faced the mini-gun at the top of the tank stairs.
The staircase was barely wide enough for two people as John pounced his way up, one corpse caught him by his jacket tail—John spun round and blasted its head off, he unloaded his weapon down the stairs and killed a dozen, but more came up at him. He continued to run and when he got to the top, the helicopter was hovering at the other side of the tank.
“Come on!” Hayward shouted.
John ran across the tank and then the undead appeared behind him.
Five of them…
Twelve…
Twenty-five…
Briggs activated the mini-gun’s rotating barrel…
“Hit the deck!” Briggs yelled to John.
John jumped to the floor…
BZZZ…!
Bullets flashed over him like lightening and evaporated all the stenches.
Briggs ceased fire. “Let’s go!”
John got up and ran, he took a jump off the tank and landed in the back of the helicopter.
Hayward piloted the aircraft up and just in time as more undead got to the tower roof and jumped at them. They missed and fell. The helicopter ascended a hundred feet higher and swung around the camp. They got a murder of crows’ view of the complete carnage.
They were everywhere and killing everyone in sight…
Many civilians and soldiers ran to the various buildings and locked themselves in, but the dead would break their way in there soon enough…
They watched a three-car caravan speed down the beach; they were headed for the ramp to jump out by the shore. They had hundreds after them, but they made it to the ramp and one-by-one, they jumped over and landed on the other side, but there were so many that were trying to force their way through the hole in the wall, that when they saw the vehicles jump out, 4,000 undead chased after them. The landmines in the beach for this escape route began to go off as the horde went after the cars. More than twenty explosions detonated, but they were as rocks to a tank, making little to no dents in the horde that kept after the caravan.
The horde overwhelmed the last two vehicles and overturned them like charging bulls. One truck flipped and splashed into the water. The dead wasted no time as they pulled out the
five occupants who were kicking, screaming, and firing guns to defend themselves, but the undead filth gouged into their flesh. Just the lead vehicle got away, for now, as it had 3,000 corpses after it.
Soldiers fought with the dead out in the open of the camp, some in groups, others were alone, and they were being picked off one at a time. John looked at the harbor and saw civilians and soldiers, alike, running aboard the passenger ferry that was getting ready to pull away. The dead were right on them and ran on the boat via the boarding gangway. They attacked anyone they could.
“Shoot the boat’s gangway!” John said to Briggs.
“The what? Where?” Briggs asked.
John pushed him aside, took control of the mini-gun, swung it around and opened fire toward the boat. A bright line of bullets hit the dock and then sliced the gangway apart, killing many undead and stopping anymore from getting on the boat, but it was too late; over twenty got in—gunfire and screams echoed from within the boat’s decks.
Other survivors were leaving in smaller powerboats and some were in rowboats, a few had nothing, so they ran into the water and swam away.
Some of them drowned, which was most certainly a better fate than what waited for them on land.
John fired the mini-gun at a few more areas, but then he quickly realized that everyone down there was dead as he watched the corpses consume most of the camp, over 400 souls.
Gone.
He ceased fire and the mini-gun’s spinning barrel came to halt.
John sat down and looked away from the bloodbath below.
“Where should we go, John?” Hayward asked.
He didn’t answer—he was too busy listening to the rancid roars of the thousands below them.
“John?” Hayward said louder.
“South,” John said. “Head down the coast.”
Hayward looked at the fuel gauge on the instrument panel—he didn’t like what he saw. “Okay.”
The Black Hawk put its tail to the massacre and flew away into the night…
FIRST NIGHT at THE HOSPITAL
