Survive (17 page)

Another Kensington, John thought his name was Bruce, stood next to Morgan. He fired a bolt action rifle slowly but surely at the Zeds below. Each shot seemed to hit something. Next to him, a younger Kensington that John didn’t know fired a double barreled shotgun down into the mass. The buckshot had a great effect on those Zeds closest to the container, though it did nothing against the packed wave of the undead a little farther out.

John came next, anchoring the right side of the container. He fired from the shoulder, his MP5 on single fire, each 9mm slug more than sufficient to destroy the already decaying skulls of the Zeds. He watched more for the faster Zeds than anything else, using the green laser attached to the foregrip to help him eliminate the fastest of the threats. He changed magazines, dropping an empty one to the ground, as he looked around.

Behind John, Truck Robin reloaded his rifle, slamming a new magazine into the AR 15. He knelt down behind John and fired as quickly as he could. He looked up at John and yelled, “Yeehaw, motherfucker!”

On the other side of Truck, Jill Robin stood next to her husband, firing her rifle, a .44 magnum lever action she’d put to good use hunting in the woods with her mother, Franny. Franny stood down at the bottom of the ladder with her sister, Nancy, passing bags and packs of ammunition up to Roy Kaminski, at the top of the ladder.

Next to Roy, Douglas Gentry fired his borrowed AK 47 down into the crowd. The time he’d spent shooting as a teen came back to him quickly, and his shots grew more and more accurate as the minutes wore on. John knew there were others around down by the trucks, or on the road between the trucks and the houses, but he couldn’t take the time to look for them.

Wave after wave of Zeds broke against the barricade, scratching at the steel walls with jagged, bony fingers. Piles of bloody bodies littered the ground in front of the shipping container, forming a wall of their own. As more and more Zeds fell to gunfire, their corpses stacked up almost to the lip of the barricade. The Zeds had to climb over more and more of their fellows to even get close to the barricade, giving the defenders a little breathing room.

John stopped firing as he looked out over the crowd. He looked down the line and found Patrick reloading his 12 gauge. He ran over to him, pulling Jack with him. “We don’t have enough ammo to kill them all. Eventually, we’re going to run out, and they’re going to climb right over this tin can,” John yelled over the sound of constant gunfire.

Patrick nodded. Jack looked overwhelmed, staring out over the sea of undead.

“How long ‘til we run out?” Patrick asked.

“We can hold out for a few hours at most. I’ve got ammo back at my cabin we can send someone for, but after that, we’re screwed,” John said.

The radio crackled. A woman screamed on the other end. John pressed the button on his radio. “Who is this?”

A few tense moments later, a woman’s voice came back on the radio. “It’s Alison at the barricade, we need help! We’ve got Zeds breaking...” The radio crackled loudly and went silent.

“Fuck! Who’s at the other barricade?” John asked Patrick.

“Alison and Marta, I think.” Patrick said, worried for his granddaughter.

Two fast jumping Zeds leaped up over the wall of fallen Zeds and made it to the top of the barricade. Morgan fell backwards, knocking Roy off the wall, onto the ground near the trucks. Morgan rolled out of the way as one of the Zeds reached for him, but a wall of gunfire took the head clean off the Zed before it could bite him. The second Zed met the same fate seconds later, but not until after it had bitten the remaining Jamaican man.

The heavily muscled black man pushed the dead Zed off of him and threw it off the container. Looking down at the bloody bite mark on his arm, he screamed. Moments later, he jumped off the container, onto the pile of swarming Zeds and began firing at point blank range. He managed to clear a spot around him for a few moments, the Zeds falling to his enraged gunfire. Then, his gun clicked empty, and the Zeds charged him. He fell screaming, his arms reaching to the sky as Zed after Zed bit him, teeth and fingers savagely tearing through his muscled flesh.

Roger lifted Morgan up. “Are you bit, son? Are you bit!” he yelled, running his hands over Morgan.

“No...no, I don’t think so.” Morgan stood back up shakily and moved back into position. Father and son stood next to each other and resumed firing into the seething mass of undead. John watched for a moment, before reminding himself it was not the time to miss his own father.

John tried to reach Alison on the radio but got no response. He climbed down the ladder and ran for Truck’s big pickup. He pressed the button on his radio again. “Jose, you there?”

“Here, John. We’re already on the way.” Jose said breathlessly.

John waved to Roy to come with him. Roy brushed the dirt off from his fall and ran after John. The women handing the ammunition up to the top of the barricade barely slowed from their task, not having heard the radio transmission.

Slamming the truck into gear, John drove the big pickup down the road towards the barricade. In the distance, he saw Jose’s truck pull out from the driveway and head toward the barricade. Just as Jose’s truck hit the road, John watched in dismay as twenty or thirty Zeds came running from the direction of the northern barricade and swarmed around it. Jose slammed into the pack of onrushing undead, crushing several beneath his flame-painted truck. The truck skidded sideways and came to a stop.

“Oh Jesus, Jose, don’t get out of the truck!” John yelled helplessly as he watched.

Moments later, John saw Jose leap out of the truck and start slashing with his sword. As John and Roy pulled up and stopped, Tina screamed. A Zed had managed to break the window on the passenger side and was pulling her through the jagged glass.

Jose heard the screaming and jumped over a Zed, slashing down with his sword as he sailed overhead, lopping off its head. He reached the passenger side of the truck at the same time John did. John raised his MP5 and fired, but not before they both heard the sickening crunch as the Zed bit through Tina’s arm. Tina screamed and thrashed violently as her body dropped to the ground. John’s shot hit the Zed on the shoulder, spinning it around. Another took its place, pushing past the wounded Zed and lunging for Tina’s writhing form. Her right arm lay twitching, clenched in the jaws of the first Zed. Her shoulder ended in a jagged stump, blood spraying everywhere.

The second Zed landed on her. Its jaws latched onto her face and chomped down. Tina’s screams were muffled by the Zed’s mouth. It bit down, the delicate bones of her young face breaking and crumbling in. Mercifully, her screams stopped as John fired again. His bullet tore the top of the Zed’s head off as Jose’s sword severed its spine. He screamed as he kicked the undead monster off the already dead Tina.

John fired into the onrushing Zeds as they swarmed around the truck. He kept them off Jose as the teenager bent down and lifted Tina’s mangled body, holding onto her and rocking. He screamed angrily up into the sky, tears rising to his eyes. John was barely able to keep the Zeds from reaching him. Roy fired his shotgun, trying to get the ones that made it past John, but he couldn’t stop the tide of Zeds that ran past them.

“Jose, we have to go! They’re getting through!”

Jose seemed to snap out of it and laid the body down. As he did, he looked at John. “I can’t do it, man.”

John nodded. Jose turned away, and John shot Tina in the head. He tried not to think about the way her body jerked as her head seemed to collapse in on itself.

John ran to the driver’s side of the truck.

“Get that container back into place, and stay there. Roy, go with him. I’ll try to get the ones that got through.”

“We got it. Go help my mom!” Jose started moving before Roy was all the way into the blood and glass covered passenger seat. They headed towards the barricade as the flow of Zeds began to slow.

The radio clicked on. “We can’t hold them much longer. There are too many of them, they’re starting to just walk on top of each other!” Patrick yelled.

“The barricade is down over here. We’re trying to put it back, but some got through. You have to hold out up there,” John yelled into the radio. “Sara, can you hear me?”

Sara’s voice came over the radio. “I heard, John. We’ve blocked the doors up here. All the kids are here too. But your mom and May are with Kurt.”

“Dammit!” John turned the pickup truck around and sped toward the driveway. He managed to catch a few of the stragglers and mowed them down without slowing. He reached the driveway just in time to see several Zeds break through the doors of both Mason houses. Knowing that his mother’s house was empty, he headed towards Patrick and May’s house.

He pulled to a stop and raced up the steps, firing into the backs of the Zeds as they entered the house. He heard gunshots from inside, and ran through the dining room. The table had been overturned, chairs lay splintered and broken everywhere. The gunshots came again, from deeper in the house. The gathering darkness outside made the house seem like a black tomb. Flickering light from a lantern slipped from behind a shut door just as a Zed slammed its rotting fist into it. John ran up and shot it point blank in the head. The Zed dropped to the ground. A hole the size of his fist suddenly appeared in the door followed by the sound of a shotgun blast, narrowly missing John’s head.

“HEY! It’s me! Don’t shoot,” he yelled as he jumped to the side.

Silence followed. John could hear something moving out in the kitchen. The door behind him opened, revealing June and May standing next to each other, shakily holding up the smallest shotguns he’d been able to find. Kurt lay propped against the wall behind them, his face covered in sweat, a pistol held weakly in one hand. His face, in the dim lantern light, was as white as a ghost.

“Close the door, they’re still in here,” John flicked his laser site on and pulled a little flashlight from his pocket. He walked toward the kitchen, light and laser both guiding him. He rounded a corner as a Zed knocked over a pot. The sound of the falling pot seemed to distract the Zed, causing it to look down just as John shot it in the face. It fell to the floor, knocking over another pot, its face a splattered ruin.

As John watched it fall, a second Zed came hurtling out of the darkness and wrapped its arms around him. John fell forward, yelling, frantically trying to avoid the monster’s teeth as they gnashed inches away from his neck. He rolled over, trying to get out of the crushing grip. He outweighed the Zed but the creature felt no pain, and kept him pinned against its chest. Just as John thought he was dead, he heard a gunshot so close it hurt his ear. Hot, wet blood sprayed over the side of his face. The Zed released him, and John jumped to his feet.

Kurt stood, leaning against the wall, his pistol dangling from one hand, the barrel still smoking. The injured man then slid slowly down the wall, unconscious before he’d hit the floor.

After John dragged his unconscious cousin back to the bedroom and made sure the women were safely locked inside, he ran back outside.

The silent, empty house across the driveway was wrapped in black, oily smoke. John watched in horror as flames began to lick from the upstairs windows. Zeds moved back and forth past the windows.

Fuckers must have knocked a lantern over
, thought John. He ran up to the open front door and pulled it closed.

“Burn, you dead sons-a-bitches!”

“John, they’re breaking through the windows!” Sara’s panicked voice came over the radio moments before “We’re losing the barricade!” came from Patrick.

“Hold on, baby, I’m coming!” John yelled into his radio, hoping Patrick would know he was addressing his wife. He ran as fast as his big body could move. He ignored Patrick’s plight as his thoughts were only of his wife.

Gunshots came from the hunting shack as he drew closer. Zed bodies littered the ground. The door was still closed, but the windows on either side had been smashed, gaping empty holes left shrouded in glittery broken glass. Someone inside screamed.

John barreled through the door, not even slowing to kick it open. The door flew off its hinges as he burst through, knocking a Zed to the ground. John fired a three round burst into its head as he ran past. More Zed bodies lay on the ground as John finally saw Sara ahead of him. She stood between several hungry, slobbering Zeds and the children. Margaret lay on the ground in the corner, John couldn’t tell if she was alive or not. Deirdre stood by Sara, wielding her rifle as a club. Bloody tissue coated the wooden stock, dripping down and covering Dierdre’s arms.

Princess danced in front of Sara, nipping at the Zeds as they came close. Her fast little body zipped in and out of their feet as she ripped at their legs. Fish launched himself at a Zed as it lumbered towards Margaret’s slumped form. He knocked the Zed down and stood on it, pressing it into the floor with his barrel- chested body. He ripped into the back of its neck with his massive jaws, crushing its spine.

A Zed reached for Deirdre, but Sara raised her Beretta Cx4 carbine and fired, hitting it twice in the head. A second one lunged, trying to get past her to the children, but Deirdre swung her rifle like a baseball bat, breaking the Zed’s head wide open. John dropped to one knee, brought his MP5 up, and opened fire. The little black MP5 spat out bullet after bullet, mowing the remaining Zeds down. John kept it aimed high, afraid of hitting the children or his wife. One by one, the Zeds twitched and fell, until finally, they all lay on the floor.