There were five, no ten—there were fifty of them. They moved toward us, intent on our flesh. One of the ghouls broke from the trees and paused to study the scene. I looked at him and knew it was the same bastard that had taunted us at the camp. He snarled when he saw me, then his eyes went to the girl’s corpse.
Scott helped me up, and we backed away. I was filled with rage over Haley’s murder. My body and soul hurt, and I was angry and exhausted.
The undead came on and were killed. The men and women around us moved with precision as they fell back to their vehicles. One of the campers had only one door, and they ran for it, covering each other as they entered. I wished I had a gun in my hand, but I was so exhausted that I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift it.
I studied the soldiers dumbly, wondering if any had been at the ambush last week. They moved like pros now, not like the heartless scavengers that had tried to take our weapons and gear.
Scott and Jack moved me between them. We were forgotten, left behind by the men with weapons. They were swarming their vehicles, firing as they went, but they didn’t get all the undead.
The ghoul obviously had some time to plan and act. His line of zombies moved from the other side of the road. A canvas covered truck left, with a female soldier half hanging off the back. She tried to grab a hold of the back of the Jeep, but missed and fell off. One of the men reached for her. He had a frantic look on his face, as the driver gunned the engine and the car took off, only to smack into a pair of dead, knocking them to the side.
Lee was clinical. He moved backwards, covering his crew. He fired slowly, accurately, and when he ran out of rounds, he just as calmly dropped the magazine into his hand, put it in a pocket, and came out with a fresh one.
There were too many of them, and they were everywhere! Their moans chilled me to the bone; their calls for us, the living, made my heart race. We had come so far, so very far in the night, and we were back where we started. Back among the dead.
We stumbled, and I went down first. One of the soldiers had gotten turned around while he sought targets, and we all crashed together. I fell on top of him, and I didn’t even think about my actions. The gun was there, on the ground, and I picked it up. It was a small-caliber handgun, but it would take out the dead just as well as a hand cannon.
“Get the fuck off me!” the man screamed.
Jack grunted and moved back. Scott was first on his feet and pulled me up. The guy struggled to get up, but the strap from his rifle was wrapped around his shoulder, and he fell flat again.
I should have just left him, but I offered my hand, and he took it. With Jack’s help, we staggered back toward one of the vehicles. It was surrounded by the dead things, but the guy with the gun started shooting. I dragged the pistol up and put one in the side of a creature’s head. It fell off the back of the car with one hand clutching the guy it had been trying to bite. The man struggled and pushed but was dragged off the back. His screams were furious.
Lee called orders as he made it to the large trailer. Guns sprouted along the sides where the windows had been. There were slits in the sides, and metal plates slid out of the way to allow more guns to point outward. Shots rang up and down the road as the vehicle lurched forward and smashed into a couple of the dead that were trying to climb to the roof. They groaned as the big RV pulled away and ground them into the dirt.
We made it to the side of the military vehicle. It was surrounded, but we cut down a few in front. Scott moved like a man possessed. He had a look on his face I hadn’t yet seen on him. He was mad—beyond rage. Swearing, he jumped into the car and kicked one of the dead away from the driver’s side. He picked up a small machine gun, looked like an MP5, and jacked the chamber back to check the load. The zombie he had pushed off the side of the truck was replaced by a black guy with part of an ear and cheekbone missing. His mouth moved like he was talking, but he was probably imagining meat between his jaws.
Scott stuck his boot in the guy’s chest, and calmly held him back while he took the magazine out of the gun, as the dead man peered inside. Satisfied, he jammed it home, raised the gun, and blew the thing backward with a tap to the head. Scott didn’t waste ammo. He aimed and fired—one shot per zombie. Aim, fire, shift. Aim, fire, shift.
“Let’s go, man!” Jack screamed. He plopped down in the back and tried to look everywhere at once.
There was a large-caliber machine gun mounted above us, but it wasn’t like the movies, where I could just hop on the gun and start firing. The gun had to be checked and loaded.
The soldier with us jumped in the back of the car beside Jack and fired as fast as he could, but we were surrounded. Scott sat down and handed me the MP5. “There are a few shots left. Make ‘em count while I get us moving!”
He cranked the keys, and the truck roared to life. I held the gun in unsteady hands and shot the zombies as they came at us. Another truck roared past us, with one of the dead hanging from the back while the gunner on the big .50 caliber tried to take aim. The driver turned, pulled a pistol and shot the thing in the face, but his car was pulled to the right, and he clipped our truck then ran off the road, into the bushes. They were swarmed in a matter of seconds, and their screams went on for a long time as they were eaten alive.
“So sick of this shit,” I muttered as our vehicle lurched forward. One of the dead was just ahead, so I stood up in the tiny space, held onto the front windshield, and shot him in the head. Scott swerved slightly, but we still pulped the zombie.
There were more of them ahead, at least a dozen, and we didn’t have enough momentum yet to escape them. If we were going thirty or forty miles an hour, we might be able to barrel through them, but we were at a crawl. Scott punched it and knocked a few out of the way. The soldier with us stood up, changed his magazine, and then started shooting at everyone ahead of us.
As we made our slow progress through the human barrier, we met with more and more resistance. The dead surrounded the car and reached for us, clawed for us. The stench of rotted meat was disgusting. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to shoot them or throw up. The rotted dead were everywhere, and I was once again struck by how obscene they were. The things were an abomination. Up until now, I had been willing to recognize that they had been us, they had been human at one time. Now they were just mindless monsters worthy of only a bullet.
I shot as many as I could, and we broke free. I was already starting to feel better, a new reserve of adrenaline welling up from beneath my exhaustion. Every muscle ached, but I was in my zone now. I had a weapon, and we had a vehicle.
As we broke through the last of the dead things, Lee caught up. I heard a thump and glanced behind, taking my eyes off the enemy for a split second. Lee was flopping in the back of the truck, trying to climb onboard with us. He had his upper body over the back of the vehicle and strained to get in.
The man who had helped us get to the truck leaned over the back of the seat to help Lee. His upper body hung to one side, one leg dangling over the edge of the spot where the rear door should have been. One of the zombies got lucky. They grabbed his foot and tugged, pulling the man off balance.
Another latched on as Scott turned and pointed his gun. I could tell that he wasn’t going to get a good shot, though, because one of the soldiers was in his line of fire.
I shot one of the zombies in the face when it got too close, then I leaned between the seats and offered Lee a hand. He seemed surprised. He had his other hand in the back, gun over the seat as he fought for purchase in the bumpy ride. His cammo shirt rode up to expose a burned wrist and a tattoo of a devil surrounded by a yellow flaming pentagram. Instead of taking his wrist, I grabbed his pistol.