Step, totter, groan, flappy-flap of the arms, next foot comes forward, pushes off the ground, torso straightens, head is up for a second and-
CRACK.
Down he goes. Next target: middle aged woman, obese, cardigan, long denim skirt, sensible clogs on her feet, most of her face missing on the right side, right arm chewed down to gristle and bone. Probably someone’s grandma once. She was lumbering at a steady pace toward Dad and Blake, both of her legs still intact. I waited for her to rock left, then pause on the sway to the right before transitioning to the other foot, and CRACK.
The bullet struck the back of her head on the part called the occipital bunt and blew most of it off, leaving a ragged, dripping mess in its wake. The wound did not immediately kill her, but it scragged her wiring enough she did a face-plant and stayed there in a twitching, quivering heap. Rather than waste a bullet finishing her off, I moved on to the next target.
A minute or two later, the chamber locked open on an empty magazine. I dropped it, stowed it, and slid home a new one. Before I started firing, I did another battlefield assessment.
Mike and Sophia were doing a good job of reducing the horde on our side. They had widened the semi-circle of ghouls around the container by several meters and counting. Dad and Blake, on the other hand, were dealing with a far denser cluster of undead and were slowly retreating toward the vehicles, dropping corpses as they went. At a signal from Blake, Lance left his post and ran over to back them up. Tyrel, evidently tired of being left out of the action, disappeared into the Humvee for a moment, reappeared with Mike’s M1A, steadied himself on the roof of the Humvee, and filled the air with a cadence of hollow booms.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a dust plume approaching from the south. I came up to my knees and peered in that direction, trying to see who was coming. A few seconds later, a Humvee rounded the corner and pulled into the parking lot. The driver slowed and conferred with the man beside him as though unsure how to approach. I saved him the trouble by standing up and waving him over.
On the way to our position, the SAW gunner standing in the roof turret opened up on the horde with tight, controlled bursts of fire. He had obviously learned a thing or two about fighting the undead because rather than aim center of mass or try for headshots—which would have been next to impossible in a moving vehicle while firing on full-auto—he aimed at the infected’s legs.
Blood and bone and kneecaps and lower halves of legs disintegrated under the hail of bullets. The gunner disabled dozens of undead in the space of less than thirty seconds, and while it did not kill them, it reduced their mobility to a crawl. More importantly, it did so quickly and en masse. I found myself nodding in approval.
Have to remember that one.
The Humvee stopped below us, a few yards away. I shouted to them, “Looks like you missed a few.”
The soldier in the turret turned toward me. “Sorry. Didn’t search this far north, figured all the infected would be coming from the south.”
“Looks like you figured wrong.”
He had the good grace to look sheepish. “How about you folks back off? We’ll take it from here.”
“I have a better idea,” I said. “How about you ride around and do your leg-shooting trick with the rest of these things, and we’ll come behind you and mop up.”
“Works for me.” He leaned down and said something to the driver, and they were off.
Dad, Blake, and Lance abandoned their positions, double-timed it back to the vehicles, and safely ensconced themselves in a Humvee. The Army vehicle drove into the middle of the infected, laid down a broad volley of fire, then stopped and waited while the horde gathered round. The gunner turned so he was facing the vehicle’s rear and let out occasional bursts of fire to keep the undead from blocking their escape route. When the undead had pressed in tightly enough to begin climbing the hood and beating on the windows, the driver put it in reverse and peeled out, running over a few infected along the way.
One of the ghouls clung to the hood and was steadily climbing toward the gunner who still had his back turned. Mike and I shouted warnings, pointing at the thing behind him. He heard us, turned, reached a hand into a pocket of his vest, and produced a snub-nosed revolver. With the ghoul almost in arm’s reach, he stuck the gun in its face and pulled the trigger. Gore splashed across the creature’s back as the top of its head flew apart, brain and skull spatter painting the front end of the Humvee. From the report, I knew the gun was a .357 magnum. Hollow point slugs too, judging by the damage. At that range, he may as well have shot it in the face with an artillery piece. The creature collapsed, nearly headless, and slid from the vehicle.
The driver turned a slow circle around the now congregated infected while the gunner stashed his pistol and returned his focus to the SAW. Once again, the ratatatat of controlled fire rang out, and once again, undead legs flew to pieces. The soldiers worked quickly, driving four laps around the ghouls in concentric circles, gradually whittling them down. Finally, none were left standing.
The Humvee drove to where the other vehicles were parked, squelching over a few corpses along the way. One of them grabbed part of the right rear fender and was dragged along, its lower body remaining in place while the torso trailed an ever-lengthening rope of intestine. Sophia made a choking sound next to me and turned away.
“God, that is so fucking gross.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Just give me a minute.”
I watched as the Humvee stopped next to where the others waited. Mike climbed down from the container by lowering himself over the edge and then dropping the last few feet. I followed suit, then turned and caught Sophia on the way down and lowered her gently.
“Thank you,” she said, standing close enough to kiss. It amazed me that even here, standing in a field of stinking, festering undead, the male sex drive was strong enough to rear its ancient, incorrigible head. I ignored it and put a hand on Sophia’s lower back as we threaded our way through the corpses on the way back to the vehicles.
“Gonna be a hell of a mess to clean up,” I overheard one of the soldiers say to my father. “We’ll have to get some people out here. Haul those thing away to a good safe distance.”
“Hey,” I called, getting his attention. He looked at me. “Isn’t one of those HEMTTs equipped with a shovel, or a bucket attachment, or whatever you call it?”
His eyes grew sharp. “Yes. Yes it is. Good thinking, I’ll see if I can get it out here. You folks okay in the meantime?”
“We’re fine,” Dad said. “But we appreciate the help. While you’re gone, we’ll go around and make sure these things are taken care of permanently.”
“Be careful doing that,” the soldier said. “Those things are twice as dangerous on the ground. Don’t let them get their hands on you, they’re strong as hell.”
“I’m well aware. Thanks again, gentlemen.”
“Be back soon.”
The Humvee drove away. My father looked around at the rest of us, checked his rifle, and tilted his head toward the crawling, moaning horrors in the parking lot. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we’ll be finished.”
I looked at the infected, their blood black and shiny in the fading afternoon light, and watched them drag their carcasses toward me, unconcerned with their injuries, shredded hands grasping at gore-soaked asphalt.
Feeling a shift in my stomach, I looked away to the north woodlands, above the parking lot, over the infected, and across the roof of the brewery beyond. Knobby treetops rustled under a sky darkening to electric purple as I thought about what lay across the Mississippi River. The last newscast I had seen before they stopped airing was from California. The talking head was relaying information from affiliates in the Midwest.