Gunfire erupted and the zombies were all distracted from her. Their attention went not toward the power plant, but toward the road!
Zoe opened her eyes and tried to look that way as she heard more gunfire, and the roar of engines.
The Zombies released her and those crouching and kneeling stood, only to have their heads struck by unseen projectiles that blew them apart. Zombie after zombie fell and Zoe flipped herself over and crawled away from them, toward the sound of the engines as more of the zombie mob was felled by the unseen fighters who had come to her rescue.
In only a moment, enough of the zombies had fallen so that she could see over them and to the vehicles that were still advancing. They were jeeps, two black ones and a silver one that flanked around to the right, and the girl's eyes fixed on the silver one, and the black clad people in it. A man was standing in the back of it and resting a machine gun on the roll cage. Aiming carefully, he fired in short bursts, adjusting the muzzle every time to aim at a new target. This weapon was belt fed and had a box attached to the side, and Zoe recognized it as one that Sergeant Morris had shown her, the Squad Automatic Weapon. The passenger also brandished a weapon, one that looked like the M-4's or M-16's the soldiers used. This one was smaller with long black hair and wearing sunglasses, and even from fifty yards away she could tell that this one was a woman. She also fired in short bursts that ripped through the zombie mob with deadly purpose.
All three of the jeeps had their flanks turned to the zombie mob and all three stopped about forty feet apart. Occupants of all of them fired a hail of lead into the zombies, ripping them to pieces and blowing heads apart.
As machinegun fire would sweep toward her, over her, Zoe found herself sprayed by small body parts, black red blood and chunks of black and gray and dark red flesh, and all of these rained down on her many times during the slaughter. Afraid of being hit by accident, she fell to her side and balled herself up as small as she could, covering her head with both arms.
It seemed to continue forever.
Before she realized, no more gunfire lanced into her ears. There was an eerie quiet around her and a short distance away was the sound of the idling engines of the jeeps, and that was all. Still, she was afraid to move, afraid to make herself a target, but then she felt something soaking through her shirt. Raising her head, she withdrew her arms and turned to her back, then she sat up and looked down at her blood soaked shirt, the new tears in it from the zombies pawing at her. It was ruined! Again!
She drew a breath as she pinched the shirt in two places and pulled it away from her, and she grumbled, "Aw, man!" Seeing her hat beside her, she picked it up and brushed her hair back with her free hand, feeling something soft and wet slide from her head. Turning to see it as it hit the ground with a very wet splat, she grimaced as she recognized it as brain matter and she shouted, "Oh, ew!" as she scurried away from it on her backside. Finally looking around her, all she could see were the ravaged bodies of the zombies.
Boots hit the ground in the distance and she pivoted on her backside to face the jeeps. People had gotten out of them and stalked toward her—and two were taking aim at her.
Planting one palm behind her, Zoe raised her other hand to them and begged, "Wait! Please don't shoot me!"
Slowly, they all lowered their weapons.
That's when Zoe saw it. Five of them wore hats that read ZRT and all of them had ZRT in bold white letters across their chests.
The woman, who wore fingerless gloves over her hands, a black cap with ZRT in white across the front, commando trousers and combat boots and a black tank top, was the first to approach her, leaning her head slightly as she examined the girl.
A man in the back asked with an English accent, "Is she bitten?"
"I can't tell," the woman replied in the voice of someone in her twenties.
The man with the English accent observed, "Well, we all heard her speak. Zombies aren't much on conversation."
Zoe lowered her hand and planted it on the ground beside her, her gaze darting from one to the next, then fixing on the woman who approached to about five feet away.
Drawing her head back, the woman observed for all to hear, "Her eyes are green." She knelt down and set the butt of her weapon on the ground in front of her, grasping the barrel with both gloved hands as she asked, "Did any of them bite you?"
Zoe shook her head.
"Are you sure," the woman pressed. "We need to know."
"I'm sure," the girl replied in a meek voice.
"You're awfully pale," the woman observed.
A thin man in black ZRT commando gear and brandishing an AK-47 approached and crouched down beside the woman, his eyes on Zoe as he pointed out, "She was in the middle of a whole mob of Zombies. Of course she's a little pale! What's your name, Kiddo?"
The girl's eyes shifted to him and she replied, "Zoe Rebecca Templeton." Her gaze darted back and forth between the man and the woman and she assured, "We're with the Zombie Response Team just like you guys are."
"We see that on your hat," the bearded fellow confirmed.
Zoe's head whipped around, her attention drawn to the power plant office building as the crack of gunfire ripped from it. Many more faint shots could be heard and she realized that many zombies had clearly gotten in by now, and that only about half of them had been killed outside. "Oh, no," she breathed. Looking back to the people in front of her, she desperately cried, "The other guys are still in there! We have to go help them!"
All of them looked toward the building.
"I don't hear anything," one of the men behind them said.
The woman stood, looking toward the plant. "I do, Dan. Something's going on in there."
Zoe pushed herself up and turned fully toward the brick building. "They don't have many bullets left." Wheeling back to the two people who had approached her, she cried, "We have to help! They have to keep the power plant working and… Please! We have to help! We can't let those zombies get them!"
The bearded fellow behind them raised his chin and reminded, "Well, that's what we came here for." Looking over his shoulder, he shouted, "Let's get the jeeps closer!"
Engines gunned and the machines turned to drive in two directions around the mass of zombie corpses that lay all over the parking lot.
Excitement raced through Zoe and she turned and darted toward the building, dodging around the many bodies of the fallen zombies.
Back inside, she drew her revolver and stopped about ten feet from the door. Gunfire erupted again in front of her and she raised her head.
The woman and three others ran up behind her, and the woman took her shoulder and ordered, "Slow down. We need to hit them as a team."
As Zoe turned, she saw one of the other men enter with the SAW in his arms, held ready to shoot. He had a cigarette in his mouth and puffed away before saying, "I smell zombie poon-tang."
Raising her brow, the woman half turned and asked, "Dan, are you sure that thing isn't too big to use in here?"
He winked and strode forward, puffing on his cigarette as he replied, "Every chick asks me that sooner or later, Morgan."
As they watched him advanced down the hallway, Zoe drew her head back and asked, "What does that mean?"
Her eyes sliding to the girl, Morgan answered, "Uh, that means he thinks he has a really big gun. Come on. Let's back your friends up."