A shrill scream sounded form a nearby house and I skidded to a halt outside the small dwelling. It was a one story house. The door hung open and another scream sounded.
“I’m in,” I said and started for the door as Charlie took up a position outside the house. Five zombies were making their way across the lawn, but Charlie would deal with them.
I slung my rifle over my shoulder and drew my SIG as I approached the house. The open door allowed me to see into the small living room and I could see things were not as they were supposed to be. The coffee table was across the room and knick knacks were all over the floor. I could see into the kitchen and nothing seemed out of place in there. A scream sounded again as a shot came from outside. I could hear a moaning coming from the hallway leading to the back of the house and I circled wide, aiming down the hallway. I could see a bare foot around the corner and the missing chunk of flesh exposing the bone gave me a pretty good clue what was in front of me.
A second shot sounded outside and another scream penetrated the house. The zombie in front of me pounded on whatever was keeping it from its prey, moaning again. I couldn’t risk a shot since the bullet would likely go through the zombie and the door it was in front of, so I was going to have to use my pickaxe. Trouble was, in the confines of the house, I doubted I was going to have enough room for a killing swing.
Moving to option three, I drew my knife and moved as quietly as I could. The zombie was of medium height, its clothing in rags. Hair had fallen off its decaying head in patches. I was actually glad I couldn’t see its face. I stepped up and plunged my knife into the top of its head. I twisted the knife and the corpse collapsed at the foot of the door. I dragged it out of the way as more shots came from the outside.
I knocked on the door. “Anybody alive in there?”
There was a scrambling, then a young face peered out at me. “Didja kill it?” asked the boy, whose age I guessed to be around twelve.
“Deader than dirt,” I said, pointing to the body.
“Cool! Thanks! I’m Cody and…” the boy’s introduction was interrupted by the hand that pulled him back. His face was replaced by a woman’s, his mother by the resemblance. Her relief was palpable when she saw me.
“Oh God, Mr. Talon. Thank you so much. I don’t know how we would have…” she started.
“Save it for later,” I interrupted, “we need to get out of here, now. There’s zombies inside the fence.” I ushered her and her son out of the house.
We exited just in time to see Charlie shoot another walking dead down. Cody looked around and I could see he was excited. His mother looked scared out of her wits. More zombies were heading our way and we would be overwhelmed if we didn’t do something soon.
“Do you have a car?” I asked, shaking her arm.
She looked at me blankly. “I…yes…it doesn’t have any gas…”
I turned to Cody. “You need to get your mother to the city hall right away. Can you do that without being seen by the zombies?”
Cody actually saluted me. “You bet! C’mon, Mom!” He took her by the hand and led her away, sneaking into the backyards of the row of houses.
As I looked around for a second, I knew we had to stop the breach. I tapped Charlie on the shoulder. “We need a vehicle that runs,” I said, unslinging my rifle and shooting a stray zombie. The line of undead worked its way back to the breach and the numbers were getting heavier.
Charlie nodded. “Follow me.” He ran up three houses and stopped outside a house identical to the one we had been in. Opening up the garage door, there was a dilapidated pickup truck sitting in the garage. Charlie walked over to it, hopped inside, and started it right away. I just stood there with my mouth open. Charlie backed the vehicle out and pulled up along side me.
“You coming or what?” he asked.
I was stunned. “How the hell did you know that was there and how the hell did you know it would start? Nobody’s that lucky.” I said as I climbed in.
Charlie grinned at me through his mask. “That’s my ex brother-in-law’s house. This is his truck.”
I was still in shock. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”
Charlie shrugged. “I never liked the asshole.” He gunned the engine and sped towards the breach. “Got a plan?”
“Yeah,” I said, shaking off my disbelief. “Ram this sucker into the container and close the hole.”
“Works for me.”
We came within sight of the opening, which trickled dead people like an hourglass from hell. They were spread out around us, but at the sight of the truck, started to converge.
“Now or never!” I said, buckling up and rolling down my window. A beer can poked me in the small of my back, but I ignored it for the time being.
Charlie gunned the engine and sped forward, knocking zombies left and right. One got caught on the hood and moaned at us until it slid off. Charlie got as much speed out of the old truck as he could, then we slammed headfirst into the container, knocking it back and sealing off the fence.
We didn’t have time to admire our handiwork. We had crushed a number of zombies in the headlong rush, but there were still many out there and headed our way. I popped out of the cab and shot the nearest zombie. Another came close from the side and had to be taken down with a rifle butt to the face, followed by a boot stomp to the head. Not the neatest way to kill them, but whatever works.
I could hear gunfire to the north and I hoped like crazy the sheriff had gotten his people in place, otherwise this was going to be a long day, with house by house clearing. Fortunately, most of the townspeople were accounted for, save for the few stragglers like Cody and his mom.
Charlie slammed his door against a ghoul that had gotten too close and the door had a nasty black stain where the dead girl’s goo got on it. He kicked her back when she got up, then used a tomahawk to finish her.
I jumped up into the bed of the truck, figuring to lesson the likelihood of being overrun and Charlie did the same. We pulled our rifles, checked our magazines, and started killing.
After about three minutes, my ammo ran dry. I had fifty dead people on my side and Charlie had about the same. “I’m out,” I said, holding out my hand for a magazine.
Charlie slapped my hand away. “What do I look like, an ammo dump?” he asked.
“You really want to know what you look like?” I eyed a group of Z’s shuffling closer. “You got ammo or not?”
Charlie fired a round, then looked at his rifle as the bolt stayed open. “That’s it for me.”
“Time to go,” I said, slinging my rifle over my shoulder and pulling out my pickaxe. I jumped off the bed of the truck and ran towards the first zombie, Charlie right behind me. I swung my weapon hard at its head, knocking it off its feet and into the path of three of its cousins. They tumbled to the ground and we planted them for good as they tried to get up again.
Running up Route 113, I ran towards South Broadway Street, pausing once to listen to the sounds of the town. I could hear moans all around me, but there didn’t seem to be any screaming. I did hear shots to the north, so I turned up Broadway and ran to the sound. In our wake, about a hundred zombies slowly worked their way up the street. Too many to handle without serious firepower. Between the two of us, Charlie and I had about seventy-five rounds of ammo for our pistols, but since there was no immediate threat as long as we kept moving, I wanted to save the ammo for real emergencies.
We ran unopposed until we reached Third Street, then we were blocked by a small crowd of about seven walking corpses. They were headed to the sound of the shots, but when we came running up, they turned around. Various noises came out of their mouths as they saw us, and as one, started for us.
“Left.” Was all I said. Charlie moved to the right without a word, his tomahawks swinging wide as he limbered up his shoulders. I moved to engage a small man, about sixty, if it was possible to judge age on a dead person who had been walking around about a year longer than he should have been. His torso was bare and a large strip of grey skin hung off of him, as if he was in the process of being skinned when he reanimated. I slammed the point of my pickaxe into his temple, dodging his long arms as they reached for my flesh. As he fell, I jerked my weapon out of his head and swinging it in a high arc, crushed the skull of a woman who wheezed at me, her throat torn out.
I stepped back, giving myself some room from the other two that had begun to crowd close. They looked like twins, roughly the same size and shape. They moved as one, which presented a problem since I could only kill one at a time.
I hit on a solution, literally. My foot bumped my first zombie and I reached down to grab him by the ankles. Swinging him around like the sack of shit that he was, I threw him at the twins. The three bodies collided and went down in a heap. I stepped up and spiked the first twin, while the second grabbed my ankle and tried to bring it in for a bite. I stepped back, dragging the Z with me, then killed it with a blow to the back of its head. It sounded like dropping a coconut off a three-story building. I was actually used to it, something a year ago I would never have thought possible.
I looked around for another enemy, but Charlie had finished off the other three. I pointed down the street and we both looked at the crowd working its way towards us. That would have not been so bad, except the crowd was dead and wanting to rip us apart and eat us. Not my party, thanks.
We jogged farther north and reached Fourth Street. I could see the town hall from where we were and things seemed to be holding. Sheriff Harlan had pulled his people off the wall and they were concentrated in a ring around the town hall. The zombies were being held back by a string of cars that had been placed in front of the building and groups of people were dealing with the ones that managed to get past the cars. I could see Tommy and Jason directing crews of people to the defense, knocking the zombies over with long poles, then rushing in to smash their heads in with hammers, sledgehammers, picks, and pipes. I wondered briefly why the firing had stopped, since I found it hard to believe that everyone had run out of ammo. Maybe they were saving it for last ditch fighting.
Charlie and I watched for a second, as I was unsure how we could help. We couldn’t work our way forward without running into a mess of zombies and with the crowd behind us coming up, we were in the unenviable position of right in the damn middle. So far, we hadn’t been noticed by the attacking zombies, they were focused on the meals in front of them.
Charlie bumped me and pointed to an area by the side of the building. It looked like the zombies from the side were going to get in and attack the defenders from behind. We had no choice, we had to do something or everyone was going to die.