S. Davis - 900 Miles

Ignoring the flaming boxes now floating directly over me, I instinctively felt one foot move over the other as I took off into a sprint down the narrow top of the cinderblocks. In my gut, I knew that if the creature made it to the cars, the explosion would be catastrophic.

Once I arrived directly above the burning beast that continued to spin erratically as it headed toward the first car in the parking lot, I dove down onto the concrete, pulling the rifle up to my eye. For a moment, everything went still, as if time had stopped. No noise, just my breath as I slowly pulled the sight across the flaming skull of the death armor. Sliding my finger across the trigger, I thought to what Kyle had told me atop the school… You’re a terrible shot.

Letting a deep breath out as I heard the trigger click back, I felt the rifle push into my shoulder. In near amazement, I watched as the bullet passed directly through the creature’s skull, dropping it like a flaming sack of potatoes into a pile of burning flesh just yards away from our fuel tanks.

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed. I was as surprised as anybody.

Pulling myself back on my feet, I glanced at Kyle and the rest of the group. They were standing with their backs against the cinderblock wall, just out of the line of sight from the gunship, as the second series of flaming boxes released from the chopper above. Leaning back against the topside of the wall myself, I watched as the gunship once again riddled the Yard with bullets, spitting up blood-soaked mud in all directions, dropping men and creatures alike.

Seconds later, the flaming wreckage from the boxes started to shift and move as the dead began to pull themselves up. Some crawling, others still able to walk, they all moved in different directions, branching out like a disease through the sludge-covered Yard.

Only this time, we were ready for them.

With the gunship turning around to follow the Chinook, Kyle stepped forward out of the shadows and screamed, “Fire!” as he and seven other heavily armed people laid waste to the creatures. From the distance, it must have looked like a small war inside our walls as the light from the muzzle flashes and fire refracted through the smoke and clouds up above.

Led by Kyle, the firing squad systematically created a half-circle around the twenty or so Zs, dropping each of them into that giant bonfire of death. Legs, arms, torsos all decimated as Kyle’s line stoked the flame with each of the fallen monsters, shooting burning ash up into the sky.

Just as quickly as it had started, everything went silent as the final Z splashed down into the mud. Looking down, I found myself amazed at how Kyle had been able to pull everybody together without Jarvis.

With my back still against the wall, I watched the headlights slice between each of the crenellations. Illuminating the rising smoke, it gave the illusion of souls floating into the heavens. Thinking of the burnt flesh smoldering in the Yard, I’m not so sure it wasn’t.

Gripping the rifle close to my chest, I turned toward the field, ducking down with my eyes just high enough to see the blinding lights still inching toward our walls. Unable to see past them, I couldn’t help but wonder what madness Gordon would throw at us next.

Deciding to join the men below, I crawled over to the nearest wooden ladder and slid down until my boots hit the loose mud. Noticing every able-bodied person grabbing the creatures piled up in the now-smoldering fire and spreading them out around the Yard, I darted over to Kyle. Breathing heavily, I stopped at his feet and lifted the other side of one of the creatures he was carrying until we had it covering an open space in the field.

When I looked him with an eyebrow raised, he simply said, “They need to think we’ve retreated to the bunker.”

Knowing exactly what he meant, I nodded my head before sprinting back to the fire. Bending down, I dragged what was left of another creature to an open piece of field. Trying to stay quiet, we all did our part. Now we had to hope that Gordon would take the bait.

Lying adjacent to the wall, covering myself in mud, I looked around to the rest of the people hiding in the corners of the Yard as we waited. The dampness had soaked to my bones, and I had to fight hard to keep my body armor from rattling as my body shivered.

A simple bluff. Sometimes they paid off big. Sometimes you get called and lose everything. On that day, all we could do was hope that Lady Luck was back on our side. There was no other choice.

As the engine from the gunship boomed back to life, we all held our breaths and listened while the sound rumbled closer and closer to the Yard. Feeling the water pooling up around my stomach, I looked up and saw Kyle crouched down behind one of the sets of ladders with his eyes glued to the clouds.

My hiding spot is absolute shit , I thought to myself, just as the spotlight from the gunship entered the Yard, quickly followed by the chopper, which began circling around the inside of our walls. With my face sideways in the mud, I shielded my eyes as anything not bolted down spun up in the air from the downdraft while the spotlight moved from body to body.

With any luck, the chopper would make the assumption that we’d retreated back to the bunker, signaling the troops to move in on the wall. While it may seem crazy to want Gordon’s men to move in, we didn’t have much of a fighting chance with that gunship flying overhead and Gordon’s men out of firing range. Our only hope would be if they came closer, moving in for the fight, maybe letting their guard down, thinking they had us. Maybe giving us that little wedge of a shot, we’d need to turn this thing in the right direction.

Continuing to fly overhead, the gunship was lingering longer than I would have expected. I couldn’t keep my mind at rest. Was it too easy for them? Had we played this card too early?

I froze, not moving a muscle as the spotlight moved in my direction. Holding my breath, I closed my eyes as the bright light passed directly over me, sliding along the entire interior of the Yard. Exhaling, I slid my face slightly up to see the damn thing hovering right in the middle of everything.

With a crack, a gunner with a large-caliber machine-gun pointing out from the right-hand side of the chopper started to take random shots down into the Yard. Cutting bodies in half, the bastards inside had decided to do what in business we called “spot checking.” They didn’t want to shoot everything, but they’d started to randomly test by blowing holes through some of the bodies below. They were trying to call our bluff.

Sometimes running is easy. It’s remaining still that’s really hard. I know I had the urge to get up and run, so I was sure others did as well. It took everything I had in me as one of the dead Zs less than three feet from my head burst into a bloody mess when the gunman set his sight on it.

I knew it as well as everybody else. Our plan hinged on nobody making a move, so I lay there trying to become one with the mud as the gore from the creature slid across my face, into my nose, and down my lips.

The gunfire moved over to the trucks near the fuel where there were a few men hidden under the trucks themselves. Glass and metal shards flew up into the air as the chopper chipped away at a black Jeep Wrangler. Moving to another vehicle, the gunman nailed a tire, dropping the vehicle down far enough to catch the leg of one man that was hidden beneath it. Cringing, I could nearly feel his leg being shattered. Still, he didn’t make a sound. He held his ground, probably saving us all.

Then, just like that, as quickly as it had flown in, the gunship lifted into the air and floated back across the field.

I’m not sure if I’d actually taken a breath while the gunship hovered above the trucks, but I found myself nearly hyperventilating as it flew away. I wiped the dripping black gore from my face and stood up with the rest of the thirty or so people still left to fight. We all knew what we had to do.