Timothy Long - Z-Risen - Outbreak

It wasn’t an easy task to navigate the traps and bodies left to rot from the previous incursion, but they came at us anyway. They poured over the remains of the crashed chopper we’d arrived in. They came even though gunfire smashed into them from a running squad making their way for the gate.

An enemy with any sense would have ducked and moved as they sought to find firing positions. These had no care in the world for tactics. These monsters just wanted to eat.

The dead numbered in the thousands, or maybe even the tens of thousands.

Guns opened up in force this time. They fired without respite, .50 cals along the outside walls and men positioned over the newly constructed mesh gate. If we thought we were safe, it was an illusion. As soon as they hit the chain link, our safety, that illusion was gone.

Joel dashed to the line and tapped a gunner on the shoulder. The other man didn’t look at him, just kept on shooting. Joel pulled his pistol, took careful aim, and fired.

Joel was like that. If there was a fight he was there. I wasn’t like that. I would fight if I had too but this was too much. The men and women defending us were looking at a painful death.

If I left now I could probably slip into the mass of people and use my size to my advantage to fight my way to the front of the line. If there was a truck or chopper headed away from this mess, I wanted to be on it.

Who was Joel Kelly anyway? Just a guy I’d been stuck with since our boat was overrun. We’d put up with each other for days. We’d argued, fought together, and even come to be friends. I’d saved his life and he’d saved mine.

“Take the kid and go,” I said to Roz. “Just go. I’ll be there soon.”

“Fuck you, sailor boy. I’m getting in this war.”

Christy grinned up at her. Who the hell was I to tell them to run away?

Jesus Christ, was I the only sane one? Now was my chance. I hadn’t asked to be shackled with this bunch. I might be better off on my own.

Who was I kidding?

“Oh, fuck a duck!” I said and went to join Joel.

I wasn’t the only one. A number of civilians did the dumb thing, like me, and moved toward the action. They carried what weapons they could gather, mostly melee, but some had guns. Military guys roared up in jeeps and spun to expose beds laden with huge cases. These were dragged into the center of the action and broken open. Automatic weapons gleamed back at us. Cases of ammo and magazines, some full, were also left out for us.

I grabbed a machine gun of some sort, probably some gun Joel could wax poetically about for days telling me the exact length of the trigger action and round capacity. In another box I found full magazines. I picked up a box of shells and went to find a nice corner to plan my death.

The horde came on and was answered with lead. As the horde closed, and even picked up speed, it became apparent that we had minutes at most. You’d think that twenty or thirty people shooting could handle anything but we were outnumbered. For every body that fell there were five to take its place.

And there were shufflers. A lot of shufflers. They were in the pack but many of them held back as the slow ones went to do their dirty work. I swear those goddamn things still have half a brain.

The fortifications outside of the gate did a lot to help slow the dead. They got hung up on barbed wire and stuck to posts. Some were fired upon while others left to lift their hands and reach for us in vain. Losers.

I ducked and moved toward Joel Kelly. He was outside the gate, on one knee, aiming and firing with grim determination. His position was right next to an overturned truck. I touched his shoulder and he looked back and shot me a wink.

“Glad you could make it, bud.” He aimed and dropped a woman dressed in the remains of a nightgown. She fell without a sound and was quickly trampled beneath the mass behind her.

Next to him was someone I didn’t expect. Anna Sails fired in rapid succession with a gun as long as her legs, and she wielded it like a pro. She fired, shifted, aimed, fired again, and every time her gun boomed one of them dropped.

“Civilians are being moved out in trucks. Buy them time. Fall back when the horde gets close. We got a surprise for them.” A man with a bullhorn shouted at us. I thought it might be Lee and had a hastily constructed plan where he accidentally takes a bullet, but when I looked back it wasn’t him.

It didn’t take long for us to create a wall of bodies but it didn’t do much to deter them. A couple of shufflers leapt off the top and came down near some of our guys. They were quickly shot down, but it was close.

The first line must have gotten some signal. They dropped down low while the line behind them stopped firing. They scurried back and the second line opened up again. We were about fifteen feet from the gate and when they called for us to do the same.

Five or six guys ran out as we retreated. They carried bandoliers covered in metal globes. They stopped, pulled pins, and tossed a wave of grenades at the approaching horde. I was already on the run when the explosions shook the ground and I didn’t look back.

We were cutting it close. The dead were only a few feet away when Anna Sails stowed her weapon on her shoulder and ran after us. I kept an eye on her and even shot a shuffler as it leapt out of the mass. I hit him with three or four bullets but they only ripped into his body. He was blown to the side, but he was a quick one and rolled to his feet. With an Olympian leap he managed to take down one of our guys. The soldier howled in fury but got off a shot and hit the bastard in the head. Brains exploded and one of his buddies stopped to pull him out from under the corpse.

“Everyone in, now!” The guy with the bullhorn roared, so we hauled ass.

As we cleared the gate the heavy machinery we’d seen earlier in the day roared to life. A pair of fences sections had been tied to the bulldozer. It rammed into the horde with a sound that will haunt my nightmares for years to come. It came to a halt after crushing a great many of them, and then backed up with a flash of yellow lights and piercing alarm.

Joel helped Anna in but she shrugged off his hand and went to stand with a group she seemed to know. They set up a new firing line behind the fence while the rest of our guys filed inside. It was all high fives and way to go’s but not everyone was happy. Edward, the man I’d met in the mess hall, looked haunted. He also looked like he needed to find a bucket.

Behind us, civilians moved onto trucks that lurched away. Some didn’t wait and tried to crowd on to full trucks or jump on board before they had stopped moving. When the Z’s hit the fence it was pandemonium.

“We should go, Joel,” I said and grabbed his arm.

He pointed toward the crane we’d seen when we first arrived.

Its arm moved into the air, lifting a huge claw and then it swept own and cleared a path. Not even a hundred Z’s could stand up to the crane’s power as it swept back and forth.

The mass was here, though, and it was a matter of time before this entire base was overrun.

A shuffler hit the fence and tried to climb it, but Anna Sails shot him through the head.

“Yeah, it’s time,” Joel said.

I looked around and spotted Roz and Christy. She’d abandoned the little handgun in favor of a machine gun. It has huge in her hands as she moved away.

Our pace was brisk and soon we ran into others that were fleeing. We had to slow, but at least we were moving toward safety.

Then I heard a sound to my left. The horde had swung around or broken off and had reached the fenced in there. Reinforced by long metal bars the chain-link still wasn’t strong enough to withstand the impact. A pair of shufflers launched themselves at the top of the wall and one managed to reach the razor wire. He got hung up. I took a lot of joy in pausing for a minute to shoot it three or four times. No headshot but he slumped after the last bullet ripped through his upper body.