Jason Campagna - White Ash on Bone - A Zombie Novel

Some people managed to barricade themselves into sections of the hospital while others fled. The wounded who managed to escape headed to other hospitals or home where they would die within hours and reanimate as the undead.

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Sulla and his ad-hoc militia waited at the bridge. Two sets of double-stacked jersey barriers divided the bridge into sections. Sulla figured they had to hold the zombies at the bridge at all costs. The first barrier would slow the zombies down. This would hopefully allow the defenders to take a few extra cracks at a headshot. If the zombies managed to make it to the second barrier thirty yards distant, it was time to fall back up to the top of the hill to a barrier currently under construction. Several cars were positioned to light up the kill zones when darkness approached.

The pickups that Sulla sent out with snipers had done hearty work on the dead, but the distance to the bridge had closed. The men scrambled out of their trucks and over the barriers to make it to the safety of the militia lines. A quarter of a mile behind them thousands of undead followed in their wake.

"Listen up!" Sulla said, "No one fires until they are close enough to get a clean shot on the head." The men lined up in a straight line along the southern barrier and checked their guns.

Peggy Davil's cameraman, Fred, had elected to stay behind and provide a live feed to the news channel in Pittsburgh. It took awhile, but the affiliate channel had convinced the parent network the footage was real. Fred's camera feed now fed into millions of homes around the world.

The leading zombie was a young teenage girl; she lacked a jaw.

"Baby," a militia man stuttered. "That’s my baby girl."

Sulla recognized the grief-stricken man. He had lost everyone in his family last year in a house fire, everyone but his daughter. The local newspaper had done several articles about it at the time, and the community had been heartbroken.

It was too much for the father to handle. He moved to the edge of the bridge without saying another word. He raised a pistol to his head, and pulled the trigger. His body fell over the side of the bridge. For a moment, everyone was stunned. Sulla could picture the man still standing there, but he was gone.

"Here they come!" someone shouted.

The militia of some sixty men refocused their attention on the undead. The riflemen opened fire all along the line and several zombies fell.

Kayla, the girl’s name is Kayla, Sulla thought. All around the girl zombies fell, but she continued. Bullets flew all around her, but it was as if no one had the heart to end it. She was the last surviving member of her family. She was dead but somehow not.

Sulla raised his gun and directed the sights to the girl's head, but someone shot her before he could pull the trigger. The old sniper put his hand on Sulla's shoulder.

"Some things you don’t want on your conscience," the sniper said.

The militia fired non-stop and dozens of zombies dropped in front of them. The zombies stacked up behind the first barrier and got pressed against it from the growing mass behind them. Several that were shot in the head remained erect because there was no room to fall.

The undead flailed out with their arms and struggled against the press. Here and there, they would fall over the barrier and be taken out by militia bullets.

In a few places, zombies pulled themselves on top of their brethren and tried to crawl forward.

The bodies stacked on top of each other as the militia brought them to their end, again. The first barricade could no longer be seen. It was buried under a mass of dead bodies. The zombies crawled over the growing mound and pressed forward. The pile rolled forward and looked like it came alive like a slow moving blob.

Sulla realized that they couldn’t hold the barricade; there were too many zombies coming down the road. The defenders would either run out of ammunition, or be plain over run by the horde if they continued their current defense. It was time for plan B. Sulla keyed his radio.

"Bring the trucks and tankers up; it’s time to move everyone back," Sulla said.

Two eighteen-wheelers carrying gasoline rumbled on to the bridge and stopped just behind the defenders. Everyone understood a bomb had just been parked up their ass, and no one lacked motivation to retreat south down the highway.

Sulla and a couple of the sniper's stayed at the front of the rigs to cover the drivers long enough for everyone to make it to a vehicle and get up the hill behind them. The zombies were now coming over the second barricade on the bridge, feet away from Sulla. He did the sensible thing and ran for his life to a waiting truck while the dead reached out behind him.

Halfway up the hill, the truck stopped, and everyone with a gun took aim at the tanker trucks. Everyone was scared as hell, but no one wanted to miss out on an opportunity to blow up a fuel truck.

The first shot cracked out and found its mark. It started the chain reaction that caused liquid fuel to rapidly turn into an expanding fireball. The sky lit up. The tank burst open and engulfed the other tanker which was being pushed on its side when it too exploded. The twin shockwave pushed out in every direction. The middle span of the bridge collapsed, and everything within a hundred yards was engulfed in flames. The shockwave reached up the hill and knocked Sulla out of the bed of the truck to the ground. The windows of the vehicle shattered from the blast and scattered all over the road.

Sulla turned over on the ground to find the camera guy, Fred, beside him. His camera was knocked loose and lay broken on the ground.

Upthe hill, Sulla's men cheered while they took their positions at the last barricade.

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Anderson took a deep breath and kicked in the door to the stair well. Two of his troopers rushed into the well and instantly opened fire. Anderson rushed in behind them and saw one of the troopers locked up with a zombie. Anderson brought the butt of his rifle crashing into the skull of the creature, and it went slack. The trooper pushed it to the ground and stomped the head in with his boot. Shots rang out as other soldiers continued down the stairwell.

From the floor above them, the door burst open. Anderson looked up to see a handful of survivors taking the opportunity to flee with the soldiers.

“Stay close if you want to live,” Anderson ordered them.

Anderson moved to the bottom of the stairwell where his men were already set up in a line to breach through the door to the main level of the hospital. The hallway outside was flooded with the undead.

Anderson nodded at Sergeant Winters, and Winters kicked in the door. The first soldier through the door slipped on muck that was coating the floor. He sent bullets spraying out at randomly into the zombies. Three rounds went through the chest of an undead nurse in pink scrubs.

A zombie that had been standing near the door pushed the off-balance soldier to the ground. The next guard behind him put a round through the creature’s head and moved out into the hallway. More soldiers rushed out the door and formed up back-to-back to create a multi directional line of fire. The rifles flashed out angry red flames as they green dotted the undead. Zombies fell all around them.

The guardsmen’s semi-automatic weapons banged out in the marble lined hallway. The smoke from the weapons set off the sprinklers in the corridor making an already slick floor damn near impossible.

Anderson led the group sliding down the hallway to an exit; behind him, the rear guard continued to fire occasional rounds as they engaged targets.

From the exit, it was a quarter of a mile back to the armory and dozens of zombies milled about the landscape.

“Once we start out there,” Anderson said, “we don’t stop for shit.”