J. Knoll - Zoe, Undead

Four bullets left. They would have to count.

Holstering her revolver, Zoe tried to push back against them, tried to push this wall of the undead away, but one of them grabbed her wrist, another her other arm, still another reached through and grabbed her shirt. They had never done this before and panic began to well up in the girl and she fought to get away from them. They were pulling her away from the door, toward the heart of the mob and she fought wildly against them, crying out like a frightened child as still more hands clutched at her.

Zoe screamed wildly and fought with all she had to free herself, to free one arm, one hand. If only she could reach that revolver!

More hands grabbed her, pulling at her clothing, her hair, her arms and legs. Their strength easily overwhelmed her. Even as she struggled against them she was pulled from the ground and drawn into the seething mass of undead former humanity. Zoe screamed and cried, her eyes tightly closed as she fought with primal panic. As one hand released her, another grabbed on to pull her further from the doorway she fought to guard.

Hope abandoned her. The fight drained away in an instant and she just allowed them to drag her away.

Her next realization was concrete against her back, hands holding her down to it, and the moans of the undead all around her. Slowly, she opened her eyes, her gaze darting around from one to the next. She could not see through the wall of zombies that surrounded her. Those closest to her, holding her were crouched down or on their knees. Many, many more stood behind them, and all had their attention on her. A zombie woman with completely white eyes who held her left wrist and elbow drew a wheezing breath, then let it out in a long moan that ended in a strangled gurgle.

"Let go of me," Zoe whimpered.

A large man in overalls to her right slowly bent toward her, pressing his hand against her breastbone as he put much of his weight on her. His face lowered toward hers and he sniffed loudly in long breaths, and did so many times. One of his eyes was completely white while the other still had the pinpoint of a pupil right in the middle, and this pinpoint was focused on her neck.

Panic surged through the girl and she tried to shrink away as he lowered his mouth to her throat. Turning her head away, she found herself crying and tried to pull her arms free once again. Horrible thoughts rampaged through her imagination and she screamed and tried to get away again, but more hands found her, pinning her legs down and more grabbed onto her arms.

The zombie that was sniffing her grabbed onto her throat and forcibly turned her head, sniffing the side of her head that had rested on Zachary only an hour before.

Zoe did not know why they were suddenly so interested in her, but they were sure they intended to eat her, and eat her alive. More of them bent over to sniff her and she felt other hands tugging at her shirt. One of them grasped her shorts at the belt line and pulled against them and she felt them creep down her hip. Twisting to prevent this, she screamed, "Stop!" as she fought them one last time. A hand grasped her shirt at the neckline, another slid along her belly under it. She was sure they intended to suddenly rip her open and this sickening thought spent the last of her horror in one more surge of frenzied struggles. "Stop!" she screamed again. "Let me go!" Drawing the deepest breath she could, a primal scream exploded from her. "Help me! Please, somebody help me!"

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?"