Craig Dilouie - Tooth And Nail

“Our father who art in heaven!” McLeod rasps, tears streaming down his stubble, mowing down the Mad Dogs still biting frantically at his dead friend’s face, tearing away pieces of flesh and spitting them out.

Nearby, Corporal Hicks falls on his ass, one of his arms mangled and bleeding and the other holding his carbine, still shooting while the rest of the soldiers struggle to form a defensive square and fix bayonets.

A grenade flies into a second-story window and instantly detonates with a flash, ejecting glittering hot glass and flaming debris down onto the street, followed by a drifting veil of smoke and dust.

McLeod staggers and bumps into Ruiz, who is slowly retreating while rapid-firing his M4 Super 90 shotgun. The air is thick with smoke and the stench of infection. As the smoke descends upon the street, he catches glimpses of Hicks and Wheeler being torn into shreds. They reach the defensive square only to find it already gone. Back to back, McLeod and Ruiz create a three-hundred-sixty-degree zone of death for the Maddies.

The SAW grows hot in his hands, and suddenly clicks empty.

“Final protective fire,” Ruiz says, then stumbles away, dropping his smoking shotgun. He is clutching his neck, blood running through his fingers.

“Sergeant?” McLeod says, unable to believe his eyes.

Ruiz is indestructible. He can’t die.

He was not bitten; a stray bullet caught him.

“Emmanuel!” the man gasps, falling to his knees.

“Man down!” McLeod screams automatically, knowing it is useless to call for help.

He rushes forward to pull the Sergeant to safety but is suddenly shoved to the ground in the swirling melee of soldiers and infected. A Mad Dog trips over him, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Gasping for air, he sees Ruiz on his hands and knees, struggling to stand up, surrounded by Maddies hanging onto him and biting every inch of his body.

“Sergeant!” he calls out.

A knee cracks against the back of his head. The world goes black except for a few colorful sparking stars. By the time his vision clears, Ruiz has already been transformed into road kill, a headless and armless torso crushed and studded with fragments of glass.

“You motherfuckers,” he says, crying with helpless rage. “You didn’t have to do that to him. You didn’t have to do that.”

A grenade explodes nearby, sending charred and broken bodies collapsing around McLeod and soaking him in blood and smoking scraps of flesh. Another cloud of smoke and dust flows across the crowd. The high-pitched screams of the dying penetrate the loud ringing in his ears. Sobbing hysterically, he crawls between the running legs through the filth and glass until he is able to pull himself into the yellow cab and curl up shaking in a fetal ball in the backseat. The car rocks and jolts like a boat in the storm as the infected pour around him, finishing the slaughter of the doomed boys of Third Platoon.

Outside, the screams reach a crescendo.

Our father, who art in heaven

The crackle of small arms fire begins to die out. A Mad Dog runs into the side of the cab, smashing its face against the window and cobwebbing the glass. The foul-smelling corpse in the driver’s seat sways with the impact, its head rolling and grinning.

Our father who art in heaven

Our father who art in heaven

A final flurry of gunshots, then nothing but the tramp of thousands of feet and a primal, almost triumphant growl from thousands of mouths.

Our father

I had no choice

There were once ten of them. Now there are four heading north through a wasteland, dirty and tired and bloody, while infected mobs pound the garbage-strewn alleys and side streets in a never-ending hunt for fresh meat.

They are the last of the main column after Bowman took the rest of the platoon east to divert the Mad Dogs: McGraw, Mooney, Wyatt and the scientist, Dr. Petrova.

They march in single file close to the buildings, staying in the shadows. With each step, the gunfire and shouting recedes further behind them until they can see the greenery of Central Park beckoning to them and promising sanctuary.

More than once, they have had to hide to avoid bands of Maddies, all heading south towards the shooting.

A metal garbage can rolls into view from behind the next corner, trailing garbage, and comes to a halt in the gutter. Slimy rats pour out of it, scrambling for cover.

Petrova groans with revulsion, her nails digging into Mooney’s arm. She has faced every horror without faltering but his arm, the usual target of her channeled hysteria, is now covered with scratches and bruises.

Mooney accepts the abuse without complaint. He likes the attractive scientist, but that is only part of it. The pain keeps him from screaming in fear and revulsion and grief himself.

McGraw has called a security halt. Chewing on his handlebar mustache, his eyes wide behind his tinted sunglasses, he signals that he wants Mooney and Wyatt front and center.

Mooney gestures at Petrova, but the Sergeant does not care. There is nobody else. The last time they ran into a mob of infected, Carrillo, Finnegan, Ratliff, Rollins, Eckhardt and Sherman were cut off, climbed into the bed of a pickup truck and made a stand.

And now they are dead. They know this because they had to come back for the radio and found their bodies scattered like mangled, discarded puppets.

Wyatt offers Mooney one of his gimpy grins, making his big glasses crooked, and then winks. Mooney nods, wearing an expression of hopeful sadness. They’ve brought each other luck so far. They can’t die now.

McGraw punches the air, pointing.

Prepare for action.

Mooney and Wyatt creep up to the corner, weapons held ready to shoot. Other than two charred, burned-out police cars at an abandoned checkpoint, the street appears empty. Perhaps the garbage can just fell over. It happens.

He is about to signal that the area is clear. Then he sees movement.

It is a dog. A pack of them. Filthy, feral dogs, feasting on a child.

“Hey!” he says.

Wyatt hisses at him to shut up, but he cannot stand the sight of that boy being eaten.

“Git!”

One of the dogs slouches closer, its lips peeled back and its ears flat, snarling in defense of its meat.

Mooney looks down at his bayonet. He is not allowed to shoot unless it is a matter of life and death; otherwise, it is the bayonet. But he does not want to get into a knife fight with a pack of feral dogs carrying God knows what diseases.

He picks up a beer bottle off the ground and throws it at the dogs, who scatter with snarls and yelps, licking their bloody chops.

“Dude, check it out,” Wyatt says. “Hajjis on our three.”

Four teenage boys stand across the street, wearing dirty hoodies and looking at them.

Wyatt adds, “You think they’re infected?”

Mooney shakes his head, unsure. He raises his hand and waves.

The boys exchange a glance. One waves back.

“I don’t think so, Joel.”

The boys start walking towards them, glancing both ways, out of habit, before crossing the street.

They are holding baseball bats, but of course they would be armed. It would be madness to go outside without some type of protection. But Mooney is not in the mood to take chances anymore.

“That’s close enough,” his says, raising his carbine.

The boys stop in the middle of the street, their eyes vacant, and exchange a long, meaningful glance. They turn back to the soldiers. One of them grins.

As he grins, saliva leaks down his chin. He is infected, but has not turned yet.

They suddenly sprint forward, swinging their bats.

“Stop or I swear to God I’ll shoot you dead,” Mooney says.