“Look at him,” Molly said. “He is about to piss his pants.”
Henry said, “I’m not far behind him.”
“Come on, Henry, we’re going to kick ass and take names,” Molly said.
Henry stepped in close to Molly and said, “This isn’t one of those times where acting tough carries the day.”
“But we’re going to survive this, aren’t we?”
Henry bit his lip and looked out over the approaching horde of zombies. When he looked back at Molly, he said, “I hope so.”
A gunshot sounded from down the wall. Henry jumped, whirled around, and saw an older man with a potbelly leaning over the lip of the wall. His rifle was aimed into the zombies coming toward the wall as he cracked off shot after shot. Most bounced off the pavement. A few slammed into the zombie’s torsos but only managed to knock the creatures back.
Henry took five steps toward the man and yelled in Bonds’ direction, “Get that guy to stop shooting?”
Bonds shook his head and put a hand to his ear in the universal gesture that he couldn’t hear what Henry was saying.
“Open your fucking ears,” Molly screamed as she stepped beside Henry.
“That’s not helpful,” Henry chided, then he returned his attention to Bonds. “Tell him to stop shooting.”
Bonds shook his head, looking like a man with flies buzzing around it, then he said, “Why?”
“It’s wasting bullets,” Henry shouted as he took two more steps in Bonds’ direction. “We don’t have the tricks and traps that are up front. We have to wait until they’re closer.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Bonds said. After that, he whirled around and yelled down the wall, “Jeff, stop shooting.”
“What an idiot,” Molly said as she moved in behind Henry. “We’re doomed if that’s the best we have to lead us back here.”
“Shhhh,” Henry said. “We have no authority here. We have to convince them what is in their best interest.”
“Aren’t you the politician,” Molly said.
Jeff hadn’t heard Bonds and continued to blast away, but his magazine ran dry after five more shots.
“Jeff, cut that shit out,” Bonds said, using the break in shooting to get Jeff to listen. “We have to wait until they get closer.”
The man named Jeff said. “They’re too close where they are now.”
“We don’t have enough bullets to just go off shooting wildly,” Bonds said.
“But I hit a few of them,” Jeff said.
“How many did you put down?” Bonds said.
Jeff put up a hand over his eyes and peered out over the field of the dead headed their way. After a moment, he said, “None.”
“Then stop fucking shooting until they are closer,” Bonds said.
Jeff withdrew his rifle and looked chastened.
Ellen leaned next to Henry’s ear and whispered, “See, you can lead?”
“But I don’t see how we do this,” Henry said.
“We do it by putting one foot in front of the other, and then we take it a step at a time.”
Henry closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. “Thanks, mom.”
Molly screamed, “Henry!”
Henry wasn’t sure what happened next. A whooshing noise filled his ears. Before he could even look, an overwhelming combination of light and sound washed over him, stunning his senses. The next thing he knew, the wall shook beneath him, and he toppled over backward. The last thing he saw in the distance as he fell was his mother disappearing from view as the wall collapsed under her.
Chapter 62
Zombies on the Wall
Zombie bodies clogged the burning moat in over a dozen places, snuffing out the flames. Showing no empathy or remorse for their fallen burned or charred brethren, the zombies surged forward, shambling toward the wall.
“Eli!” Donovan shouted, “get your people ready.”
Eli shook his head a little too frantically, making Donovan think of one of those bobblehead dolls. It wasn’t a good look for Eli and did not inspire confidence.
People moved into position along the wall, aiming their weapons at the oncoming flood of the undead. They came in all shapes and sizes and all states of decomposition. Some missed limbs while others sported sores and deep cuts and gouges in their face, neck, and heads. Others were partially burned. All-in-all, not a pretty sight in any way, shape, or form. For the people on the wall, they were a gruesome and frightening sight.
The leading edge of the horde crossed to within thirty feet of the wall. That’s when they hit a second row of mines. They were few and far between, but the explosions were spectacular. Legs were blown off, and body parts flew through the air, and smoke rolled through the lines of undead. Large holes were made in the approaching line, but the following zombies filled in the open spaces.
With normal, living and breathing enemies, these mines would have acted as a deterrence or least given them pause, but not the zombies. Blood may have splattered across their faces, but they just kept on trucking, ambling toward the wall. Many people on the wall would swear they saw hungry looks on the faces of the zombies.
Eli yelled, “Fire at will!
The people on the wall followed Eli’s command and let loose with a barrage of bullets. It was unrelenting, sounding like the longest twenty-one gun salute to ever take place. Bullets whizzing through the air and slammed into the zombies, knocking them backward. A portion of the shots pierced skulls, putting the deaders down, but many of the bullets buried themselves into the torsos of the dead. They stumbled, and some went down but recovered quickly.
Donovan yelled, “Go for headshots! Headshots!.” But his words were lost in the cacophony of gunfire.
In their fear and excitement, Eli’s people lost their heads more than a little.
There’s a little known study of soldiers in VietNam. In cases where they faced off with the enemy, many soldiers fired over the enemy’s heads or into the ground. Some ingrained taboo against killing another human held them back. Some of the men just didn’t have it in them to kill another person, even if that person was trying to kill you.
While people on the wall would never admit it, or maybe, they didn’t even realize it, many of them followed the VietNam soldiers’ pattern. Maybe a shot flew high. Maybe another one kicked up some soil in front of the zombies. The sum of these little misses left too many zombies alive.
On the other hand, Donovan and Mason made each shot count, but they couldn’t help notice the lack of a body count. Of Eli’s people, Lassiter seemed to be the only one making consistent headshots. For Eli’s part, he was shaky, but he took down his share, too.
In the end, Donovan and Mason knew it was too little and too late. Sooner or later, they’d be battling zombies at the base of the wall.
Still, the people on the wall kept firing. As the zombies got closer, it was as if any of Eli’s people broke through their inhibitions and made more headshots. Fear and the stench of the zombies must have finally motivated them.
It wasn’t enough. When the zombies hit the wall, it was a psychic shock to everyone. A woman next to Mason let out a gasp, put a hand to her mouth.
When he took her in, he saw a pasty-faced, matronly-looking standing there, her sweaty hair pasted against her skull. This wasn’t the place for her. She should be watching one of her kids playing soccer or attending a PTA meeting. Mason would give anything for this woman to have that life because if she had that life, they would all be back there with her. Having family barbecues, going to work each day, earning an honest living, and going about their lives. The lives that they had once lived, but that life was just as dead as the zombies trying to climb the walls to tear the flesh off their bones. To devour them. To end them.
Instead, he yelled, “Keep shooting!”
He aimed his rifle downward and shot into the top of a zombie’s head at the base of the wall. It went down like a sack of potatoes, but the zombies behind it stepped onto its body and began to claw at the wall
, moaning and groaning in frustration.
Mason fired down into the face of a zombie, obliterating it, but when he went to target the next one, his gun made a loud click.
When he looked at his feet, he saw only eight more magazines, and this struck him with an existential sense of dread. On the ground below, he saw a virtual sea of the dead either at the wall or on their way there.
As he reached down, he yelled to be heard over the gunfire, “There’s too many of them. We’re going to run out of bullets.”
Donovan surveyed his ammunition supply and quickly came to the same conclusion that Mason had. “We knew this was coming. Keep shooting until you’re down to four magazines.”
Mason paused as he reloaded, “Why four?”
“We may need some to make a retreat,” Donovan said.
“Where would we run?”
Donovan held Mason in a long stare, considering the situation. “Just hold back four.”
“Whatever you say,” Mason replied.
Five seconds later, he blasted the brains out of the next zombie at the wall, only to have more take its place. He started to target the next deader when he thought this zombie looked just a little bit closer. Maybe it stood a little taller, but when he looked down the wall, he saw dozens and dozens of zombies standing on the backs of the undead lying at the base of the wall.
“Donovan,” he said, but his voice was lost in the resounding gunfire around him, “Donovan!”
When Donavan paused and looked his way, he said, “What?”
“They’re standing on the backs of the ones we take down,” Mason said. “If we keep this up, it’ll be like building them a platform. They’ll be at the top of the wall sooner rather than later.”
“We can only do what we can do,” Donovan said.
“We need to do something,” Mason said. “Maybe we can call Jones and see if he has something.”
“Maybe, but we need to find the smart ones behind all of this,” Donovan yelled back.
“That’ll be almost impossible. Besides these deaders are the immediate threat.”
Donovan closed his eyes and held them that way for a few moments. When he opened them, he said, “Get to Eli and call into Jones. Maybe he has something, but for now, we’ve got to keep these bastards from getting over the wall.”
Chapter 63
Woman Down
The world came back to Henry in reverberating waves. When he fell back after the explosion, his head cracked against the lip of the wall. The blow hadn’t knocked him out, but in the parlance of coaches and boxers, he had his bell rung.
A blurry face floated over him. To Henry, it looked somewhere between a clown and a ghoul of some sort. Its mouth opened and closed. It was uttering some kind of noise, but it was as if the sound was coming down a water-filled pipe a mile under the ocean.
The clown/ghoul continued to move its mouth and the noise slowly broke through the water. The thing was calling his name.
“Henry! Henry! Get up!”
The thing above him slowly came into focus, as if the photographer was not in a hurry to snap the picture. Once it clicked in, Henry saw that it was Molly and her face was constricted in terror.
“Henry you have to get up!” She shouted. “They’re coming. Your mom’s down on the ground.
All the broken and ugly pieces fell into place like a blurry puzzle. They were on the back wall. Something had slammed into the wall. Something Henry didn’t see but felt when it made its impact. The final and most startling piece rushed back to him. His mother’s face falling backward and out of view.
He tried to push himself off the wall, but his arms felt rubbery and weak. Molly must have seen this, so she shot out a hand and Henry reached up and took it. While she was smaller than him, she leaned away from him and put her back into it. Grunting, she had him up and on his feet, but it was a wobbly version of himself.
Gunshot filled the air. When Henry looked down the wall, he saw a part of it was missing. It wasn’t a huge section, but it happened to be where his mother had been standing.
“Gotta...get...to mom,” Henry said.
“You can barely walk,” Molly said.
“Have to,” he said as he started moving forward, one fumbling foot at a time. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the horde heading toward the wall. They were fifty feet away, but they were coming. And his mother was down on that ground.
He pushed past Molly and slowly picked up speed, with each step sending small spikes of pain into his head. He ignored that pain and continued on. Molly followed closely behind him.
Henry made it to the break in the wall. It was wide at the top, but narrowed at the bottom. There was a noticeable gap in the wall, as if it had simply cracked open. It wasn’t huge, but just a little bigger than man-sized. The gears in his head worked slowly, but quickly reasoned that a man-sized gap meant it was a zombie-sized gap, too.
They had been breached.
Bonds shouted down the wall, “Get some people down there by the hole.”
When Henry looked down at the ground, he saw Ellen lying under a pile of bricks and what looked like some kind of support beam. He couldn’t tell if she was alive or dead.
“Mom!” He yelled. “Mom!”
A slender man in camouflage gear came up on the other side of the hole in the wall. “Son, I don’t want to say this, but I think she’s dead.”
Henry turned on the man and said, “Don’t you say that. Don’t do it.” He turned his attention back to Ellen and shouted, “Mom, wake up!”
He stared intently down at Ellen, looking for any signs of life. Anything. She can’t be dead.
Bonds and two other men came running up behind Molly. Henry wasn’t paying that much attention, but he did hear Bonds giving orders.
“We need to get something to fill that gap,” Bonds said. “If we don’t, they’ll get inside.”
Molly said, “They’re getting closer.”
Henry still hadn’t taken his eyes off his mother, hoping to see any movement. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, and sent up a prayer. Please God, let her be alive.
When he opened his eyes, he saw his mom’s eyes fluttered open. They didn’t open wide, but they were open.
“She’s alive,’” Henry said. “I’ve got to get down there.”
Molly grabbed Henry’s shoulder and said, “You can’t go down there. Those fucking deaders are coming.”
Henry looked back at her and said, “I have to, she’s my mom.”
A weak voice sounded from below, “Henry, don’t.”
When Henry looked down, he saw his mother looking up at him. Her face was contorted in pain and her eyes were slitted.
“I’m coming,” he said as he grabbed the lip of the way, ready to vault down to her.
“Don’t,” Ellen said. She was hard to hear over the gunfire.
Molly gripped Henry’s arm, “Don’t go down there.”
When Henry looked back at her, his eyes were filled with tears. “She’s trapped. I have to get her free.”
“You’re right,” Molly said, moving her face closer to his. “She’s trapped. You can’t get her free.”
“I have to try.”
“Son,” the slender man said, “you’ll need a bulldozer and a crane to get her free.”
“I can’t just give up on her.”
“But they’ll be on her in no time,” the slender man said as he pointed toward the oncoming zombies. “There’s no time.”
“But they’ll get her,” Henry said, and he was close to sobbing.
When he looked back down to his mother, he saw her waving him off. There was so much said in that simple wave. She knew there was no hope they could get her free. She didn’t want Henry down on the ground. Not on the same ground that those things were on.
But she also didn’t want those things to get her. What they would do would be awful beyond words.
She laid her head down on the wet grass and looked for her rifle. If she had that,
she could take care of it. So, they couldn’t get her. But her rifle was in the grass just a few feet away. When she stretched out her hand, searing pain sent a mind numbing shock that nearly paralyzed her. The support beam sat across her thighs, crushing them into the ground.
Henry said, “Please. I have to do something.” His voice broke with every word.
Lights blazed onto them from inside the wall. When Molly, Henry, and the slender man looked in the direction of the lights, they saw a Humvee bounding across the parking lot, rolling over parking dividers. It was headed right for the gap in the wall.
“Who the hell is that?” The slender man said, his mouth held partially open.
The Humvee skidded to a stop right inside the wall, kicking up a plume of dust. A dark figure was behind the wheel, but Henry couldn’t tell who it was. The person standing up in the gun turret was totally recognizable, though. It was Clayton Lewis, and he held both of his hands on the triggers of the .50 caliber gun.
The driver had lined up the Humvee perfectly with the gap in the wall. Clayton adjusted his aim and let loose. Bullets sprayed from the end of the gun, flying through the gap and tearing into the deaders thirty feet outside the wall. The bullets shredded, tore into, and exploded zombies with a devastating effect.
The driver’s door burst open and Jo popped out. When she saw Henry at the top of the wall, something came over her. She waved at him just as if she had returned from a drive in the country, instead of nearly barrel rolling a Humvee into the wall.
Just as out of the ordinary as her wave, Henry gave her weak wave back. But the imperative of saving his mom overtook him again and he whirled around. He looked out at the path the big gun had cleared and thought it might be enough to get down to free her.
“There’s a gap there. I’ve got to help her,” Henry said.
Molly grabbed his arm. “Don’t do it.”
“But I have to try,” Henry said. “That gun took out a lot of them.”
“No. You’ll never make it down there and free her before they get on you. You heard the man, there’s no way you get all that shit off of her in time.”
The Deadland Chronicles | Book 4 | Siege of the Dead: Page 28