Jinx wrapped his off-hand around the chain, enough to support his weight. He pulled his handgun, and then opened fire, one by one popping rounds into rotted foreheads, dropping them.
A few seconds later, the other three members of his team were level with him, joining in the execution of the ghouls.
“Landing zone is clear!” Jinx said, holstering his gun. “Move!”
The four troops dropped the rest of the way to the ground, quickly finding their footing on the sand and raising their assault rifles.
“Jarvis with me,” Jinx said, moving his hand in quick flicks of his wrist. “Rollins, Davila, other side.”
He moved to the left of the ship, taking aim at the twenty or so zombies that moved towards them, the closest five yards away. The duo acted as a single unit, moving forward and executing ghouls with precision, stepping over the fallen corpses to reach the next one in line.
The entire firefight was over in a matter of moments, with the two soldiers mowing through the crowd with ease. As Jarvis shot the last remaining zombie in the face at nearly point blank range, she turned and gave her Corporal a high five.
“Fucked ‘em up, Jinx,” she declared.
He nodded. “Yeah, we did,” he agreed with a grin. “Lot more waiting on the same treatment, let’s move.”
They rushed back to the ship as Stein and Burch hit the ground.
“Let’s go,” Jinx called, “rally point.”
The four soldiers moved across the beach, headed towards the old shack at the far end. As they went, they saw a trail of death from Rollins and Davila who’d cut through the immediate group of zombies.
When they spotted the shack, fifty yards away, there were several zombies emerging from the woods. As they ran, gunshots boomed from the ship, and the zombies began to fall as the backs of their heads exploded.
Rollins and Davila took a knee on the side of the shack as the other four caught up, and the shorter man nodded to the Corporal.
“Off to a good start,” Davila said.
Jinx nodded. “Yeah, we navigated through your handiwork on the beach,” he said. “Nice job.”
“So what’s next?” Rollins asked, keeping watch on their flank.
Jinx looked out from behind cover towards the woods, which was about fifty yards away, running for hundreds of yards in both directions. There were dozens of rotted corpses emerging from the trees, and they were starting to make headway to the ship, the numbers greater than what the snipers could keep up with.
The Corporal pulled out a satellite image of the area on their side of the bridge. “Bridge is on the south part of town, so let’s stick as close to the south as we can,” he said, running his finger along the paper. “The woods are going to be a bitch with as many of those things, so we need to push through. Rally point is this wrecker yard looking place. Teams of two, watch each other’s backs, and let’s move.”
He and Jarvis broke off first, Davila and Rollins shortly after, leaving Burch and Stein as the final team.
The three mini-teams broke out into the open, spreading out about ten yards apart from each other and racing towards the tree line. There were a few dozen zombies ahead of them, with more coming out of the woodwork as they grew closer.
“Knock ‘em down and keep moving,” Jinx said.
The duo reached the first few who were a few yards apart. Both soldiers lowered their shoulders and rammed into a zombie each, sending the flailing corpses tumbling to the ground. Their presence drew the attention of numerous zombies around them, who quickly changed their target from the ship to them.
Jinx and Jarvis made it to the woods, seeing the trees packed full of the dead, but at least broken up thanks to the thick trunks. They darted to the left, hoping to put a little distance between them and the other two teams.
The Corporal led the way, his partner a few yards behind. He drew his handgun for close encounters, as they were far too many creatures to simply push through. He came around a tree, quickly popping a zombie in the head before shoving the lifeless corpse aside.
There was a torrent of gunfire coming from the other two teams, and he furrowed his brow in concern, wondering how bad it was on the other side. He had to concentrate on himself, however, as he came around a thick trunk and spotted half a dozen creatures blocking his path.
“Jarvis!” he barked.
She stepped up with her assault rifle, peppering the zombie group with some three-round bursts, dropping most of them. The Corporal put a bullet in the last remaining creatures for good measure.
“Five outta six, not bad,” he said, and she wrinkled her nose as she followed him deeper into the woods.
They avoided the outstretched hands of several ghouls continually drawn to their noise. Soon, the daylight at the far end of the woods peeked through to them.
“Keep pushing, almost there,” Jinx said.
He took out a few more zombies, making their run a bit easier. They pumped their legs hard, darting around a couple more trees before emerging into a field on the other side of the woods. There were a handful of corpses in the field, but they were spread out fairly well.
“Looks like the first wave of those things aren’t too bad,” Jinx mused. “Snipers and those other teams should be able to clear them out.”
He glanced to the right, hoping to see his teammates emerging, but they hadn’t yet. Instead, all he heard was more gunfire in the woods. He took a deep breath, and then glanced at Jarvis, whose eyes were hard to mask her own concern.
“They can handle themselves,” the Corporal assured her, “let’s get a move on.”
Jinx and Jarvis moved briskly across the field, avoiding the spread out zombies as they went. Soon, they hit a road and started moving to the south. A quarter mile later they spotted the driveway to Eddie’s Scrapyard.
“Stay alert,” he said quietly, “silent kills if possible.”
Jarvis nodded and slung her rifle over her shoulder, drawing her knife as they jogged down the dirty driveway. As they grew closer to the small building, they spotted numerous broken down cars stacked up along the side of the road.
The sounds of moaning and flesh smacking against metal erupted from the other side of the wall of cars, but it didn’t seem as if the creatures could get through.
Jinx rushed up to the window of the small dilapidated building that looked like it would collapse if someone punched it in just the right place. He peered inside, seeing a darkened messy office, but no movement.
“Let’s get inside,” he whispered, and turned the knob, but it was locked. He studied the door for a moment, the weathered wood with peeling paint, and then gave it a forceful straight kick. The entire frame shattered, and the door hung open. “Knock, knock,” he murmured.
They stood at the entrance, waiting patiently for something to come out, but nothing did. Just to be safe, they did a quick sweep of the building, finding it empty.
“See if you can find anything useful and wait on the others,” Jinx instructed.
Jarvis raised an eyebrow. “Where are you off to?” she asked.
“Going to check and see what’s coming up,” he replied, and then headed out of the building. He checked the satellite image of the area, noting a short line of trees to the north of the junkyard. On the other side of that was the main residential area that stretched on for several blocks before the bridge.
He readied his knife, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and walked through the woods. There were only a couple of zombies milling about, both of whom had become entangled in roots and branches, writhing in anger at being unable to free themselves. They got agitated when they spotted a fresh meal, moaning and thrashing about.
“Was going to let you slide,” the Corporal muttered, “but you had to start making a racket.” He stepped up and executed two swift knife blows, slumping the creatures over in their entangled mess. He cleaned his knife off on one of their shirts before sheathing it.
Moans erupted from the other side of the
woods, and he moved slowly and silently. He inched to the edge of the trees, stopping about ten yards before exiting, which was close enough to see out without giving up his position.
He swallowed hard at the sight of a small army of zombies, easily hundreds of them, closer to a thousand than zero. All of them moved up the street towards the gunfire coming from the ship, faint but still loud enough to attract attention.
Shit, he thought bitterly, if this group makes it to the beach they can forget about gaining a foothold. We’re gonna have to do something.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jinx ran back through the woods, getting to the rally point as Davila and Rollins walked up the driveway. They turned and saw the Corporal running towards them, which made them stiffen for a moment before they realized nothing was chasing him.
“Holy shit, you scared the fuck out of me,” Davila said, letting out a deep whoosh of breath. “Thought we had a runner.”
Jinx shook his head, chest heaving. “It’s worse than that,” he replied. “Come on, let’s get to the others.”
They picked up the pace, reaching the building where the other three members of their team stood waiting.
“What did you find?” Jarvis asked.
The Corporal took a deep breath. “There are a thousand of those things on the other side of the tree line, and they’re all headed towards the ship,” he said. “If we don’t distract them, there’s no way our guys will get a foothold.”
Jarvis cocked her head, smiling as she held up a set of keys. “It’s a good thing I found these, then,” she declared, jingling the keys.
The boys all shared confused glances, and she smiled even bigger, waving for them to follow her. She led the pack out the back door towards the personal parking lot. As the lot came into view, the soldiers stopped short and stared at the sight.
“That…” Burch gaped. “That is a big ass truck.”
Standing before them was a souped up pickup truck, with a major lift kit and oversized wheels. It wasn’t quite a monster truck like one would see at rallies, but the front bumper was almost four feet off of the ground. It was jet black, with tack fire decals running down the side of it from the front wheels.
“Did we hit a teleporter and end up in Alabama?” Stein asked.
Burch barked a laugh. “You tell us,” he said. “Do you have the sudden urge to fuck your sister?”
“Nah, wouldn’t want your sister to get jealous,” Stein shot back.
Davila snorted. “Please, you couldn’t get Burch’s sister with a stack full of fifties.”
Both men paused and stared at their shorter friend.
“Not sure if you were insulting me or Stein,” Burch admitted.
Davila shrugged, giving them a sheepish smile. “It’s the rare two for one deal.”
Jarvis jingled the keys again. “If you boys are done,” she prompted, “which one of you is coming along for the ride?”
“Burch, you’re with Jarvis,” Jinx said as he pulled out the satellite image again. The soldiers clustered around him to have a look as he pointed to the areas of interest. “If you head due north of here, you’ll run into the main road,” he began. “Get up there and start heading towards the water, look for something to blow up. Lay on the horn the entire time, shoot, do whatever you can to draw the crowd your way.”
Davila raised an eyebrow. “Where are we headed?”
“The bridge is seven, eight blocks due west of here,” Jinx replied. “Mostly through residential areas. When that crowd starts moving north, we haul ass towards the bridge.”
Jarvis nodded. “Rally point?” she asked.
The Corporal shook his head. “No clue,” he admitted, “but it’ll be on this side of the bridge. We’ll be on the lookout for you, so we’ll signal when you are getting close.”
She nodded again and turned to Burch. “You want shotgun, or in the back?”
“You’re not going to let me drive?” he asked, putting a hand on his chest in mock offense.
Jarvis put a hand on her hip. “I’ve seen you in the shower, and unless you have a boyfriend you aren’t telling us about, it’s obvious you have no experience handling anything big,” she quipped. “Now come on.”
Burch simply shook his head as the others snickered, unable to come up with a viable comeback. He climbed up into the passenger seat as the engine roared to life, rumbling loudly before settling into a nice rhythm.
“We’ll see you at the bridge soon,” Jarvis said through the window, and then popped the truck into gear and peeled out. She did an impressive burnout as she drove the behemoth out from the lot and onto the road.
“Okay, we give them five minutes, then we move,” Jinx said, folding up the map and putting it back in his pocket. “In the meantime, we gotta give the other teams a heads up.” He pulled out his walkie talkie.
“Let’s just hope they are in a position to hear it,” Davila said. He pointed into the air, signaling the constant stream of gunfire in the distance.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jarvis drove up to the main road, zombies streaming out from the main part of the neighborhood. “Need you to keep your eyes peeled,” she said.
“For what?” Burch asked.
“Anything we can use to draw these things away,” she replied as she reached the top of the street. She barely paused as she cut the corner tight, and the truck rolled over the edge of the sidewalk, taking out two zombies easily.
Jarvis let out a satisfied yell as the creatures flew backwards onto the grass. The main road was littered with ghouls, all moving towards the ship. There were about a hundred or so stretching out several hundred yards, with more coming out from the side streets. She put the pedal to the metal, prompting Burch to hold on to the ‘oh shit’ handle at the top of the door.
“This is gonna get bumpy,” she warned, and began weaving back and forth on the road, cutting a path through the spread out zombies.
Bodies flew everywhere, some crushed beneath the gigantic tires. There were so many smacks on the vehicle that it sounded like a high school band drum section that was horribly out of sync.
Burch looked down every side street as they went, seeing they were fairly packed as well. When they crossed the fourth road, he straightened up.
“Stop stop stop!” he yelled.
Jarvis slammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt and smacking into a few more zombies. “What is it?” she asked.
“Back it up!” Burch instructed.
She threw the truck into reverse and went back until he held up a hand, and they were parallel with the side street.
“Half a block down,” he said, pointing. “Down on the left.”
Jarvis peered past him down the road, and a smile broke out on her face. There was a gas station on the left side, right across from the neighborhood. A few dozen zombies stood between them and the target.
She nodded slowly. “How much time do you need to light it up?” she asked.
“There’s no power, so going to have to use brute force to get into the gas line,” Burch replied. “Probably some fuel left in the surface line, or I can open up the load valve on the ground and drop something in.”
Jarvis pursed her lips. “Once the gas is out, how long?” she asked.
“Thirty seconds?” he replied. “Got to set a little bit of a fuse, or else we’re going up with it.”
“All right,” she replied, and laid on the horn, getting the attention of the ghouls near the station. “Anytime you want to start shooting,” she teased.
Burch grabbed his assault rifle and hung out the window, popping off a few rounds towards the station. He aimed at the ground and a car on the side of the road, resulting in some nearby noise for the ghouls. Finally, the bulk of the creatures were heading their way.
Jarvis punched the gas and pushed through the crowd that had gathered in front of the truck, taking a few moments to pick up speed. She glanced in the rearview, seeing that only about twenty percent of the horde was following them
.
She made a hard right turn on the next street, still plowing through zombies on the road.
“Where are you going?” Burch asked.
“Taking the scenic route to buy you time,” she replied, heading up two blocks before turning back towards the station. She circled back onto the road.
The diversion had worked somewhat, the bulk of the zombies walking towards the main road, however about ten ghouls were stubbornly hanging out near the station.
Burch readied his weapon, but Jarvis shook her head.
“Put that away,” she said, “your only job is getting the station rigged to blow. I’ll cover you.”
He nodded before pulling out his knife and reached down to grab an old ratty tank top from the floor below. He cut it into a long strand and held it up. “Let’s do it.”
Jarvis hit the gas, speeding up the road. As they grew close to the gas station, she swerved, hitting two zombies and sending them flying back onto the road, smacking their heads wetly against the pavement.
“Move it!” she barked.
Burch leapt out of the passenger seat, stumbling as he fell the four feet to the ground. He regained his footing and then tore for the fuel pump.
Jarvis opened her own door and stood on the step. “Come get some, motherfuckers!” she yelled, and carefully aimed and fired, striking a few zombies in the head and drawing the majority of the others towards her. Two ignored her and shambled towards Burch, so she reached back inside and slammed on the horn.
Burch startled, glancing back towards her. She pointed to the two zombies, and then tried to pick them off, but it was a difficult shot from the truck at that distance. He waved her off, and she nodded, turning back to fending off the rest of the zombies near her.
He tried the first pump, tugging at the fuel line and finding nothing. “Shit,” he muttered.
He tried two more, but there was nothing left in the line. He looked around for something heavy, finally seeing a slim metal sign sitting between the pumps. He rushed over and picked it up, using it as a battering ram on the pumps.
Dead America-The Northwest Invasion Box Set | Books 1-6 Page 36