Anna Sails followed and together we ran back toward the horde.
###
Chaos behind. Chaos to the sides.
It was either risk a bullet or run.
We ran.
The fence on the east side of the little base went down. I fired a few rounds as we ran but it was like trying to stop a wave with a BB gun.
Shots continued to ring out as we hauled ass. The pair of HUMVEEs we’d seen earlier backed up as they fired. I smacked Joel’s arm to get his attention. He veered toward the transports.
Joel waved his hands to stop the trucks. They slowed as they fired.
I turned and shot a Z in the neck as it came at us. There was another behind him and when I fired a burst, the bolt slapped open with a clang as I ran dry. I reached for a mag, but realized too late that I was totally out.
Fuck that. I swung the gun around, burned the shit out of my hands on the barrel, ignored it to turn the gun into a bat, and hit the Z so hard it did a mid-air summersault and landed in a splatter of crushed head and leaking brain matter.
Five or six more were right behind.
“Nice shot,” Anna said beside me. She turned to her side, raised a huge hand gun and fired. Seriously, it was like something Dirty Harry would carry.
A shuffler leapt out of the mass and was on Sails before I could fire. They tumbled to the ground and the bastard went at her. Sails was good, fast; she got her gun in the way and smacked the Shuffler across the mouth. He howled and dove in for her neck.
I grabbed him by the back of his ratty-ass clothes, and lifted him straight off the ground making my ankle want to screech in pain. He was covered in open sores and bled some kind of mucus from multiple wounds but I didn’t give a shit.
Sails might be a pain in the ass but none of us were going down under a shuffler. I’d put a bullet in her skull first.
She pulled herself across the ground, looked up, and blew the head off one of the dead that was headed straight for me.
The shuffler fought like a man with twice his strength. He got me good across the gut and most of the air left my lungs. Then his elbow connected with my head and I saw stars.
I lifted him above my head with both arms and then flung him down on the back of the HUMVEE so hard his head split like a fucking melon. Sails had to pull me away from kicking his twice-dead ass.
“I’m Marine Sergeant Joel Kelly. Got room for us?” Joel stood near the front of the transport.
“Pretty fucking full, Sarge. We got…” I couldn’t hear the rest because the machine gunner blasted a line of lead across the approaching dead.
There were so many of them that we didn’t stand a chance. The walls were down and we were being overrun.
Joel grabbed Roz and Christy and stuffed them into the back of the Humvee. I scooped up Sails and dragged her to the other side of the truck and banged on the door. It opened and the face of a young soldier poked out.
Anna was having difficulty breathing and gasped when I picked her up.
“I’m staying with you guys,” Sails said.
I ignored her.
“Put her on your lap. You’re welcome,” I said and pushed her toward the door.
“Idiot! I don’t need saving! Just let me stand and fight with you guys.”
“Get in or I’ll put you in,” I said as I towered over her.
The machine gunner opened up again and dropped at least a half dozen.
“I’m staying!” She pushed against my damaged chest.
“Anna, please. Get in. We’re all getting out of here,” I said.
She looked me up and down and then nodded and crawled in.
“Better than being tossed to the dead,” I said. Thoughts of Anna backing up Lee made me second-guess my actions. Maybe I should have tossed her to the horde.
The back was stuffed and there was no way for me and Joel to squeeze in. Joel winked at me through the opening and then slammed the door shut. He came around the side of the transport firing.
I closed the door and joined him.
“Hold on, gents!” The machine gunner roared and pointed at the back of the HUMVEE.
A whole world of hurt ran at us. The dead were here and we were screwed.
Joel was the first to make the leap. He got on the back of the transport and shimmied up the angled back until the gunner helped him. Then he hung onto the plates on the side of the gun.
The HUMVEE lurched into motion with me standing in the middle of the zombie fucking apocalypse holding my dick.
“Wait for me!” I yelled and leapt.
I missed.
The first Z came at me so I clothes-lined the asshole. A shot and something buzzed past my neck. I looked over my shoulder and there was Joel Kelly, holding onto the back of a giant machine gun while he somehow pulled his side arm and shot a dead fuck through the head.
This guy should be in a video game.
I hauled ass, jumped for the back and started to slide back off. Joel dropped his gun, grabbed the machine gun mount with both hands and stuck his boot right next to my face. I grabbed hold and tried to haul myself up but a Z got my leg.
I kicked back a few times and got him in the face. Bone crunched as his nose was crushed but I didn’t have time to gloat because the truck lurched into motion and I had to hold onto Joel Kelly’s leg for dear life.
I crawled up the back of the HUMVEE until I was able to reach the gunner. Him and Joel reached out and pulled me the rest of the way then I was clutching the back of the gun mount.
“Haul ass!” The gunner pounded the top of the truck.
We broke across a parking lot, ran over a tent, hit the side of the building and that almost knocked me clear but I had a death grip.
Then we were past the little base and behind the line of trucks.
“Next stop, L A.” The gunner grinned.
“Great. I need some new underwear,” I said over the roaring wind.
The gunner smiled again and patted my shoulder. He ducked back into the vehicle for a minute.
“Joel, man. I owe you.”
“Yeah you do. Dumb squid.”
“Words hurt,” I said. “Especially from a dumb jarhead.”
“Don’t get all mushy on me. Christ. I’ve had enough of this day and if you start bawling I’m going to have the gunner shoot me in the fucking head.”
“Okay man, I won’t, but I want to tell you something.”
“I ain’t marrying you.”
“Thank the fuck Christ.” We hit a bump and I came down on my sore chest again. After an epic swearing session I got my breath back.
“Gonna make it?”
“As long as you got my back I think I’ll be okay. You’re like a brother, Joel. Nah. You are my brother.” I said it and meant it. We’d seen a lot of shit over the last few weeks but one thing hadn’t changed. One thing had been there to help me survive and cope with this new world and that was Marine Sergeant Joel “Cruze” Kelly.
“Know something?” Joel asked.
We bounced up the road, slowed at a cross street, and then maneuvered around a wreck.
“Huh?” I asked, expecting some kind of brotherhood of war speech.
“I’m glad we’re moving. I just farted and it’s a reeker. Sorry about that.” He looked at me with a smirk. “Brother.”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed until tears streamed down my face.
“Can you guys drive faster? Something died back here!” I roared at the driver.
“Sure, man.” The driver called back.
“I can’t hang on that long.”
“Hitchhikers take what they can get.” He laughed from inside.
“I hope he’s kidding.” I said to the gunner.
He didn’t answer, just looked up.
Overhead, a helicopter roared away from the base and headed north. If Lee was on it I wished him well, because when I found him again he’d answer questions with my size fourteen boot up his ass.
This is Machinist Mate First
Class Jackson Creed and I am still alive.
###
The story continues at http://z-risen.com
Beyond the Barriers Sample
Read the book that inspired Z-Risen.
Beyond the Barriers is a military style zombie book set in the same world as Z-Risen.
When the dead rise, Ex-Special Forces soldier Erik Tragger flees to the mountains to wait out the end of the world. Cut off from civilization for months, he returns to find cities ruined and ruled by the walking dead.
Tragger reluctantly joins a group of survivors with a plan: flee to Portland where humanity is carving out a stronghold. But along the way they face opposition at every turn—the dead, rogue military forces, looters... and a new enemy more dangerous than any they have yet encountered.
Among the stumbling, mindless zombies walk the ghouls. The ghouls are living dead creatures that not only strategize and plan, but also possess the ability to guide their shambling brothers.
With weapons and supplies dwindling, Erik and his companions will faceoff against millions of the dead who have but one goal: complete eradication of the last of the living.
SAMPLE
By
Timothy W. Long
This sample is from:
BEYOND THE BARRIERS
A PERMUTED PRESS book
PART ONE
I had been watching the news compulsively for three or four days before it happened. I watched the stupid television so much that it put me off shopping until it was almost too late.
It was the weekend, and I called in sick on Friday so I could stay home and follow the developing madness on the TV. The media made a point of saying that people weren’t going to work. I was one of them, content to be somewhere safe while civilization fell apart.
I was low on goods, like fresh meat and vegetables. The bottom drawer in my freezer was filled with crumbs from some chicken crap that spilled out a few months ago. Smelled too. That freezer burn reek that never really goes away no matter how many times you clean the damn thing.
I dug out a half pound of ground chuck and tossed it in the microwave to defrost. Half an hour later, I remembered it was done, and formed a half-ass hamburger out of the meat and fried it in butter. An egg and ketchup went on top. Bon appetite. Enjoy the food, because it may be your last meal, was my only thought as I ate like an automaton.
I could have become a survival nut—boarded up the place, set up guns by each window on the second floor. That way, if one of those things, or my ex-wife’s boyfriend, showed up, I could blow their heads off. That would be a fine sight. Allison returns to beg for help from her former military husband, and I start taking pot shots at them. Maybe I could grow a long scraggly beard and run around in my underwear, shouting about the end of the world. Now that would be a funny sight. Sure to keep the scavengers away for a few days.
I’ll never forget the day she left. She took her shit and left a big hole in my chest where my heart used to be. “Erik,” she tried to reason, “it’s not you. There is something wrong with me. Something that all the counseling in the world can’t fix.”
In the end, I tossed her bags on the sidewalk, took her keys, and removed the one that opened the deadbolts on the house. Then I threw them in front of the car.
Her new guy just sat there like a lump. He had on sunglasses and refused to look at me, no matter how long I stared. She had to load her stuff in the back of his beat-up Volvo, and then he puttered away from my now-lonely house on a stream of exhaust.
I crouched a few feet from the little, flat-panel TV I picked up at one of those Christmas sales and chewed the food, barely tasting the lump of greasy meat. I’m sure it was great, but I didn’t taste a single bite.
CNN had a live crew in Portland, and they were following a pair of the dead things around like paparazzi. It was silly, yet I couldn’t look away from the TV. I should have changed the channel to see if there were some better coverage of the event, but I let it roll as a pretty reporter in high heels followed the dead things, with her cameraman close behind. In the distance, a pair of camouflaged trucks rolled by, filled with men who had large guns in hand. It was so reassuring to see them on the scene that I almost cheered, like my team was winning a sporting event.
Then the camera panned back to the reporter as she approached one of the dead that stumbled around like a kid in shock. The dead guy’s arms hung at his side, and his head was cocked to the left like he had a terrible neck pain and couldn’t straighten up. The back of his head was drenched in blood, and he was missing part of his side. I could see ribs showing under the ripped shirt where the skin was torn away.
A flashing message on the bottom of the screen advised ‘viewer discretion.’ The video should not be watched by young people. No one should watch this stuff. No one in his or her right damn mind. But watch it I did.
Another of the dead came out of the space between two buildings—a little alley that was littered with torn trash bags. Discarded objects lay in piles over which the dead woman stumbled, falling to one knee then rising again on shaky legs. A normal person would have grabbed her appendage in pain, winced or sworn, but this thing just got up and came on. I could see where the skin was broken from when she hit the ground. A fresh stream of blood ran down her pantyhose-covered leg and onto her expensive-looking shoes. She had a blonde bob, and was probably a looker earlier in her day. Now she was missing most of her bottom jaw, and one arm hung by sinew and strips of flesh at her side.
It was like a movie, and I wondered for the hundredth time if I were just seeing some crazy prank put on by my friends. I wanted to run up and down the street and find those responsible and beat them to a pulp. I had seen a ton of zombie movies, and they were, for the most part, enjoyable but unrealistic. At least that was my opinion up until then; now it had changed dramatically. I wanted nothing more than to go back and watch those films, knowing they were BS, and make all this real stuff go away.
The reporter was so focused on following the dead man that she missed the woman coming out of the alley. The reporter had perfect hair and a face made for television. She was tall and lean, and I could pretty much watch her talk about stuff all day. Then the undead bitch closed in on her, looped one arm around her neck, and tried to bite her shoulder.
The reporter recoiled in horror, stumbled, and, in a half-professional move, dropped one knee and flipped the girl over her back, onto the hard pavement. It was a beauty of a throw, and I heard the cameraman gasp. She didn’t look much like a fighter, but that move was perfect. She fell back, landed on her ass, and then stared at the thing at her feet. She scrambled back as it came to its feet again, slowly, like a drunk getting up from a bender.
That’s when the cameraman started shouting for help and the view went shaky. He said some words that would have the FCC calling in the morning, and then the screen was filled with sky as he apparently fell down. There was movement all around as a swarm of the things descended on him. The noise that came out of the speakers horrified me. The guy tried to scream, but either his mouth was covered with something or, even more disturbing, the attackers were tearing his face apart. The noise of skin being ripped off was the worst, and it sent me cowering deep into the couch. I wanted to run to the toilet and throw up, but I stayed glued to the TV. It was almost as bad as the day the twin towers fell.
“They’re everywhere!” the reporter yelled as she ran.
The camera fell over, and the screen came to a jarring sideways stop against the ground. The last image was the reporter running by with a couple of the things in pursuit. The cameraman’s arm plopped down limply by the screen. One of the dead things dropped beside it and clamped teeth on the exposed arm. With a jerk, it tore out a chunk of skin.
Then the screen went blank, and the shocked faces of the newscasters came on. After a few seconds of stuttering, trying to explain what we had just seen, the speakers crackled and the emergency broadcast signal came on, but there was no message.
I jumped
to a local channel, and they were talking about the infection, or whatever it was, in calm voices. They made it seem like everything was under control, but if people saw what I just saw on CNN, they knew how serious this was. Portland overrun with the dead.
I didn’t even want to think the word let alone say it aloud, but I did anyway. It just slipped out.
“Zombies.” It was absolutely ridiculous, but there it was. The dead were rising and attacking people.
I took a breath and went back to the fridge for a Coke. There was a fresh six pack in the back, and it was ice cold. I popped one open and guzzled half of it in one shot. I felt unsteady as I looked toward the ceiling while the sugary bubbles slid down my throat. It reminded me too much of the camera’s view just before it fell on its side and the reporter ran off.
I took stock of my pantry. My weekly trip to the store should have been a few days ago, but the crazy stuff on the news kept me indoors. I wished now I had gone when the shit started to hit the fan, but it was no used getting worked up over it now.
I went to the front of the house and looked outside. It was picture perfect, calm, bright and clear. There were no cadavers walking around. But that was where the normal ended and the weird began.
The neighbors at the end of the little street were packing everything they owned into a car. Two children came outside with tearstained faces. The boy sobbed when his father took a big box of toys and threw them back at the house like they were trash.
I felt for the kid, but his father was just being practical. To a little one like that, maybe six or seven years old, he must have seemed like a monster. He spun around, picked up his boy and hugged him tight, while he whispered in his ear. His shirt rode up, and he had a big automatic pistol in the band of his pants.
Z-Risen (Book 1): Outbreak Page 16