by J. R. Knoll
A gurgling growl alerted her and she drew a gasp, looking to her right to see something pushing through the crowd of zombies, and moving very fast. She pushed one zombie back, and the mad-dog that charged shoved another aside, saw her, and bared its teeth. This one was a woman in a white blouse and skirt, and she bared her blackened teeth as she sounded a horrible yell and launched herself at the zombie girl.
Zoe fired and missed, then fired again when the mad-dog was almost on top of her and finally connected, hitting the mad-dog between the bridge of the nose and the eye. She backed away, into the door jamb as the ferocious zombie fell, then she looked to the hundreds that mobbed in on her from every side. They could smell the people within just like Zoe could, and they were determined to get inside and feed.
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 are
n'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?"
Zoe shook her head.
"Are you sure," the woman pressed. "We need to know."
"I'm sure," the girl replied in a meek voice.
"You're awfully pale," the woman observed.
A thin man in black ZRT commando gear and brandishing an AK-47 approached and crouched down beside the woman, his eyes on Zoe as he pointed out, "She was in the middle of a whole mob of Zombies. Of course she's a little pale! What's your name, Kiddo?"
The girl's eyes shifted to him and she replied, "Zoe Rebecca Templeton." Her gaze darted back and forth between the man and the woman and she assured, "We're with the Zombie Response Team just like you guys are."
"We see that on your hat," the bearded fellow confirmed.
Zoe's head whipped around, her attention drawn to the power plant office building as the crack of gunfire ripped from it. Many more faint shots could be heard and she realized that many zombies had clearly gotten in by now, and that only about half of them had been killed outside. "Oh, no," she breathed. Looking back to the people in front of her, she desperately cried, "The other guys are still in there! We have to go help them!"
All of them looked toward the building.
"I don't hear anything," one of the men behind them said.
The woman stood, looking toward the plant. "I do, Dan. Something's going on in there."
Zoe pushed herself up and turned fully toward the brick building. "They don't have many bullets left." Wheeling back to the two people who had approached her, she cried, "We have to help! They have to keep the power plant working and… Please! We have to help! We can't let those zombies get them!"
The bearded fellow behind them raised his chin and reminded, "Well, that's what we came here for." Looking over his shoulder, he shouted, "Let's get the jeeps closer!"
Engines gunned and the machines turned to drive in two directions around the mass of zombie corpses that lay all over the parking lot.
Excitement raced through Zoe and she turned and darted toward the building, dodging around the many bodies of the fallen zombies.
Back inside, she drew her revolver and stopped about ten feet from the door. Gunfire erupted again in front of her and she raised her head.
The woman and three others ran up behind her, and the woman took her shoulder and ordered, "Slow down. We need to hit them as a team."
As Zoe turned, she saw one of the other men enter with the SAW in his arms, held ready to shoot. He had a cigarette in his mouth and puffed away before saying, "I smell zombie poon-tang."
Raising her brow, the woman half turned and asked, "Dan, are you sure that thing isn't too big to use in here?"
He winked and strode forward, puffing on his cigarette as he replied, "Every chick asks me that sooner or later, Morgan."
As they watched him advanced down the hallway, Zoe drew her head back and asked, "What does that mean?"
Her eyes sliding to the girl, Morgan answered, "Uh, that means he thinks he has a really big gun. Come on. Let's back your friends up."
Inside the generator room, the team was once again backed up against the generator safety rail and fighting for their lives. The zombies moved in relentlessly and every shot had to count. They were nearly out of ammunition.
The Corporal was the last one to fire, and when his weapon made an empty click, he dropped it and reached for his survival knife, shouting, "Hand to hand time, people."
Dan walked in and reached up to remove the cigarette from his mouth, then he shouted back, "You guys might want to get down." As they dropped to the floor, he smiled and put the cigarette back between his teeth, yelling, "Hey, zombies. Got something for ya!"
Half of them turned around.
Dan opened fire, aiming a little high as he slowly swept his weapon from one side to the other. Zombies fell as he moved his weapon and most of them turned to face him, only to be cut down as they did.
Zoe and the other three took up positions beside him and also began firing, and in short order the last zombie fell.
Slowly, the smoke began to clear. The mound of bodies was considerable.
Fearing for her friends, for her teammates, Zoe darted around the bodies of the zombies and found herself approaching Zachary first. She reached down to grab onto his arm and she helped him stand, looking into his face as she barked, "Are you okay?"
He nodded and met her eyes, then they both looked away from each other.
The rest of the team stood and faced the new zombie fighters who approached, and the Corporal extended his hand, greeting, "I'm Corporal Anderson, U. S. Army and Zombie Response Team."
Shaking his hand was one of the tall fellows who replied, "The name's Josh." He looked over his shoulder and introduced, "These nuts are Adrian, Donny, Dan and Morgan, our token chick."
Morgan stepped forward and punched Josh in the arm.
"The rest of the team's outside," Josh continued, "covering the entrance." He motioned with his head to the zombie girl. "Zoe here tells us you're looking to keep the power plant running. Doesn't look too defensible to me."
"We have reinforcements coming, "the Corporal assured.
"They seem a little late," Josh observed. "I have a few others outside watching the door. We're sure there are more zombies in the area."
"There are," Corporal Anderson confirmed grimly. "When the Strykers get back here I think we'll be able to hold them off a little better."
"Are they close by?" Dan asked.
The Corporal replied, "I'm hoping they're on their way." Looking to Dan's weapon, he asked, "Where did you get that?"
"Fort Hood," he replied, holding the weapon where it could be seen better. "When this thing started we were kind of hard up for weapons and ammo. Somebody suggested we hit up some of the local military bases to see if they'd help us out. When San Antonio got overrun, most of the non infected military people were on their way to Killeen where things were said to be a whole lot better, so we tagged along.
"When we got there we found Hummers and tanks and military guys all over the place. The zombies that got that far never had a chance. It kind of branched out from there, and we told the base commander who we were and that we wanted to help so he had someone take us to the armory and they hooked us up."
"Yeah," Adrian spat in a near angry tone. "But think of the damage we could have done with a tank. Why are they so stingy with those?"
Morgan sighed and turned her eyes down, shaking her head as she grumbled, "Would you just let it go?"
"Hey, Josh!" five radios called. "We have all kinds of company coming, and I'm not talking about company you'd want to spend the weekend with, I'm talking the brain eating unwanted kind."
Josh took his radio from his belt and asked, "How many?"
"Ass load," was the reply.
"Not good," Adrian mumbled.
"We're out of ammo," the Corporal informed.
"Don't worry," Morgan assured. "We can spare some."
Dan slapped the corporal's shoulder and said, "We'll set up at the door and mow 'em down as they come at us, that way your guys can work in here without somebody trying to eat them."
As the San Antonio ZRT turned and headed back out, Anderson pursued, protesting, "We need to funnel them in here, catch them in a group and—"
"And get eaten," Donny pointed out. "We like to catch them in the open and play lawn mower with the machine guns."
"Yeah," Dan urged. "Come on, guys. It'll be fun! Besides, my cigarettes are still in the jeep."
The corporal, two other soldiers, Zoe and Zachary caught up to them and followed in silence.
/> Dan's eyes slid to one side and focused on the woman soldier who had taken his side. "So," he began, "You seeing anybody?"
Slowly, she turned her attention to him, her brow tense and a disbelieving look on her face.
Outside, the jeeps had formed a semicircular perimeter around the door. Each one was about twenty feet away with one parked against each wall beside the door and one directly in front of the door with its flank turned toward the front. The other members of the San Antonio team were already in position in the jeeps.
Corporal Anderson stopped and looked around him, and with a nod he commended, "Nice!"
"Yeah," Adrian confirmed. "We got it going on."
Beyond the jeeps was a second wave of zombies, a sea of undead marauders moving in on them relentlessly at that horrifying slow, steady walk.
"Oy!" Matt barked, drawing everyone's attention. "Who wants some ammo and what flavor do you like?"
Zoe strode forward with slow, hesitant steps, her wide eyes fixed on the zombie hoard that slowly closed in on them. She could only wonder where they were coming from or how so many kept coming at them. It seemed like the whole city was zombies now. Seeing them all and remembering what she had just experienced put doubt into her, doubt that they could make any difference even if they killed a thousand of these things. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the people who meant to receive them, people who fought as relentlessly as the zombies came.
A distant sound caught her attention and she looked toward the approaching zombies again. This was a familiar sound, a powerful engine. Movement to the right drew her eyes that way and a little smile found her as she saw one of the Strykers charging ahead of the bus, over the fallen fence, into the parking area and right at the hoards of approaching zombies. Every window in the bus had the muzzle of a weapon pointing out of it. The Stryker was also bristling with firepower. Both turned their flanks toward the zombies and hundreds of sharp cracks belched forth with the flashes of firing muzzles. Louder cracks announced the fifty caliber machine guns had joined the fray and a hail of lead tore into the zombies from one side, dropping them in a wave from right to left.