“We’re moving!” she declared, and grabbed the rings, tossing them to the boys.
They went back outside and the boys each picked a car, checking thoroughly for any unwanted passengers inside, and thankfully finding none.
Jarvis hopped back into the truck and led the caravan back towards the bridges, stopping at the rally point. Most of the zombies had moved across the bridge, but there were still a few dozen making their way towards it. The trio sat in their vehicles with the windows down so they could hear each other.
“How long do we wait?” Rollins asked.
Jarvis took a deep breath. “As long as we can.”
“We got five minutes at best,” Stein said.
Jarvis cocked her head. “What makes you say that?”
He pointed towards the southern bridge, half a mile or so away. There were easily a couple hundred zombies moving across it towards them.
“Fuck, okay,” Jarvis said. “We need to move now.”
Rollins furrowed his brow. “And just leave them on this side of the bridge?” he asked.
She shook her head. “It’s going to take time for us to do this,” she explained. “We block off the northern bridge and they can still cross on the southern one.”
“Fuck it, good enough for me,” Stein agreed. “There were a few broken down scars on the bridge already, so we just have to fill in the gaps.”
Rollins waved his hand. “Well lead on then.”
Stein popped it into gear and started driving, with Rollins behind him and Jarvis bringing up the rear. There were several zombies in the roadway, some of whom turned towards the noise. She gave a single honk of the horn and then floored it.
The increased speed sent Jarvis flying around the other two soldiers, pulling in front. She sped up, smacking into the zombies in the road and crushing them, clearing the path for the other two.
The bridge had a few dozen zombies on it, most of which were on the far side of it, moving towards the restaurant fire. There were a few cars broken down, having gotten into a crash at some point several weeks ago. There was a gap on either side of the wreck.
Jarvis stopped in the middle of the street about thirty yards from the wreck, and the other two drove around her, one on each side.
Stein skirted a few dozen zombies and pulled gently into his opening, leaving just enough room to open the door and get out. As he hopped out, he readied his assault rifle, firing a few shots at the throng of ghouls standing between him and the truck.
Rollins pulled his car into the gap on the other side, squeezing between the wreck and the side of the bridge. As he started to open his door, he had to shut it again quickly as a zombie from the window of the wrecked car lunged out, smacking against the glass.
He clambered into the back seat, opening the back door, but it was wedged up against the wreck, making it impossible to get it wide enough.
“Fucking shit, man,” he muttered, and looked out the back window. There were thirty or so zombies growing ever closer to him.
Stein noticed that Rollins was stuck, and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Shoot the window!” he yelled.
Rollins gave a thumbs up and drew his handgun, firing a few shots into the back window, shattering it. Stein continued to fire at the coming zombies, attempting to cover his friend as he struggled to get out of the busted window.
“Goddamn it,” Jarvis muttered, and hit the gas, speeding towards her friends.
Stein dove to the side to give her a wide berth to do her damage. She drove into the middle of the back and cut the wheel sharply, flooring it. Within seconds she was doing donuts on the bridge, sending zombie bodies and smoking tire debris flying through the air.
This gave Rollins enough time to clear the car, and immediately started firing, clearing out the ghouls in his path. After a few full rotations, Jarvis hit the brakes.
“Come the fuck on!” she bellowed.
There were still a handful of creatures standing, moving in various directions, but the soldiers were able to avoid them as they raced to the truck. They hopped into the back, smacking the back window of the cab, and Jarvis punched the accelerator to get them out of there.
She sped several blocks away from the bridge, skidding to a stop in the residential neighborhood. She opened the back window, eyebrows raised.
“Holy shit, that was wild!” she declared. “Everybody good?”
Rollins made an a-ok sign with his hand. “Might need a change of pants,” he joked, “but other than that, I’m golden.”
The three shared a relieved laugh, and then sat back and relaxed for a moment, giving time for the other pack of zombies to make their way to the bridge so they could block it off.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jinx readied himself by the front window, looking out at the zombies pressed against it. There were dozens of them, and hundreds more in the parking lot, all attracted by the gigantic blast at the restaurant.
He checked the ammo on his assault rifle, making sure it was full. When he was satisfied, he let out a two-fingered whistle that echoed throughout the building. A few seconds later, the ear piercing sound of the fire alarm filled the air.
He winced. “Christ, it might be less damaging just to be on fire,” he muttered, and flipped his rifle into three-round burst mode and aimed at the big windows.
He unleashed half a mag’s worth of bullets, peppering the windows with them. The impact did little more than put a few holes in it.
“Fucking safety stuff.” He shrugged and reached into his bag, pulling out two grenades before walking back behind the registers. He pulled the pins on both and lobbed them over to the windows, and then turned tail, sprinting back towards the loading dock.
A few seconds later, another earth-shattering BOOM filled the air. Jinx didn’t bother to look back, since if the blast hadn’t opened the windows, nothing he had would have. He tore for the loading dock.
“What happened to just shooting them out?” Davila asked wryly.
Jinx shrugged. “Safety glass, so had to go big,” he explained.
Burch opened the back door and stepped out, immediately raising his rifle and firing several shots as the other two piled out behind him. By the time the trio reunited, the zombies lay on the ground in a heap.
“Let’s get to the water,” the Corporal instructed, and led his companions across the back of the lot. They pushed through the waist-high grass, splashing down as they reached it. They sloshed out into the water, seeing their target on the other side of the southern bridge.
“Man, that was a good call to go on the water,” Davila said.
Burch nodded. “No kidding.”
The southern bridge was covered in easily a couple hundred zombies, all moving across it towards the noise. Jarvis plowed through some of them with the truck, sending bodies flying every which way.
“Fuck, we gotta move,” Jinx urged. “She’s going to attract a crowd.”
The soldiers swam as hard as they could towards the southern bank. The current of the river wasn’t strong, but they still had to fight against it to make sure they didn’t end up downstream. As they paddled across, gunfire erupted from the building up ahead, a lot more sustained than was comfortable.
The trio pushed even harder and faster.
After a few minutes of intense swimming, they finally reached the other bank, just below the store. Gasping for air, they staggered forward, pulling their rifles from their backs.
“Suck it up boys,” Jinx huffed, “we gotta get up there.”
They climbed the grassy hill, struggling to reach the top with their slippery boots and heaving lungs. When they finally crested the hill, they saw their three teammates standing in the back of the truck firing down at a small army of zombies, easily sixty or seventy strong.
“Clear ‘em out!” Jinx barked, and the trio raised their weapons, hitting the ghouls from the side.
The mass of rotted flesh was twenty yards away, which was an easy distance for headshots. A f
ew of the creatures nearest the new source of noise turned to move towards it just in time to take a bullet to the face.
The soldiers burned through mag after mag, sweating and breathing hard, focused on the battle raging around the truck.
Finally, the battlefield fell silent, the last of the corpses fallen, and the soldiers lowered their weapons. Jinx looked back towards the bridge and top of the driveway. There was a smattering of zombies staggering their way, but they were still fifty yards and moving slowly in the heat.
“Get the bridges squared away?” the Corporal asked.
Jarvis hopped down from the truck. “Not a hundred percent, but the ones on the other side are going to have a hell of a time getting back,” she said.
“Good enough for me,” Jinx replied.
Burch took a knee to catch his breath. “So now what?” he asked.
Jinx jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the grocery store. “Let’s go clear that out, get comfortable, and wait on help to get here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sun hung low in the sky, bathing the front of the grocery store in a golden glow. The reflections on the nearby water caused the front window to sparkle.
Sergeant Dickerson led a squad several hundred strong across the southern bridge, ignoring the stray zombies his men took care of for him. He looked at the grocery store across the way, looking beautiful in the evening light, and spotted the truck that Jarvis had been driving earlier in the day.
He shook his head at the mountain of dead zombies around the vehicle. “I think we found them,” he said.
“Sir?” the soldier next to him asked.
“Come on,” Dickerson said, “let’s go make sure they’re safe.” He motioned for a few soldiers to follow him as the rest of the force moved into the southern portion of town.
They carefully stepped through the sea of corpses on the way to the front door, and the Sergeant’s heart leapt into his throat at the sight of smoke coming out of the seams. He rushed up and banged on it.
A moment later, Burch appeared, waving smoke away, and when he locked eyes with Dickerson he grinned and opened the door, a flood of smoke billowing out.
“What the hell is going on in here?” the Sergeant asked, walking inside.
Burch held up a metal spatula, motioning to the charcoal grill behind him. The others waved, kicking back in chairs with their feet propped up on checkout lanes.
Dickerson laughed, shaking his head.
“Sergeant!” Jinx bellowed, spreading his arms. “Welcome. Can we get you something? Lukewarm beverage? Something from the grill?”
Dickerson put a hand to his forehead in disbelief, still laughing. Right in the middle of the biggest invasion in U.S. history was a cluster of soldiers having a cookout.
“Jinx, it’s been nearly a month since this place had a fresh delivery or power,” he declared, “so I’m afraid to ask what you’re cooking up.”
Burch used a pair of tongs to hold up a slice of canned meat, grilled to perfection. “This stuff takes forever to go bad,” he said. “Pretty sure the secret is to coat it in a metric ton of salt.” He slapped it down onto a tortilla that looked slightly stale and handed it to Dickerson.
The Sergeant reluctantly took it. “Guess I should enjoy this now,” he conceded, “since it’s going to be awhile before I have anything like this.”
“That’s the spirit!” Jinx exclaimed. “We work hard, we play hard, right?”
Dickerson took a bite of the food and nodded in surprise at the decent flavor. “Well, just don’t play too hard,” he said after he swallowed, “because the Captain is going to be here within the hour.”
“Is that your way of telling us to take it easy for a bit?” Jinx asked as his friend gobbled down the rest of the taco.
The Sergeant shrugged, wiping his mouth. “I do owe you one for earlier today,” he admitted. “We’ll finish clearing it out, just do me a favor, will you?”
“Sure thing,” the Corporal replied, curling his hands behind his head comfortably.
“Save another one of these tacos for me,” Dickerson said. “I’ll be back soon.”
Jinx raised a plastic cup filled with an unknown substance to his friend as he headed out the door. “Everybody, listen up,” he said to his team. “Each and every one of you did a hell of a job today. We keep this up, we might just live to see this thing through.” He raised his cup high. “On to Olympia!”
The others raised their own cups and bellowed, “On to Olympia!”
END
Up Next - Private Janey Watts finds herself trapped behind enemy lines when a mission to the north goes horribly wrong in “Seattle - Part 5”.
Dead America The Northwest Invasion | Book 6 | Dead America-Seattle [Part 4] Page 7