More of the dead wormed their way onto the hood of the truck. Gus shot the ones managing to hook their arms over the gate before they could hoist themselves up, but his earlier sense of dread swelled. His chest burned with pain, even though he struggled to ignore it. He pulled extra shells from his bandolier, jamming them into the weapon’s breech.
“Jesus
Christ
.” Gus unleashed another shit storm of lead upon the climbers. The Benelli brutally punched several off the truck, only to watch them be replaced by more. He was thankful there was only one truck against the wall, but the growing ache in his ribs informed him that he couldn’t maintain the pace forever. He dropped to a knee and reloaded the shotgun, noting that he would soon run out of shells.
Without warning, the world went dark, and the moans became distant echoes. A crash, and he saw only gray.
As if in a dream, something informed him that he’d just passed out and landed on his back. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and his stomach fluttered. His chest burned with pain, enough for him to set his jaw. A jolt of fright went through him. He was relieved a second later when he realized he still held onto the shotgun.
With a grunt, he pulled himself to a sitting position.
At the walls.
They were at the walls. They were
waist high at the gate
.
Snarling, he took aim once more, destroying the ones closest to climbing over the top. Each shot flung a zombie back from the wall. He glanced beyond the mass of dead things and wondered if more were approaching on the road leading up from the highway. Nothing but empty space lay beyond the army pawing at the walls, and for that, he was grimly thankful.
His fingers buzzed as if they’d fallen asleep, but he forced them into reloading his weapon. The sky darkened. The irregular
pop-pop-pop
of the Benelli perforated the air. Gimps moaned, limbs flailing above their heads and reminding him of a river teeming with drugged eels. Gus put down a highway linesman, a cook, and then a nurse, wondering where the hell she had come from. He killed an old codger bent over like a cane, taking off the top of his head like a detonated firecracker. An overweight woman dropped and slid down the hood, disappearing into the savagery of the corpses slamming their hands and arms against the gate and allowing some of them to get a little higher. A few could touch the top of the barrier and, if he let up for a moment, would be able to swing their legs over the top.
He ran out of shells.
“
Fuck!
” Gus dropped the Benelli to the van roof with a clatter. He pulled out the Ruger SR-9 and switched to his other knee, holding the pistol with both hands. Squinting down the sights, he started squeezing off rounds. The greater magazine capacity of the sidearm was just the thing needed to push the tide back, as he didn’t have to reload as often. The Ruger coughed and stopped the zombies from climbing up over the gate.
The initial rush and spark of hope that he might be able to defeat the army at his walls dissipated. The ones Gus killed sloughed to the bottom and continued to pile up. Worse still, dizziness wobbled the edges of his senses. Anger at the situation began to take hold, enabling him to fight back his giddiness. He fired and killed, controlling the urge to hurry his shots. He waited seconds between the kills on the truck’s hood and the ones crawling up to replace them. During that time, he altered his aim and fired into the mass, causing heads to snap back when the nine-millimeter shells entered them. The recoil of the Ruger was less than the Benelli, and Gus didn’t feel the pain as much when he fired. Shifting targets, he mowed down gimps further back from the wall.
He fired round after round into the mob, ignoring their stubborn drive to breach the wall. The Ruger’s magazine went dry. Gus popped it out and replaced it. That left four full ones; he hadn’t replenished all six magazines after the shootout with the pack looking for Roxanne. He hadn’t thought he’d be under attack so soon. And how the
fuck
did the zombies find him anyway? Did the firefight attract them? The smell of the recent bodies?
Gus continued firing, pacing himself and wondering if the sound suppressor could overheat from continuous use. He emptied the magazine and popped in another. Three remained.
He cursed whenever he missed a shot. The dead continued to pile up at the gates until the tallest ones could press their pelvises against the top. At those times, the lead zombie probably felt a rush of accomplishment just before its brain was splattered into daylight.
The magazine emptied with a click that Gus barely heard over the noise. He loaded in the second to last magazine and fired into the side of a young teenage boy’s head. Black fluid sputtered out the other side of the thing’s skull as it fell away from the ramp of unmoving flesh. The incline at the gate became broader. Four more pulled themselves up, climbing as if they realized they were very close to breaching the defenses. Controlling his breath, Gus aimed and grimly picked off the top four.
“You’re shit,” Gus told them. “You’re nothing but shit.”
He killed until he shoved the last remaining magazine into the weapon, then decided he would save that one. He needed to get back to the garage for more shells. He’d have to give up the wall to do it, but he had no choice. He shoved the pistol down his boot, picked up the Benelli by its warm fluted barrel, and climbed down from the van. He bared his teeth at each step and breath, feeling the grisly rattle of his ribs. Once at the bottom, he staggered a little ways and placed a hand to his chest before finally stopping and bending over to catch his breath. The moans of the dead swarmed his senses, making him glance up to see two corpses flipping over the top of the gate. As Gus watched in stricken horror, the first zombie, dressed in stained beige pants and a polo shirt, fell into the compound with a thud. The creature pushed itself up off the ground, gray arms flexing with sinister strength, and spotted Gus. With an eager hiss, the thing dragged itself toward him, and Gus saw that the dead fucker had shattered its ankle in the fall. It eventually stood up, gleefully intent on the living, and placed its flopping foot down, slowly puncturing the flesh and sinew at the joint with bone splinters. Off kilter, the thing limped forward. The foot hung off the splintered stump by strands of ligaments, dragged along like a sack of boneless flesh. Behind the gimp, the second intruder fell to the snow-covered ground.
“You bastards.” Gus dropped the shotgun and drew the Ruger.
The zombie with the broken ankle got a bullet between the eyes, the back of its head bursting violently. It dropped to the ground as if the earth had sucked it down. The second deadhead rose, hissing, and Gus put a shot into its right eye, spinning it off its feet.
Panting, Gus grabbed the shotgun with his free hand and jogged at his best speed to the garage. Once inside, he slapped up his visor and peered back the way he had come. Four more of the creatures hung off the gate, falling like shit out of a horse’s ass.
Leaving the garage door open, Gus went to his locker and pulled out a box of twelve-gauge shotgun shells. He reloaded the Benelli, shoving the shells into the weapon while swearing under his breath. The bandolier got filled and draped over his shoulder. The thought of getting his old twelve-gauge from the kitchen popped into his head, but he decided against it––too much to carry around. He yanked out a blue tackle box full of loose nine-millimeter shells. With his hands surprisingly steady, he pulled the spent magazines from his pockets and began to reload them. He spotted his bat in its sheath and smirked. If he tried swinging the thing, he’d only rip his ribs apart.
Behind him, the sounds from the dead grew louder. Closer. They were inside the wall. How many, he had no idea. He ignored them, concentrating on getting bullets into the magazine. Sometimes his fingers became contrary, and he dropped a red-tipped brass casing; sometimes he picked up the bullet wrong and had to switch it around before thumbing it down inside the magazine. The moaning seemed nearer. He thought he heard something scuffling along the frozen ground. He refilled the second magazine and jammed it into his pocket. Not bothering to look over his shoulder, he went to work on the third one.
He got it halfway full when he heard the hissing.
Gus spun around, bringing up his Ruger in a two-handed firing stance and zeroing in on a zombie about to cross the threshold of the garage. The dead thing had a huge swath of ashen skin ripped from the top of its jaw to its lower right eye, giving it a permanent smile.
Pewp-Pewp
. A jawbone boomeranged from its head, and the creature crumpled to the ground. Gus walked over, and when the dead thing raised its jawless head, he put another bullet into the back of its skull. He saw more Dees climbing over the wall, but he put them from his mind and returned to the magazines. Sounds of the undead reached his ears, somewhere behind him and in the distance. A muted crash made him grimace––a body falling over the gate and no doubt slamming into the others at the base. He finished loading and went to work on the last two magazines, feeling the seconds tick away. A nearby hiss made him jump. He dropped the magazine and whirled to find three undead shambling toward the garage.
Steady,
he willed his nerves and racked the slide. Taking aim, he fired on the first deadhead and missed. He adjusted his aim and shot the thing through the forehead, taking it off its feet. Two slim female zombies closed the gap, moving with macabre sensuality, and almost entered the garage before having their heads blown apart three seconds apart from each other.
Gus got back to work, setting his jaw and moving as fast as his fingers would allow. When he finished filling the magazines, he stuffed the extra ones into his pockets. He zipped up his jacket and placed three boxes of twelve-gauge shells in the pockets. With no more time to lose, he went and stood on the threshold of the garage bay. He thought about the container of gas he had positioned on the slope at the far end of the wall, but getting to it would kill him. Even if he were able to reach it alive, he didn’t want to set the front on fire. The raider’s pickup on the other side would be useful. He wanted to save it.
Inside the gate, about two dozen of the living dead feasted on the dead men. Gus watched as the deadheads tore into the frozen bodies with a feral intensity that momentarily stunned him and made him shake his head. It appeared frozen meat wasn’t beyond the dead’s appetites. He wanted nothing better than to take a bat to the works of them.
Cautiously, he stepped away from the garage and closed the distance. Another corpse fell over the gate and into the compound. The deadheads inside paid no attention as they pulled on dark red patches of flesh stretched as far as the elasticity would allow. When Gus was close enough, he raised the Benelli and sighted the back of the head of one gore-splattered reveler. He fired, slamming the zombie forward. Dull white brain matter sprayed the other feasting friends, who didn’t even pause in their meal. The sight bewildered Gus for a moment. They seemed oblivious to his presence, thinking only of eating the dead men.
He’d make them regret that mistake.
Two minutes later, he’d executed them all.
Reloading the shotgun as he walked toward the van, he glanced at the top of the gate. Dark torsos and filthy hands missing fingers appeared. Gus knew he had four boxes or so of shells in the rear of the beast, but he would use what he had on him first.
A pear-shaped woman––probably once a mother—straddled the gate. Gus stopped, sighted her face through the scope, and blew her back over the wall.
Once at the van, he climbed up the ladder, huffing and straining, to the roof of the beast. With a heave of his shoulders and feeling the stab of his ribs, he regarded the pack. They milled at the barrier, limbs waving in drunken fashion. They gripped at the top of the wall only to be pulled back by one of their own kind. Three had fallen inside the gate and were struggling to regain their feet. The entire scene made him pause
—so many
, even though he figured he’d put down at least a hundred of the things. Fear had left him, and he felt only pain and weariness, having perhaps that in common with the latest round of attackers. His discomfort armored him against the dread he’d once felt at facing the undead.
“All right, you undead cocksuckers,” Gus bellowed.
A chorus of wails answered.
“Time to shut you up.”
He commenced firing.
3
The last bullet shattered the remaining deadhead’s skull with an almost dusty crack, just as the sky began to darken. Heavy clouds drifted in from the north and pelted everything with a light snow. Exhausted, Gus gazed at the mindless dead things sprawled over his property. Outside the gate lay a slope of unmoving zombies, arms sticking out and hands crooked with hooked fingers.
On the second trip back to the garage, after he had emptied all of his shotgun shells into the mob and used up all of his magazines for the Ruger, his hate for the things had slipped into a fatigued pity. He had been in no danger of being overrun toward the end, but he had only thought of the steady reloading and firing, and the constant shudder in his arms with each discharge. He had expected either firearm to stop working, or to jam, but neither did, and with growing prejudice, he put down everything hissing and moaning.
A breeze blew past, chilling him despite his heavy gear. He ached all over. The Ruger had less of a kick than the Benelli, but in his weakened condition, the only real threat near the end had been passing out once more and falling off the roof of the van. He figured he’d put a significant dent in his ammunition stores, but as large gauzy snowflakes fell around him, he felt the tired rush of victory. He also felt a stab of loathing over the amount of bodies he would have to remove from inside, and especially outside, the gate. Gus studied the pickup truck parked just beyond the wall. Fallen zombies, with their arms and legs sticking out like frayed wiring from a blasted fuse-box, were piled between its grill and the gate. More sprawled over the hood, kept there by the bodies heaped up on either side of the vehicle. He would back that one up and perhaps burn the mound of flesh where it lay. The thought of throwing the gates wide open and dousing the whole lot of them with gasoline appealed to him.