Six Feet From Hell: Unity: 6FFH Book #5 (21 page)

He
shot a twenty-something female zombie that he’d fucked about six months ago.

He
took out a man that he once traded goods with.

He
nearly decapitated another woman that had taught him how to sew.

It
was a stressful few moments for him as he continued firing.

Reggie
stood as the lone person not firing a rifle or any other firearm. He had taken one of his arrows out and kept it ready to draw. He’d told Larry when he’d been asked about not shooting that if he had to fire an arrow, then they were in deep shit. He was accurate to within fifty yards or more and so far, no zombies had come close to his range. He kept a constant watch behind them, however.

The
Ram was parked in the sizeable hole in the wall, doing its best to keep it from being breached further. Pieces of the wall lay all over. Boards, tin roofing, and a broken phone pole were scattered on the ground.

Larry
did his best to gather the items that were still of use in hopes that they could reuse them. Building supplies weren’t easy to come by; a trip outside the wall to dismantle a house wasn’t out of the question, but was a long way down the road in terms of feasibility.

“Keep
me covered for a minute, boys. Joe will be here any second!”

Balboa
dropped another magazine and reloaded. “Barrel is getting hot! I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up! It’s wearing out the rifling from the heat! I’ve got four mags left!”

Larry
picked up a piece of tin siding and tossed it into the bed of the Ram. He grabbed his rifle from behind him, gave it to Balboa and patted him on the back. “Use mine for a while! The iron sights are dead on, just keep it up for a minute!”

Balboa
nodded and sat his M4 down, the barrel sizzling as it touched the scant amount of water in the truck. He grabbed Larry’s flipped the selector to semi and began lining up shots.

Kody
jumped into the bed of the truck, rifle in hand as well. He’d gone through only two magazines thus far, and was trying to steady his aim on the bed as well. He was about to fire when he felt the truck bump slightly underneath of him. Taking his eye off the sights and looking around, he spotted a big problem.

Zombies
at the opposite side of the truck.

“Shit!”
He exclaimed, and moved to the other side of the bed. He raised the M4 and began taking point-blank shots on the heads of the undead that were amassing beneath him. “Larry! We got a problem here! The noise is drawing them in!”

Larry
hopped into the back of the truck and drew his 9mm. He started firing at their unwanted guests as well, desperately trying to get some breathing room.

“Dammit!
Get back, you undead pieces of shit!”

The
zombies were not fazed by insults.

Several
more meandered over to the truck and began pounding on the sides. The beating became so intense that Balboa stopped firing and looked over his shoulder.

“What
the hell is going on back there?”

“We
got more company!” Larry yelled, chambering another pistol mag.

Balboa
whistled loudly at Boyd and Reggie. Both men turned and acknowledged.

Boyd
sat down his Marlin and began firing his M4.

“Get
in the truck!” Balboa yelled.

Boyd
turned back towards the mass coming from the motel. He didn’t have time to react to the zombie quickly bearing down on him. It was another one that Boyd recognized.

It
was his uncle.

Boyd
quickly swung the buttstock of the M4 at his undead uncle, clipping the zombie just enough to throw off his pursuit. The rifle flew from his hands and clattered against the ground, skittering away from him. The zombie was quick to regain his bearings, getting his feet under him and making another charge. Boyd quickly grabbed the Ka-Bar knife out of the sheath on his belt, and an M67 frag grenade. Each one of the men that had left the jail had two of the fragmentation grenades on them, just in case.

Boyd
grinned as his uncle bore down on him again.

His
unfortunate relative had been bitten on the face and top of the shoulder, as evidenced by the large bite marks and smattering of blood along his neck and face. It did not slow him down, though. Boyd’s uncle growled, saliva dripping from his mouth, tinged with blood.

“C’mon
Uncle Nathan! Come get some!”

Uncle
Nathan charged, grabbing for Boyd as he leaped forward. Boyd swiftly stabbed him in the guy, just below his ribcage, and jerked up, creating a large hole. He grabbed the pin on the grenade with his teeth and pulled it out, shoved it into the gaping hole, and spun Uncle Nathan around. Boyd gave him a hard shove into a half-dozen more zombies shambling towards him. Boyd grabbed his ears and ducked down as Uncle Nathan stumbled forward, unintentionally tackling four more zombies. The group hit the ground in a heap.

“Fire
in the hole!” Boyd yelled.

And
then they exploded.

Brains,
blood, guts, and gore burst out in all directions like a grotesque, blooming meat flower. Boyd couldn’t help but admire his handiwork as he raised up. Bits of flesh and brains were still raining down as he took his fingers out of his ears and looked to his cohorts. They were still too busy trying to take care of the incursion of at least two dozen more zombies on the other side of the Ram. Boyd wiped the raining blood from his face and jumped into the back of the truck to help his friends.

Then
he saw something in the distance, something that he wasn’t prepared to see.

He
wiped his face again, one time with each hand.

“Guys?”

Kody was unloading rifle rounds into several zombies that were shambling towards then, about twenty feet off, oblivious.

“Guys?”
A little louder, with more urgency.

Larry
dropped his pistol magazine, out of ammo for it. He began swinging the end of an M4 at the undead banging against the truck.

“GUYS!”

“What, Boyd?” They all yelled simultaneously, except Reggie. Reggie had been pulling back an arrow to fire when he saw what Boyd saw.

“I
think ya’ll ought to see this!” Reggie yelled.

Boyd
raised a bloody finger and pointed.

“
Oh shit! What the fuck is that?”

CHAPTER
25

April 19, 2022 – 0731 Hours

Joe climbed into the driver’s side of the LMTV. He had directed Captain White and Curtis to do a quick look-around near the large, abandoned schoolhouse and check for any stragglers. He’d heard three shots from the time they had disappeared around the building until now. Curtis came around to his left and Captain White to his right.

“All
good?”

Both
men gave thumbs up.

“Good.
Let’s head towards Larry. I hear a ton of gunfire coming from that end of town. I hope that he…”

Joe
was interrupted by an earthquake-like rumble beneath him. It wasn’t the rumble of the truck, this one felt like an impact tremor. It was a quick, thunderous, rumble.

“Whatever
is going on down there doesn’t look or sound good. I can see more of the slugs turning that direction, heading towards him. The fast ones have been pouring over there for a few minutes, but I can’t get a shot on any of ‘me, it’d just be wasting ammo,” Rick said, pulling the Leupold scope away from his eye.

The
radio on Joe’s vest crackled, filled with the staccato of gunfire and crackle of a bad connection. Larry’s radio battery was dying, but what he could hear didn’t sound good.

“
Get down here! …me…and…up…help
!”

“Larry?
I can’t copy! Repeat your last!”

Static
greeted him, followed by much more gunfire in the distance.

“What’s
the problem?” Captain White asked.

“Larry
needs help. Get in and take out what you can, but save your ammo. It sounds like he’s got a hell of a lot to deal with down there.”

Several
more gunshots.

Then
silence.

“Get
in!” Joe yelled.

So
they did. Captain White did as he was told and got into the back of the LMTV, ready to take out more of the undead. Curtis was already setting his rifle down and loading up the Ma Deuce, their .50 caliber heavy machine gun.

“What’s
the problem?” Curtis asked, feeding the linked rounds into the massive gun.

“Can’t
you hear it?”

Curtis
paused momentarily. “I don’t hear shit.”

“Exactly.”

“Larry’s in trouble,” Rick said.

Curtis
racked both handles on the Ma Deuce.

“Then
let’s roll!”

Captain
White pounded on the top of the LMTV’s cab, signaling Joe.

Joe
pressed the large “D” on the pushbutton transmission, and revved the engine. The truck lurched forward, spewing out black smoke as it did. The truck sped forward, towards the other end of town with purpose. Joe tried keying the radio again, but to no avail, the battery on Larry’s was most definitely dead. Things were not looking up.

* * *

As Joe neared the other end of town, the number of undead that he saw grew exponentially. The sound of the constant gunfire was drawing nearly every zombie out of the woodwork towards Larry. Joe wheeled the LMTV towards a singular zombie aimlessly wandering in the middle of the road.

“Out
of the way, fucker!”

The
LMTV’s high profile bumper caught the walker square in the forehead as it turned towards the sound of the diesel engine. The effect the bumper had on it was similar to hitting a rotten pumpkin with a cinder block dropped from fifty feet.

Shit
went everywhere.

The
black goo speckled the windshield as Joe drove on. Within a few more seconds, he was cruising at 35 mph through the middle of town. As he neared the motel, he could see the mass of zombies that Larry had mentioned. It was unfortunate there were so many of them, but it had a silver lining in most of the ghouls were heading to one place, making it much easier to take them out wholesale.

As
Joe began running over more in the road, he could hear the Ma Deuce thundering behind him. The ones that he missed hitting were being mowed down as the truck rumbled past them. Curtis was working the butterfly triggers on the fifty cal like the seasoned pro that he was.

The
chatter of rifle fire picked up as Joe rolled by the motel and made the left-hand turn towards the chow hall and the breach in the wall. The fire was a good sign; at least there was someone left at the end of town to make the racket. Joe feared the worst, however. He didn’t want his decisions to affect more lives, cause more death, or lose any more people than he already had. The hindsight of crashing the wall to save a few instead of not saving any was weighing heavily on him. Had he made the right call? Not that it mattered now, but the fact was that over half the residents of Tazewell were either dead or turned. Saving thirty out of nearly a hundred wasn’t great odds, but he was trying his damnedest to make sure there would be no more casualties. Getting to Larry was the best way to do that.

As
he neared the breach in the wall, he noticed something, something that wasn’t supposed to be there. His heart thundered in his chest as he drove on, the fifty cal booming behind him. The hole in the wall had been plugged, but with something that he didn’t quite understand how. There was no rational explanation. As he pulled up, the Ram was parked off to the side.

And
a large, green two-and-a-half-ton military transport truck was in the hole.

What
the hell? Where the fuck did that come from?

It
took him only a matter of seconds to figure out, especially once he saw who was assisting Larry and his team.

Cornbread
and Jamie were hammering the undead, firing from the top of the large military truck.

With
over two dozen others, not including Larry, Kody, Balboa, and Reggie.

Joe
spun the wheel of the LMTV around, aiming the rear end of the truck to catch the remaining zombies in a massive crossfire. Jamie, Cornbread, Larry, and the others fired with their backs against the wall, literally, and the rear of the LMTV aimed perpendicular to them.

Curtis
rolled onto his side, not able to keep his balance. He quickly got up and peered around to the front of the truck.

“What’s
the big deal, Joe?”

Joe
flung open the door and pointed to the bedlam. There were still over fifty undead bastards trying to claw at their friends in the Ram and the deuce-and-a-half.

“It’s
Jamie and Cornbread! Mow the rest of these motherfuckers down! Send ‘em back to hell!”

Curtis
spun around and grabbed the butterfly triggers on the Ma Deuce. Indeed, there were several dozen more zombies clawing and fighting their way to Larry and his team. They were swinging the ends of rifles at the horde, trying desperately to thin out the pack, to little avail.

“Those
crazy bastards are alive? Fuck me!” Captain White screamed. For the first time in a long, long while he felt an emotion that he hadn’t felt.

Joy.

He raised his M4 and started taking shots at the closest zombies to the Ram. “Curtis! You take out the horde, imma take care of the close ones! I don’t want you firing any closer than ten feet from the Dodge!”

“Got
it!” Curtis said, and unleashed the fifty. The barrage of lead ripped through the horde like a hot knife through butter, popping heads and dropping zombies left and right. “Haha! Get some!”

Rick
was shouldering his rifle as well, trying to get a bead on the high-percentage shots that he knew he could make. There was a particularly nimble zombie that had climbed up on the bed of the Ram, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting Balboa. Rick leveled the rifle and squeezed the trigger.

One
less zombie.

Balboa
felt the spray of blood hit him in the back of the head, and heard the crisp snap of the round as it passed through the would-be attacker. He quickly wiped his face and saw where the shot had come from.

He
saw Rick look over top of the AR-10 with a huge grin on his face. Rick gave a thumbs up from a distance.

“Hell
yes! Guys! Joe and the rest of the crew are here. Get down and let ‘em finish these fuckers off!”

Kody
turned and looked back, seeing the fifty cal mowing down the horde. He too, raised a fist in exaltation.

“Fuck
yeah! Kill ‘em all, boys! Let God sort ‘em out!”

The
Ma Deuce thundered, rifle shots cracked, and hot lead was thrown at the mass of zombies. Red mist flew out like fog, and bone fragments were thrown all over the place as the gaggle of ghouls were whittled down, one by one. Spent brass was flung, hot lead was fired, and the town of Tazewell was taken back by those who had worked so hard to make it what it was.

It
was home.

Within
twenty seconds, the entire pandemonium of killing was over. Cordite hung in the air, along with the smell of hot metal and blood. As the smoke cleared and the zombies ceased to move, the disgustingly large pile of bodies was evident.

Joe
got down from the LMTV, keeping his rifle at low ready, just in case. He waded through the mass carnage of bodies, stepping over rib cages, intestines, shattered skulls, and rivers of blood and black ooze until he got to the Ram.

The
men in the Dodge slowly got to their feet. Larry was first to get up and get out of the truck bed. He too, had to navigate through the pile of blood and bones. He walked until he stood face-to-face with Joe, a coy look on his face.

“What
did I tell you about calling for backup, you crazy bastard?” Joe asked, and then burst into laughter. He hugged his friend for a brief moment, and then looked behind him at the people exiting the vehicles. Most of the Hazard crew was very worn, bedraggled, and very malnourished-looking.

Larry
looked back at the people, then to Joe.

“Jamie
and Cornbread are here, and they have some more guests – friends of yours from Kentucky, actually – that would like to live in our town.”

Joe
smiled, but furrowed his brow.

“
Kentucky? They went and got the Hazard folks? I’ll be damned! Could have picked a better time to leave, but damn!”

Joe
turned and started walking back towards the two-and-a-half-ton truck. He laid his arm around Larry’s shoulder as the two men strolled over.

“
Wait,
our
town?”

Larry
looked to him and smiled confidently.

“Yeah,
our
town.”