I closed one eye and lined up the cross hair, ignored the sound of firing weapons, yelling and screaming around me. I fired again. Hit the eye. It popped in a spray of the black goo that once had been blood. Dropped it.

We were going to the left. The zombies were behind us, moving slowly. Steady, but slow.

I didn’t want to take my eyes off them. I kept the rifle raised, but I didn’t shoot. We were putting some distance between them. I kept an eye on Palmeri and Saylor.

I chanced a look around.

Dave was low, checking the corner before rounding it. He fired his rifle.

“Got a few over here,” he said. “Shit. More than a few.”

“Shoot ‘em,” I said. “Shoot them all!”

I hoped Saylor and Palmeri had our backs. I stood above Dave. We aimed at the zombies coming up the alley between apartment buildings and fired.

Two ran at us fast. They were decked out in military camo.

“Hit ‘em, hit ‘em,” I said.

I was shooting. Headshots were tough, especially with them running. Heads bobbed. In shows and movies, the good guys hit everything. Destroyed brains like there was no way to miss. Crossbows sent arrows true. In real life, the here and now, it was different. So fucking different. The more apprehensive the situation made me, the harder it was to aim, but I kept firing.

And firing.

There was no other choice. None.

We nailed the fast ones. Might have been Dave or it could have been me. Like to think, it had been me. I gave up on keeping score. My ratio sucked anyway.

Suddenly, it didn’t matter, anymore. I was out. No more clips on me. No ammo left. “I’m out, got nothing left!”

I held onto the rifle. It was my bat, my sledgehammer. It, and my knife, they were all I had to keep me alive.

“Get up!” It was Palmeri. I looked back and saw that Saylor had fallen and was face down in the mud.

I stopped.

Dave grabbed me by the shoulder. “Keep moving,” he said.

I heard gunshots. Lots of gunshots. It wasn’t us and didn’t seem to be coming from the camp, so it had to be from the boat. I needed to get back to the boat. Dave was absolutely right; we needed to keep moving.

“Can you help me,” Palmeri said. It was like she was crying out in desperation. I heard it in her voice. I shouldn’t have done it, but I looked back a second time.

Palmeri kneeled next to Saylor. She had her handgun out. She used her free arm and snaked it under Saylor. He was not helpless, so he struggled to help her lift him.

“Dave,” I said.

He fired at a zombie. “We keep moving.”

I went back. Could not ignore the smell of the apartments burning. The raging fire kept getting closer. There was no worrying about the moon hiding behind clouds now. Flames lit the night sky better than the sun during most days. I dropped on the opposite side of Palmeri.

Dave ran at us. A spattering of flame burst from the front of the rifle barrel. I threw up an arm to shield my head. If Dave was shooting at me, my arm wasn’t going to stop shit. It was just a reflex. Dave wasn’t shooting at me. He was hitting, with pretty dead-on accuracy, the zombies coming at us from behind.

He reached us and dropped his rifle by my side. “I’m out, too!”

In a single, fluid motion, he had his knife out and was in the air. He slammed the heel of his shoes into a zombie’s chest. The thing would have gotten me, no doubt. I hadn’t seen it, or heard it, but it had been right behind me.

With a scream, Dave scrambled, spun around in the mud and threw his body across the creature. I stood up as Dave drove his blade into the zombie’s throat. He tugged his knife across the flesh, sawing at the spine. He grabbed a fist of its hair and pulled on it as he snapped the head one way, the other, and back again until he was able to pull it free. He removed the whole head from the body and cast it aside.

Palmeri was up, too. She fired at the zombies coming from where we had been heading. She aimed and fired. Good shots. Dropped zombies like a pro.

However, we were stuck. With Saylor struggling to stand, we were trapped between two apartments with nowhere to escape to. We needed an out, and right now, I didn’t see one.

I gripped the barrel of my rifle and swung at the head of a fast zombie. I knocked it off balance. It fell against the siding, clawing at the apartment to keep from hitting the ground. It knew it wanted to stay on its feet.

I raised the butt of the rifle and drove into the thing’s face. Its head smashed. It looked like an overripe melon of some sort. The thing’s nose was lost inside the skull and thick black blood oozed from where cheeks and teeth had been. It slumped to the mud, and then just sat there. Battered brains spilled from the huge orifice that was now the center of its face.

“We’re surrounded,” Dave said.

I looked left. Right. Wasn’t quite surrounded. Sandwiched, yes. Sandwiched between the two buildings, and both possible ways out were filled with zombies. They were either slow or cautious. I preferred to think slow. Slow meant they weren’t learning, weren’t getting smarter, and were not afraid of us bashing in their brains.

Slow, or smart, didn’t matter. We had nowhere to turn. Nowhere to go. “Dave,” I said, holding up my knife.

The two of us could fight our way out.. Three, if Palmeri came. Saylor would be fucked though. No way to cut a safe path through with Saylor saddling down two of us. Just wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work.

Palmeri insisted on helping Saylor up. He stood with one arm out, as if reaching for a wall to support him. Palmeri slid under that arm. “I’ve got you,” she said.

She didn’t. He weighed twice as much as her. He’d bring her down. With the wet grass, the mud, no way they could run. Fucking zombies slow as turtles would be able to catch and eat them.

“Keep moving,” Dave said.

I pursed my lips and tried to swallow. My throat felt dry, raw and my tongue swollen and thick. Sweat, rain, or mud slid down my forehead. Streaked my face. I wiped it with the back of my sleeve, and my sleeve onto the stomach of my shirt.

I didn’t want to leave anyone behind.

Dave stared at me. He didn’t say a word, but I saw it in his eyes. He screamed it with his eyes. We keep moving.

Chapter Nineteen

0512 hours

Our predicament resembled a mini-football field, and there were two teams involved; us versus Them. Felt like we were in the fourth quarter, at the two-minute warning. While I hoped we’d end this, worst case, I wanted to hang on long enough to go into overtime. It didn’t look good. In fact, it looked down right terrible.

Two rectangular apartment buildings sat, one on our left, and the back end of an identical one to the right. To the west, behind us, six or seven zombies approached. Two wore simple hospital gowns with bare limbs exposed to the elements. If I had to guess, flaps were open in the back. Why I thought that, why that popped into my mind, I have no idea. Another wore unidentifiable clothing. It was burnt and melted to her body. Her face and arms had been blackened by heat and fire. If the hair around the charred face hadn’t been so long, I’d never have known it was a woman. The others four were a mix of military and civilians. Men and women with bite marks evident and decay apparent. They were all obviously anxious to sink teeth into our flesh.

To the east, in front of us, there were another eight or so zombies. More gowns, more military, more civilians. My stomach rolled and flopped. I thought I might vomit and probably would.

I wanted a cigarette. A beer. A burger. I felt famished.

“Chase.” Dave waved me on. He was ready. Time to go. Time to leave Palmeri and Saylor to their fate. She struggled to keep Saylor on his feet. His weight had to be wearing her out. He definitely rested it all on her shoulder.