We all were looking around trying to figure out what it was.
“Maybe hide?” Tracy asked the best question of the day.
We moved forward to get in and around some raspberry bushes. It wouldn’t stop a bullet, but we were damn near invisible.
“Tanks?” BT asked.
“We have to go back!” Tracy said with alarm as she started to rise.
“It’s not tanks,” I told her, cocking my head to listen better.
“How do you know that? We have got to go back and protect them!” Tracy was on the verge of panic.
“Trace, hold on, it’s not tanks. I’m not saying it’s good, it’s just not tanks,” I told her, trying to get a bead on what was happening. The hanging raspberries in front of us were starting to dance on the vine.
“How do you know that, Mike?” BT asked looking around.
“Been in a few combat missions, tanks are noisy as fuck, so loud you can’t hear yourself think.” Now the bushes themselves were starting to sway.
“Well?” BT asked.
“Tanks would have been better,” I told them.
Tracy hazarded a look. “Oh my God.”
BT popped up. Had anybody been watching, they would have thought they were catching an episode of
“How can something that big be moving that fast?” she asked, looking off into a distance only in her field of vision.
“Now at least we know why all the guards are gone,” I said.
“Now what?” BT asked.
“Eliza pulled her men back because of those things, so apparently they’re as dangerous to her side as they are ours. We wait until they pass.
“The vials don’t work?” BT asked, holding tighter on to his.
“I’m not sure maybe you should go check it out,” I told him.
“Oh hell no. As the only black man surrounded by a bunch of whities, I’ve already bucked the trend by staying alive this long. I’m not going to do anything that would threaten that now.”
“Fair enough,” I told him. Wait it is.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Last Stand
Travis had been behind the steel curtain firing rounds at the advancing zombies. It was like killing mosquitoes; no matter how many you took out, there was always another one to take its place. Rifle fire was happening at various parts of the deck as the Talbots tried to keep the zombies at bay. The trench claimed a fair number, but was rapidly filling in as zombies literally fell ‘on the sword’ for their brethren.
“Should have dug it deeper,” Ron said as he came in next to Travis. “Any return fire?”
“Nothing,” Travis said, taking a moment to reload. “I don’t think they’re there anymore, but like my dad says, ‘life isn’t something you gamble with’ so I haven’t stuck my head up to really look around.”
“Smart boy. They’re going to have that trench filled in soon, and the fire won’t last forever. The blood and gore from the zombies is going to clog the nozzles.”
“You know that’s pretty gross right?” Travis asked as he put his rifle back up to the firing slot.
“You feel that?” Ron asked as he watched a spent casing jump.
“You’ve got to see this,” Travis said, pulling back and handing the scoped rifle to his uncle.
“What am I looking for?” Ron asked, looking through the scope.
“Look at the edge of the zombies.”
“What...the...fuck?”
“Yeah that’s pretty much what I thought.” Travis said.
“They moving in heavy machinery?” Gary asked, running around the corner of the house.
“I guess that settles the idea of guards still being out there,” Travis said. Standing so he could get a better view of the oncoming nightmare.
“Cave trolls!” Gary yelled. “Where did they get cave trolls?” he asked, looking at his older brother who had just stood up.
“They’re zombies, Gary,” Ron told him.
“They have cave zombies?” he asked.
“There’s no part of cave in it, I think,” Ron said, doubt creeping into his voice.
“So we’ve got shufflers, speeders, headers, and now bulkers,” Travis said, looking through the scope at the approaching horror.
“Headers?” Ron asked.
“The ones with the thicker foreheads. We didn’t really prove it, though,” Gary told him.
“They’re running over the smaller zombies,” Travis told them.
The smaller zombies that could not move out of the way in time found themselves melding into the ground as they were trampled underfoot.
***
The giant zombies had passed us by when I chanced another sneak peek. “They’re just mowing the others down. It looks like a pro football team playing a pee wee team.” BT and Tracy joined me.
“It does look like the other zombies are trying to get out of the way, though, doesn’t it,” Tracy asked as more of a statement.
“That’s strange behavior in and of itself,” BT said.
“Not entirely. I think they have a rudimentary self-preservation mode. It’s pretty under-developed, but it’s there. Come on, this doesn’t change our mission. If anything, it means we need to move faster.
***
The bulkers were at the edge of the trench. They traversed over the broken bodies of those that had gone before them, never once slowing their stride.
“Off the deck!” Ron yelled. “Everyone off the deck now!” he yelled louder.
He had just stepped into the living room when the first of the bulkers slammed into one of the support beams for the deck. The house shook from the contact—the unmistakable crack of pressure-treated wood cracking came next.
“That’s a four by four support post,” Gary said. “I should know, I’m the one that set it there.”
“What the hell is that?” Tony asked coming across the room, he had been stationed on the other side of the house.
“Giant zombies.” Ron told him.
“Will the basement door hold?” Travis asked, a hint of fear in his voice.
“It’s a solid oak door with a two-inch thick piece of steel laid across it and the mounts are set with four inch concrete screws,” Ron informed him. He seemed to be doing the math in his head, with the strength of the doorway with the force being applied. Although it was difficult to concentrate with the house shaking like the foundation was
