“Calm down Martyn!” Julia looked over her shoulder.
“I still don’t think this was a good idea,” Ben whispered, but when he caught eyes with Julia, he continued. “We shouldn’t have sent those boys out there.”
“We should’ve never let them in here in the first place,” Carver growled.
“Let’s not start that shit again.” Julia closed her eyes tightly as she squeezed the bridge of her nose.
A loud pop from outside silenced the room and the screaming monster stopped. Then a loud horn replaced the noise. On screen, the infected mass stilled and all in unison, turned towards the origin of the new blistering sound. The display was a hideous scene of half dead infected monsters all popping their heads up like meerkats. Then the mob went sprinting after the new blaring sound coming from somewhere off screen.
After a second of registering what happened, Julia snapped from her daze and shouted, “Nadine, bring up the front cameras!”
Nadine’s hands were shaking and she fumbled with the keyboard and the camera controls. Julia began to reach for the controls herself but Nadine shook her hands out and began typing faster and the display changed to the front door of the Costco superstore. Different angles of the parking lot came up next. Everyone who was gathered around the monitors saw two men hiding behind a Prius as one of them fell backwards, before climbing back to his feet to run away.
“Who is that? Anderson?” Chakrabarti had made his way over to the table to get a look.
“Damn it!” Carver said through grinding teeth.
***
The madhouse of infected strikers spread like a cloud of locusts, rolling over the brick and rock walls as they moved around the Costco exterior, spilling around the corner and to the parking lots. Antonio and Miles took off sprinting from the pressing mass, as Baker emptied his assault rifle into the crowds. Many were going down with the spray of gunfire, but dozens continued, and Baker had to turn and flee before the creatures could get closer. It was a horrid parade. A cluster of mutilated monsters marching with mauling intent. They screeched and barked, biting at the air with ragged teeth like fervent dogs.
Baker ran from a tidal wave of infected behind him, running like diseased Olympic sprinters. They were so fast in fact; the captain could feel their haggard breathing on the back of his neck as the throngs pursued him. The multitudes sounded like a stadium full of roaring sick fans, switching back and forth between extreme joy and visceral sorrow. He took a moment to look back and immediately regretted it. A short figure was right on his hip and the captain recognized the creature as a small, ravenous child. It had vacant white eyes and broken and chipped teeth. Dark blood streamed down the child’s distorted face, coming from a head wound under ratty hair.
In Baker’s hesitation, the freak lunged at him and the captain was sure he would be toppled and swarmed in seconds. But a loud bang popped the infected child in the face, and it dropped. Baker looked forward and saw Antonio backpedaling as he continued firing at the approaching crowd.
“Two, three, four!” Antonio counted off kill shots as he pulled the trigger.
“You wastin’ bullets!” Miles shouted, while running alongside his brother. He pulled an air horn from his pocket.
“Shut up!” Antonio lined up his next shot, but Miles grabbed his shoulder and turned him around.
“You already used your four bullets! You already used your four! The rest are mine! I got three more shots!” Miles raised the air horn and it screamed in his hand.
Ignoring his brother’s protest, Antonio whirled around and fired again at the quickly approaching infected horde. Baker was thankful that the kid wasn’t listening to Miles’ objections to bullet usage. Two of those shots from Antonio saved the captain and gave him time to spin and open fire into the crowd. As many of the creatures went down—bullets tore through jugulars, legs, and abdomens, and slapped into flesh with wet pops—the falling bodies caused pile-ups that provided precious time to get further away.
When the captain swung around and took off running again, he saw Anderson stumble backwards from the Prius he was cowering behind. “Bates! Anderson! Cover fire!” Baker shouted over the horn and the thunderous mob.
Bates stood up and started unloading his weapon into the packs of howling monsters. After taking out a few here and there, the soldier in the bandana started smiling and fired with more glee. “Get some! Get some!”
“To the trees!” Miles stopped his horn long enough to finish his sentence, “Go to the trees! Run to the trees!” They ran through the parking lot, putting cars and shopping carts between them and the infected.
“Get some!” Bates just continued shouting and spraying his weapon into the crowds. The mass chased after the sound of the horn, but many were starting to make their way to the Prius in the center of the parking lot, where Bates was firing. When he noticed this, the grim look on his face was enough to tell you he had had his fun. “Anderson, c’mon! We gotta go!” He turned to find his brother-in-arms but the coward was halfway across the lot at full sprint.
“Anderson!” Baker screamed, but nothing could be heard over the dual air horns that Antonio was flailing through the air in front of the captain.
“C’mon you ugly fucks! C’mon!” Antonio was shouting as he jumped over a shopping cart and Baker followed, the infected only seconds behind him.
Then gunfire again, this time from across the parking lot, coming from Anderson. Baker was at first happy to see Anderson making himself useful, but when he saw the fleeing man shooting
