Peters and Brown picked up their speed, trying to drop approaching zombies as they moved. In the meantime, the rest of the team was holding their own.
The men holding the flanks knew fire discipline. They would stagger their shots, so that their magazines would not go dry at the same time. Garcia was the first to click empty.
“Changing!” He yelled, and Moyers increased his shot tempo.
Garcia and Moyers were dealing with the majority of the undead. At least fifteen of them continued to advance on the two soldiers, and as Emily watched they steadily got closer until they were only a few feet from the men.
Emily tried to pick off any undead coming around the ends of the bus, and thereby prevent the men from being flanked, but making headshots in the heat of battle was very difficult. She could see that Peters and Brown had reached the civilians and were attempting to take careful shots at the zombies that were still fully focused on Dale. Even from this distance, Emily could see the blood spurts from the pile of bodies.
With another scream, Claire snapped out of her shock and swung her bat at the backs of the zombies attacking her son. It was too late though. Emily could see that the young man wasn’t struggling anymore. Peters and Brown started to pull Claire away.
Durant and Collins had drifted out about fifteen feet from the bus and were steadily backing up as about eight undead started pressing in on them. The undead did not care about bullet wounds. Things were quickly turning into a bloody, gory mess. Only a true head shot would stop them, though. And more shots were going astray as the zombies closed in.
Emily feared that their pocket was going to collapse soon.
Peters had a hold of Claire’s elbow and was leading her back to the bus. There was a pile of bodies behind them, with Dale’s corpse somewhere underneath that pile. Behind that, Emily saw a zombie coming out of the open front door.
The zombies must have made it inside their house. That’s why they ran for it! It became clear to Emily.
The zombies on top of Dale had lost interest in their now deceased prey. Their focus turned to the retreating threesome and they started getting to their feet to give chase to their escaping quarry.
A fleeting thought crossed Emily’s mind at that moment. These weren’t the traditional ‘eat the living’ kind of zombies that she had seen in the movies. These zombies only wanted to attack and kill, using teeth, fists and nails to do so. Once their prey had been killed, they quickly moved on to the next living person. It was utterly terrifying to Emily as there was no discernable motive or explanation. No need to feed – just a need to destroy. To kill.
Snapping back to reality, Emily noticed that Brown had stepped up and taken Claire’s other arm in one hand, and the two soldiers started dragging her back to the bus double time. Emily wished she could do more. She almost leaped out of the bus and started shooting along with the other soldiers, only to remember at the last moment that her order was to hold the door and provide support only.
A second later, Bill Moyers needed a new magazine. “Changing!” he called and popped the empty mag as he dropped to a knee. Garcia went full-auto and sprayed the arms reaching for him.
And then a terrible accident happened.
Moyers took just a second to slam a new mag into his M4. He set his weapon to full auto and swung it to meet the enemies in front of him, but it was a fraction of a second too late.
Just as he was about to hit the trigger, an undead fell on top of him, toppling him backwards. His gun slammed wide, spraying rounds towards the approaching Peters.
Time seemed to slow down for Emily as she watched the scene unfold in front of her. She watched as the arc of bullets headed straight for their squad leader. Sound also fizzed out for Emily as she saw the bullets from Moyers’ spray hit Peters. Emily would never forget the impacts and the spray of blood and tissue each bullet caused. It oddly reminded her of the impacts of asteroids she used to see on television science shows.
The first bullet entered just below just below Peters’ right ear and killed him instantly. His eyes bulged out and rolled up and he collapsed, even as the trail of bullets continued into his upper arm, side and thigh.
The surreal moment ended, and time and sound came back for Emily.
“MAN DOWN!” she screamed.
She stepped forward, kicked the zombie off Moyers and dispatched it with a close-up head shot, taking no notice of the bits of bone, the blood and brain matter that splattered on her. She quickly turned to her left into the gap that the downed Moyers had left and started shooting.
Brown had also acted quickly. He could see that Peters was gone and did not waste a moment. He fast marched the struggling woman towards the bus. They were now over halfway to safety.
Emily’s support provided Moyers a chance to scramble to his feet and line up beside Emily and Garcia. The three of them shot several targets that were nearly within arm’s reach. The rest of the zombies heading their way were tripping over their felled undead brethren, which gave Garcia a moment. He took a quick glance at the situation. Their side was temporarily under control, but zombies were closing in from every other angle.
He registered the fallen Peters but did not allow emotion to override his professionalism as a soldier.
“Fall back!” He yelled out to the team.
Durant and Collins started backing up to the bus, but the undead got too close to them. With a wild flail, an undead managed to push into Durant,
