“Oh shit.” Jack wasn’t sure if it was he or Ethan who said that.
“Switch channels and let John know,” Ethan blurted. Jack nodded.
In his hurry, he forgot all about the radio protocol. “Jack to Abi. Abi come in. Over.”
“Jack, this is Abi, over.” She sounded concerned.
“Abi, we’ve lost contact with Breanne! Her last message was that there were too many zombies. I think maybe they crashed their vehicle or something. Over.”
There was a momentary pause before Abi replied. “Jack, John says that there is nothing we can do for them right now. We’re fully engaged ourselves. Tell the shooter teams over there to get ready for action. Over.”
Jack looked over his shoulder, exchanging a worried glance with Ethan. “Go tell them.” Ethan nodded and ran off.
“10-4, Abi. We will prepare. You be safe. Over.”
“OK, Jack. We will return to the Ren as soon as we can. Good luck to you and the others. Over and out.”
Jack tried Breanne’s frequency again but was met by static. He sighed as he placed the mike back in its holder.
All he could do was hope that things weren’t as bad as they sounded.
THE RINGING NOISE IN Breanne’s ears was overwhelming. That, along with the smoke that filled the cabin of the Humvee, caused her to be severely disoriented.
Breanne felt like she was sitting at an odd angle, too. Her head was resting on the side window. She felt a sharp pain and a wave of wetness washed down her cheek and neck when she moved her head away from the window.
Breanne heard a noise, much like a muffled moan. Then she felt hands on her. They grabbed her in inappropriate places. She moved her arm clumsily to bat the hands away.
“Get offff.” The badly slurred words barely made it past her lips.
“Breanne!” She clearly heard her name that time.
She looked over at the shape looming above her. Her vision spun and twisted, but she could make out BB’s sunken-cheeked long face in the middle of it all.
“BB?” she said weakly. He continued to yell, his hands all over her.
“Hey! Aren’t you going to buy me dinner first?” She wasn’t sure if she’d thought it or said it. It all sounded garbled. What she could hear was the unmistakable sounds of shooting, and as her vision settled, she could make out Bill’s shape just outside BB’s door. He was shooting furiously.
Finally, BB’s hands found what they were looking for. He reached behind him, and Breanne clearly saw the dangerous looking knife he raised above her. She had no time to scream or struggle as the knife plunged down, and she felt her body falling away.
THE BURSTS OF 5.56MM rounds were doing massive damage. John had grouped his shots and took down at least three zombies with every burst of ten shots or so. Abi could tell he had been resisting the urge of just pressing that trigger and blasting the shit out of everything in front of him.
Abi tugged his leg and he paused his shooting for a second.
“What’s up, baby doll?” he said with a confident wink.
This guy was seriously confident in a fight!
“How’s your ammo?”
He checked the ammo box. “Still over half full. Tell Mike to move up the street some more.” With that, he slipped the ear protection back on and started shooting again.
Mike had heard the command and slowly guided the vehicle forwards another twenty yards. The surface of the road was no longer smooth, as the vehicle drove over various body parts. It took all of Abi’s willpower to keep herself from shuddering.
All the targets behind them were down, if not out. Abi snuck a look through the side mirror, catching a weird angle of the world behind her. This time, she couldn’t prevent the shudder, as she saw several shapes worming their way towards them down the blood-slickened street.
Just then the regular staccato sound of the SAW was cut off by a loud clank. She turned around just in time to see John drop down into the cab of the Humvee.
“Damn, I’ve got a jam.” He started rooting around the floor at his seat. Abi couldn’t believe how calm the former soldier was. “Maybe back us up ten to twenty feet there, Mike,” he said as he dug around.
Mike complied, coming to a stop just as John found what he was looking for.
“Bingo!”
He held his prize aloft for Abi to see. It was a barrel.
John recognized the look of confusion on her face and quickly explained, “Quick release barrel.” The next second, he was back on his feet. Three seconds later, a sizzling barrel fell down from his weapon.
“Careful. She’s hot!” he called down.
Abi looked up anxiously as John swapped out the barrel and reattached the ammo drum. He pulled the charging handle and pushed it back into place after making sure no other objects were blocking the chamber. Within moments, the sound of the SAW firing dominated everything once again.
“There’s the hole!” Mike yelled over the noise.
Abi looked out and saw the gap in the wall. It looked like one section had collapsed under the combined weight of all those zombies. Some were still spilling through, but it looked to Abi like most of the crowd had already breached.
Most of that crowd lay in pieces on the roadway.
John shot off a few more bursts. The mob of zombies was definitely thinning now. He poked his head back into the cab. “Try to get an angle for me. I don’t want to damage that wall,” he yelled, forgetting that he was wearing his hearing protection.
Mike pulled the vehicle forward, bumping into several moving shapes as he maneuvered the Humvee onto the street that ran parallel to the wall. John did get trigger-happy then, delivering a steady stream of bullets into the last grouping of zombies. He held down the trigger for a solid ten second burst, sending over a hundred bullets towards the undead.
Abi could hear him yelling
