The noise preceded Ben’s appearance. He was riding a tractor-style lawnmower.
“Man, that thing is loud!” Nat exclaimed as Ben drove around the front of the school and pulled onto the driveway leading towards the gate while carefully avoiding the claymore set in front of the steps.
“We pulled the muffler off. Now that thing is hella-loud,” Ethan said proudly. The approaching zombies must have thought so too, as they doubled their pace.
The noise of the lawnmower was momentarily drowned out as another claymore exploded. It sobered up the two young men, and their gleeful expressions were replaced with shock and concern as they saw bodies torn to pieces.
“Ethan, get down to Jack, yeah? Let John’s team know what is going on.” Emily ordered.
The teenager nodded and retreated to the hatch leading to the school. Q hung back on the roof, wanting to watch the action. Emily thought about telling him to go downstairs but decided to let him be.
She watched as Ben drove up to the gate and jumped off the mower.
“He’s causing a distraction.” Tammy stated.
Emily looked up from her position to see Tammy peering out over the edge of the roof. Emily agreed. “Hey, you lot! Hold your fire. Let’s keep quiet and see if this works,” she told Ern and Nat, who lowered their weapons.
They watched in consternation as Ben struggled with the chain that John had fixed on the gate. Luckily for Ben, there was no lock. Still, the fifteen-foot length was wrapped around the posts so tightly that he had to mess with it for what seemed like an eternity. The wait was agonizingly long for his audience as well. Emily watched with growing alarm as the procession of zombies got within a hundred feet.
She looked down the street and quickly surveyed the damage caused by John’s mines. The mines had not destroyed that many undead, but they sure had caused a lot of carnage. Many had been damaged in some way. Still, at least a hundred zombies were still on their feet, closing the distance to their prey far too rapidly for Emily’s liking.
Ben finally pulled the last length through a gap and the chain fell at his feet. He swung the fence wide open and jumped back onto the lawnmower.
“He’s not going to leave the fence open, is he?” Emily heard Nat say. She didn’t believe it. She didn’t want to.
Oh, shit. Did Ben just fuck us over?
Emily’s hand reached around for the trigger, and she got him in her sights. She sighed audibly as the soldier parked the lawnmower in the street and ran back to close the gate. From the sounds of it, her relief was mirrored in the people around her. She didn’t bother looking up, as her eyes were glued on the events taking place in the street below her.
Ben hurriedly got the chain back in place. He was halfway done when the last claymore exploded, not more than sixty feet from his position. The directional blast took out another half a dozen of the undead. Emily imagined that Ben would have felt the shock wave from his position as well.
“Fuck. That’s getting close. Get out of there, Ben,” Emily whispered.
As if in answer to her command, the soldier let the chain go with one final twist and turned towards his improvised vehicle. She looked on in confusion as he stood at the back of the vehicle and started fiddling with something instead of getting on the thing.
“What the heck is—" Ern started to ask when the answer blared to life. It was a radio. One of those boom boxes.
And it was seriously loud.
Ern frowned with distaste as the sound of hip-hop drowned out all other noise. Well, almost all other noise. Ben reached for his rifle next, and took a couple of shots, dropping the nearest two zombies.
“OK, Ben. You’ve got their attention. Now it’s time to bugger off, mate!”
The first zombies got within thirty feet of the soldier, yet he kept on taking shots. Emily looked down her sights, ready to fire on the approaching horde. “Get out, mate,” she silently begged Ben.
He must have realized it was time to go, as he jumped onto his lawnmower and a second later the vehicle lurched into motion.
Emily had no idea how fast those lawnmowers traveled. She needn’t have worried, as the mini tractor pulled away from the horde rapidly.
“Guys, get down and keep quiet!” she instructed those around her before lowering herself under the roof ledge. They would need to avoid all detection if Ben’s distraction were to work.
ON THE LAWNMOWER, BEN was glad for the earplugs. That lawnmower was loud! He remembered reading somewhere that a ride-on lawnmower made something like ninety decibels of noise. Then Q had the great idea of kicking the muffler off the thing, so it got even louder than normal. Apparently, Q knew all about making noise, because the boombox was also his idea. That damn thing was even louder.
Ben couldn’t account for Q’s taste in music. Rap and hip-hop just weren’t his thing. And now he literally had a front seat to it all. Lyrics blasted in Ben’s ears, all about gangster stuff and hoes. Ben would have only understood half of it on a good day. Driving a lawnmower to save his life took away any comprehension of the words spewing out of the speakers.
He looked over his shoulder at the chasing crowd and was happy to see that he had put some distance between himself and the zombies. Luckily, all the faster ones had already been taken out by the claymores. The maximum pace of these ones was comparable to a fast walk. Ben turned to face front again, and it was a good thing he did. He swung the steering wheel to the right as he almost ran over a corpse. As he corrected the vehicle, he saw another zombie coming at him straight
