“Never underestimate what a bit of panic fire can do,” Dixon replied as Hurst resumed single shots into the smaller horde.
“Clear,” he reported, lowering his gun.
The soldiers congregated on the right side of the deck, surveying the three dozen bodies sprawled in the grass. Dixon patted Hurst’s shoulder a few times.
“Come on,” he said, “we gotta find something to let the boys know where to land.”
The trio headed inside and began rifling through closets, Hurst taking the garage. He entered the main house again, holding a stack of tiki torches.
“Hey, think this will work?” he asked.
Dixon inspected them, finding the fuel reserves full. “Lighting the way,” he said, and took a long sniff of the citronella, “and keeping the mosquitoes away. Bonus. Let’s get them set up and we’ll leave them a note on the sliding glass door letting them know where we are.”
CHAPTER TEN
Herrera and his team hid inside a gas station across the street from the large shopping center. There were four large anchor stores, along with several hundred yards worth of smaller stores. There were easily a few hundred zombies that they could see from their vantage point, milling about in the parking lot area. The solar powered street lights were still bright, just as if it were any other night, except the glow illuminated rotted heads as opposed to Christmas shoppers.
The soldiers shared a lukewarm bottle of water and some salty snacks.
“Doesn’t look like that school did nearly enough for us,” Greer said dryly.
Choi swallowed a mouthful of chips and shrugged. “It got us this far, didn’t it?”
“Hundreds passed by the church, and that was just from what I could see,” Herrera pointed out.
Gilbert nodded. “HI would much rather face a few hundred than a few thousand.”
“Yeah, that’s true,” Greer agreed, and then sighed. “Still, would have been nice if it was totally clear.”
Eason took a deep breath. “So how are we doing this?”
“We’re not going to bother going through the stores,” Herrera replied. “We’re just gonna head around back and go straight for the trucks.”
Greer shook his head. “Man, that’s one hell of a run on foot,” he said dryly. “Especially if the back of the stores looks like the front. Really easy to get bottlenecked in there.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” the Corporal admitted.
“What about that pickup truck just across from us?” Gilbert asked, motioning to a shiny truck on the edge of the parking lot. “I mean, we’re going to need transport from the western bridge anyway, might as well kill two birds.”
Eason nodded thoughtfully. “If we’re going to do that, wouldn’t it be smarter to backtrack to the nearly empty neighborhoods, though?” he asked.
“Don’t know about you, but all I saw were luxury sedans in the driveways,” Gilbert pointed out. “If we have to plow through these fuckers, we’re going to need something with a little more oomph.”
Choi sighed. “Downside to being on a rich person’s island,” he said. “Heavy duty trucks aren’t real popular.”
“Corporal, what do you think?” Greer asked.
Herrera cocked his head. “Who knows how to hot-wire a car?”
Choi looked back and forth, and then hesitantly raised his hand.
The Corporal raised an eyebrow. “That didn’t look very confident,” he said.
“Because it isn’t,” Choi admitted, lowering his hand. “It’s been years since I’ve done it.”
Gilbert leaned forward. “Question is, can you do it now?”
“I think I can,” Choi replied, though his voice didn’t sound sure.
“We’ll buy you as much time as we can,” Herrera decided. “If it doesn’t work, we say fuck it and make a run for the back, and we’ll worry about transport later.”
There was a murmur in the affirmative, and Choi nodded, rubbing his hands together to psych himself up.
“Okay,” the Corporal continued, “we make a perimeter around the truck. Weapons hot, but only fire when it becomes necessary. As soon as that first shot fires, we’re going to be the belle of the ball. Choi, when you get it started up, everybody pile into the back and you haul ass to the rear of the stores. First batch of trucks you see, we get to work. Greer, you’ll be on pickup duty.”
Greer nodded. “I’ll handle it,” he said, “but where are we getting the truck keys from?”
“A lot of these stores keep the keys in the back office in case of an emergency,” Herrera replied. “We get in, find them, and move out. The interstate is due north of here. First two trucks take the inner loop, other two take the outer. CB channel eight, and we’ll make the call on where to block the road based on conditions.” He paused, looking at his team. “Ready?” At their affirmative, he said, “Let’s move.”
The Corporal led the group outside, everyone with their assault rifles at the ready save for Choi. They raced across the street, looking both ways and seeing a smattering of zombies in the road a ways down.
When they hit the shopping center lot, they raced for the truck. There were a few dozen zombies within sight, straight ahead and several stores up. Gilbert and Greer kept them in their sights, coming around the side of the truck.
Herrera and Eason turned to the right, looking down the other row of stores, seeing an alarming number of ghouls there, easily a hundred strong with the closest being only fifteen yards away.
“Steady,” Herrera said quietly, “don’t shoot until they move towards us.”
Both men kept their aim true, waiting for the moment. Choi tried to open the driver’s side door, but it was locked. He tried the passenger side, but it was locked too, so he pulled out his metal baton and gave the corner of the window a hard strike, shattering the glass.
At the noise, the closest zombie to the Corporal whirled around and stared at them, staggering forward.
“Don’t shoot, I’ll take it out,” Herrera whispered, and pulled his knife, inching towards the ghoul.
Choi unlocked the truck and then slid over to
