When in position, the men got out of their vehicles and stood in silence, seeing the mass of creatures headed towards them.
Greer eventually snapped them out of it by honking the horn. “Come on!” he urged. “If there’s this many on this side, there could be a whole hell of a lot more on the other.”
Herrera and Eason exchanged a concerned glance, before turning to hitch a ride back. Before he went, the Corporal pulled out his handgun and fired several rounds into the large wheels of the barricade truck. As the air seeped out of them, they lowered another foot.
Shots went off on the other side as Gilbert caught on to what he was doing.
“What was that for?” Eason asked, scratching the back of his head.
Herrera shook his head. “Some of these things may climb under,” he replied. “Don’t want to make it easy for them.”
Gilbert and Choi approached the gap between the bridges, which was only a few feet wide. They hopped up and jumped over the shot gap, meeting up with the others.
They clambered up into the truck bed and Eason slapped the roof, prompting Greer to turn it around and head back towards the Shopping Center.
Herrera watched through the gap in the trucks as the mass of rotting flesh came ever closer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dixon, Ayers, and Hurst finished setting up the torches for the reinforcements' arrival. Hurst scrawled across the patio door with a permanent marker.
“What do you think?” he asked, taking a step back.
Dixon looked at the message: Up the road through the woods. And hurry cuz we got shit to do.
“Straight to the point,” he said with a chuckle, “I like it.”
Ayers furrowed his brow. “What if they send a higher up?” he asked. “They might not like that?”
“Get real,” Dixon scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Why in the world would they send anyone of importance on this suicide mission”
“Hey now, I’m...” Ayers replied, holding up a hand, and then paused. “Well. Yeah, you’re right.”
The soldiers shared a dark laugh at their expendability and then froze at the sound of gunfire in the distance.
“You hear that?” Dixon asked.
Hurst nodded. “Sounds like somebody is panicking a bit.”
“They really need to tone it down, unless they want to draw a crowd,” Ayers said.
The shots intensified, multiple guns going off in three-round bursts. The trio shared a concerned look and then took off running.
“We gotta get to the line,” Dixon said as they hopped off of the deck and sprinted as hard as they could back to the tree line. As they ran, they saw a few of the other men that had been fortifying the gaps between houses.
“What the hell is going on up there?” one soldier asked.
“Trouble!” Dixon barked. “Move it!”
The two soldiers joined them and all five raced towards the woods, quickly hopping the fence and tearing through the trees to the other side. When they reached the clearing, they skidded to a stop, frozen in horror at the scene.
Three men at the car barricade at the top of the road fired as rapidly as they could into a dense mass of ghouls that were quickly reaching the cars. A fourth soldier stood three houses back, standing in the gap and firing single shots at an unseen enemy.
“You two, help him,” Dixon barked, motioning to the fourth man. “Ayers, Hurst, on me.”
The group reached towards the fight, and he hoped that the situation at the top of the road was manageable. The hope faded the closer he got.
The schoolyard horde had made its way to their doorstep. Hundreds of creatures moaning and writhing, desperately wanting the fresh meat just out of reach. They were ten yards away from the cars, and in enough numbers to break the barricade.
As the trio reached it, two of the soldiers ran dry and had to reload. Dixon motioned wildly, and Ayers and Hurst rushed over to pick up their slack, sending round after round into the mass.
“How many rounds have you got left?” Dixon asked.
One of the soldiers shook his head. “Two full mags!”
Dixon chewed his lip as he stared out over the densely packed horde, easily hundreds strong. They wouldn’t have enough ammo to take them out.
“We gotta reinforce the barricade,” he said.
The soldier gaped at him. “How?!”
Dixon turned his rifle into single shot mode, and walked up to the zombies at the front of the line, carefully firing. The zombie slumped down on the hood of the car, providing an undead brick.
“Single shots, drop them at the cars,” he said.
The soldier shook his head. “But they’ll just keep pushing!”
“And with dead weight in front, it’ll slow them down,” Dixon replied, “which is what we need until we can come up with a plan.”
The soldier nodded and started running up and down the line, firing single rounds into zombie heads. Dixon helped out, and the other four on the line sprung to action. As they went, a torrent of gunfire erupted behind them.
Dixon turned and spotted the trio by the houses fighting a three-front war. A few zombies had broken through at the first house, as well as two houses across the street, a few yards down from each other.
“Hurst, y’all hold the line!” he cried, and then tore off towards the others, who were firing in all directions at the dozens of zombies pouring onto the street. He flipped his gun into three-round burst, knowing he had to take a chance as the ghouls grew closer and closer to his men.
He stopped about fifteen yards from the closest group across the street. He opened fire, sending several bursts downrange, clipping several in the head and knocking others to the ground with the force of the shots.
Dixon continued firing wildly as more zombies emerged from between the houses, the makeshift barricades not able to stem the tide as another group shambled out from a different house. He fired off the rest of the bullets in his mag and
