He and Jarvis broke off first, Davila and Rollins shortly after, leaving Burch and Stein as the final team.
The three mini-teams broke out into the open, spreading out about ten yards apart from each other and racing towards the tree line. There were a few dozen zombies ahead of them, with more coming out of the woodwork as they grew closer.
“Knock ‘em down and keep moving,” Jinx said.
The duo reached the first few who were a few yards apart. Both soldiers lowered their shoulders and rammed into a zombie each, sending the flailing corpses tumbling to the ground. Their presence drew the attention of numerous zombies around them, who quickly changed their target from the ship to them.
Jinx and Jarvis made it to the woods, seeing the trees packed full of the dead, but at least broken up thanks to the thick trunks. They darted to the left, hoping to put a little distance between them and the other two teams.
The Corporal led the way, his partner a few yards behind. He drew his handgun for close encounters, as they were far too many creatures to simply push through. He came around a tree, quickly popping a zombie in the head before shoving the lifeless corpse aside.
There was a torrent of gunfire coming from the other two teams, and he furrowed his brow in concern, wondering how bad it was on the other side. He had to concentrate on himself, however, as he came around a thick trunk and spotted half a dozen creatures blocking his path.
“Jarvis!” he barked.
She stepped up with her assault rifle, peppering the zombie group with some three-round bursts, dropping most of them. The Corporal put a bullet in the last remaining creatures for good measure.
“Five outta six, not bad,” he said, and she wrinkled her nose as she followed him deeper into the woods.
They avoided the outstretched hands of several ghouls continually drawn to their noise. Soon, the daylight at the far end of the woods peeked through to them.
“Keep pushing, almost there,” Jinx said.
He took out a few more zombies, making their run a bit easier. They pumped their legs hard, darting around a couple more trees before emerging into a field on the other side of the woods. There were a handful of corpses in the field, but they were spread out fairly well.
“Looks like the first wave of those things aren’t too bad,” Jinx mused. “Snipers and those other teams should be able to clear them out.”
He glanced to the right, hoping to see his teammates emerging, but they hadn’t yet. Instead, all he heard was more gunfire in the woods. He took a deep breath, and then glanced at Jarvis, whose eyes were hard to mask her own concern.
“They can handle themselves,” the Corporal assured her, “let’s get a move on.”
Jinx and Jarvis moved briskly across the field, avoiding the spread out zombies as they went. Soon, they hit a road and started moving to the south. A quarter mile later they spotted the driveway to Eddie’s Scrapyard.
“Stay alert,” he said quietly, “silent kills if possible.”
Jarvis nodded and slung her rifle over her shoulder, drawing her knife as they jogged down the dirty driveway. As they grew closer to the small building, they spotted numerous broken down cars stacked up along the side of the road.
The sounds of moaning and flesh smacking against metal erupted from the other side of the wall of cars, but it didn’t seem as if the creatures could get through.
Jinx rushed up to the window of the small dilapidated building that looked like it would collapse if someone punched it in just the right place. He peered inside, seeing a darkened messy office, but no movement.
“Let’s get inside,” he whispered, and turned the knob, but it was locked. He studied the door for a moment, the weathered wood with peeling paint, and then gave it a forceful straight kick. The entire frame shattered, and the door hung open. “Knock, knock,” he murmured.
They stood at the entrance, waiting patiently for something to come out, but nothing did. Just to be safe, they did a quick sweep of the building, finding it empty.
“See if you can find anything useful and wait on the others,” Jinx instructed.
Jarvis raised an eyebrow. “Where are you off to?” she asked.
“Going to check and see what’s coming up,” he replied, and then headed out of the building. He checked the satellite image of the area, noting a short line of trees to the north of the junkyard. On the other side of that was the main residential area that stretched on for several blocks before the bridge.
He readied his knife, not wanting to draw attention to himself, and walked through the woods. There were only a couple of zombies milling about, both of whom had become entangled in roots and branches, writhing in anger at being unable to free themselves. They got agitated when they spotted a fresh meal, moaning and thrashing about.
“Was going to let you slide,” the Corporal muttered, “but you had to start making a racket.” He stepped up and executed two swift knife blows, slumping the creatures over in their entangled mess. He cleaned his knife off on one of their shirts before sheathing it.
Moans erupted from the other side of the woods, and he moved slowly and silently. He inched to the edge of the trees, stopping about ten yards before exiting, which was close enough to see out without giving up his position.
He swallowed hard at the sight of a small army of zombies, easily hundreds of them, closer to a thousand than zero. All of them moved up the street towards the gunfire coming from the ship, faint but still loud enough to attract attention.
Shit, he thought bitterly, if this group makes it to the beach they can forget about gaining a foothold. We’re gonna have to do something.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jinx ran back through the woods, getting to the rally point
