Rollins gave a thumbs up and drew his handgun, firing a few shots into the back window, shattering it. Stein continued to fire at the coming zombies, attempting to cover his friend as he struggled to get out of the busted window.
“Goddamn it,” Jarvis muttered, and hit the gas, speeding towards her friends.
Stein dove to the side to give her a wide berth to do her damage. She drove into the middle of the back and cut the wheel sharply, flooring it. Within seconds she was doing donuts on the bridge, sending zombie bodies and smoking tire debris flying through the air.
This gave Rollins enough time to clear the car, and immediately started firing, clearing out the ghouls in his path. After a few full rotations, Jarvis hit the brakes.
“Come the fuck on!” she bellowed.
There were still a handful of creatures standing, moving in various directions, but the soldiers were able to avoid them as they raced to the truck. They hopped into the back, smacking the back window of the cab, and Jarvis punched the accelerator to get them out of there.
She sped several blocks away from the bridge, skidding to a stop in the residential neighborhood. She opened the back window, eyebrows raised.
“Holy shit, that was wild!” she declared. “Everybody good?”
Rollins made an a-ok sign with his hand. “Might need a change of pants,” he joked, “but other than that, I’m golden.”
The three shared a relieved laugh, and then sat back and relaxed for a moment, giving time for the other pack of zombies to make their way to the bridge so they could block it off.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jinx readied himself by the front window, looking out at the zombies pressed against it. There were dozens of them, and hundreds more in the parking lot, all attracted by the gigantic blast at the restaurant.
He checked the ammo on his assault rifle, making sure it was full. When he was satisfied, he let out a two-fingered whistle that echoed throughout the building. A few seconds later, the ear piercing sound of the fire alarm filled the air.
He winced. “Christ, it might be less damaging just to be on fire,” he muttered, and flipped his rifle into three-round burst mode and aimed at the big windows.
He unleashed half a mag’s worth of bullets, peppering the windows with them. The impact did little more than put a few holes in it.
“Fucking safety stuff.” He shrugged and reached into his bag, pulling out two grenades before walking back behind the registers. He pulled the pins on both and lobbed them over to the windows, and then turned tail, sprinting back towards the loading dock.
A few seconds later, another earth-shattering BOOM filled the air. Jinx didn’t bother to look back, since if the blast hadn’t opened the windows, nothing he had would have. He tore for the loading dock.
“What happened to just shooting them out?” Davila asked wryly.
Jinx shrugged. “Safety glass, so had to go big,” he explained.
Burch opened the back door and stepped out, immediately raising his rifle and firing several shots as the other two piled out behind him. By the time the trio reunited, the zombies lay on the ground in a heap.
“Let’s get to the water,” the Corporal instructed, and led his companions across the back of the lot. They pushed through the waist-high grass, splashing down as they reached it. They sloshed out into the water, seeing their target on the other side of the southern bridge.
“Man, that was a good call to go on the water,” Davila said.
Burch nodded. “No kidding.”
The southern bridge was covered in easily a couple hundred zombies, all moving across it towards the noise. Jarvis plowed through some of them with the truck, sending bodies flying every which way.
“Fuck, we gotta move,” Jinx urged. “She’s going to attract a crowd.”
The soldiers swam as hard as they could towards the southern bank. The current of the river wasn’t strong, but they still had to fight against it to make sure they didn’t end up downstream. As they paddled across, gunfire erupted from the building up ahead, a lot more sustained than was comfortable.
The trio pushed even harder and faster.
After a few minutes of intense swimming, they finally reached the other bank, just below the store. Gasping for air, they staggered forward, pulling their rifles from their backs.
“Suck it up boys,” Jinx huffed, “we gotta get up there.”
They climbed the grassy hill, struggling to reach the top with their slippery boots and heaving lungs. When they finally crested the hill, they saw their three teammates standing in the back of the truck firing down at a small army of zombies, easily sixty or seventy strong.
“Clear ‘em out!” Jinx barked, and the trio raised their weapons, hitting the ghouls from the side.
The mass of rotted flesh was twenty yards away, which was an easy distance for headshots. A few of the creatures nearest the new source of noise turned to move towards it just in time to take a bullet to the face.
The soldiers burned through mag after mag, sweating and breathing hard, focused on the battle raging around the truck.
Finally, the battlefield fell silent, the last of the corpses fallen, and the soldiers lowered their weapons. Jinx looked back towards the bridge and top of the driveway. There was a smattering of zombies staggering their way, but they were still fifty yards and moving slowly in the heat.
“Get the bridges squared away?” the Corporal asked.
Jarvis hopped down from the truck. “Not a hundred percent, but the ones on the other side are going to have a hell of a time getting back,” she said.
“Good enough for me,” Jinx replied.
Burch took a knee to catch his breath. “So now what?” he asked.
Jinx jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the grocery store. “Let’s go clear that out, get comfortable, and wait on help to get here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The sun hung low
