He plowed right into them, crushing them under his tires as he didn’t even let up on the gas. Each time, he’d pump his fist out of the driver’s side window.
“Enthusiastic, isn’t he?” Dante asked dryly.
Lily rolled her eyes. “That’s an understatement,” she replied. “No matter how trivial the accomplishment, he’ll let you know how awesome he was.”
“I can see why you dumped him,” he said with a chuckle. “That sounds exhausting.”
“You have no idea,” Lily drawled.
Ace slammed on the brakes, lurching everyone forward and barely missing Maddox’s rear bumper in the process. Muttering obscenities, Ace curled the wheel and backed up, driving around to come up alongside the other vehicle.
“What the hell, man?” he demanded.
Maddox pointed in the direction of the jail.
The trio stared front and froze at the sight of two dozen ghouls clustered by the front entrance.
“Well, ain’t that a kick in the dick,” Ace breathed.
Maddox nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, hoping you boys got an idea of how to get past them,” he said. “Because that front entrance is the only one there is.”
“Let’s get back to the farming supply store,” Dante suggested. “Maybe we can find something in there.”
CHAPTER SIX
The two trucks pulled up outside of the small farming supply store a block off of the main road in a row of shops. They quickly hopped out, looking around for any ghouls that were wandering around, luckily finding none.
Maddox immediately headed for the front entrance, but Dante held out an arm to stop him.
“Hold up there, bud,” he said. “We have to be prepared for anything in there.”
Maddox stopped in his tracks, nodding and taking a step back. Ace approached, holding out to Dante.
“You wait here for a moment,” the larger man said, and approached the front door, peering in through the large glass panel. He didn’t see any movement, so he jammed the tip of the crowbar into the door latch to pop it free with a single push.
As soon as he breached the store, he heard shuffling and moaning, followed by multiple sets of feet rushing towards him. He stood his ground in the doorway, watching intently in the dimly lit store.
A moment later, a zombie tore around the corner, almost running completely past him before spotting him and adjusting course. As it whirled, Dante cracked it in the head with a horizontal swing, sending it flying face first into the ground.
The second ghoul tore up the aisle directly in front of him, moving considerably slower than the other one, though still faster than a shambler.
As he waited for it to reach him, the rest of the group clustered around his back, watching it.
“Please tell me that’s going to happen to all of them,” Lily breathed.
“One can only hope, Lil,” Ace said, shaking his head. “One can only hope.”
“Goddamn, what the fuck happened to it?” Maddox moaned, staring wide-eyed at the multiple bite marks across the zombie’s body.
“That’s what those things do to you,” Lily replied. “They rip you up.”
He didn’t respond, simply watching in horror as the ghoul grew close enough for Dante to impale it with the crowbar. With its skull crushed, the corpse crumpled to the floor.
Once it was down, there was silence. Just to be sure, Dante leaned down and smacked the floor a couple of times with the metal, but there was no response.
“Let’s get what we need and get moving,” he instructed, leading the way inside. As he secured the door behind them, he pointed to his companions as he spoke. “Lily, Ace, start pulling everything we need for the farm. Just stage it by the door, and we’ll load everything up at the end. You two, let’s figure out how to get past those zombies at the jail.”
Everyone leapt into action, Lily and Ace rushing off with the list to pull things from the shelves.
Dante and the brothers headed over to the closest checkout counter to game plan.
“Okay, I’m open to ideas,” Dante declared.
Tate shrugged. “In my experience,” he said, “a propane tank and a flare seems to work pretty well in clearing a crowd.”
“And leveling the front half of the building,” Maddox added dryly.
Dante shook his head. “Not to mention attracting every zombie in a two-mile radius,” he replied. “We need something smaller.”
“There are probably some smaller propane canisters for torches and stuff,” Tate suggested. “That could work.”
Maddox raised an eyebrow. “That ain’t gonna pack enough punch, is it?”
“We’d have to get several of them, that’s a given,” his brother confirmed.
“Is it going to create enough shrapnel?” Dante mused. “These things aren’t going to be hurt by the concussion blast.”
Tate shook his head, pursing his lips in thought.
Lily passed by with an armload of seed packets and dumped them into a shopping basket by the cash. “Why not just make some potato cannons?” she asked.
“You want to attack these things with potatoes?” Maddox drawled, rolling his eyes.
“No, dumbass,” she snapped, “I said a potato cannon. You do realize you can fire anything out of those, don’t you? Just has to be packed tightly.”
He sneered at her. “Potato, rock, whatever,” he said dismissively. “It’s still not going to take out the horde.”
She shook her head, pointing to a display against the wall behind them. The three men turned and spotted the nuts and bolts section, filled with thousands of small metal objects.
“You’re a genius,” Dante breathed, nodding in approval.
She smirked. “Just motivated to get you boys done with your planning, so you can help us carry this shit,” she said flippantly. “But thank you.” She winked at him and hefted a bag of potting soil over her shoulder and strolled over to the door.
“I’ve never made a potato cannon before,” Dante admitted to the guys, “is it difficult?”
Tate shook his head. “Nah, just need some PVC pipe, a drill, and some sort of
