Everyone was still stacking bodies on the street, but they were finally starting to thin out. Each house had hundreds crammed into them and they were relatively safe on the roof. Zed couldn’t climb out of windows and then up. The ones that tried all fell into the mob below, trying to force their way in the broken windows. The gunshots continued to echo through the air for a time, but one by one, the M-4s fell silent and the sound of pistols replaced them. Gunny’s bolt locked back on his last loaded mag. He rested his weight against the belt and dug into his pocket for the last of his bullets. The frantic moaning and clawing of the undead surrounded him and he could see them reaching for handholds, trying to get onto the roofs of the other houses. Bodies came flying out of the window where Griz was, then he was on the sill, scrambling desperately to get on the roof before more biting mouths got to him. His house was overrun, too. Gunny aimed and fired, blowing a head to pieces as it lunged for Griz’s kicking legs, then took out another that leapt after him. His door had smashed in faster than he’d expected, he’d almost been mobbed.
Griz threw his bulk on the roof and just lay there, breathing hard. Within seconds, the reaching hands were pawing at the gutters, trying to follow him up.
“Ceasefire,” Gunny said into his mic. “We need to figure something else out.”
“This has turned into a SNAFU,” Griz said, laying on his back, catching his breath. He was covered in black blood, a long knife still in his hand.
“Is everyone out of ammo? Y’all down to pistols?” Gunny asked.
They were.
Gunny sighed.
This was not going according to plan. Not at all. The church was cleared at least. Everything that could run, walk, or crawl was away from it and trying to get into the houses. Maybe the people inside could help somehow. Rescue the rescuers.
“Can anyone get down, make it back to the wall?” Gunny asked. “There’s only a few hundred left. If we had a couple of boxes of ammo, we’d be able to finish this off.”
“I ain’t climbing down no gutter pipe,” Griz said, his two hundred and thirty pounds still planted on the roof, staring at the rising moon and listening to the screams of the undead.
“I can, if you pull them all out to the street,” Bridget said. “I can make it to the roof of the carport. It’s an easy drop from there.”
“Could wait for Scratch and Stabby to get back,” Hollywood said, reloading the last of his ammo into empty magazines. He was sitting on the peak of a huge rambling home that had been someone’s pride and joy before it became filled with the stinking, rotting undead. Now its fine antique furniture was smashed, the wallpaper smeared with pus and blood, the intricate woodwork broken and crushed underfoot.
“I’d rather go toe to toe with blades than have to listen to that idiot brag about how he rescued me for the rest of my life,” Griz said.
Gunny laughed. Those two were always at odds, but he’d seen the big man weep unashamedly when Scratch had taken a bullet through his chest.
“Yeah, he would be insufferable about it,” Gunny agreed, then readjusted the belt, taking some pressure off his waist. They’d jumped into this whole thing a little too quickly, they should have done some more recon. He’d been in worse situations before, though. This was an aggravation, but his team was fine, they’d been through harder times than this. He still had a few cards up his sleeve. Once Scratch and Stabby were in range of the little handhelds, they could let them know what they needed. Griz would just have to deal with the teasing. He saw Bridget massaging her shoulder and realized his didn’t feel all that great. They’d all pulled triggers a thousand times or more. He drew out his poke and started rolling up a smoke, ignoring the keening, clawing hands a few yards below him. He rested on his haunches, the belt holding him firm on the steep roof. Maybe the people in the church could come out and help them mop up before Scratch got back. Surely, they had some more ammo stashed somewhere. The doors remained closed.
Hollywood finished his reloads, walked the perimeter of his roof and wound up like the rest of them, staring at the church.
“Ungrateful bastards,” he said. “The least they could do is acknowledge us. Wave or something. There’s nothing around them, they can come out.”
“HEY!” Griz cupped his hands and bellowed at the darkening church a block up the road. “A little help?”
No one answered. The doors stayed shut, the shadows grew longer.
“Something isn’t right,” Bridget said. “You think it was breached on the other side? You think the zombies got in?”
They looked at each other, an unsettling feeling coming over them. Gunny took another drag from his smoke and stood to get a better look. What if all this had been for nothing?
The lightning rod snapped without warning. No creaking or groaning, no bending and slowly giving way. One second it was holding his weight, the next he was tumbling head-first over the edge. Bridget screamed and Griz sprang up, pulling his .45, but there was nothing they could do. They watched helplessly as he tried to grab the gutter, missed,
