To say I was screwed was like saying a world full of walking corpses was an inconvenience. I stood on top of the overpass, that led into Sisco, blocked from getting into the settlement by a large funnel. Hundreds of zombies were bearing down on me, and I didn’t have a single weapon on me. Screwed.
I could’ve given up. I could’ve lied down, closed my eyes, and hoped the end would be quick. That just wasn’t me. If they were going to get me, they were going to work for it.
I kicked the closest zombie in the chest, sending it sprawling into several other dead behind it. From the other side, a zombie lunged. I side-stepped and spun it around, letting its own momentum carry it back into the crowd of corpses.
Each attack I fended off caused me to retreat by a few inches. I turned and eyed the opening of the funnel. Someone, probably Jansen, cocked the hammer of a handgun and made tsking sounds.
I was going to try anyway. A bullet was better than teeth. Then there was the distinct clang of metal hitting pavement. A few feet away was my machete. There was no hesitation. I dove, rolled, and came up with it in my hand. I felt like myself again.
Zombies fell with throats split open, skulls cleaved in half, and necks that no longer had heads. They were going down much faster, but fresh zombies just kept crawling over the dead ones. The machete bought me some time, but not much.
I didn’t realize I had still been retreating until my back bumped into the funnel. It’s odd where the mind can go even in a life-threatening situation. Mine wondered if I could throw my machete and take out Jansen or Dave before the horde took me.
A honking horn sounded in the distance. Then, a screaming engine. I didn’t have time to investigate, but both the horn and the engine were getting louder.
A few kills later, headlights were shining through the gaps of the horde. The familiar sound of a body bouncing off of a car repeated over and over and over again. The nose of a car poked through the horde, easing into a halt and only missing me by a few feet. The engine still screamed and the tires spun, but it was done moving from the dead underneath it.
It was a black 2-door, and Gianni was screaming from behind the wheel.
“Marshall!” he called. “I’m here for you, you son of a bitch!”
And I thought I was dramatic! After spending so much time with Gianni, I knew where he was coming from, but it was probably the worst time to pick a fight.
“Clark!” Dawn’s voice called from behind me.
I turned to see guns in the still-bound hands of Dawn, Jack, and Ferguson. Some of the security team was down on the ground, others stood with hands in the air and shame on their faces. Dave and Jansen stood mouths agape, staring at the Gianni.
I put down the closest zombie and scrambled through the funnel. As I finished cutting my friends’ hands loose, I heard gunfire.
Gianni was trying to fight his way to us from his car, but he was overrun. I scooped up a gun sitting on the ground next to one of the unconscious security goons and stepped through the funnel. Jack reached out and grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t,” he said.
“What if it was you, out there?” He shook his head, and his grip tightened. “What if it was me?”
The look on his face, and in his eyes, softened and he let me go. Better than that, he followed me out. So did Dawn. And to my surprise, so did Ferguson.
We stabbed, shot, shoved, kicked and punched, trying to open a lane between us and Gianni. He was fighting hard. Stabbing with a knife in one hand and smashing with the butt of the gun in the other hand. He was out of ammo, but not out of fight.
I pushed harder, barely clearing enough room to slide my body through. It was too reckless, but the logical part of my brain was off. I was working on instinct alone. I raised my machete and barely stopped it from coming down on Gianni’s head.
“I got him!” I called. “Go back!”
The path we cut to get to Gianni had closed in, so we started clearing a new one.
“You’re a crazy bastard,” Gianni called over the noise.
“I’m crazy?” I stabbed through a zombie’s forehead and shoved it into the dead behind it. “What happened to not getting a scratch on that car?”
We cleared the horde and sprinted for the opening in the funnel. Jack, then Dawn, then me. Gianni stopped short when he saw Dave. His gun came up, aimed at Dave’s head.
“Gianni!” I called. “This is not the time. You’re empty anyway.”
“No, I’m not.” He pulled back the hammer. “I saved one round for myself. Or maybe I saved it for you.”
Dave only stared at Gianni like a man living his worst nightmare.
“I loved her. And you walled her for it.”
Understanding dawned on Dave’s face, followed by more terror.
“It was you?” Dave asked. “I… I… I…”
Then, chaos was unleashed.
Everything happened at once. A zombie grabbed Gianni from behind and bit deep into his neck. As Gianni fell backward, he fired his last bullet hitting Dave in the shoulder. Jansen pulled out a handgun, that no one knew he had, and pointed it at me. Ferguson reached out and put a hand on top of the gun, pushing it down as it went off. The bullet hit the pavement in front of me, but not before turning Ferguson’s thumb into chunks of flesh and bone.
I grabbed Jansen. He grabbed me back and were locked in a grapple. Normally I could overpower him, I’m sure of it, but my head still felt like it was full of mush. Most of the other onlookers were frozen in shock or rushing to the aid of one injury or another.
I wrestled for my life, and probably the lives of all those in Sisco, while Gianni, Dave, and Ferguson all screamed in pain. Not even the moans of a thousand zombies could drown it out, but it came close. We were all screwed.
