The crowd of zombies was like a wall before them. Elliott stared in dismay. Shavian was making distressed noises in the back and Pat the dog was whining.
“Do you think we can just plow through them?” Elliott asked hopefully. “I mean, we’re in an armored vehicle.”
Fipps shook his head. “I doubt it. This van is hardcore but I don’t think it sits high enough. If one of those things gets caught in the undercarriage or something it could be a problem.”
Higgins nodded. “Agreed.”
Roger was staring intently out the windshield, squinting into the distance. They were stopped in the shade between two short squat buildings. “What is that ahead?” he asked.
Elliott looked more closely. On the other side of the wall of zombies, maybe two blocks down, was a large sign that read, “End of the World Beer Festival.”
Elliott and Roger exchanged looks. “Later,” Elliott said. “After we find Junie.” Roger nodded. “Higgins, can we back out of here?”
Higgins threw the van into reverse, and there was the immediate thump of the bumper striking bodies. A glance in the rearview showed a horde of zombies behind them. “Nope,” Higgins said. He put on the brakes and waited. Glances were exchanged all around, but the sound of a magazine being slapped into a rifle caught everyone’s attention.
Roger was standing in the back, shouldering a H&K MP5. “If we can’t get past, we have to go through. Who’s with me?” The responses he got were in the affirmative but probably less enthusiastic than he was hoping for from the humans; Pat ran to the back and started barking and growling at the door. The dog seemed to share Roger’s enthusiasm anyway.
Higgins armed himself with the Benelli M1, Roger handed Elliott an idiot-proof Glock 9 and Fipps took an AR-15. Unwilling to just leave him with Shavian, Roger gave him a carbine but warned Fipps to keep an eye on him.
Elliott looked at Shavian and said, “Will you be okay?” She glared in return and hissed at him. Elliott nodded. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Ready?” Higgins asked, his hand on the back door of the van. There were nods all around except for Elliott who emphatically shook his head. Higgins ignored him, threw open the door and they all ran out of the vehicle to clear the path ahead.
Fipps clapped Elliott on the shoulder. “Why don’t you stay back here and guard the girl?” Relieved, Elliott nodded.
Roger screamed something unintelligible but undoubtedly Scottish as he took a solid stance in the middle of the street and began mowing down the zombies. Indiscriminate sprays of bullets took down eight right off the bat. Higgins took more careful aim with the Benelli, crouching low and taking out an attacker with every shot. There was a rain of body parts thunking on the ground as zombies were blown apart. None of the zombies who remained standing seemed to care at all about watching their comrades go down; they just walked right through the gore and detritus. One, who looked like it had once been some sort of office drone, put his foot straight down through the head of a fallen fast food worker, making a sound like a watermelon. When the office drone’s foot came back up, the head was still stuck on its foot.
The mob was still half a block away from the van. Fipps, despite his AR15, seemed more comfortable with his knife: as he had in the precinct, he waded into a sea of zombies stabbing with brutal efficiency. A blonde zombie in a red business suit dodged his thrust at the last minute and the blade plunged into her shoulder ineffectually. Fipps calmly lifted the rifle into her gut, blew her to bits, and continued on his way.
Elliott was hit from behind and fell over. He scrambled away from whatever hit him, rolling over and trying to bring the Glock to bear. Five zombies were closing in on him; his heart stopped and he dropped the pistol. None of the others were anywhere near him.
Above him, the door of the van banged open. Shavian stood there, ammo belts crossed over her chest, a semi-automatic rifle in each hand, braced against her hips. There were pistols strapped around her waist, and knives in sheaths on her calves. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail, and even that seemed to be bristling with anger. Her eyes were wild.
“’If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts of Ephesus, what advantages it me, if the dead rise not?’” she intoned ominously. She let lose a spray of bullets into the air and screamed, “’Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”