The thrum of the battle was reaching a crescendo and by the sound of it, humanity wasn’t winning this fight. The backbone of the base was broken and would never heal. The very soldiers that had been ordered to protect the civilians would attack one another, then when the last gasp of life has been smothered from it, they’d turn on the civilian population.
McNabb liked that he had a flare for the dramatic. It’d helped in the past, and it was going to help him this time as well. The flood was moving through the broken door like blood through a clotting wound. Straightening his back he said, “This is never going to work.”
“Maybe,” Higgins said, checking his ammo.
“I am now reassured,” he muttered before moving forward. “We are going to want two groups, so we can watch one another’s backs. We will be using the row of trucks as cover with the space between them as a fallback if it get too thick.” Everyone nodded but Roger.
“Well if it was me I’d…”
“Elliott and Max with me,” McNabb continuing before the blustering Scot could pick up steam.
“You’re leaving me with the insane red and the mute?” Roger said with alarm.
McNabb looked to Max and she waved to Roger, “Are you sure?”
“Well what about I take Elliott and you….” Shavian wedged the barrel of her rifle into Roger’s temple.
“Don’t even think about it,” she said with a dangerous edge McNabb was quickly learning. How in the world did they kidnap this girl again?
“Time to move,” he called out more just to keep them from fighting anymore. The two groups of three moved past the next set of armored trucks just as Fipps got the truck to start. The diesel engine sounded like a thundering train ripping through a tunnel in the concrete room. The results of this were both good and bad.
Good, as in the zombies, hearing the noise, found interest in something other than the last few survivors. Bad, they found the truck a very interesting thing that needed their full attention. McNabb watched as the large lane allowing for two of these large trucks to pass one another side by side suddenly looked much smaller as the horde moved in.
“We don’t have firepower for this.” He grabbed Elliott by the back of the neck and pulled him back behind the truck. “Come on, we’ll use the outer wall. Max!” He tried to call after the woman but she didn’t hear him or wasn’t going to respond. He only watched a second as she pushed into the undead bodies and was lost at once in the chaos.
Pulling at Elliott he turned to find the other group wedge up against the far wall behind another service truck, Shavian in her medical scrubs down on one knee choosing targets and picking them off one by one, Roger trying to figure out what lever was the safety.
“I thought you said you knew about these guns, Roger!” Shavian said.
“Sure, but these really aren’t as close to an AR-15 as I thought they were,” he muttered, turning the rifle over, waving it about dangerously.
It was a big enough mistake that Shavian stopped what she was doing and looked back at Roger. “Yes they are! My father told me that people have M16 parts in their AR-15s and never even knew it. If caught they could face jail time.”
Roger looked back down at her, “Aren’t you Mormon?”
She looked right back at him, expressionless. “Yes.” Not elaborating, she turned and started to fire once more.
Higgins looking up to McNabb. “Fucked.” A true telling of just how dire things were becoming.
“We are going to have to fight our way up this side here.” He looked over his shoulder to see the M1117 pulling forward in a jerking motion. Fipps was still trying to understand the beast. Elliott grabbed Roger’s rifle, pushing it down the hall and flipping the safety off for him.
Higgins nodded and moved forward to help clear away any zombies close to Shavian, but she’d already been doing a very efficient job on her own. She was in a zone, every one of her shots dropping an undead. But it wasn’t enough, as for every one that came, two replaced it. How quickly the virus had worked its way through the compound was alarming.
Unlike other engagements, they were killing people McNabb knew. Every one of them had a name.