It took no time at all for the zombies to cover the M1117. They smelled fresh blood and they swarmed like flies to a rotting corpse. Elliott felt like he was perhaps mixing his metaphors or something but there was no time for that now.
He waited down in the hold while Junie popped up after McNabb, her face set with a calm expression. There was no joy in her eyes.
Elliott took deep breaths, steeling himself for what was coming. The zombies continued to hit the side of the truck like rabid bulls and now Elliott could hear them on the top of the truck as well.
The blast of the grenade launcher was their cue. Meaty chunks showered the truck as bodies slid off the truck to the ground, hitting with wet slapping sounds. Elliott and Fipps hoisted the dogs through the hatch, then Fipps crawled out and extended his hand back down.
“Aubrey, give me your hand!” he called down. She shook her head violently but Roger picked her up against her will and Fipps hauled her through the hatch as she flailed and clawed to hold the edges of the hatch. Elliott went through right after with Roger on his tail.
The darkness didn’t hide nearly enough in Elliott’s opinion. Some zombies clawed at the bright headlamps casting wicked shadows. The grenade had left a circle of gore around the truck. That and a few well-placed, truck rattling shots from the turret gun were keeping the zombies from crowding too close. Elliott stored that away for later: the zombies seemed completely berserk but in fact they did have a sense of self –preservation. Interesting.
Their hesitance did not last long though. Once they saw how many juicy morsels the M1117 was coughing up they began inching forward. The dogs were barking loudly at the zombies, growling with bared teeth and, somewhat alarmingly, the zombies were responding to that in kind.
“No time to lose, my boy!” Roger bellowed from behind, still pulling his thick frame through the hatch.
It wasn’t easy climbing down off the truck; it wasn’t really designed to have people climbing out the gunnar’s hatch, so foot-and hand-holds were hard to find.
“Just jump!” McNabb screamed at them. Elliott’s mind seemed honed to obey commands in stress situations and he did just that. He landed badly, and his ankle twisted but able to still stand on it. He lurched to one side and Junie, already on the ground and brandishing the grenade launcher, caught and steadied him. The others landed around him more gracefully.
“Elliott!” Aubrey screamed, her eyes wide. She was pointing behind him and he whipped around to find three zombies closing in on Junie and him. Their faces were horrible, one, a female, barely had a face left- it looked like the zombie that’d turned her had chewed it mostly off before she died. The other two looked like their bodies had gone through a cheese-grater exfoliation.
Before he could react McNabb ended the threat with the Browning, the zombies’ heads bursting like watermelon.
“Get ready to run!” he shouted at them. How much more ready do I need to be? McNabb then turned the turret west and opened fire clearing a path. “Get out of here!” he bellowed. “Now!”
They took off running, Elliott spurred on by fear. He barely registered his own movements as he knocked zombies aside and fired his pistol on pure instinct. Roger was far more precise. Junie wielded the grenade launcher coffee cup like a wrecking ball, pausing to tear another grenade off her bandolier and firing off through the crowd of undead. The heat of the blast rushed back at them.
Spot took the lead, knocking another off balance, letting it fall into a mass of grasping gray arms.
The zombies still pushed in at them from all sides as they ran. They left McNabb further and further behind, and only made it so far because of his covering fire. Every time a zombie got close it went down with a round from the Browning.
The airfield was ahead of them, Elliott could see it from where they were. Even through the panic, one thought registered, and did nothing to calm him.
No plane.