Dead World (Book 1): Dead Come Home (28 page)

Erik turned and fired a burst across Bookie’s line of fire to cover a Marine with a jammed rifle. Neither man said a word, but continued shooting.

To the adrenaline fueled senses of the Marines, time slowed down. Erik saw each casing fly up and out of the rifle. He saw each target as he dropped it, and he could smell everything—the coagulated blood, sweat, urine, gunpowder, and death.

It was easy to pick a target and pull the trigger. They had trained for it half the time they were awake, when they weren’t in combat.

Erik saw part of a skull land in front of him. He glanced left and noticed JJ had saved his ass, blasting a runner about three feet from him. Erik shook his head to clear it and started shooting again. At the moment, he didn’t have time to be scared; he could do that if he lived.

The Marines kept reloading with the mags dropped off by runners they now barely noticed. They held the horde back while the mortar crews brought the blasts right to the end of the bridge. The snipers reported too many zombies to count, even after all of them that had been killed. The lieutenant had been half-right about half of Miami coming at them. To Erik and the others it was starting to look like all of Miami and the surrounding areas. In reality, the Marines of Golf Company, 2
^nd
Battalion, 6
^th
Marines were still outnumbered well over 100 to one, and the enemy was pressing ever closer.

Erik nearly blasted a fellow Marine who tapped him unexpectedly on the shoulder. Two more marines stepped up to the barricade.

“Gunny Thorn said for you guys to pull back to the final chain, reload, and take a breather,” said the Marine who’d tapped Erik on the shoulder.

Erik and Bookie trotted to the final defensive line, gasping for breath. They took a second to see what the rest of the company was doing.

Gunny Thorn had half the company loaded onto five-tons. Two of the five-tons sat perpendicular to the traffic lanes, giving the Marines on one side the opportunity to cover the rest of them if and when they were overrun. Two hummers sat lined up with mounted .50-cals to supply even more cover fire for the retreating Marines.

Erik thought he might have been disheartened by the Gunny preparing for defeat, but he was more encouraged by it. It meant Gunny Thorn didn’t intend to let them die. The gunny was still doing his best to get them out of this mess alive.

Marines piled into the back of the two five-tons. They didn’t start shooting, but waited.

“Platoon, get ready to resume firing,” the Lieutenant ordered.

Erik, Bookie, and the others assumed standing firing positions. The Marines in front of them stood up and back-peddled, some even continued firing until they reached the last barricade. The wave of walking corpses wasn’t far behind them.

The retreating Marines stopped firing, turned, and sprinted for the five-tons.

“OPEN FIRE!”

Eric started shooting. So did everyone else. The shots weren’t clean and single anymore. Marines were shooting as fast as they could, some had even switched their weapons to tri-burst. A majority of the shots still dropped a zombie each, but there were now far too many for it to make a difference.

Had the things been breathing, Erik would have been able to smell the blood on their breath, they were getting that close. Bookie backed away from the sand bags to give himself more room to aim his rifle.

“Retreat by fire and maneuver!”

Everyone back-peddled towards the trucks. Zombies grabbed at a few of the Marines. The Marines butt-stroked the zombies off of them. Two Marines nearly panicked. Their buddies jerked the zombies off of them, shot the things at pointblank range, and pushed their buddies towards the trucks.

The retreating Marines welcomed the sound of the 50-cal machinegun rounds cutting the air just above their helmets. As soon as the Marines heard the sound of the 50-cals opening up, they turned and ran. The machine gunners swept the entire line, giving the defenders a chance to concentrate on retreating. The front line of zombies fell to the ground in pieces as the bullets tore through both them and the rows behind them.

The Lieutenant stopped to prime and trip the charges that would blow the bridge. Before he could start running again, four zombies grabbed him. He couldn’t even scream before they started to eat him, ripping out his throat and tearing away chunks of his wrists and shoulders with camouflaged fabric.

The five-tons were already rolling away from the rigged section of the bridge. The hummers were in reverse so the gunners could continue to spray fire on the area. The marines of 2
^nd
platoon ran to jump aboard the moving trucks.

One of the 50-cals raked rounds over the Lieutenant and his attackers.

Erik felt the bridge quiver under his running feet before he jumped onto the railing of the truck and was hit by the deafening boom of the explosion. He didn’t look back. He didn’t have to. He already knew that a whole section of the bridge was dropping into the ocean below. The 50-cals quit firing and waited to see if any of the bodies that lay on their side of the bridge started to move. A few more rounds stuttered from the big guns before Gunny Thorn gave the order to hold.

Erik couldn’t decide if he wanted to cheer as the zombies were blasted into fragments, or sulk as the company of Marines and the small band of refugees marched forward into a bloody future.

NATHAN ROBERT BROWN (LEFT)

Nathan Robert Brown is currently a doctoral student of Mythological Studies at University of Texas at Arlington. His academic and professional works have led him to do extensive research in the areas of world mythology, folklore, urban legends, ancient civilizations, and world religions. Nathan has been the author of such books as
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Mythology
,

Fallen Angels of Vengeance
,
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Werewolves
,
The Complete idiot’s Guide to the Paranormal
,
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zombies
, and
World Religions at Your

Fingertips
.

ROBERT FOX (RIGHT)

Robert Fox is a journalist covering county government, health and fitness, and religion for The Lawton Constitution. Covering health and fitness led him to become a certified first responder and take interest in a career as a nurse.