All of the kids screamed and Ramirez jolted into action.
“Move!” he shouted.
He released the door and bolted up the stairs, grabbing the little girl he’d rescued. He ran past the little zombie right as her eyes popped open. Behind him the bus door crashed open and the zombies spilled onto the stairs. They clawed against one another as they all tried to pry themselves up towards their food.
“Move! Move!”
The children at the back of the bus leapt out the back door. Ramirez hopped down behind. He glanced back to see that the dead gang members had regained their footing and were sprinting towards the back of the bus.
The boy tried to run farther down the street, but Ramirez snatched his shoulder and wheeled him around towards the ambulance and Tanya’s house. “That way!” He and the other children peeled off in the appropriate direction with Ramirez still carrying the last one.
Steps thundered behind him, their dead pursuers were hot on their heels. As they passed the end of the bus, the last of the small horde of zombies trying to get on the bus noticed them and gave chase.
“Hurry!”
He couldn’t afford to glance behind him, but he knew they were closing fast. He didn’t think they would make it, but he still kept running with everything he had.
His heart dropped as Triple-Three’s back doors banged open and Johnny stepped out onto the bumper. There was a mad gleam in the gang member’s eye as he took aim at them.
“No!”
Another gun struck Johnny in the side of the face. Drifts threw his empty gun at him and was now hobbling closer as fast as his injured leg would take him. Blood flowing down his temple, Johnny spun around to take aim at the EMT. The end of Drifts’s flashlight struck his hand, and the gun fired as it sailed out of Johnny’s hand. Drifts grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him off the bumper while delivering a punch to the fat man’s gut. Johnny collapsed to the ground on his knees.
Drifts waved furiously for Ramirez, noting the zombies trailing behind them. “Leo, over here!”
“To the ambulance!” Ramirez shouted. The kids altered their course with him. Moments later, they dove in with Drifts help. Ramirez set down the girl, and she ran to the captain’s chair where she huddled against the other kids. Ramirez turned and saw that they were only several paces ahead of the small horde.
Drifts called out, “Leo, help me with this tub of shit!”
The EMT was trying to get Johnny to his feet and into the back of Triple-Three. Ramirez grabbed the gang member by his arm and the waistband of his jeans and helped his partner haul Johnny unceremoniously into the back of the ambulance.
“Get in!” they yelled together.
They leapt behind him and went to yank the doors closed. A zombie at the front slammed into the door, banging it closed with Drifts arm.
“Ahhh!” he scremed.
Ramirez grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled his arm loose.
More bodies crashed into the back of the ambulance. The children screamed. Hands blackened by fire slapped at the windows and snatched the doorframe. The ambulance door lurched open again. Ramirez and Drifts both grabbed the door’s handlebar and yanked it back, but more hands pulled on the door from the outside. A few arms reached through the opening between the doors trying to claw at them, but the door pinned them, preventing them from pressing any further. The partners braced their feet against the inner door frame, putting all their weight into pulling the doors shut.
Dead faces appeared in the broken shards of the back window. Laying sight on their prey they reached for them with no regard to the glass that raked across the flesh of their hands and arms.
Below them, Johnny groaned at their feet. “You fucking hit me again, you dick wad!”
Drifts looked down at the gang member. “Don’t just lay there, asshole! Get up and help us!”
Johnny looked up and scrambled back. “What the fuck?” His wide eyes stared at the ravenous beasts beyond the door. “Why the hell should I do that!”
Drifts glared at him over his shoulder. “Well for one thing, despite the fact that you tried to kill us, we pulled you in here so you didn’t become a meal for your friends out there.”
Johnny looked stunned. “You did?”
“If that reason isn’t good enough for you,” Ramirez grunted, “this door is the only thing between us and the dead! So for self-preservation alone, you might want to lend a hand!”
Johnny stood up. He looked from the crew at the zombie-covered door, to the children crying together, to the shut side door. He looked out the side window.
“What the fuck are you doing!” Drifts shouted. “Get over here and help us!”
Ramirez eyes narrowed. “Don’t do it, Johnny. With your help, we can hold this door until backup arrives.”
Drifts looked between them. “Do what?”
Johnny wouldn’t meet their eyes, so Ramirez answered for him. “He’s thinking about leaving out that door.” The children looked at the fat man and their crying intensified.
“No!” Drifts roared. “You can’t leave us! We fucking helped you!”
“That your problem, motherfucker!”
“Don’t do it, Johnny. They’ll notice you. You won’t be able to outrun them with that leg of yours.”
“Yeah, well I’m hoping they might be a little distracted.”
He banged the door open, but stumbled as he stepped down on his bad leg. Several zombies saw and heard him and they started towards the commotion.
“Oh shit!” Johnny cried out. He hobbled off as fast as he could manage with four zombies quickly gaining ground on him.
“I’ve got it here!” Drifts shouted. “Shut the door!”
As soon as Ramirez released the handle, two zombies slammed into the open side door and clambered up with a third one on their heels. Ramirez threw himself at them with his flashlight in hand. His overhand swing fell short as it smacked against the ambulance’s ceiling. The zombie’s hands fastened onto his shoulders and pulled him closer. The creature reeked of gas and burnt flesh.
Ramirez shoved the length of his flashlight into the thing’s open mouth and drove it backward. It crashed into the second zombie, plowing into the open cabinets by the side door. Out of the corner of his eye, Ramirez saw the third one come at his flank. Twisting around he heaved the other two out the door toward the third, but the first zombie held fast and Ramirez fell outside with them. He crashed to the ground on top of them.
“Leo!” shouted Drifts.
Ramirez instinct kicked in. He snapped the fingers holding him and yanked himself free. He took stock of the hollow burned faces before him. One of the four remaining zombies by the back door saw him and lurched forward.
“I’m coming, buddy!” He looked at the kids. “Close these doors once I’m out!”
Instead of holding the doors shut Drifts kicked them open with all his might, sending the dead flying. He leapt down and honed in on the one tracking his partner. He bent down and grabbed the ankle of a zombie as it took its first running step towards Ramirez and yanked its foot out from underneath it. The dead gang member smacked face first to the cement. Drifts followed up with a stomp to the back of its neck. It went flaccid.
The EMT had to turn back to his own plight as the remaining three converged on him. He slammed the doors shut behind him. He grabbed the closest one by its outstretched arm and hurled it face first into the closed door. He bashed it across the base of its skull and it flopped to the ground. Drifts took his flashlight in both hands and hammered the end down on the next zombie’s forehead. The strike glanced off landing on its shoulder instead with not enough force to neutralize it, but it drove the zombie to its knees. Drifts turned to third with the same maneuver, and fate was on his side as the front of the zombie’s skull cracked with a sickening squelch.
Drifts hauled back and kicked the remaining zombie onto its stomach. Pinning it with his foot between its shoulder blades, he finished the job with two strikes of his flashlight.
A flicker of movement in his periphery pulled his attention. He whirled around with his flashlight overhead. “You want some of this too you bas- oh no,” he whispered. He stared wide-eyed as April ran towards him.
Meanwhile, it was all that Ramirez could do to fight away the three mouths closing in on him. They kept him off balance and prevented him from gaining the footing he needed to defend himself, let alone to neutralize them. He frantically swung his flashlight at any hand and face that tried to latch onto him. Suddenly over the sound of his own panting breaths, he heard a nearby siren pierce the air with a deafening scream followed by a wet thud.
He had just enough time to see flashing lights as another ambulance screeched to a halt. It had blood and gristle covering its front bumper. The driver-side door banged open and Donnagan hopped out. “Leo!”
He came around the corner wielding his own flashlight and an immense knife, stomping for the nearest zombie he drew his arm back. He smacked it with his flashlight and finished it off with a swift stroke of his knife to the back of its skull. Their odds evened, he and Ramirez dispatched the other zombies in a few quick motions.
Once the dead were vanquished, Donnagan gave his partner an all-clear thumbs-up, and Tracy jumped out of the Ambulance, ran up to Ramirez and gave him a big hug. “Are you hurt?”
Ramirez briefly hugged her then gently pushed her back. “I’m fine. No bites on me.” He pointed up the street. “There were four zombies that ran that way. Did you see them?”
Donnagan nodded grimly. “They were busy having a buffet on some fat bastard lying in the street. They had his guts spread everywhere. I plowed into them with my truck at close to seventy miles per hour. If they’re not neutralized, I’m sure they’re at least slowed down a bit.”
Ramirez nodded. Then he looked about “Sam!”
Drifts poked his head around the corner. “I’m fine, Leo. Just a little winded.”
Tracy grinned and burst into tears. Donnagan exhaled in relief. “I’ve never been so glad to see your sorry ass before, Sam.”
Tracy started toward the younger EMT but Drifts said sharply, “Don’t come closer! Please I’m sorry, Tracy, but I’m covered in zombie goo.”
She nodded, “Okay, Sam. I’ll save you a hug for later.”
“That’ll be nice, but let’s get these kids in the house. Not to mention those criticals that we have inside. Leo, if you want to take them, I’ll watch the perimeter.”
“Okay,” said Ramirez. He poked his head inside Triple-three’s side door. “Everything is clear out here. Let’s get you inside!”
The kids followed Ramirez, Tracy, and Donnagan as they approached the safe house’s door.
While pushing his stretcher Donnagan said, “You boys picked a hell of a time to have a mass casualty incident. There’s a fire ten miles south that soaked up most of the city’s resources. Dispatch didn’t know what was going on. They heard reports of the shooting and only just realized that they had a crew in the middle of it. They tried to call you, but you never answered your radio.”
“It was shot along with our engine.”
“Yeah, well, that’ll do it,” agreed Donnagan. “Anyways, we dumped our trauma from the fire off and beat feet for this scene as fast as we could. Dispatch has more fire and police coming, but there still several minutes out.”
“Well I sure am glad to see you two.”
“Not half as glad as we are to see you.”
At the door Ramirez knocked. “Tanya? It’s Leo. I think the coast is clear now. I have a crew here to take some of the injured out.”
The door banged open to reveal Tanya’s haggard face. “Oh, thank God!”
“I need your help over here,” Justin called out. He was working on getting another line on Marjorie. The medic student already had her legs elevated in Trendelenburg to help with her low blood pressure. They quickly loaded the child onto Donnagan’s stretcher, and Tracy and Justin rushed her to Three-Fourteen.
Ramirez and Donnagan quickly triaged those inside. Taylor’s breathing had gotten so much better that he was now squeezing his own Ambu bag. Rico, the gang member with a gunshot to his leg, had grown no worse, nor had Marcus’s bullet wound to his arm. There were, however, two older boys with minor nosebleeds. When Ramirez asked how it happen Marcus spoke up. “I did that! Those two cowards abandoned the kids they were responsible for!”
Ramirez nodded, smiling to himself. He and Donnagan took Taylor out to the Three-Fourteen. After a quick discussion, Tanya relinquished her post watching the kids and her house to accompany Taylor to the hospital. Rico and Marcus agreed to watch the kids until Ramirez came back.”
“Justin, go with Tracy. She’s going to need an extra pair of hands.”
Justin nodded, “Okay. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No, but I want you to know you did an admirable job. You would be quite an asset in this field.”
“Thank you,” said Justin.
“Will I see you next shift?”
Justin smiled. “Count on it.”
Ramirez closed the ambulance’s doors and patted the back. Three-Fourteen sped down the street. Off in the distance, he could hear more sirens approaching. He went to check on his partner and found Drifts sitting on the bumper with his head down.