“I recognize them!” yelled Maylee. “They were in the church! The flock of that preacher!”
"We're gonna need plan B," said Angie.
"Stop them!" yelled Angie, pointing her cane at the flock as they raced for the children. Angie didn't know what their intentions were, but their expressions spoke horrors.
The guards turned their fire on the advancing flock. They kept racing forward, disregarding the bullets. A few fell as bullets tore through their bodies. The rest seemed to revel in the bloodshed and kept racing forward, bellowing in fury.
The flock rushed headlong into Angie, Maylee and the guards. The guards kept shooting. The flock toppled many guards to the ground, screaming and clawing at their faces. They raked their fingernails across skin, gouging out thick streaks of blood.
“The truck!” yelled Angie. “Get the kids to the truck!”
One guard slung his rifle over his shoulder. He ran around the moat, headed for the beaten pickup. Angie hoped the thing would start. Hoped the thing would make it over the moat and get the children safely to the fallback point. Then she and the others would lead the corpses the other way. The crazed flock were another matter, however. They were focused, determined. Angie wondered how she could lure them away. They struggled with the guards, who were holding them back for the moment.
The guard reached the truck and flung the door open. A group of corpses broke off from the rest, following him. The guard climbed inside and slammed the door. Angie heard the engine struggle, trying to turn over. The engine struggled two more times and died. The corpses surrounded the truck, too many to escape. They broke through the side window and pulled the screaming guard from the truck to the ground, tearing into him as he screamed and died.
Carly dropped her clipboard and ran. She ran through the guards and was quickly out of sight.
Shrieking and howling, one of the flock jumped through the fire and over the moat. The wild man cried out as flames washed over him. Then he was inside the circle, racing toward the children.
"Stop him!" Angie shouted, pointing into the fire with her cane.
The children screamed as the man ran into their midst. The guards who weren't fighting off the flock aimed their rifles through the fire. They hesitated to shoot. Angie knew why. The flames were too thick, and the man was too close to the children. They couldn't get a clean shot. Angie braced herself, still not knowing the wild man's intention.
The man grabbed two of the children and pulled them away from the group. He headed for the edge of the moat. It was clear he intended to take them with him. For some other purpose.
Angie doubted it was any better than what Beulah had in mind.
"Drop!" Dalton roared to the children with the man. "Like I showed you! Drop down!"
The children went limp in the man's arms. They slid out of his grasp and fell to the ground.
Angie understood Dalton's plan. "Fire! Fire!"
The guards opened fire, over the children and into the wild man. He screamed and shrieked as bullets tore through him. He stumbled backward, pockets of blood exploding out of his back. Screaming, he toppled into the moat on the other side. He shrieked, burned and died.
Angie turned back to the flock. They fought with the guards, shrieking and clawing. Maylee smacked them aside with her bat. The corpses behind them closed in, clearly oblivious to the flock. They were coming for Angie and the others.
The standing guards turned back to shoot into the flock. Many of them fell dead. The others broke off, howling and screeching. They raced down an alley, casting looks at the children. Angie watched them go, wondering what they had planned. And who was directing them.
She turned her attention back to the corpses, who were closing in from all sides now. The children, even though protected by the moat, screamed as the corpses drew closer. They crowded together. Angie saw some were shaking. Brief flashes of light came from inside the flames. The children were still standing, blinking and staggering as they flashed.
"The corpses are too close!" said Angie. “We have to hold them back! The truck is gone!”
"Where's Carly!" Maylee bellowed, wrenching her bat from a corpse's skull.
* * *
Carly raced through the chaotic streets. She passed group after group fighting with corpses and animals. Each time, she wove around them and kept running. She felt guilty about each group she didn't stop to help. She kept moving anyway.
Screams, groans and snarls rang out all around. People defending themselves or dying. Carly ignored it all as best she could. Flashes of her grandfather dying kept coming. She pushed them down and ran.
She rounded a corner and a corpse stood in front of her. It was a big man with large flaps of skin torn away from his abdomen. A thin layer of viscera held his guts in, wet and red behind the frozen skin.
She screamed and jumped back. He advanced on her, groaning and grasping at the air. Her eyes searched around for anyone who was close enough to help. There was no one. She had no weapon. She didn't even have her clipboard. He kept coming, reaching for her with frozen dead fingers.
She took another step back and kicked him in the stomach. The layer of viscera split and the man's organs spilled out. She jumped back as the man came at her. He slipped on his own slimy innards and fell forward, landing on the pile of dark red gore with a loud "splat." He rolled side to side, trying to right himself. His groaning mouth was pointed at the ground.
Carly took the chance and ran over the prone corpse. She ran over his head and back. He groaned as her boots stamped on his frozen body. She jumped the rest of the way and landed on the ground behind him and kept running.
She ducked behind a set of fire barrels and there it was. The camper, right where they had moved it before the siege started. The camper she and her grandfather had shared for years. The camper that had been their sanctuary.
She raced to it and up the metal stoop. She threw open the door. She took one look around the area. It was clear.
She ducked inside the camper and slammed the door.
* * *
Angie, Maylee and the guards kept the horde back as best they could. The guards shot and Maylee swung. Angie, sword out, speared corpses through the eye.
She twisted her wrist, grinding the blade into the eye and brain of a young woman with black frozen lips and long gouges in her face. The woman groaned, reaching for Angie. Then she slumped as the blade destroyed her brain.
Grunting, Angie wrenched the blade from the woman's eye. The woman slumped to the ground.
This was it. The last stand. Plan B was a bust. With no vehicle, there was no way to get the children to the fallback point. No way to hide them as the others lured the corpses away. This was where they would all die.
All was chaos and screaming. Groaning and fighting. Some corpses got past the guards, stopping at the moat of fire. The children screamed, sending off little flashes of light. Angie saw Dalton move those children to the other side of the island, as far away from the corpses as possible. It was working, but Angie wondered how much longer they had before the gasoline burned itself out.
Angie heard Park shouting somewhere beyond the corpses. She heard Lilly screaming.
"Park!" Angie shoved a dead man aside as he staggered at her. Maylee rammed her bat into the man's head, splitting it open.
"Park! Where are you?"
"Over here!" Park yelled back. Angie turned her head until she placed him. Past the mob of corpses and to the left. Angie heard Park's rifle, farther away and quieter than those of the guards, cracking again and again. "Stay back!"
"What?" yelled Angie, spearing a corpse through the eye and twisting.
"I'm talking to Lil!"
Lilly screamed again.
"I said stay back, Lilly!"
Angie shouted over the corpses between them. "Keep away from the corpses!"
"Really?" yelled Park. "I hadn't thought of that!"
Lilly screamed again. "Owwwwww! It hurts!"
"Quit running at them, dumbass!" yelled Park.
"I hate them!" Lilly shrieked. "Get back assholes! Ow!"
A small opening formed in the mass of corpse and animal. Park darted through it, pulling Lilly with him. The two reached Angie and the others. Park put Lilly behind his back and let go of her wrist. She was surrounded by guards. Protected for now. Park lifted his rifle and resumed firing.
The corpses around Angie and the others closed in. The cries of the rest of the town grew louder. Angie could see snatches through the mass of grasping dead flesh. Townsfolk and guard, animal and corpse, all were gathering in the center of town. The battle was centering here. The only group Angie couldn't see was the flock.
"How's plan B going?" said Park.
"It’s gone!" Angie replied.
“Well fuck us, then,” said Park, firing and cocking. “This is it.”
“Yep,” said Angie.
“It’s been fun,” said Park, smirking at her.
Angie frowned at him. “You think?”
Park snorted. “No.”
They all kept shooting, screaming and fighting. The whole town was in the square now. The children cowered on their island, behind the moat of fire. Corpses and animals crushed in from all sides. Angie steeled herself. She would go down fighting.
Then, from behind the island, an engine roared.
Angie turned, stepping as close to the flames as she dared. The children scrambled away from the back side of the moat. The camper suddenly roared into view, racing toward the island.
"Well look at that," said Angie.
The camper slammed into the moat, the front tires bouncing up and over. They landed on the other side. The camper straddled the moat, flames licking up the sides.
Carly threw open the door. "Hurry!"
Dalton hurriedly helped the children into the camper. Angie kept fighting the corpses around her, casting glances over her shoulder. The children were nearly all in the camper. Flames from the moat were licking up the side. The side was turning black.
"Hurry!" Angie smiled at Park. “Plan B’s back on the menu.”
Dalton helped the last child on and climbed in. He slammed the door. The camper's engine roared.
"Everyone move!" yelled Angie.
She, Maylee and the guards ran to one side. The engine roared once more and the camper rushed across the island and bounced over the moat on the other side. It landed, crushing many corpses underneath . It skidded across the snow and dark gore, tires spinning and sending ice and slime out in all directions. It finally came to a rest, outside the throng of corpses. A large path had been cleared and Angie and the others rushed to fill it.
Angie, surrounded by the guards, limped to the camper. Other guards slapped their gloved hands against flames still burning on the camper. Maylee rushed ahead and threw open the door. She stood on the stoop and looked around. "Where's Lilly?”
"Here!" yelled Park, running toward the camper carrying Lilly. She clawed and kicked at him.
"Put me down fucker!" she yelled as Park ran. He dodged around corpses and animals. Lilly gave off a little flash of light every time he ran too close to a corpse.
Finally he reached the camper. He set Lilly inside. She stumbled and turned to scowl at him. Maylee climbed in after her and slammed the door.
Angie pounded on the side of the camper. "Go!" The engine roared and the camper sped off, knocking aside corpses and animals as it sped toward the gate. Angie, Park and what was left of the town turned to face the hostile mob around them.
“Alright everyone!” Angie yelled. “You know what to do!”
* * *
Maylee held on to a seat to stay upright as the camper lurched through the snow. Dalton stood next to the children, trying to calm them. It wasn't working. They screamed in terror from the bench they sat on. Lilly faced the windows, cursing at corpses as they sped by.
Maylee looked to Carly at the steering wheel. She spun the wheel wildly left to right. The camper slid through the snow, weaving down the wider streets and alleyways. Maylee stepped over to the driver's seat. She grabbed hold of the back for support as the camper lurched along.
Maylee frowned. Carly was still driving forward, toward the town square and the house. The fallback point was the opposite direction.
“Shouldn’t we be going the other way?”
“No room to turn around,” said Carly, shaking her head. “If we can get outside the walls, we can go around and still get there.”
Carly was right. The camper was larger than the truck they’d intended to use. They’d have to go outside the town walls to get around to the back. It was risky, but it was their only option.
The camper bucked and Maylee frowned again. Carly was clearly struggling with the wheel. Maylee leaned in closer.
"You've driven this thing before, right?" she asked, keeping her voice low, so the children couldn't hear.
"Yes," said Carly, keeping her eyes locked on the snow in front of them. The town went by around them, structures growing and shrinking as she weaved.
"When?"
"I was sixteen."
"Sixteen! And how'd it go?"
Carly bit her lip, spinning the wheel left to right. "I crashed and my mother died."
A mass of corpses loomed in front of them. Carly screamed and slammed on the brakes. The corpses groaned, reaching for the camper.
The camper skidded through the snow as Carly pounded the brakes. Momentum threw Maylee into the dashboard. A sharp pain went up her side. The children behind her screamed.
The camper skidded and spun, then slammed into the corpses. They groaned and grasped at the hood as the camper ground over them. Most were crushed under the wheels. Maylee heard the wet sounds of dead bodies coming apart as the camper went over them.