Looking across the wall, I could see the black silhouettes of our remaining forces crawling up the ladder in the darkness, spacing themselves out across the top of the cinderblock wall, each ducking down below the headlights that were getting brighter and brighter. Hearing a few weapons clack against the concrete, it knew it wouldn’t be long before Gordon’s men were upon us.
Looking down at my hand gripping the handle of the hammer, I was reminded of a moment I’d had with Tyler. A single, solitary moment when he was sitting in my lap crying uncontrollably. Lost, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing as a father, as most fathers would probably admit. I remember trying everything I possibly could to calm him down, when he suddenly reached up to clasp his tiny hand around my ring finger. As if his crying was on a light switch, it just suddenly turned off. I remember watching him, with his eyes still closed, holding on like he’d found his grounding. He’d found his father.
He’d found the person who’d protect him. There was no letting him down.
Kyle reached out his fist and extended two fingers to the group. Two minutes until we’d pull the lever.
Shaking my head, I started counting down the seconds, refocusing my mind on the monsters outside. Not the dead, but Gordon’s army, as they marched toward our home. Willing to murder every last one of us, this group was far worse than any zombie. They had intention. They had the ability to think. They had made the decision to kill us. They’d made that choice. I felt no remorse for what we were about to do.
Kyle’s hand extended once again, holding up just one finger.
Waiting to see the white in our enemies’ eyes, as the old saying goes, I couldn’t help but look around the Yard. Death, fire, bullet casings… the whole place was destroyed, with one exception. Somehow, the garden at the far corner had managed to go unscathed. There were still flowers from crops that hadn’t been pulled, waving to me in the darkness. A small reminder of the beauty we’d created here. A small sign of the life that was still standing strong.
“Pull it, pull the lever!” Kyle spoke into the microphone.
Feeling the seconds tick by, as if watching the second hand slowly rotate around a clock, I looked to Kyle. His eyebrows were raised in anticipation, but slowly they came back down as he looked to me.
“I said pull the lever!!”
“We are, but nothing’s happening. It looks like the rope to the counterweight has been cut!” the man on the other end cried out in a panic.
Kyle’s red-rimmed eyes went wide as he pounded his fist into the concrete. “Son-of-a-bitch, someone’s sabotaged the line.” Kyle scowled as he cried out, a little too loud for my comfort, “Remember when we said Rodgers wasn’t as big a dick as we thought? Well, I take it back!”
Dropping my head, I had a fleeting question in my mind. What else could Rodgers have sabotaged?
Gunshots, slamming into the concrete above, rained chunks of rock down across my head as the fresh smell of gunpowder mixed with the smoke from the burning bodies. A scream came from someone to my right, as they took a shot to the head, dropping backwards into the Yard.
Panic struck as we all stayed glued to the crenellations, not sure what to do.
Kyle was the first to react, as he snapped, “Follow my lead,” into his microphone. Standing, as if he was fucking bulletproof, my friend lowered his machine gun and set his sight upon the wooden door of the Dead Shed.
As he pulled the trigger, I watched the muzzle flash burst into the air. Hitting his target dead on, Kyle dropped the clip and locked in another, continuing to blow holes through the wooden door.
In a symphony of fire, sparks flew outward along the entire length of our upper wall as the bullets ricocheted and reverberated through wood. It was hard to tell who was screaming into the night louder, the Zs behind the door or the men along the top of the wall, firing madly. Either way, it was working.
Arms and bodies began flooding out into the darkness like a black tide. Gordon’s men couldn’t possibly have known what was down there. Looking back, I have to assume that Rodgers wasn’t able to get word out about the shed. He was just able to sabotage it. As such, the men standing nearly helpless in the field didn’t have a fucking clue what hit them… until it was too late.
The first of the creatures to reach the cars poured around them like water sliding through a sand castle. I watched as the monsters crept through the grass and over the vehicles while pulling down Gordon’s front line forces.
There was a sense of sweet madness in the air as we watched those men get taken down. I felt myself cheering inside as I watched from the wall. Trying to retreat, Gordon’s forces turned back, sprinting through the grass. However, the men on the front line, the first to fall, had risen and were already up and sprinting after their prey. None of them had a chance once the whole thing really got going.
After standing there in amazement, for what was probably too long to be safe, our group finally lowered down behind the safety of the wall. We continued to gaze out between the crenellations into the darkness of the field. The horde, fueled by our creatures from the Dead Shed and stoked by the men they’d overrun, had already reached Gordon’s base. Looking through my scope, I patted Kyle’s back in amazement as I watched the creatures crawling over the gunship, tearing through its passengers and pilots. I couldn’t hear them screaming, but I doubt Mozart himself could have crafted a sound more beautiful.
We had won. I couldn’t believe it. We’d pushed back Gordon’s forces. The dead were taking them down. We were safe behind the walls. It all seemed too good to be true.
In boxing, they tell you that it’s not the blow you see coming that you have to worry about. It’s the one that you don’t see that will knock you on your ass. Nothing could have been closer to the truth.
Suddenly, from behind us, there was a BOOM. Twisting around, looking beyond the hill to our back, we saw light shooting out from the Greenbriar Hotel. The sound waves from the explosion actually made my body armor rattle against my legs.
“What the hell was that?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“They’re coming in from the back, through the Greenbriar entrance,” Kyle yelled, clearly as surprised as I was.
In that moment, it hit me. The frontal attack was a distraction. We’d been flanked.
Gordon’s men would be entering Avalon. Now I feared the maniac was right. There wasn’t a thing we could do about it.
Chapter 31
(BOHICA) Bend Over! Here It Comes Again
Darting through the mud and leaping over burnt corpses, what was left of our little group slid down the stairs leading toward the oversized entrance of the Avalon bunker. Seeing the circular metal door wide open, as if someone had popped the top to Pandora’s box, I cringed as we approached the dark halls leading down deep into the bunker itself.
Flooding through the opening like mice trying to escape a storm, scattering down the hallways, each person headed to what they knew to be our only remaining option.
Richards stood by the entrance, waving his hand as we darted by. Worriedly making eye contact with Kyle, nothing was said, but we knew exactly what he needed us to do. We just had to make sure everybody was in the bunkroom, one of only two reliable places that the gas wouldn’t penetrate. The other being the cafeteria, where Richards would be heading off to in just moments.
Sprinting down the long hallway, I winced as the florescent lights above flickered, followed by an earthshaking blast. I couldn’t be sure, but I was guessing they had just broken through the metal blast door leading into the Great Hall itself. They’d only have one final door to bust through before our halls would be filled with the enemy.