the figures.
When Blaine and the others reached the relative safety of the school, the future Marine quickly began blasting the pump-action shotgun he had retrieved from the cruiser. Eventually all seven of the infected had fallen to their wounds, and Mike hurried the students back through the hall. As feared, the gunfire had alerted the infected that still remained in the building. The stairs leading to their safety were blocked by a dozen infected that had begun making their way to the sound of the shooting. Without pause, the quintet met their attackers with the full force of the arsenal they now carried. Blood and bone ripped away from the bodies of the infected as bullets tore through them.
Mike was no longer in control of his movements as instinct and the primal urge to survive took over. The revolver was spent, but the semi-automatic from one of the officers still responded to his trigger finger. Aiming ahead and behind, he whirled about with the determination of a warrior. The others with him appeared caught in the same frenzy as they cleared a path up the stairs. Reaching the top step, they turned and began aiming downwards at the infected that followed. Shot after shot felled those that pursued them.
As the proverbial smoke cleared, so too did the adrenaline-induced haze of their fight-or-flight reactions. They quickly made their way back to the shelter of the faculty room, its door already opened when those inside heard the shots in the hall.
Safe, they dropped their weapons to the ground. With the ecstatic relief known only by soldiers in war, they began to hug and congratulate each other. Their victory was small, but it was amplified by the horrors that had defeated them in the last twenty-four hours. The teens regaled their peers with details of the endeavor.
Only Mike remained apart from the celebration of survival. He did not interrupt them, nor admonish them in anyway; he watched them, a crush of pity and sadness swept through him. He knew that, unlike soldiers in a foreign war, those before him would soon realize that the enemies of which they now spoke were friends and neighbors. He worried that their youthful minds would be unable to reconcile what they had been forced to do that day, that their youthful minds would be unable to reconcile what they would be forced to do in the days ahead.
For now, though , he thought, let them be kids one last time.
Chapter Six
They drove through the night in silence, no man in the truck willing to put voice to the loss of Tim Cornell. The suddenness and brutality of the attack left them each in a stunned stupor, those crazed moments endlessly replaying in their minds.
The truck lights lit the abandoned road before them, and they kept their eyes alert for any signs left by their missing companions. As dawn crept over the mountains behind them, Mike forced himself to compartmentalize Tim’s violent death and focus on the task ahead. There had been a time, in those first days of the outbreak, that such a loss would have crippled his emotional control. He had learned to accept his role as leader of the camp; by force of the world that now existed, he had grown hard. With each death, with each attack, Mike Allard drifted further from the man he had been in his youth. What remained was a war-weary, reluctant soldier that sacrificed his own emotions for the sake of those that followed him.
As the sky brightened, the passengers could see the darkened outline of the powerless city some miles in the distance. The original plan had been for the lieutenant to escort Michelle and her team to the southern outskirts of the city to scavenge for canned goods and medical supplies. Having seen no sign of them thus far, Mike knew that whatever had caused their delay in returning occurred somewhere in the next twenty miles. He issued curt commands to recheck weapons and prepare to search on foot once they reached their destination.
Over time, it had become clear that urban
When Blaine and the others reached the relative safety of the school, the future Marine quickly began blasting the pump-action shotgun he had retrieved from the cruiser. Eventually all seven of the infected had fallen to their wounds, and Mike hurried the students back through the hall. As feared, the gunfire had alerted the infected that still remained in the building. The stairs leading to their safety were blocked by a dozen infected that had begun making their way to the sound of the shooting. Without pause, the quintet met their attackers with the full force of the arsenal they now carried. Blood and bone ripped away from the bodies of the infected as bullets tore through them.
Mike was no longer in control of his movements as instinct and the primal urge to survive took over. The revolver was spent, but the semi-automatic from one of the officers still responded to his trigger finger. Aiming ahead and behind, he whirled about with the determination of a warrior. The others with him appeared caught in the same frenzy as they cleared a path up the stairs. Reaching the top step, they turned and began aiming downwards at the infected that followed. Shot after shot felled those that pursued them.
As the proverbial smoke cleared, so too did the adrenaline-induced haze of their fight-or-flight reactions. They quickly made their way back to the shelter of the faculty room, its door already opened when those inside heard the shots in the hall.
Safe, they dropped their weapons to the ground. With the ecstatic relief known only by soldiers in war, they began to hug and congratulate each other. Their victory was small, but it was amplified by the horrors that had defeated them in the last twenty-four hours. The teens regaled their peers with details of the endeavor.
Only Mike remained apart from the celebration of survival. He did not interrupt them, nor admonish them in anyway; he watched them, a crush of pity and sadness swept through him. He knew that, unlike soldiers in a foreign war, those before him would soon realize that the enemies of which they now spoke were friends and neighbors. He worried that their youthful minds would be unable to reconcile what they had been forced to do that day, that their youthful minds would be unable to reconcile what they would be forced to do in the days ahead.
For now, though , he thought, let them be kids one last time.
Chapter Six
They drove through the night in silence, no man in the truck willing to put voice to the loss of Tim Cornell. The suddenness and brutality of the attack left them each in a stunned stupor, those crazed moments endlessly replaying in their minds.
The truck lights lit the abandoned road before them, and they kept their eyes alert for any signs left by their missing companions. As dawn crept over the mountains behind them, Mike forced himself to compartmentalize Tim’s violent death and focus on the task ahead. There had been a time, in those first days of the outbreak, that such a loss would have crippled his emotional control. He had learned to accept his role as leader of the camp; by force of the world that now existed, he had grown hard. With each death, with each attack, Mike Allard drifted further from the man he had been in his youth. What remained was a war-weary, reluctant soldier that sacrificed his own emotions for the sake of those that followed him.
As the sky brightened, the passengers could see the darkened outline of the powerless city some miles in the distance. The original plan had been for the lieutenant to escort Michelle and her team to the southern outskirts of the city to scavenge for canned goods and medical supplies. Having seen no sign of them thus far, Mike knew that whatever had caused their delay in returning occurred somewhere in the next twenty miles. He issued curt commands to recheck weapons and prepare to search on foot once they reached their destination.
Over time, it had become clear that urban
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