Where The Dead Men Lie (The Secret Apocalypse) (7 page)

"He’s right," Kenji said. "If they surround the house and start trying to break in from multiple points
, w
e’ll have to spread out. Hopefully they will attack from the front. That way we can concentrate our firepower."

"How many do you think there are?" I asked.

"If the whole town became infected, maybe two thousand people?" Kenji said.

"Maybe less if some of the people left early," Jack added. "Or if they were evacuated."

"Or if some of them died," I pointed out.

"
Either way, there’s probably more infected people than we have bullets," Kenji said.

"So what the hell do we do?" Maria asked. "We can’t recycle our bullets can we?"

I think Kenji chuckled at this, even though it was a serious situation.
"No we
can’t recycle our bullets," as he handed one of the rifles to Maria. "If the whole town shows up at our doorstep, we will run out of ammo."

"And what do we do when that happens," I asked.

"When we run out of bullets, we bunker down. And then at first light, we make a run for it."

That was our back up plan. Our exit strategy. Like I said, over the past month, Kenji had been quoting Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’ to us.

Know your enemy.

Know yourself.

Know the terrain.

Always have an exit strategy.

These were the golden rules of warfare according to a really old, really smart dude.

And our exit strategy?

Run for it.

"I think we need a better exit strategy," I said.

Kenji and Daniel just shook their heads.

"This is it," Daniel said. "There is nowhere to fall back to. This is it. This is the Alamo. We can’t go running off into the night. We need to defend this house. We can’t let them take it. None of them can get in here."

"Wait, didn’t everyone die at the Alamo?" Jack asked.

"Worst comes to worst," Kenji said. "We wait for sunrise and then we make a break for it. But we absolutely must hold the fort until then. Got it?"

"Well, what if they actually do break through?" I asked. "What if they get inside?"

Kenji thought it over for a second. This was the worst case scenario. But we needed to plan for it.

"If they break through," Kenji said. "Get to the top of the stairs. I’ll hold them off and buy us some time. The stairwell will create a bottle neck. If they make it up the stairs, we move back to the master bedroom. From there, we get out onto the balcony and then we climb up to the roof."

"The roof?" I asked. "What the hell do we do up there? We’ll be stuck."

"We’ll have to wait it out," Daniel added. "Like we said, we wait until daybreak. Then we move. It’s the only way. We can’t go running around in the night. They have the advantage. Running around in the dark will get us all killed."

"What are these for," Maria asked as she held up the baseball bat.

"
Everyone needs a secondary weapon as well," Kenji said.

"
Why?"

"
Because a baseball bat won't run out of ammo."

It was at that moment the severity of our situation really hit home for me. Essentially what Kenji was saying, was that there’s a very good chance we will run out of ammo. Or maybe a situation where we wouldn’t have time to reload.

Either way, this was a scary thought.

We each chose a weapon.

Jack chose the cricket bat. Maria went with the baseball bat. Kenji had the axe. Daniel went with the crowbar. I went with the hammer. Plus I still had the blunt flick knife that Kenji had given me earlier. These two extra weapons did not make me feel any safer.

The rest of our plan went like this…

Kenji would be upstairs in a snipers position so he could take out as many infected as possible as early as possible.

Daniel would man the ground floor.

Maria, Jack and I were to do as we were told basically.

Shoot when told to shoot.

Move when told to move.

Run.

Hide.

I didn’t mind.

We were in the kitchen, looking out the windows over the sink, watching the creek.

"Wait," Maria said. "What if they break through? What do we do? Where do we go?"

"Weren’t you paying attention before?" I asked.

"I kind of spaced out after Kenji handed me the rifle."

"We can’t let them break through."

"But what if they do?"

"We have to hold this place at all costs. We can’t retreat. There’s nowhere to go. We can’t go running around in the dark. We’ll get lost. We’ll get eaten.

"Worst case scenario," Jack said to Maria. "If they do break in here, get upstairs to the master bedroom. That way we can lay down a suppressive line of fire at the top of the stairs. Then we head to the roof."

"The roof? Are you guys insane? That’s not a plan. That’s a suicide mission."

I nodded. "That’s exactly what I said."

"We get to the roof and wait until daybreak," Jack added. "Then we make a run for it. But we have to hold until first light. We have to."

"Do you think they’ll find us?" Maria asked.

"Yeah," Jack answered. "They always find us."

I suddenly realized we were in way, way over our heads. But we had to defend this house. To the very last bullet. So we prepared ourselves, we checked our ammo, we checked our rifles, and we waited.

We didn’t have to wait long.

They were coming for us all right. They were coming fast.

CHAPTER 12

Kenji yelled something from upstairs.

Daniel was in the living room, looking out the front windows of the house. "Say again?" he shouted back.

"Group of three!" Kenji said. "Coming in fast. They’re heading straight for us."

Yep, Kenji had confirmed it. They were here. The Battle for the farmhouse had begun.

Jack, Maria and I were crowded around the kitchen windows. We were looking at the tree line of the creek, trying to see them, waiting for that first infected person to break through out into the open.

"I don’t see them yet," Jack said.

"How?" Maria asked. "How did they get here so fast?"

From in the living room we could hear Daniel swearing.

"They’re getting closer!" Kenji said from upstairs, "I’m gonna open fire."

This was one of the things we briefly discussed earlier. How close do we let them get before we start shooting? The creek was at least half a mile away, maybe further. This was a tough shot, even for a trained sniper like Kenji. Especially in the dark. And we did not want to waste any ammo.

"Yeah, OK." Daniel answered. "Take them out."

"But what about the noise?" Maria asked.

"Doesn’t matter," Jack said. "They know we’re here. We have to take them out as soon as possible, before they get too close."

"I still can’t believe they got here so fast," Maria said. "We ran all night. We're exhausted. They got here in half the time? How?"

"Maybe it's like in cycling, you know?’ Jack offered. "Like the peloton."

"The what?"

"In the cycling events like the Tour de France, the peloton, the main group, they always catch the breakaway riders."

"How?"

"They take turns at riding in the front of the group. So essentially the riders at the back have a wind break."

"So the zombies in front provide a windbreak for the rest?" Maria asked. "That’s the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Is it?"

A gunshot pierced through the dark night. Kenji had taken the first shot. I looked out through the window again, over the front paddock. I still couldn’t see anything.

As soon as Kenji had opened fire, Daniel smashed out the front windows in preparation for the onslaught.

Jack kissed Maria on the head. "Get up stairs."

"Be careful," she said.

"I will. Come on Rebecca. Time for target practice."

We had decided to position Maria upstairs with Kenji. She could help him reload and run ammo up to him if he needed it. She could also act as a spotter. And we figured she’d be safer upstairs then downstairs.

As Maria made her way up to the second floor, Jack and I settled into the living room, picking out a spot next to Daniel.

"Don’t stick the barrel of your gun too close to the window," Daniel said. "They’ll just reach in and grab it."

"Right."

The windows had been boarded up yesterday by Daniel. He had left gaps between the boards so we could fire our guns. When he had done this, I had no idea why. Well, now I knew.

We heard more gun shots from upstairs. Kenji was showing off his deadly precision. The howling, moaning screams of the infected were the only other noises in the night.

"Let Kenji shoot the ones further out," Daniel said. "Concentrate your fire power on the ones that slip through."

Once again my heart began to race. You would’ve thought that after all the close calls we’d had over the past month I’d be getting used to this type of adrenalin fuelled situation. But unfortunately that was not the case. I was just as scared as ever.

Kenji continued to shoot. I strained my eyes, trying to see into the darkness, trying to see the infected. But I couldn’t. Kenji must have amazingly good eye sight, I thought.

Another gun shot from upstairs. The noise made me jump. It was then I finally saw an infected person, sprinting out of the tree line, coming for the house.

Right on cue, Kenji took it down.

These were the breakaway zombies according to Jack. But then the main group showed up. The peloton. Too many to count. It was like the drought had broken and the creek had flooded. But instead of flooding with water, it was flooded with infected people. They were flowing out of the creek. They sprinted across the paddock. They were coming right for the house.

Half a mile away.

"Hold your fire," Daniel whispered. "Wait until they get in range."

We had done such a good job of avoiding the infected up until now.

And now?

Well, now we would find out if our extra shooting practice had paid off or if it was just a waste of ammo.

Kenji kept up his impressive display of shooting skills. As soon as the infected climbed up and out of the creek bed, Kenji would take them down. He hardly missed.

But the thing is; each shot needed to be a head shot. So even when he hit the target, if it wasn’t a direct head shot, even if he shot them in the chest, the damn things got back up. Some of their legs were blown clean off, but then they would just keep crawling towards us.

The horde showed no sign of thinning out. I was beginning to get more and more worried.

Daniel on the other hand was calm. "The infected, the ones with no legs, they should be easier to shoot in the head once they get closer. Also, they won’t be able to chase after us."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jack said.

Jack looked visibly worried. Even in the dark, you could see the fear all over his face.

"If you can’t shoot them in the head," Daniel continued.
 
"Shoot their legs out. Got it?"

"Oh, right. Yeah. Yeah I got it."

"Take the safety off," Daniel said to Jack.

Jack looked down at his rifle like he didn’t know what he was doing, like he didn’t know how to fire a gun.

"Hey," I said to Jack. "As long as we stick together, we can hold the fort."

He finally found the safety and flicked it off. He nodded. He didn’t say anything.

Suddenly it was like the banks of the creek had completely broken, the flood of infected spilled out on to the paddock. There were too many for Kenji to pick off by himself.

We had to open fire.

But Daniel forced us to wait. "Not yet," he whispered. "Not yet."

After we saw how many infected were coming for us, I wondered if Maria wouldn’t be more useful downstairs, on the front line. But it was too late to change to the plan.

I gripped my rifle tighter.
At that moment, I was doing my best to get my hands to stop shaking. Doing my best to control my fear. The problem was I had this little voice in the back of my head. A scared little voice. It kept saying. "You guys are so screwed. You don’t have enough bullets for this. You’re not gonna make it."

"Remember," Daniel said. "Short, controlled bursts."

I checked my personal ammo supply one more time.

After our shooting practice sessions, we each had six magazines left. Each mag contained thirty bullets.

Six magazines multiplied by thirty bullets equals one hundred and eighty bullets.

One hundred and eighty bullets. Each.