Andy was climbing into the cab of the garbage truck, slamming the door shut. “Oh, no.”
He aimed at the door, firing at the little prick as the truck came to life like some monster of old. Or maybe more akin to the monsters of new. The infected were wel revved up – moaning and snarling on the other side of the big machine.
“What happened?” A hand clapped down on his shoulder and one of Santa’s buddies puffed to a stop beside him.
Others didn’t stop to ask questions, opening fire on the garbage truck’s front windscreen. Glass shattered. Inside the cab Andy jerked and fell, spread across the steering wheel. His head was a ruined, red mush.
It didn’t matter. Mission accomplished.
Andy had managed to reverse back two, maybe three meters. He had almost cleared one lane of traffic and it was more than enough.
The infected spilled into town.
Gunfire filled his ears. Daniel ejected his empty clip, reached for the spare in his back pocket. A weird kind of calm took him over.
His hands held perfectly steady. They were fighting for their lives now. No question about it.
More of the townsfolk arrived, standing alongside him, taking aim. Before them, bodies staggered and flopped and fell, soon replaced by more. The horde gathered on the bridge and along the fence lines poured through the gap in their defenses. Some fell upon the four men Andy had kil ed until a hive of moving limbs surrounded the bodies.
Several tried unsuccessfully to climb the front of the garbage truck to get at Andy.
There were too many of them pouring through to get close enough to reach the truck and close the gap.
Close by, something howled, loud, long and mournful. More joined in and the noise eclipsed al the weapons with ease. Yipping and snapping sounds came from the other side of the truck.
“What the fuck was that?” Santa looked as good as Daniel felt, cheeks puffed up and purple.
“At a guess?” he yel ed back at the man. “The dogs Ali saw, or something like them.”
Santa blanched, turned and hollered, “More guns in the hardware.”
Daniel grabbed his thick wrist. “Where’s Owen?”
Santa squinted, shook his head. “Your woman’s fine. Sent her home.”
It was all he needed to know. The relief was exquisite. Breathtaking. He stupidly grinned, ignoring the look from one of the townsfolk near him. The apocalypse could wait. Or not.
The assembled were slowly being pressed back by the onslaught of infected. Some were slipping through the gap to collapse mere meters before them, but others were spreading out into the town.
This was not a fight they were likely to win.
“She’s safe.” Finn elbowed in beside him, a rifle slung over one shoulder and a pistol in each hand. The front of his shirt was stained dark with blood and there was a tangle of bandages spanning from around his neck to beneath his left arm. An almighty wad beneath his left collarbone, where the bullet had hit.
“You’re a walking happy meal looking like that.” Daniel jutted his chin at the kid’s chest.
“They won’t get close enough.” Finn took aim, popped off a few rounds. “We need to get her somewhere safe. This is going to go south.”
Screams echoed from one street over as infected found prey.
Back down the street more people hurried, loaded down with weapons. More still would be locking down in hopes of surviving by staying put, others loading up to run. He doubted any had planned for this.
The first dog came through, red eyes ablaze and bloody foam dripping from its jaws. Fucking hell. Daniel had never seen anything like it. The hot stench of urine hit his nose as someone pissed themselves nearby. More than one on the front line turned tail and ran.
Finn shoved his pistols into his jeans pockets and drew the rifle from his back, the both of them walking backward. “I want you to get her out.”
“If we’re leaving, we all go together.”
Finn fired and the first dog fell, its body flung aside by the force of the bullet and its own momentum. Two more jumped atop the growing mound of dead bodies to take its place. “Stop talking. Start moving.”
“She won’t go without you.”
“Make her.”
“Finn, neither wil I.”
The horde had them on the run. People appeared in upstairs windows, seeking shelter and a decent firing position off the street.
There was more screaming in the back streets of Blackstone as the infected spread.
Finn swore, lined up another shot and pulled the trigger, dropping a second of the hellhounds.
“We’re just going to leave these people to die?” asked Daniel.
And they were dying. The front line was a jagged, hole-ridden thing, doing little to stop the barrage of infected, let alone the dogs.
A truck pulled up behind them, headlights on ful , casting shadows across the crowd of infected. It lit things up nicely for the shooting gal ery. If anyone but his girl had been behind the driver’s seat, he would have thanked them.
“How we doing?” Ali yel ed from the driver’s-side window.