?Next up, we have my brother, committing suicide,? I muttered and focused the camera on him, tapping the pad at my belt again to dial Buffy. ?Don?t fall, asshole, or I?m telling Mom you did it for love of the dead girl.?
?Bite me,? Shaun called back. He swung his leading leg over the top of the fence and stood astride it, with one foot hooked into the chain on either side. Unhooking the crossbow from his belt, he loaded the first quarrel.
?Not while I?m breathing, oh brother mine.?
?Buffy here,? said Buffy?s voice in my ear.
?Buffy, you getting the feeds on this? I want any positive IDs you can pull on our friends. You can cross-reference the one in the sweatshirt with footage from the??
?I?m on it. Her name was Dayna Baldwin, age twenty-three, political science major at the University of Oklahoma. I?m running lookups on the other four. I have a few possible matches, but there?s nothing confirmed.?
Shaun pulled back the catch, taking careful, almost affectionate aim on the nearest of his admirers. I directed the handheld camera toward the mob as a crossbow bolt appeared in the center of their leader?s forehead. He fell and two of the remaining four were suddenly distracted with cannibalizing his remains, leaving two to menace Shaun. The virus that drives the infected is only in it for the meat. Zombies generally choose the living over the dead, but something that won?t put up a fight is always better than nothing at all.
?Keep looking,? I said. Shaun reloaded his crossbow, moving with calm, unhurried precision. I have to give my brother this: He?s damn good at what he does.
?Of course,? said Buffy, sounding affronted. She hung up, presumably to focus on her cameras. We?d get a clearer picture of everything that had happened once Shaun finished having his fun and we could get back to the van. If there?s a square inch of convoy that Buffy can?t get on film, I?ll eat my sunglasses.
Shaun was taking aim on the third zombie when I realized there was something wrong with the quality of the moans. They were getting louder and moving against the prevailing wind. I dropped the camera, hearing its case crack as it hit the ground, and turned to look behind me.
The leader of the zombies?another familiar face, opinionated Carl from the after-meeting?was ten feet away and closing fast, moving at that horrible, disconnected half-run that only the freshest zombies can sustain for long. He must have died even more recently than Dayna, because he?d been up and moving around less than an hour before. That implied multiple bites and a group attack, possibly by the pack that Shaun was in the process of dispatching.
Six more zombies followed the ill-fated Carl, moving at speeds ranging from a half-run to a shamble. Pulling the pistol from my belt, I shot Carl twice in the head, turning to aim at the zombie behind him. I didn?t have enough bullets. Even if I were as good of a shot as Shaun, which I?m not, eight bullets and seven zombies didn?t leave me in a position with much of a margin for error. I was already down below the one-for-one divide, and that made survival a lot less likely. I pulled the trigger and the second zombie fell.
The sound of gunshots attracted Shaun?s attention. I heard his sharp intake of breath as he turned, surveying my attackers. ?Holy??
?We?re past saying it and all the way to doing it,? I snarled, and fired again. The shot went wild. Four bullets and only two zombies down; the odds were not in my favor. ?Buffy!?
Buffy never sends out a camera without a two-way sound pickup. She says she doesn?t trust us to manage our own levels, but really, I think she just likes being able to eavesdrop without leaving the van. Her voice emerged from the speaker a moment after I called her name, coming through crackly and distorted. ?Sorry for the delay?distracted. We?ve had a perimeter breech on the south fence. One of the gates went down and they?re reporting casualties. How?re you two faring??
?Let?s just say that if you have a broadcast point near some unoccupied men with heavy weaponry, now would be a swell time to use it.? I fired twice more. The second bullet hit its target. Six bullets and three zombies down, while the remaining four continued to approach. I fired at the new leader of the pack and missed. A crossbow bolt whizzed by my shoulder and the zombie toppled, the end of the bolt protruding from its forehead. Three zombies. ?I didn?t come out here expecting to actually fight anything?I?m only carrying a pistol, and I?m about to be out of bullets. Shaun??
?Three bolts left,? he called. ?Think you can make it up this fence??
?No.? I?m a decent sprinter and I can gun a motorcycle from zero to suicidal in less than ten seconds, but I?m not a climber. I nearly washed out of the physical section of my licensing exams, twice, thanks to my lack of upper-body strength. If I was lucky, I?d be able to cling to the fence until the zombies grabbing my ankles hauled me down and ate me. If I wasn?t, I?d just fall.