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Behind it, other shapes moved in the gloom of the diner. And these figures sent up the moan that the first zombie could not. A haunting, wretched cry for something to staunch the dreadful hungers that drove them. They began moving through the shattered window frame.
So many of them.
So many soldiers among them, their battle dress uniforms torn, helmets lost or askew, bodies opened by teeth and nails, souls lost, eyes vacant. Black blood dribbled from their mouths.
“Oh, fuck me,” breathed Boxer. “Fuck me, fuck me.”
“Keep it steady, kid,” said Moonshiner.
A scuff of a clumsy foot made them turn and they saw more of the infected coming out of the open doors of the bank, the feed store, the craft shop, and the county assessor’s office.
Fifty at least.
“I thought General Zetter said they had this shit under control,” growled Gypsy.
“Fuck me,” said Boxer.
“This is some evil shit right here,” agreed Moonshiner.
“Stand or fight, boss? And I’m really okay with hauling ass,” said Shortstop, but for once even his pragmatic cool seemed to be crumbling away.
“There’s so many of them,” said Boxer, and as he said it more of them rounded the corner of the next block. There were children mixed in with the adults. Their faces and limbs turned worm-white from blood loss, mouths black as bottomless holes.
All of them torn. All of them ragged.
That’s how it stuck in Sam’s mind, and somehow he knew that’s how it would always be.
The Ragged People.
As if they were all members of some secret fraternity, bound together in death. Or from some far country where the sun never shines and all there will ever be is the hunger.
“Boss?” urged Gypsy.
“No,” said Sam, turning. “Everyone back in the Hummer. This isn’t what they sent us to do.”
They held their weapons out and ready as they climbed in. The Humvee was armor plated and had reinforced glass windows, but Sam did not feel even a little safe as he shot the lock on his door. He knew the others didn’
t either.
“Get us out of here, Boxer,” he said with a calm he did not feel, but the younger soldier was already putting the car in gear.
He backed up and circled the Stryker, then stamped on the brakes as more of the pale figures moved through the downpour.
“Shit,” he said and spun the wheel.
“This is turning into a crowd scene,” said Moonshiner.
Despite everything he knew about the situation and everything they’d done so far this night, Sam hated the idea of opening fire on these ragged people. It felt like abuse to him. Like bullying.
But there were so damn many of them.
The flash drives, he told himself. Get the flash drives or this is the whole world.
All he had to say aloud was, “Shortstop.”
The man rolled open the top hatch of the Humvee and stood up into the fierce rain. He whipped the cover off the big Browning, yanked the bolt back, and began firing. The heavy bullets tore into a knot of zombies, knocking them backward with massive foot-pounds of impact, bursting apart joints, ripping loose connective tissue, splashing the Stryker and the other infected with black blood. Four of the creatures went down. Then another five.
“Go, go, go!” yelled Sam, and Boxer hit the gas again. The Humvee rolled over the fallen infected, heavy tires crunching bones. Shortstop pivoted and fired at the zombies closing in on the right. Twenty of them.
