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“Oh my God,” Benny breathed.
None of them had to ask what they were seeing. Not anymore. Now they understood.
Homer Gibbon, the Raggedy Man, king of all the world’s hungry dead, had come to New Alamo.
81
THE MASS OF ZOMBIES SEEMED to bulge outward as if the vast body of them took a deep breath. Then the bulge broke free as a group of about a thousand of them seemed to rush forward faster than the others. They did not walk but actually ran, and for a moment Gutsy was confused. Were they ravagers? Or the faster los muertos? The R3 mutations? She’d thought there weren’t many of them. Certainly not this many.
But as they neared the wall, firelight bathed them in brightness, and Gutsy could see that these were not los muertos at all. Nor were they ravagers or wild men. They were living people. Dressed in black clothes with red tassels attached to ankles and wrists. Their heads were shaved and elaborately tattooed, and each of them carried a weapon—scythe, ax, sickle, sword, or pitchfork.
“Reapers,” gasped Benny. “So many of them.”
Fires sparked to light among the reapers, and, with mounting horror, Gutsy and the others watched as they threw bottles set with flaming rags at the walls. The bottles, filled with alcohol or fuel, exploded and sheets of flame shot up, driving the defenders back from the edges of the wall. Hundreds of the bottles arced high, landing on the ramparts or falling into the town. Houses next to the wall caught fire at once. Several of the firebombs exploded on the crushed roof of Alice’s house, and in seconds it was burning.
The gunfire from the walls diminished to a few sparse, desperate shots as most of the defenders deserted their posts.
“What do we do?” asked Spider. “We can’t stay here.”
Gutsy looked up at the crane, wishing she knew how to operate it. Wishing there was time to learn. The thought of using it to drop cars onto the reapers was compelling. Benny glanced up, too.
“Yeah,” he said, as if reading her mind. “I wish we had catapults, too.”
“Let’s go,” said Gutsy, turning away. “We need to get to the rally point. We need the Dòmi, and we need to get out of here.”
“We should have left right away,” said Spider. “As soon as you and Sergeant Holly got back.”
“I thought we’d have a little more time,” Gutsy said helplessly.
They’d just reached the edge of the platform when the night was split by a new sound. Gunfire, but different. It was a harsh, heavy rat-a-tat-tat.
“That’s a machine gun,” Benny cried as he ran back to the other side. He pointed. “Look!”
Out in the troubled darkness were uncountable flashes of orange flame seeming to come out of nowhere. Then two massive spouts of flame shot out, sending tongues of fire toward the reapers. The screams of the burning killers rose louder than any sound so far that night. The illumination from these streams of fire chased back the darkness, and the three teens stared in shock as four vehicles smashed their way through the ranks of los muertos, firing machine guns and flamethrowers.
“It’s Holly!” cried Spider.
Gutsy stared, her heart torn. The people who’d gone to the base had survived and returned.
But… with only four vehicles.
Not nearly enough.
82
THEY CLIMBED DOWN AND RAN to the west gate, which had been cleared by the flamethrowers, but as the vehicles raced inside the surviving reapers charged, backed by many thousands of the dead. It took everyone’s strength to close the gate in time.
Karen called bucket brigades up to douse the fires on the wall so they could continue defending the gate.
Sunny-Day Ray climbed out of one vehicle—it was called a Stryker Dragoon, a massive eight-wheeled monstrosity with a huge gun mounted on top.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
Sunny-Day Ray shook his head. “We got swarmed and had to split up. Not sure if the others made it, but they didn’t make it here, that’s for sure. We wouldn’t have either, except for that big Bushmaster up there.” He pointed to the gun. “Don’t matter if it’s a ravager or a shambler, ’cause that thing plum tears them all apart. Flamethrower’s pretty goldurn handy, too.”
He looked around and frowned. “You evacuating the town?”
“Trying to,” said Benny.
