Free Transformation: Zombie Crusade VI by J.W. Vohs, Sandra Vohs

when they’d passed through a few hours before. Three more packs quickly emerged from the woods to the west and north, adding twenty-six hunters to the first dozen. Luke knew that even inexperienced fighters, armed, armored, and protected by the fortifications his warriors were waiting behind could handle five times the number of creatures heading their way. Fortunately, his troops didn’t know that; this encounter would provide good experience without actually endangering anyone. He was pleased to note that most of the raw recruits were obviously frightened as the monsters closed on their position.
    Luke was hoping to stay out of the battle, and Zach was anchoring the line at the southern end with orders to let the new soldiers do the killing; if a breakthrough could be forced, that was the weakest place in the line. But Luke was fairly certain that his rookie troops could handle the hunters, and if not, he and Zach would clean up their mess. All of the flesh-eaters were in prime condition, some of the healthiest creatures he’d ever seen, but the stakes were too high to jump through. Given time, some of the larger monsters would have been able to push the wooden poles aside, or the smaller beasts would have wiggled through the barrier. But there was no time for either of those possibilities to unfold.
    The rookies missed their targets more often than not, but nobody cracked and tried to run. If anything, Luke was surprised at just how viciously his new soldiers fought the monsters they’d been hiding from for so long. The hunters howled and snarled and frantically grabbed for the humans just out of reach, but the troops roared their defiance and continued to plunge their pikes through the stakes. Most of the thrusts missed the brain, but the soldiers were learning on the job, and they proved to be quick learners. Many of the creatures were pinned in place by a combination of sharpened poles and the deadly steel-tips of the pikes until the most capable fighters were able to administer killing blows. Everyone managed to bloody their weapons to some extent, and the battle was finished in less than five minutes. Every hunter lay dead amid the tangle of spikes and broken spear shafts, the monsters apparently so conditioned to victory that they hadn’t learned to retreat in the face of overwhelming, lethal resistance. As the last flesh-eater died snarling on the blood-soaked ground, a ragged cheer went up from the novice-soldiers. Their shouts of triumph were almost immediately matched by a loud roar from the people of the settlement.
    Luke smiled as Zach stepped close and whispered, “Wimpiest fight I’ve ever been a part of.”
    “You kill anything?”
    “Naw, I punched one big hunter in the mouth a few times until the guy next to me finished pissing his pants and stuck a spear in its mouth.”
    Luke laughed as he and his friend looked around at their victorious troops. The soldiers were hooting and shouting, high-fiving one another and boasting of their exploits during the fight. Luke knew it had been easy. He knew the recruits needed a lot of work. But that didn’t stop him from feeling a sense of pride as he turned to Zach and declared, “It’s a good start.”
     
     
    By mid-afternoon bow-hunters had brought in four cows and one deer, while gatherers had collected over a thousand pounds of canned goods and staples from homes that had been beyond their reach while the infected still roamed the area. The people of the settlement prepared a feast for the soldiers who’d freed them from the packs that had been slowly strangling them, and after the meal, Gracie played the role of herald and informed the community of events that had taken place since the flesh-eaters had forced them inside their fortress. The people listening around the fires were furious to learn that the virus was man-made, and that the person who’d unleashed it was now trying to force all survivors to accept his rule. When Gracie finally came to