Free Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 by E.E. Isherwood

streets to his left, he'd often see
the tracers of the Humvees two blocks over. They skipped or arced to
the west in the same direction he was going. But they couldn't reach
him.
    When he was only a couple blocks outside Forest Park, he saw the
dim lights of the medical towers ahead. They still used generators to
keep the places lit and functioning. They called to him.
    “I'm here, Liam.”
    “I'm coming, girlfriend,” he said to the darkness. The
reply was the ricochet of a bullet. It snapped somewhere close. That
got him to move from the middle of the road and approach more
cautiously.
    As he closed the distance to the park, he became aware of where
all the gunfire was originating. It wasn't just all over the city. It
was a very specific point in the city. A perimeter, actually.
    The boundary of the park was a combination of derelict cars,
parking barriers, and whatever junk people could stack in piles.
They'd filled the gap between buildings. It presented a formidable
barrier to keep the zombies out, assuming the defenders had
sufficient ammo and that the military wasn't instructed to bomb the
place to oblivion.
    But the larger problem was that he was now on the outside, looking
in. Those gunshots were coming in his direction. The far side of a
big intersection was blocked by city buses, dump trucks, and other
large vehicles. A few men with spotlights walked on top, illuminating
the zombies in the street outside their position. Gunners would then
dispatch them. A ton of bodies littered the intersection.
    They appeared to be using a similar tactic as the military down
the road. They were drawing in the zombies by using light, which gave
them clear shots at the easy targets. The biggest difference was the
caliber being used. No machine guns or tracer rounds, here.
    Liam heard men and women yelling from across the street, but they
sounded as if they were on the other side of a wide river. The
zombies in the “river” between them kept him from yelling
out to them. In the darkness of night, anything could happen.
    A jet screeched overhead.
    Choppers whomped in the distance.
    Always gunfire.
    Amidst all the confusion, he felt something sting him on the back
of his shoulder. He reached back and froze.
    A little helicopter drone hummed by, well overhead. It moved with
silent grace over the intersection, and he could hear the little
wisps of air as the drone tagged other zombies standing out there. It
didn't hurt to remove the little tag, and in the darkness he had no
way to know what color his was. All he could think about was that he
was now targeted for death.
    A methodical cadence of gunfire erupted nearby. Four shots in a
row. He searched the intersection as it sounded as if it were coming
from that direction.
    He saw it. It was on the next block. The little drone tank came
out through the glass frontage of a fast food chain store. With a
quick turn, it engaged some zombies on the parking lot, then headed
for the road.
    He threw down the drone's tag. He briefly considered throwing it
into the flat, but couldn't say for sure if anyone still lived there.
It would be a terrible way to die—some kid throwing a killer
drone tracking device into your living room. One country music star
was enough responsibility for him…
    He crawled along the base of the brick home, looking for a way
inside. It pained him to do it, but he needed a place to hole up
until the light of day. He'd never get across the intersection, or
the road, or the barrier, if he had to run out of the black of night
to do it.
    But he wasn't going to sleep in the streets, either.
    There was a tiny side window to the basement, as he hoped. The
home was very similar to Grandma Marty's. He had to push firmly with
the bottom of his shoes, but the lock was weak. He pushed the window
open and then slithered feet-first into the basement.
    If there were survivors waiting down there—or zombies—he'd
take his chances with them, rather than deal with that tank