Free Infected (Book 1): The First Ten Days by Jack Thomas Page B

would take down the ones that ran first, and take out the slower ones until minutes later more of the runners would jump out of the crowd and get their attention again.
    One of the soldiers separated from the group, ran towards Jason and I while the other soldiers gave suppressive fire.
    The soldier ran up to us. “You two, we need to get you guys out of here. This is no place for you to be, the infected have overtaken this area!” He told us as the rest of the soldiers caught up and surrounded us as a way to protect us against the infected.
    Jason and I didn’t give the matter a second thought; we did what we were told and went with them. The number of infected increased over time, but finally, the sun peeked over the buildings on its way to peak over the buildings.
    The infected became more visible and easier to hit, but by now their ammunition became limited.
    “I’m out,” one of the soldiers yelled out to inform the rest of the soldiers.
    “Everyone save your ammo!” someone shouted.
    They ceased fire and ran away from the infected.
    Two different types of infected people and a handful of unfamiliar soldiers were our company for the time.
    “Going live!” Another one of the soldiers yelled out. That same soldier flung a grenade into the sum of the infected. An explosion followed and with it came airborne zombie bodies.
    The bodies of the infected affected by the explosion succumbed to erosion, or gave into contortion. These contorted selected twisted and turned, distorted and burned. 
    The windows blew on the multitude of buildings we walked passed. They shattered and dropped down on the infected that weren’t hit by the initial blast, while those of us not infected scrambled to avoid the glass rain.
    “Turning left!” the soldiers communicated through shouts organized to similarly resemble radio communication. They moved as a unit, with one collective mind.
    “We’re going to try to lose them. Keep up!” one of the soldiers told Jason and I.
    We gained some distance on the infected, but Jason and I did not have the same stamina these soldiers did, as a result, the gap between them and us was apparent. They turned on the next intersection and we followed around the same corner to go into a building. One of the soldiers stood behind at the door and invited us over. He signaled us with his hand to join him and the rest of his unit in this presumably secured building.
    We ran in behind them and the soldier at the door close it behind us. The soldier who closed the door passed Jason and I and led the way to where the rest of the soldiers gathered.
    Much like every other location, there was no power, but it still managed to be properly illuminated by a number of lanterns, candles and torches the soldiers placed through the whole path we took. The little light allowed us to at least see we were inside of a secured office building, a massively large one. That’s what she said.
    The soldier that led the way shut every door behind us as we went through, before he proceeded to pass us again and continue to lead the way. At some point we made it to a stairwell and just like before he closed the door behind us and walked right by us and led us to the next. He did this a few times while we went deeper into the building.
    Jason and I assured one another, through nods and eye contact that we would let them lead as long as they needed to. The staircase led us to the fifth floor lobby.
    We entered the lobby and met up with even more soldiers and an entire lobby’s worth of survivors they rescued and brought there. More people, whose escorts were either attacked or didn’t show up, who were saved by these independent soldiers.
    “You guys are the worst soldiers I’ve ever seen. Anyone else could have been more prepared than you guys,” some loud mouth in the lobby said. One of the soldiers responded immediately and they had a quiet but intense and heated conversation about whatever, before the man became infuriated