Free Books of the Dead (Book 3): Dead Man's Land by R.J. Spears

shoulder and stretched himself to his full height.  He thought, it was time for some payback as he walked along the side of the building and then turned northward towards the sounds of the gunshots.  Yes, in-deedy, somebody was going to pay.
     
    “There she is,” Russell shouted, pointing to Paige as she rose from behind the car she was hiding behind and took a shot down the street.  She was at least seventy-five yards in front of them.  Someone returned fire almost immediately as a spray of bullets slammed into the side of the car, sending Paige back under cover.
    “She needs to quit firing,” Brandon said.  “She’s only drawing the zombies to her.”
    A small horde of zombies swarmed toward her, only fifty feet away.  She was in no man’s land with zombies coming down on her and nothing but open road behind her.
    “But if she makes a run for it, they’ll cut her down,” Russell said pleadingly.
    “That’s where we come in,” Brandon said.  “We’ll have to provide cover fire.”  He pulled up his walkie-talkie and said, “Travis, Devin, come in.”
    Travis responded, “Here.”
    “We’ve got Paige on the west side of the street, behind a car.  We need to provide cover fire for her.”
    “Got that,” Travis said, “we have one of our guys in the used car lot.  He’s pinned down there.  Zombies are just about on him.”
              “Who is it?” Brandon asked.
    “We think it’s Wayne Carleson.”
    “Is there anyone else?”
    There was a brief pause.  “No.  Ben Westin is dead in the street.  The zombies have him now.  We think there’s someone in the truck, but he is gone, too.”
    Russell felt a heavy weight drop on him.  If he had only paid more attention to Paige and her rants, this might not have had to happen.
    “Okay,” Brandon said, “where’s the fire coming from?”
    “From behind a house on the other side of the car lot.”
    “On my cue, let’s concentrate our fire on that house.  Let’s hope they know to run when we do.”
     
    Rex felt the clock ticking as he jogged along the side of the building.  They were down to the two-minute warning, and he wanted to get one more score in before the final buzzer.  And this would be a touchdown with a two-point conversion. 
    A burst of gunfire sounded behind him.  It had to be the new set of intruders because there were at least four guns blasting away at once.  He only hoped that Roy and Maggie had sense enough to run. 
    If the intruders were making a push in with some heavy firepower, he’d act like a ghost and vanish. As much as he’d like to take their attackers head on, he was no fool.  He’d live to fight another day.
    As he approached the northwest corner of the building, he slowed and edged his way to the corner.  The firing was fierce.  He poked his head around the corner and saw that most of the shots were concentrated at a house on the other side of the street.  Zombies streamed into the used car lot, and someone there was firing at them.  The problem for this person was there were too many of them, and he’d never have enough time to kill them all.  That was the beauty of the zombies when they came in numbers.  There was no stopping them.  
    He saw the dirty blonde behind a car in front of the Stag Bar, and she was firing at the house, too.  When he looked that direction, he saw Roy limping away, obviously hurt, towards the woods behind the house.  Rex knew he have to teach that bitch a thing or two.
    Getting an angle on her without being spotted was going to be tricky, but he saw that he would only be in the open for two spaces of twenty feet a piece if he used the small storage shed behind the building and the wrecks of cars parked back there.  Once he got into the trees behind the bar, there’s no way they’d see him approaching.  That was, if they didn’t decide to make a full frontal assault.  Then he’d be trapped with them in between him and a good escape