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

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    Rex weighed the pros and cons for a few seconds and decided it was worth the risk.  He wanted to have a little fun with Anthony’s surprise.  It was payback time.
    “They’re overwhelming Wayne,” Russell shouted as they watched Wayne fire into the pack of zombies starting to encircle him in the used car lot.  It was becoming all too obvious that while Wayne had ample firepower, he didn’t have the ability to fire in all directions at once as the zombies closed in around him.
    “Travis, Devin, can you get some fire onto the zombies going after Wayne?” Brandon shouted into his walkie-talkie.
    Two seconds later, Travis came back, “We’re trying, but we have several cars in our way.  I’m going to have to move into the parking lot.”
    “No don’t,” Brandon said, “you could get shot.”
    “But the zombies will take him,” Travis replied with some anguish in voice. 
    “We can’t risk it.”
    It was then that Russell saw Paige come out from the cover of her car and start towards Wayne.  She fired into the backs of the zombies trudging toward Wayne, and a few peeled off and came towards her.  It seemed too little, too late, as the mass of them bore down on Wayne as he backed up and fired. 
    Russell broke from beside Brandon and stepped out into the open.  He brought his hands up around his mouth and shouted, “Paige, run this way!”
    She didn’t hear him at first, but he shouted her name again, and she turned his way.  A myriad of expressions crossed her face:  disbelief, recognition, relief, and then confusion. 
    “Get back here, you fucking idiot,” Brandon yelled, but Russell ignored him and shouted again.
    Paige tottered back and forth in the middle of the street, caught in indecision.  If she ran to Russell, that would mean she was abandoning Wayne to his fate.  Going to help Wayne looked like a losing proposition though, since she knew she was running low on ammunition.  She did the headcount of the undead, and even counting only the ones headed in her direction, she could tell she’d run out of bullets before all of them were taken down.  That was counting each shot as a kill shot, and while she was a good shot, she wasn’t that good.  Not under these conditions.
    Russell watched as she took two steps in the direction of the used car lot, and then she let loose on the zombies surging toward Wayne, while ignoring the ones closing in on her.  It was a risky gambit because if any of them moved into the street north of her, she’d be cut off with no way to defend herself with the exception of using her rifle as a club. 
    It was a brief and impressive display of personal firepower as bullets tore into the zombies trying to get at Wayne, but in the end, it didn’t make all that much of a difference, since only a few of the undead fell.
     
    That bitch has got some spunk , Rex thought as he watched her burn through her clip.  He thought it was too bad she wasn’t on their side .
    He had made it to the side of the bar and had a good vantage point up the road.  He saw some poor sucker about to be taken out by a pack of their soldiers.  Hurray for our side , he thought. 
    He also spotted another group of attackers on the north side of the user car lot, attempting to fire on the zombies about to take out the man.  Out of view and up the street were more folks, but he couldn’t tell for sure how many.  It was then that he started to doubt his bold move forward, but decided he was already there, so he might as well make lemonade out of lemons.
    He pulled back from the corner and unbagged the gun.  He felt in a pouch on the side of the bag, found a small plastic box, and retrieved it.  Before he opened it, he peeked around the corner. 
    The blonde still stood in the street, bouncing around, waving to someone he couldn’t see.  Couldn’t she see the writing on the wall?  The cavalry had come as far as they were going.  She’d have to go to them now, or she would be