Free Last Stand of the Dead - 06 by Joseph Talluto Page A

worse, and I knew he was about to explode.  I waved the two of them off and walked over.
    “ Soldier !” I barked.  “On your feet! Move it! Move it! Move it !”  I figured if I couldn’t break him out of his shock , we’d have to physically pull him out of the truck, and someone was going to get hurt.
    “Sir!”   The boy actually shook himself out of his state and tried to stand up, cracking his head on the dashboard.  He rolled out of the truck and tried to get himself to attention while holding his head, but when he saw the massacre and the advancing zombies, he fell to his knees, and I was afraid he was going to relapse.
    “ Get on your goddamn feet !  No one told you take a nap!  Get up !”  I yelled again, using my across-the-playground Principal’s voice.
    The soldier stood and I got in his face.  “What the fuck happened here, soldier?  Don’t waste my goddamn time with bullshit.  You have one fucking minute, or I will gouge out your eyeballs and hang them from my mirror!”
    Somehow, that worked.  The soldier told his story quickly while Hass and his townspeople loaded up the truck and headed away, throwing waves to the rest of my crew and swerving around oncoming hordes of zombies.
    “Sir.   They came at us from the southern end, attacking everyone.  The men from the line at 116 tried to come to help, but they got overrun.  Everyone just shot bullets everywhere and died.  They smashed windows to get us. They tore us apart.”
    The soldier’s eyes misted with memories and I let him alone for a minute.
    “How many?” I asked, using a gentler tone.
    “I don’t know.” The soldier hung his head.
    “Take a good guess, how many would you say there were?”
    “I don’t know!  I just ran and ran and ran.  People were screaming and dying, running into the grass, trying to escape.  I don’t know!”
    “Soldier, we’re about to be attacked in ten minutes, and I need to know how many.  Take your best guess, then I’ll let you run away again, ” I said.
    The boy closed his eyes, and I could see he was working through his memories, trying to sort out a number. 
    “There was at least a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty, ” he said finally.
    Jesus .  “Okay soldier. Take off.  I think you’ll find Freeman at Kirkwood to the north.”
    Without another word, and with no attempt to retrieve a weapon, the soldier just bolted up the road.
    “Nice work , ” s aid Charlie.  “You sounded like someone we knew.”
    “ Yeah, ” I said.  “But we’ ll have to stop Nate from killing him for cowardice.”
    “True.”
    “John?” Tommy asked as he lined up a shot on an advancing zombie.
    “Yeah?”
    “We gonna fight, or what?”
    I went to the truck.  “No.”
    Duncan paused in pulling out his sword.  “What are we going to do with these guys, then?”
    “Bring them with us.   Mount up, ” I said, winking at Sarah.
    Sarah just shook her head at me , but smiled when I kissed her.  “Thanks for bringing the best of Smithshire .”
    “No problem. They looked bored when I rolled up, and were happy to help out.”
    “Well, they did, so now we can get rolling, ” I said.
    “All right.   What about the zombies?”
    “Just drive north, but not too fast, ” I replied.
    Sarah got it instantly.  “Army’s problem.”
    “Army’s mess.   It’s time Freeman cleaned up his own .”
    “I fully agree.”  Sarah pulled forward, but stay ed at a speed of about five mile s and hour.  Immediately, Rebecca pulled in behind, staying close.  Duncan had a bit of a difficulty getting his truck started, which allowed a couple of soldier zombies the opportunity to grab on to the mirrors, but once he got rolling, they fell off quickly enough.
    The town of Kirkwood was a big place, and like several places of its size after the Upheaval, found it was difficult to take care of all the people it housed.  So the town was actually populated by about half of its former three thousand,