Free Z-Risen (Book 2): Outcasts by Timothy W. Long Page A

nodded and then disappeared up the stairs.
    I waited around with my dick in my hand, wondering what in the hell I should do. Donny called my name.
    “What’d you find?” I asked.
    “Got some frags. Best fucking thing? I found a few rounds for the fifty cal. We can spook ‘em. Now who’s going to go out and bullshit our way out of here?”
    “I guess you’re staring at me because I have the duty?”
    “That would be real Christian of you, partner,” he said.
    “What if they start shooting?”
    He tossed down a box of shells. I caught it and read the tops. He’d given me about thirty fresh rounds for the Mossberg.
    “Shoot back,” he said and loaded the big machine gun.
    Donny handed down another box to Joel.
    Joel opened the green metal box, extracted a few round items, and then handed a couple to me.
    “These are M67 frag grenades. You’ve seen this on TV a million times, right? Pull the pin and throw. After it hits, you’ve got anywhere from three to seven seconds before the blast. When you throw, make sure to yell ‘frag out,’ especially if we’re around you.”
    “What’s the range of the explosion? I don’t want an ass full of shrapnel.”
    “Fifteen meters immediate blast zone, but shrapnel can travel as far as a few football fields, so you make sure you’re behind something. This will scare the fuck out of anyone on the other side of the fence.”
    “Scare them worse than a bunch of zombies?”
    Joel winked.
    We moved toward the perimeter.
    He checked the fence and figured out a way to lock it with a metal bar. It wouldn’t hold up to a halfway-determined assault from even a small vehicle, but they didn’t know that.
    Brick walls rose on either side of the fence. Joel found a spot out of sight, then loaded rounds into magazines and secured grenades to his tactical armor. I refilled the rails and breach of my shotgun. Standing, I couldn’t see over the wall. I limped to the front office, dragged a chair out, and placed it next to the wall. I climbed atop it to get a look at the approaching force.
    The wall was old and pitted and made of red bricks. I found a couple of places where the grout had eroded, so I was able to view the road through the small holes.
    What I saw was a scene straight out of a Mad Max movie. Trucks, cars, and motorcycles closed on us. Someone had mounted a head on the hood of one of the trucks. From a distance, I couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
    Maybe they would just hang a right and keep going. I scanned the parking lot and saw that everyone was hidden, either behind cars or in the Chevy, which had moved to the side of the building and was out of sight.
    The lead pickup truck came to a halt, and a guy hopped out and took cover behind his door. Another man slid out of the passenger side and took cover behind his door. He wore some kind of camouflage gear. As far as prospective allies went, this was not looking promising.
    Then at least fifteen motorcycles roared up behind them.
    They were a motley bunch, but they were well supplied with guns. I saw more than a few women among them. They all had hard faces.
    “We know you’re in there. Just give us the military vehicle and we’ll be on our way. We don’t want anything else.”
    “That’s not cool. What if we need it?” I called out from behind the wall.
    Joel shot me a questioning look.
    “What?” I whispered.
    He shrugged and pointed toward the guys on the other side of the fence then showed me a fist.
    “I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say.” I whispered back.
    “Be a hardass,” he shot back.
    Jesus. Why wasn’t he talking?
    “How many are there? Maybe you guys can join us. We could use a few more men,” the guy said.
    He wore a pair of reflective sun glasses even though it was overcast. His hair was steel grey and about an eighth of an inch long. He wore a giant gold cross around his neck on an equally huge gold chain. He also had about five guns strapped to various parts of