Free The Rabid: Rise by J.V. Roberts Page B

more intense.
    A battlefield opens up before us. It’s a flat expanse of pavement flanked by an apartment building on one side and the black security gate on the other. War wages. Men with their rifles, their blades, and their blunt instruments push back against an encroaching tide of Rabid. Vehicles burn. Men huddle behind cars, they lean out to fire their magazines dry and duck back down to reload before they’re overrun. Rabid charge across the flat expanse of pavement, some fall as bullets destroy their heads, while others rattle against ineffective body blows. Rabid flow through and over the black gate. For every one that falls, two more take its place. Sniper fire rains down from the rooftop to my left. I hear the reports but as I crane my neck, I am unable to catch a glimpse of the men behind the triggers and scopes.
    “ Grenade out!” a disembodied voice yells from somewhere to our left.
    I don’t see it, but, between the barrage of bullets, I am able hear the heavy metal explosive device thunk against the pavement. The resulting concussion takes place further up to our right. It’s brief and ferocious. The shrapnel shreds three Rabid, removes two legs, and then flies back towards our vehicle and cracks against the windshield.
    “Holy shit,” t he driver yells and slams the brakes.
    Katia is on the ground and in the shit before the Jeep comes to a complete stop. She pulls her swords as two Rabid charge her. As the first one lunges she ducks to the side and runs the blade in her left hand across his torso, doubling him over. As she comes back up, she turns her second blade and brings it up through his trachea and out the back of his neck. The second of the undead duo stumbles over the fallen body of his comrade. Katia catches him on the tip of her sword, driving it through his eyeball and out the back of his skull. She plants a foot against his chest and pushes him back to dislodge it.
    I hop down off the back of the Jeep, follow behind her and keep my rifle shouldered as I move.
    K nees cocked.
    Fan of fire.
    Just like Bo taught me.
    I squeeze the trigger.
    The recoil is familiar. Just like home.
    My target, a rotted mound of flesh with shoulder length clumps of hair, jerks back and falls against the gate. I squeeze twice more, headshots. My targets fall from the top of the gate and disappear back into the darkness on the other side.
    Katia creates a path of carnage in front of me. She’s like water through a drain pipe, she twists and turns, taking arms and legs. The torque of her body and the slash of her swords are notes that lead towards a deadly crescendo.
    “ Watch your fucking fire, assholes!” she yells as bullets hiss past her head and plant a Rabid to her right. “I can fucking handle it, aim wide!” The man taking cover beneath one of the metal overhangs to our left doesn’t respond, but he adjusts his fire, lest Katia turn her blades on him.
    “Kid, you got ammo?” It’ s Loco. There are three Rabid on his ass. The all American family: a man, a woman, and a little girl dressed in a puppy print nightgown. Loco swings a machete back and forth to try to ward them off. He catches the little girl across the throat. Black blood oozes from the gaping wound, but it doesn’t faze her.
    “Move!” I shout as I turn on one foot and draw aim on his pursuers.
    Loco drops back as I let off the first round. It tears through the girl’s temple and empties her brain matter against the woman’s white skirt as her body topples over sideways and slides to the ground. The next shot downs the woman. I don’t compensate enough for the height difference as I zero in on the head of the household. My first round tears his throat out. Lucky for me the second enters in near the bridge of his nose and takes the top of his skull with it. He goes down where he stands. Like a puppet without strings.
    “Holy shit, thanks , kid!”
    I toss him the Ruger. “Not much ammo left, but it’s something.”
    I turn back