Free Cry Zombie Cry (I Zombie Book 5) by Jack Wallen

safe our little group where anyone else would have failed. You are truly astonishing.”
    “ The last time someone was this nice to me, I had to put a bullet through his…”
    I couldn’t believe I went there. In the midst of a zombie attack, I besmirched the memory of the single most important man whose path I’d ever crossed. Tears began to well; I fought as hard as I could to keep them at bay. It was a battle lost before it even began.
    “ I don’t blame you.” Jamal offered me a soft and gentle grin.
    “ For what?”
    Jamal nodded at me. “The tears. This is some fucked up shit, B-dizz. You’ve managed to keep this crew together through some of the thickest, baddest of it all. I don’t know how you do it.”
    Before I could reply, the truck was hit by a charging rhino—or so it seemed.
    “ Let’s give the Obliterator a go.”
    Against my better judgment, I pulled the laptop out, plugged it in, and brought some serious noise to the party. The high-pitched oscillations danced through the darkening sky and assailed the ears and dissolving brains of the Boners. One by one the monsters stopped. Unlike the Moaners and Screamers, the Boners didn’t automatically begin banging their heads against the concrete below their feet. That would have been far too easy. Instead, they seemed momentarily lost, their heads lolling back and forth. Morgan took the opportunity to unleash her special flavor of the month. Bullets crashed against bone; bone shattered against flesh. Slowly but surely she was getting into the creamy center of the armored zombies.
    “ This is…” Jamal whispered.
    “ Surreal?” I asked.
    “ No…fucked up,” he returned.
    I couldn’t argue with Jamal’s rudimentary summation.
    It wasn’t enough. Though the Obliterator slowed them down, the small gang of Zombius Erectus 2.0 made their way to Rizzo and Josh’s Hummer and attacked. They all stood on one side of the truck and simultaneously laid their hands to metal.
    “ What the…?” I started.
    “ …fuck?” Jamal finished my thought.
    Echo leaned over my lap to get a better look at the action.
    “ Holy mother of shit.” Echo’s voice was a mere whisper. “Are they…?”
    “… working together,” I answered. “It would seem so.”
    They were. We’d had our suspicions about this new iteration of undead back in Seattle, where they’d worked in conjunction to locate and trap us in the underground city. What we were now seeing confirmed that assumption dead to rights.
    “ We have to help them, Bethany.”
    Before I could reply to Echo’s demand, the Boners managed to tip the other truck over on its side. As it rolled, Echo released a scream that shrieked inside my ear canals. The Boners continued pushing on one side of the Hummer.
    I wiggled my way to the driver’s seat. “I have an idea. Jamal, tell Morgan to hold on tight.”
    Jamal complied as I turned the engine over.
    “ Bethany, what are we doing?” Echo was near hysteria.
    “ Bone breaks under pressure. So we’re going to apply enough pressure to snap those sons of bitches in half.”
    I turned the wheel of the Hummer and drove in a slow half-circle until the front of the vehicle was pointed directly toward the Boners. Without too much gusto, I pressed on the gas and moved the truck forward. In a stroke of luck, the zombies were so intent on getting their hands on the brains of Josh and Rizzo, they were completely oblivious of us.
    The business end of the truck made contact with the bone-armored zombies and I punched the gas. A deep crack and snap of armor plating thumped and echoed through the truck. The sound was nauseating, like breaking every bone in your body at once.
    Trapped monsters pushed, with every ounce of strength they had, against the trucks. I matched every shove with a punch of the accelerator until the snapping of bone gave way to the rush of rotting bodily fluids. A brown-and-black sludge splattered the windshield of the Hummer. Instinctively I hit