Free OUTNUMBERED volume 4: A Zombie Apocalypse Series by Robert Schobernd

from the sudden amount of gunfire that Shane was taking fire also. We definitely had their attention. All around me I heard our crews returning selective fire as targets were found. Our shots were effective because I often heard screams coming from the enemy camp. However, we weren't without casualties. On my radio earpiece I learned Irene Margherio was dead and James Butler was seriously wounded after taking multiple bullets.
    The sound of bullets thudding into the log I was behind faded, so I raised and put another RPG into the left side of the large structure. The area of my first strike was on fire and the roaring orange flames helped backlight our targets. Bullets again thumped my log barricade and whizzed over my head. A light machine gun was spewing bullets at me as I rolled ten feet down the log to a new position. Carefully, I peeked over the log and saw the intermittent fire was coming from one of the fortifications fifty yards directly in front of me. It sounded like a 5.56 mm. light squad automatic weapon.
    Jakes Bales and Barlow were near me. I asked each of them to fire on the machine gun position long enough for me to rise above the log with the RPG to take it out. With their covering fire, I was able to aim and send the deadly rocket for a perfect hit. Several people and weapons were thrown from the bunker. Bullets fired toward us slowed, and it was much safer to return fire.
    Light from the rising sun now lit the area enough to see clearly. Shane called on the radio to alert everyone that Ed and Richard had moved in from the lake and were hitting the enemy from their unprotected backside. I finally spotted Richard moving stealthily from cover to cover. Then my ears picked up the puff, puff, puff sound of the silenced sub-machinegun. As I expected, Richard began taking fire from the people trapped between us. They not only faced deadly fire in front of them but now at their backside. My crew began shooting at anyone who moved while trying to avoid shots near Richard.
    My thoughts left the death scene in front of me when a conversation started over the radio. "You two are my ticket out of here." I didn't recognize the speaker.
    A fainter voice, female I thought, said, "You won't get far. They'll hunt you down wherever you go."
    A woman's voice, much clearer said, "Paige, be still and do what they say. I assume you must be Marc Ridder." I stopped breathing. Ridder had Paige and Carmen. Where the hell were they? They'd been together in Shane's group. Carmen was holding the transmit button down on her radio. Smart girl.
    "Yeah, I'm Ridder and you must be one of the Jones bunch. I shoulda killed that black bastard, Willie, and the rest of you a long time ago. Grab each of them and put a gun to their backs while we work our way down to the boat. If either of you yells for help, you'll die instantly. The only way you two live is for the four of us to live."
    Ridder had just broadcast all the info we needed. I found Morgan thirty feet from me and told him to take over. Then I stayed low as I scurried behind my troops toward Shane. I told everyone I encountered who had a radio to not use it so we didn't alert Ridder that Carmen had the transmit key down so we could hear everything he said.
    Shane had heard the exchange over the radio and expected me. We relayed the word about the radio to everyone else as we raced toward the lake. We were fifty feet from the shoreline when I saw the prize Ridder was heading for. A blue on white cigarette boat, about forty feet long, with huge twin outboard engines sat tied alongside a pier that jutted at least seventy feet from shore.
    Ridder's voice came over the radio, "Move it, Bitch, and don't even think of making a sound."
    I nudged Shane and pointed. There was movement at the first cabin on the left. The line of cabins sat about thirty feet from the shore and followed it along the lake past the large building that was at the apex of being incinerated. The six people cast long