Free The Dead Series (Book 4): Dead End by Jon Schafer Page A

milled around the clearing with their heads down as they searched the dirt and weeds, looking for something to eat. As he watched, one bent down to pick up what looked like a dirt-and-bug-covered piece of intestine and shoved it into its mouth. Most of them were whining, but a few had been silenced due to the fact that they’d had their throats ripped out or their mouths and tongues were so torn up by the gnashing teeth that had originally attacked them that they could make no sound. The sight of half-clothed and fully nude bluish grey bodies brought up Jimmy’s gag reflex, but he forced it down.
    In his short tour of duty in New Orleans, he had seen many of the dead, but these had been living in buildings, so their clothing was mostly intact. The ones out in the countryside had worn their attire away to little or nothing at all. A few still had boots or shoes on, but their pants, shirts and dresses had been reduced to rags or were completely gone.
    A small stone hit him in the leg, so he turned to his left to find out what Sergeant Fagan wanted. Seeing he was holding up his forefinger, middle finger and ring finger, Jimmy knew that the countdown to the slaughter was about to begin.
    First, Fagan’s forefinger dropped, then his ring finger. With a smile, the Staff Sergeant flipped him the bird before dropping it and turning to sight down his rifle.
    Jimmy did the same and found his first target, a young girl with the vestiges of a yellow scarf still hanging around her neck. Squeezing the trigger on his silenced rifle, he heard a click of the firing pin striking the bullet, followed immediately by what sounded like a muffled cough.
    The girl’s head erupted in a blossom of black pus, bone and hair as the bullet hit home. Knowing it was a kill without having to watch the body hit the forest floor, he turned and sighted in on the next, closest Z that was facing away from him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see dead bodies drop from Cage and Fagan’s fire as countless times he switched his aim, stroked the trigger and watched a head explode before moving on to his next target. Expecting to be discovered quickly and rushed by the dead, Jimmy was surprised when he stopped to reload and saw that they had decimated at least half the Zs in the clearing without their knowing what was going on.
    Sighting in, he started firing again. With each shot, his excitement rose at the thought of discovery. Just when he felt like the turkey shoot would go on like this for eternity, he heard Major Cage break the stillness of the forest by calling out, “Fresh magazines, line abreast. Advance through the clearing.”
    Ejecting his almost full clip, Jimmy slipped in a fully loaded one, let the bolt slam forward, and rose from his firing position to line up ten feet to the left of Staff Sergeant Fagan. He could see that the dead were well aware of their presence now and were heading toward them in a loping run.
    Cage called out, “Advance ,” so Jimmy stepped off as he sighted in on the head of the first Z rushing toward them. Without thinking, he walked forward as he pulled the trigger repeatedly, watching as heads snapped back from the impact of his bullets. He could see that there were only twenty or more Zs charging them, and the three of them made quick work of sending them back to hell. When the last of the dead fell, there was no need for the order to cease fire. All three men could see that they were the only thing, living or dead, still standing in the clearing.
    “Go back and get the rest of the squad,” Fagan ordered as he pulled a noise-suppressed hi-standard pistol from its holster and joined Major Cage in finishing off any of the dead that were still moving. They had gotten the ones that were on their feet, but some of them that were missing legs or were too torn up to stand upright were still crawling across the forest floor toward them.
    Excited by the slaughter of the dead, Jimmy almost ran back to where the other men