Free Crowded Yet Desolate: A Zombie Novel by Lee Dunter Page A

ready to relay messages between the two groups.
    “Yessa Masta,” Cam said. He began gathering water bottles, cliff bars, and other valuable items, before he would meet up with Albert.
    “Are you ready,” the twins asked as they took their positions.
    Ryan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He had been so busy planning that he had taken no time to be afraid of what lay ahead. But now, about to be confronted with a horde of these devilish monsters again, fear ravaged him like fire. He forced a confident smile. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
    The three pointed their guns towards the gate and the shop window. Signs lining the windows portrayed the store hours and advertised once-in-a-lifetime deals on select merchandise. Simultaneously they pulled the triggers, and all of this was instantly destroyed. The glass shattered to pieces and crashed to the ground. Ryan’s ears rang due to the deafening sound, his shoulder sore from the kickback. The zombies staggered backwards from the spread of the shot, but made no attack. They fired again, and this time the zombies reacted. Their heads twitched, looking for the source of noise. Their bodies jerked awake, fully alert, just as if they were alive. Growls filled the street, and suddenly the zombies sprinted towards the gate.
    Ryan was immobilized by fear. He tried to move, tried to pull the trigger, but he couldn’t. In each face of the undead, he saw his beloved Deborah staring back at him. Meanwhile the twins fired into the crowd, having a field day mowing down the zombies. The shots echoed loudly throughout the store. Above the racket, Ryan heard Kyle scream, “It’s working.” With each shot, heads exploded, spraying the charging zombies with a concoction of blood, brains, and decayed flesh.
    Ryan shut his eyes to the horror, and when he opened them again, Deborah’s face was gone: he saw clearly. They no longer looked surprisingly human. With no immune system to protect them, they were quickly deteriorating. This hadn’t quenched their hunger for flesh, though.
    The twins had to reload, leaving no one to stop the charging zombies. A group of the undead climbed through the window, screeching and growling, eyes glared intently ahead. Ryan felt as if they all stared at him, wanted to devour him, sought to make him into one of their kind.
    Joe yelled, “What are you doing? Fucking shoot!” But Ryan still couldn’t. He couldn’t believe it. Had he really chosen this moment, arguably the most potentially heroic of his life, to bow out like a coward?
    More zombies poured into the building, spreading their unbearable stench: a mixture of burnt flesh and rotten eggs. Ryan closed his eyes, accepting defeat. There were simply too many to escape. He hoped it would be quick, that they’d go straight for vital organs; that they’d finish by shredding him to pieces, so he couldn’t reanimate. But he knew better. He foresaw a pack of zombies feasting ravenously upon his entrails as he cried out in pain, and then they’d leave him there to become what he hated most.
    A noise snapped him from his defeat–metal clanked as the zombies ran full force against the gate. It swayed inward with their force. Seizing the opportunity, Ryan fired the shotgun at the closest zombie, its decaying hands reaching out at him through the gate. As it fell lifeless, fear left Ryan. He fired again and again, falling into a rhythm of zombie destruction.
    Before he knew it, he had to reload. The zombies now filled the entire front of the store, tearing their weakened flesh against the serrated edge of the gate. Once reloaded, Ryan fired into the horde again. Ryan heard Kyle behind him yelling that it was time to move out, but Ryan pretended not to hear him. Killing the zombies was bringing him peace, as if somehow he was revenging Deborah. He didn’t know if this peace would continue after the gun was empty, so he was going to make this last.
    Roe and Joe had retreated to Kyle, but Ryan still