SurvivorZ: Grave Harbor

73

GRAVES

"We don't have much ammo," Denise reminded the assembled group forming Harvard's last line of defense. "Don't shoot unless you're certain you've got a kill shot."

She stood on one end of the street, with Corporal Martinez on the other. Every civilian capable of firing a gun lined up between them. Facing an overwhelming army of walking corpses creeping towards them, Carl tried very hard not to picture lambs awaiting slaughter right now.

"Hey, I'm Robin," a lower voice declared at his side. "If we get through this, what say we find us a stocked bar and celebrate?"

Graves peered to his right. A woman with cropped, dark hair had apparently decided now was as good a time as any to put the moves on Eve. All she could do was gape at her admirer's incredibly bad timing.

"I'm good, thanks," Eve replied sheepishly.

Robin faced the mass of impending death with a grin. Carl heard her say to herself, "You're better than good in my book, cutie."

He grunted and looked away. Tommy stood on his other side. Despite his recent purge, his former protégé still didn't look too steady on his feet, especially compared to Conan the Machine Gunner chomping at the bit next to him. Hell, even Hansel and Gretel from the Sommers party looked more prepared to stand against the coming onslaught than he did.

"You should've gone with your sister," Graves said.

"I'm fine," Tommy growled. "I'll be fine."

"Try not to shoot yourself."

"I won't."

"Or me," Carl added.

"No promises."

"Come get it, you creepy fucks!" the big guy on Tommy's left shouted. He raised his automatic weapon, taking aim at the closest wave of lurching bodies closing in on them.

Carl and the rest of the firing line lined up their targets. It wasn't a hard proposition, considering the size of the approaching mob. He figured he could probably fire into the sky and still land a kill shot on the bullet's descent.

"They're everywhere," Eve muttered.

Undead groans, subdued until recently, reached a crescendo once the herd's frontrunners spotted the fresh meat arranged before them like a buffet line. Zombies lurched faster, trying to outpace one another in their race to sink their teeth into tender flesh. Instead, they became the first to die.

Carl didn't know who fired first. Perhaps Robin, or maybe Eve. All he knew was that after the first walker fell, bullets cracked from gun barrels in a free-for-all.

The first shot from his Anaconda punched through a dead woman's skull and penetrated the eye socket of the man walking behind her. They went down together, forming a temporary roadblock. The next two zombies stumbled around their fallen corpses, almost tripping in the attempt. The ones that followed trampled over them without slowing.

Zombies toppled in a row from the barrage of gunfire coming from their defensive line. Frustratingly, the kills barely seemed to put a dent in their numbers. Gaunt, shadowy figures with torn clothing and ragged bodies simply marched over their corpses without stopping.

"Fire in the hole!" Denise shouted, lobbing a grenade into the center of their ranks. The explosion sent dead people flying in all directions. Once the smoke cleared, more zombies flooded in from the side streets to fill the gap.

"Sarge..?" Corporal Martinez moaned between shots from her carbine.

"Hold the line," Denise said. "We need to buy the colonel more time to muster his forces."