SurvivorZ: Grave Harbor

97

GRAVES

The gunfire hammering across the wall nearly muffled the explosion at the other end of the parking lot. By the time Carl looked up from the enemy trying to scale the frozen ramparts, all he saw were the after effects of the colonel's attack.

Rising smoke filled the area around the epicenter of the blast. Dozens of fires dotted the landscape, glittering like tiny stars in the gloom. There was no trace of movement, except from the wind-whipped flames.

He looked to his left. A corporal who had been monitoring the progress of his superior officer lowered his binoculars with shaky hands. The kid gawked, pale-faced, at the devastation.

"Give me that," Carl growled, snatching the spyglasses from him. The stunned soldier surrendered them freely, barely noticing his now empty hands.

Graves focused the glasses on the smoke drifting into the darkening sky. A single thought raced through his mind like a runaway freight train. Did he do it? Did he get the alpha?

It was a sentiment shared by Tommy, to his right. "Did it work?"

Carl stared through the lens, holding his breath for an answer. Excitement flowed through him at the thought of the attack throwing the ghoul army into chaos, even for only a while. With a herd this size, he had to figure that it'd take some time for a new alpha to assert dominance.

He couldn't say how much time though, and that worried him.

The colonel's surprise attack had caught everyone with their pants down. He and the others hadn't planned to make their escape until well after dark. Carl worried that a new alpha ghoul might step in by the time they gathered their people and supplies together to leave. If that happened, their chances of reaching the dock dropped significantly.

At the moment, the dead were concentrating their efforts primarily on the one wall facing the parking lot. He suspected there were stray ghouls elsewhere around the fort, but their numbers were few. Dealing with them would be tricky, but they could handle it. As long as it didn't mean facing off against a force that completely surrounded them on all sides.

Carl watched carefully as the area around the explosion slowly returned to life. A few singed bodies rose again on wobbly legs, searching left and right for either an explanation of what just happened or for something to sink their teeth into. All around the blast, dozens of zombies smoldered from scorched clothes, burning hair, and blackened flesh.

The undead army collectively paused to consider the rising pillar of smoke. The red truck now burned with angry, white flames, illuminating the devastation. Through his glasses, Graves watched smoking shadows wander around it. None of them bore the striking figure of the alpha ghoul.

Between breaths, he noticed that the gunshots from Castle's wall had also fallen silent. It was as though time had frozen both sides in place until it was ready to reveal an answer.

That answer came sooner than he would have liked. Cutting through the relative stillness of hundreds of distant, murmured groans, a voice screamed in fury. It caught everyone by surprise, including Carl.

Even more surprising, the howl wasn't that of the alpha male they were expecting. It was from a woman.

"What's going on?" Tommy moaned. "Let me see."

Ignoring him, Carl scanned the devastation with the binoculars, searching for the one he presumed to be the new alpha. He spotted a long haired female in charred clothing with her fist raised in protest.

"Shit."

"What?" Tommy said. "What is it?"

This threw more than a wrench into their plans. This threw the whole damn toolbox. If the ghouls accepted a new leader that quickly, there would be no right time for them to make their escape. Their only options were to stay here and die or simply go for it and hope for the best.