Eastern Front: Zombie Crusade IV (10 page)

Since David had nothing to
do but monitor the fight, he’d kept his eye on a large, male hunter who was standing in the shadows about thirty meters from the roadblock. The creature was feasting on what looked like a long strip of flesh he must have ripped from the leg of one of the guards. The beast was completely naked, his muscled body covered with stretches of the pink scar tissue many of the infected displayed as time passed and their wounds healed. As the last of his pack-mates involved in the charge were shot down, and those feasting on the corpses began to drop, the large alpha-male cocked his head for a moment as if he was studying the situation. Even over the howls of the hunters in the distance and the snarls of the monsters still tearing at the bodies, David could hear the beast utter a series of grunt-like growls that drew the immediate attention of every living flesh-eater in sight. Still carrying the meat in a one-handed grip, the huge hunter turned and walked off into the darkness, quickly followed by the few creatures still alive.

For a moment nobody said anything, but Carter eventually brok
e the silence. “What the hell . . .”

“This is like that retreat we saw on the Maumee last month,” David explained. “We told you about it.”

“Yeah,” Carter agreed, “but it still seems damn strange.”

“Just reload and get ready,” David warned. “I seriously
doubt that they’re giving up—probably just gonna try something different.”

Todd scoffed, “You trying to tell us those bastards are making a plan or something?”

David hesitated for a few seconds before murmuring, “See for yourself.”

From out of the southern shadows cast by the flaming Blackhawk
came a crowded mass of hunters running at a full sprint. The creatures weren’t silent, but snarls instead of howls accompanied the patter of their feet on the cement as they rounded the chopper and made their way onto the bridge. Carter and Todd immediately began reloading their pistols, but David had been in this type of fight before and knew the guns were now of little value. “Grab your halberds and follow us!”

Blake and Lori had already shuffled to the front of the roadblock, quickly followed by the other stunned warriors as they extended their eight-foot, bladed spears and awaited the charging enemy. Luckily the hunters weren’t all capable of running at the same speed, so the large group was somewhat staggered as they approached the human line. The first monsters to make contact hit the
razor-sharp tips of the weapons so hard that the shafts actually bent with their weight as the flesh-eaters were stopped in their tracks by six inches of steel buried in their foreheads.  

Having fought to defend a bridge
against hordes of the infected in Fort Wayne just a few weeks earlier, David and Blake, who were now standing at each flank, remembered the tactic developed by Sal Martinez above the rivers of the city that day. He had held the vulnerable end of the line during the battle by stabbing the flesh-eaters in their bodies and flipping them over the railing into the rushing water below. The big man had killed dozens of the infected with the technique, which required strength and skill, and now his friends hoped to copy the tactic over the Ohio River.

Lori was stationed in the center of the line, with Todd and Carter fighting to her right and left. This middle group didn’t enjoy the advantage offered by the railings, but they did form a wedge that shed hunters to either side where they either dropped dead to the cement, or
, with their momentum broken, became easy targets for David and Blake.

David soon realized that thirty or forty of the monsters were definitely involved in the attack
, and the five humans fighting back were in imminent danger of being overrun. Blake had lost his halberd when one of the creatures had reached out and grabbed the shaft as she fell toward the river, but he was now using his mace to deadly effect, brains and black blood spraying in front of the fighting line with each powerful swing. Lori and her two wing-mates had killed enough of the hunters that their corpses formed a short barricade in front of their position. One of the three fighters had lost a halberd, because David could hear the
pffft
of .22 rounds that were punching into the skulls of the monsters who now had to climb over the bodies of their dead pack-mates.

The tide of the vicious struggle
was definitely turning in the humans’ favor, but the old, reliable enemy known as fatigue was steadily taking its toll on their ability to continue the battle. Since Jack and his fighters had developed their system of combatting the infected during the early days of the outbreak, one factor they’d learned that they couldn’t control was weariness. Modern warriors had to relearn what the ancients had known centuries ago: wielding hand-held instruments of death quickly tired a fighter to the point where he could barely lift his weapons, let alone kill with them. Jack’s soldiers had tried to mitigate the problem by forming ranks that could rotate in and out of the fighting line, but when a small group like this was caught in a surprise attack, they could only hope to outlast the hunters.

David soon lost his halberd in the same manner as Blake, but with his strength flagging he turned to a dagger instead of the war-axe that would require swinging. He began using a familiar, yet desperate tactic against the flesh eaters: ramming his gauntleted hand and forearm into their mouths a
nd then stabbing them in the sides of their heads. As the fight wore on he slipped several times in the blood and gore, finally falling to his knees, which he figured was a death sentence without a helmet. Fortunately, Carter was watching out for his best friend’s baby-brother, and after shooting two of the monsters about to leap on the younger man at point-blank range, he pulled the exhausted David back to his feet.

The two warriors
looked up to see that once again the surviving hunters were retreating, perhaps in response to the fact that Blake had just crushed the skull of the huge alpha-male that had appeared to be calling the shots before the nearly successful, second attack. David finally rasped out, “They’ll come again. I’m done . . . have to get behind the vehicles and use a firearm.”

“We’re all done, brother,” Blake breathlessly added
while Todd just leaned his hands on his knees and nodded his head in agreement.

“Y’all get behind the SUVs,” Carter ordered as he kept an eye on what appeared to be a
nother group of hunters gathering together near the dying flames of the spent Blackhawk. The creatures were snapping and snarling in frustration and anger as they stood uncertainly at the edge of the bridge.

“You were right about the bastards,” a chagrined Todd admitted to David as he set a fresh magazine into his AR. “They are trying to figure us out.”

“I don’t know if we can hold off another bull-rush like the last one,” Lori added as she wiped gore from Blake’s face and looked for wounds.

Everyone turned as they
heard Carter on the radio, “Better make it a really fast ten minutes, buddy. Well, I guess we gotta. Y’all just hurry.”

He turned to face the bone-weary fighters, “
I suppose y’all heard that; we need to buy ‘em some more time.”

Nobody said a word in reply,
they just made sure they had their magazines where they could easily reach them and that their pistols were reloaded and ready to use if the hunters reached them again. A full-scale gun battle would insure that all the hunters from miles around would be able to pinpoint their location after being alerted by the earlier rifle-fire. Still, they had no choice at this point but to stand their ground. Lori had been trained by Uncle Sam on how to use the M4 under stress, so she held an AR as she awaited the next assault. David and Blake, however, had made their mark as fighters with medieval weapons after the fall of civilization. They knew how to shoot the AR, but neither of them were anything more than competent with the weapon. After a few seconds of consideration, Carter told them to keep the pump shotguns in hand and be prepared to open up with the double-ought buckshot at twenty meters.

Looking over the increasing number
of hunters gathering near the firelight at the edge of the bridge, the odds were growing that the shotguns would definitely be needed. Carter estimated that at least thirty dead hunters lay on the cement around them, and only God knew how many David and Blake had tossed over the railing. Regardless of the slew of monsters they’d killed up to this point, however, an even greater number were working themselves up for another charge. Todd decided not to wait, and opened up on the flesh-eaters at well over a hundred meters. If he had hoped that the first two creatures he killed would discourage the rest he was mistaken. After watching two of their pack-mates fall dead the others howled in fury and rushed toward the roadblock as fast as they could.

The former Army marksmen emptied their rifles into the surging mob at what they hoped was he
ad-height, unable to draw a bead on the hunters as they sprinted toward their position. A good number of the monsters were hit in the chins, ears, necks, and chests, but only a handful fell with bullets in their brains. Second magazines were slammed home as the flesh-eaters drew within fifty meters, but there were dozens of them rushing forward in this determined attack, and the wounded only grew more furious while the dead didn’t slow the charge in any meaningful way.

Carter felt panic rising in his mind as the creatures approached
to within twenty meters and showed no signs of stopping this time. Then David and Blake opened up with the shotguns. They’d done this type of work before, and knew that if they could wait until the hunters were nearly in their faces the buckshot would shred them. Ten shots rang out in ten seconds, and at least a dozen more monsters collapsed to the cement with .32 caliber lead balls lodged in their brains. Once again the shotguns had proven incredibly destructive at close range, but unlike the times they’d been used in the past, the hunter charge wasn’t reversed by the blasts.

The flesh-eaters had more corpses to climb over after the shotguns were emptied, but there was no time for David and Blake to re
load and the others had already set aside their ARs for their .22s. Carter just had enough time to fling open the door of the SUV and tell the captured air crew to run before the monsters were on them. The beasts clambered over and around the roadblock, finding a storm of steel and lead waiting for them but furiously pushing onward toward the humans who had brought so much death to their packs this night.

The five exhausted fighters retreated in good order, training and experience in combatting the hunters kicking in when instinct shouted for them to run for their lives. David was again using his dagger to good effect, but he’d felt several creatures slip by him and knew that he would be attacked from the rear in the next few moments. But ten seconds passed and he was still on his feet, another dead hunter left in his wake as he stumbled backward. Then he saw a spray of gore burst from the back of a hunter’s skull
just as another beast was about to get around his flank, followed by the sound of ARs firing from behind that he now realized he’d been hearing for the past half-minute. Bobby and Marcus had arrived.

Gracie’s conversation with Father O’Brien had been unexpectedly fruitful.
The old priest had already been mapping out potential resettlement locations, and he’d established radio communications with another group of survivors on a large island in Lake Huron. The Canadians were hesitant about contact with the outside world, but they were curious also. Father O’Brien was far enough away from the settlement to convince them he didn’t pose a direct threat, plus he was obviously sincere in his desire to warn them about the rogue American general who somehow was controlling large armies of the infected. The Canadians had offered to send a two-man delegation to Middle Bass, and the old priest had offered to rendezvous with them in Lake St. Clair and escort them the rest of the way. Father O’Brien told Gracie the timing seemed like divine intervention. He would follow the Detroit River to Lake St. Clair, and he would try to pinpoint several potential resettlement or rendezvous options along the way. He said he had a good feeling about the Canadians too—he understood their caution, but the people he’d been speaking with had seemed to be honest and honorable individuals. It was obvious that an alliance could be mutually beneficial.

Christy was pleased with herself for the way she’d handled Gracie’s questions, and even more so for what she now believed was her excellent idea regarding Father O’Brien’s ability to develop valuable hideout  options in the Great Lakes.
When Gracie recounted the priest’s communication with a settlement on an island in Lake Huron, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.

Christy interrupted Gracie’s report to a few of the key leaders left in Fort Wayne. “Did the island have a name?”

Deb looked annoyed, “Aren’t you supposed to be resting? I’m pretty sure that Hiram, Sal, and I can hold down the fort, no pun intended, for a day or two without your supervision. You may recall that Jack asked the three of us to oversee things here until he returns.”

“I didn’t even know we had Father O’Brien scouting
islands for us, but it’s a damn good idea,” Sal interjected. “David and Jack don’t leave much to chance.”

Christy rolled her eyes. “Yes, Jack and David are amazing. And
yes, I remember quite clearly that you three are the triumvirate in charge right now.” Internally, she counted to three before continuing, “I have no doubt that you all can handle things around here without me, but I really want to know more about this island. I have a cousin who lives on Manitoulin Island, and my dad talked to him before the phones went out. I don’t remember exactly what Dad said he told Michael, but Manitoulin Island is in Lake Huron.”