ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel (41 page)

Just as Billy climbed down from the tank, and was about to hand the flamethrower over to the sergeant so he could join us in our endeavor, Bruce's head exploded. Resulting in pieces of blood soaked skull, tan colored pieces of brain, and clumps of brown hair being scattering over the tank's turret, and a fine crimson mist left floating in the space that his head had once occupied.

As Bruce's body slid down into the tank, the Sarge screamed. "Sniper!" as he dropped to the floor of the bus.

"Get behind the tank!" I yelled, as we scrambled to take cover behind the large steel behemoth.

"Jack, can you see the sniper's position?" the Sarge called out.

"He's got to be shooting from one of those three tall buildings to the east of us," I yelled back, as the pinging sound of another one of the sniper's bullets ricocheted off the armored tank.

"Rich, Dave, can you hear me?" I shouted.

"We can hear you, what do you want us to do?" Rich yelled back through the open turret as he pushed Bruce's headless body off his lap.

"You see the three tall buildings to the east of our location; the sniper's position has to be in one of those buildings. Do you think that you can bring down those buildings with the tank's cannon?" I asked, hoping for an affirmative answer.

"Should be a piece of cake," Rich answered, as the tank's turret slowly turned toward the building on the far left.

Moments later the barrel of the tank's big gun rose slightly and we heard Dave yell.

"If I were you, I would cover my ears; this is going to be loud."

Not being able to hear Rich and Dave from their position on the bus, the Sarge and Beth covered their ears when they saw me signal them to do so, just moments before the 120 mm smoothbore cannon released its powerful report.

The shock wave from the gun's blast shook the modified school bus as the mighty tank cannon stirred up a dust cloud that engulfed the bus. And as the slight southerly breeze slowly pushed the dust cloud to the side, we could see that Dave's aim had been true.

The 120 mm high explosive projectile had impacted one of the main vertical support beams, and exploded, tearing a large chunk out of the southwest corner of the building about one third of the way up. Which was just above the rooftops of the smaller buildings setting in front of it that were blocking our view of the lower third of the building. The destruction of the that main support beam caused the structure to first slowly tilt to our right, and the further it leaned, the faster it began to fall, until the edifice broke off at the point of the shell's contact and crashed to the ground, flattening several smaller structures that had been built around it. A gigantic cloud of dust rose into the air, as the demolition of the first building was complete.

Now the ricocheting bullets came at an increased pace, confirming that the building that had been destroyed, wasn't the one that the sniper had picked to do his deadly deed.

"Hit the next one, we're still taking fire," I yelled, as I dragged an exposed part of the flamethrower behind the tank.

"Roger that," Rich shouted, as we watched the cannon take a bead on the next building.

When the barrel stopped, we again covered our ears. I couldn't help but think of the hearing protection that we had used for target practice on the river, and that we had lost because of abandoning most of our supplies on our way to the water tower, that it would have sure come in handy about now.

Again the powerful armament sounded off, and again a large hole was blasted close to the base of the targeted structure, however, this time the building didn't tilt, it didn't lean, and it didn't fall, this time the explosion had ignited a fire, which was quickly engulfing the upper floors.

"Put another one into it," Billy screamed, still hearing bullets bouncing off the tank.

The turret moved once more, and again the mighty Abram's main gun blasted another huge hole into the burning building.

The second shot did the trick, now with a whole section of the front of the building missing; it toppled almost straight down compacting floor by floor, until it disappeared into a massive cloud of dust and debris.

With two high-rise buildings destroyed, and the sniper's bullets still landing all around us, it was clear that the remaining building was where the sniper had made his nest.

"Two down, and one to go," I yelled to Rich and Dave.

"You guys just keep your heads down for a couple more minutes, and then we can pack our trash, and blow this popsicle stand," Rich bellowed from the bowels of the tank.

Again, the turret on the colossal mobile artillery piece began to move. As the muzzle of 68-ton beast leveled on the remaining building, and the sniper's bullets continued to drop on the tank, Rich and Dave prepared to eliminate the last bastion of the deadly sniper that had killed Bruce and seemed to be determined to kill us all.

The horrendous ground shaking roar of the Abrams cannon had sounded three times, and the sound of two buildings crashing to the ground a few blocks away, added to the racket that we were producing, which for all intent and purposes, was like ringing a giant dinner bell for all of the starving zombies roaming the area for miles around.

"Dad! There's eaters everywhere," Jacob screamed, crouching down even lower behind the tank.

I had been occupied with the sniper, and my attention focused on trying to help direct Rich and Dave as much as I could. When I turned around and saw what had Jacob so alarmed, I too became alarmed.

Hundreds of zombies were staggering toward us from all directions, some even dripping with maggots, and all engulfed in a forbidding cloud of houseflies. We were pinned down behind the tank, and we couldn't risk climbing into it for fear of ending up headless like Bruce, and between us and the bus lied several yards of no man's land, a snipers paradise.

We were trapped, our choices were clear, we had two options; option number one, we could run and most likely catch a sniper's bullet in the head, and then be eaten by zombies, thereby dying a horrible death one way or another.

Option number two, we could stay where we were, and be eaten alive by the same zombies mentioned in option number one, thereby still dying a horrible death.

Either way we were bound to end up in a pile of zombie defecation, provided that zombies do indeed defecate, as of yet I hadn't seen that happen, but in this brave new world, and with the smell of some of those undead bastards, it seemed that anything and everything was possible.

Until Rich and Dave pulled the trigger on the big gun once more, and collapsed the sniper's refuge once and for all, our only hope was to fend off the horde and try to make our way to the bus. There was always a chance, no matter how slight it might be, that the sniper would miss his mark, and we would all make it to the safety of the bus.

On the other hand, the odds were astronomically high, that the hundreds, if not thousands of zombies that were approaching us, would miss their mark when they would inevitably overrun our position.

Therefore, I hoped that the boys inside the tank would hurry and eliminate the sniper's hiding place, so we could make our way to the safety of the school bus without worrying about losing
our
heads in the process.

"Ka-Boom!" A deafening explosion ripped through the breach of the Abram's cannon. Once I recovered from the shock and surprise of the cannon erupting, I yelled to Rich.

"Rich, are you and Dave all right?"

No answer came from inside the tank. Billy then tried to contact the men inside the tank. He beat the metal butt stock of his AK-47 against the tank's steel hull and yelled.

"Dave, Rich, can you hear me?"

Again, there was no answer from the men in the tank, only smoke spewed from the top of the turret.

"What in the hell happened?" Gin asked.

"I think the sniper put a round down the barrel of the cannon just before Dave had a chance to pull the trigger," I answered. "See the bulge in the side of the barrel?"

As I finished my explanation to Gin, I heard the Sarge's voice.

"Sorry Jack," I heard him yell, as the bus pulled away. "We can't wait any longer, we gotta go!"

That was the last thing I ever heard the Sarge say, as he and Beth drove out of sight, plowing through scores of zombies, and leaving us to fend for ourselves.

My parting gift to the Sarge was several well placed shots into the rear tires of his bus, hoping to give him the same chance of surviving the massive horde as he had given to us.

I did feel a little bit sorry that I had put Beth in that same predicament; however, sometimes sacrifices must be made.

Now short on ammo, surrounded by zombies, thousands of zombies, and still pinned down by a sniper, my family looked at each other knowing this was the end, nothing short of divine intervention could save us now.

"We're not going to give up just yet," I shouted. "If we're going out, we'll take as many of these sons-a-bitch'in eaters with us as we can."

As quick as I could, I strapped on the fuel tanks of the World War II era flamethrower, and picked up the gun group of the frightening weapon. Somehow, I managed to light the pilot flame, and when I pulled the trigger, twenty feet of flaming petroleum shot from the nozzle.

I pointed the weapon at the top of the tank turret and set it on fire, the billowing black smoke and orange flames gave me temporary concealment from the sniper's view.

I then walked several feet from the back of the tank and met the first of the attacking living corpses.

Swinging the nozzle in a semi-circular motion, I covered a row of forty or fifty zombies, three, or four deep. With that first swing, I ignited somewhere between one hundred, and one hundred and fifty zombies, along with tens of thousands of flies, and sent them all preapproved, straight back to hell where they belonged.

As many zombies as I had set on fire on my first offensive advance, I knew that there were far more attacking maniacs than the fuel tanks in my M2 flamethrower could possibly repulse.

However, I was determined not to go down without a fight, and too die with my boots on. So, with the stench of burning rotten zombie flesh, and with the smell of the fuel from the flamethrower searing my nostrils, I continued to hose down the overwhelming zombie horde with the flaming liquid, resolute in my commitment to take as many of them to hell with me as I possibly could.

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END OF DAYS AND NIGHTS

"Krmwya aipel ersaao, riuedo baere aipel ytyhdf!"

"English, speak English! We were not shipped out to Anunnak University for six cycles of Oraiya, to become proficient in every language on this hellish planet so we could speak our native Anunnaki language on this mission.

Therefore, Lieutenant Jol, until this mission has reached its full conclusion, every officer, every enlisted person, male and female, including those four gynandromorphs that spearheaded our expeditionary force to observe and gather intelligence on the test subject groups that were ultimately picked as the primary coteries of this particular mission."

"They are quartered up on deck 69." Lieutenant Jol recalled, thinking he was informing his captain of the location of the Anunnaki gynandromorphs.

"Yes Lieutenant Jol, you are correct, I had them housed there to separate them from our
normal
Anunnaki crew members, especially that one that was stationed near the earther's city called St. Louis to report on the progenitor of test subject group 32452013 before our experiment commenced, it is the worst one of the four.

"It is the worst one by far Captain Xarr." Lieutenant Jol agreed. "As you are well aware of Captain, that particular gynandromorph is guilty of the unauthorized use of its mesmerizimic gland to further its own agenda by enrapturing and have clandestine illicit galactic interspecies sexual relations with test subject group 32452013 progenitor's employer."

"Yes Lieutenant Jol, I almost feel sorry for the test subject group 32452013 progenitor's employer.
Almost
being the key word here Lieutenant. Nonetheless, I intend to report the gynandromorph's deplorable and potentially dangerous behavior to the "Supreme Being" of the Anunnaki Confederation upon our return to the home planet."