ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel (43 page)

"This thing is about out of fuel, and they're still coming, they're climbing over the burnt carcasses to get to us," I yelled, feeling the weight of the flamethrower's fuel tanks diminishing. "Ammo count?" I hollered.

"I've only got four round left!" Gin yelled back.

"I got five!" Jacob shouted.

"Two!" Billy stated, as he launched his last two bullets into the face of two approaching zombies at point blank range, flinging several of their clinging facial maggots into the air.

"I'm out!" he yelled.

The M2-2 flamethrower was now beginning to sputter and spit. No longer was it hurling twenty-foot lengths of flaming death in the direction of the attacking monsters, now only three to five foot squirts of fire left the nozzle of the once devastating device.

"We're about done here," I yelled, trying to prepare myself for the horrible death that was imminent.

"Holy crud," Jacob shouted as loud as he could. "That can't be real?"

Before I had time to turn and see what had prompted Jacob's announcement, I uttered the same words myself only with a slight variance.

"Holy shit in an argyle sock, that can't be real?" I said in amazement, as I watched a prehistoric velociraptor tear off the heads of two zombies that had managed to avoid the flames, and that were about to pounce on me.

Then with its six-inch long talon, unzip another zombie from its sternum to its crotch, dumping its internal organs on the ground in front of me.

The phrases "Holy crud", and "Holy shit," seemed to echo repeatedly, depending on which one of us said it, as each one of us saw more and more velociraptors mauling the horde of zombies that surrounded us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught site of a beam of light split a large cumulus cloud, and descend down upon the third building that was still standing. Reminding me that even if we somehow managed to escape the carnage that was happening all around us, we still would have to deal with the hidden sniper.

At the moment the beam hit the building, the building glowed for a split second, then it turned a powdery white color, and crumbled to the ground. The sound of bullets ricocheting off the tank ceased. The sniper was no longer a threat.

As I turned from watching the snipers nest disintegrate, to check on my family members, I saw another site that boggled my imagination. What I saw was another prehistoric animal that couldn't possibly be terrorizing the planet at this moment in time.

What I saw, was a Tyrannosaurus-Rex wreaking havoc through the multitudes of zombies along with the raptors. The raptors were very close to us, almost as if they were in a protective semi-circle around us fending off the attacking zombies, the Tyrannosaurus-Rex was ripping apart zombies in the outer circle, and was soon joined by three more Tyrannosaurs.

Body parts were being tossed indiscriminately into the air. Thick pools of blood were forming around us and oozing under our feet. Intestines were being flailed back and forth in the primitive animal's mouths, and flung onto us and everything else in the surrounding area, as the dinosaurs mutilated thousands of zombies in their path, during the grisly spectacle that was taking place just feet from us and the disabled tank.

"When they get done with the eaters, we'll be next," Gin screamed, totally in panic mode.

"Right, we're next, they're not eating the eaters, they're just tearing them to pieces, and I bet we're next!" Billy yelled.

Jacob climbed up on the tank, which now had stopped burning, and said. "I'm not waiting to find out!"

"There's three dead bodies in the tank Jacob, and ones without a head," Gin screamed, in a panicked frenzy.

"Yeah, and there's thousands of dead bodies out here, most of them without their guts," Jacob replied, swiping a four-foot long bluish green large intestine off his shoulder.

"He's right, just because up to now the dinosaurs haven't torn us apart, that doesn't mean that they're not going too," I said expressing my concern, while I too wiped off a collection of small intestines that were hanging from my right arm, that had been flung onto me by a nearby raptor.

None of us really wanted to close ourselves inside a burnt out battle tank with three dead bodies, but under the circumstances, we all felt that we had no choice.

Jacob went first, firing his last round into Rich's head, as he had been killed by the shell exploding, but had not sustained a head injury, therefore turning into a zombie shortly after his death. Dave on the other hand, had had the right half of his skull torn off in the blast and would have been classified as either "dead at the scene" or "dead on arrival" depending on what the coroner had decided at the time (I mean, if there had been a coroner present). And of course, Bruce's head was shattered into a thousand pieces by the sniper's bullet.

After Jacob had entered the tank, Gin followed, crying her eyes out, and then Billy climbed onto the tank and crawled inside. Then taking one last look around, and after seeing the hundreds of meat eating dinosaurs, mutilating the thousands of fearless maniacal zombies, I too entered what I thought of as our steel coffin, and I reluctantly closed the tank's turret hatch behind us.

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