Read Online OUTNUMBERED volume 3: A Zombie Apocalypse Series by Robert Schobernd - Free Book Online

arms open wide and extended toward the sky. My rifle belched fire and lead toward his spine, starting slightly above his hips and walking upward to his neck in five shots. The warlord wannabe collapsed in a lifeless heap onto the ground.
    The noise in our confined space was deafening as thirty-four of us lay a withering wave of destruction toward the cover of the woods to give Ed time for another shot. Above the din we created, bullets smacked the sheet metal and steel plating like hail on a tin roof. I shifted my scope and found Nate hunkered tight to the ground as close as he could get to the chain-link fence surrounding our compound. I hoped he'd stay there with his head down and one arm wrapped around his head for protection. I shifted to the Humvee and fired at a man who rose through a roof panel to man the machinegun. He got off a short burst before I hit him in the chest twice. A split second later, a hole appeared in the Humvee's windshield as a rocket crashed through. Almost simultaneously, the old, lightly armored vehicle flew apart with body panels screaming fifty feet into the air amid flame, smoke and burnt, spit-sized offerings of the scum who'd shot at us.
    Everyone slacked off the rapid fire sequence a full half minute after the sound of the second explosion. They began carefully placing shots at specific targets. For ten minutes we traded shots. The attacker's bullets continued to pound the half-inch steel plating recently installed, but the intensity began to lag as the attackers numbers dwindled.
    A radio transmission stated, "Eli Allbee is down, he's dead." A minute later Zeb sadly announced, "Momma, Daddy, Morgan Jr. got hit. He's gone."
    I winced at the loss. Eli and Morgan were both good guys. But I couldn't spend time mourning dead men now.
    Ed stood close beside me and spoke, "Something strange is going on. Before I made the first shot I saw people jogging through the woods coming this way from the county road. At first, I thought reinforcements were on the way for these guys attacking us, but I was mistaken. Fast running zombies have slipped up behind those paramilitary guys. Let's step to the west side and see what the hells going on."
    What Ed said didn't make any sense. Zombies always attacked as a single group unless two groups came from different directions. And they were always noisy. They'd never quietly sneaked up on us. As we watched, whole bodied undead actually crept up behind the gunmen to attack them.
    Then I heard them. Ed and I looked to the south through the six-inch wide gunport. The wailing and screeching in the distance came from the slow-runners following behind their faster brethren. The paramilitary were caught between the zombies attacking them from behind and us. I yelled, "Let the zombies attack, and then kill them and the humans. If you get clear shots at both of them take both out."
    A call for Shane over the radio got my attention. "This is Ira. I need you in room thirty-seven. Janice has been shot and it's bad. Hurry!"
    I ran down the hall, dodging people without radios who didn't know about the emergency. Shane cut through a perpendicular hall and raced ten feet in front of me. At the field hospital he burst through the door, and I stopped behind him in the doorway and stared. Janice took a hit to the face. She was covered in blood and didn't respond as Ira continued to work on her. I'd seen enough battlefield injuries to be certain she wasn't going to survive the massive damage that had ripped the right side of her face and temple area away.
    Shane fell to his knees, gripped Janice's hand, and cried softly. He spoke her name several times and glanced up to Ira for some sign of hope. Ira looked as sad as I'd ever seen him as he shook his head. I said, "Come on buddy, she's gone, and we're in the way here." He struggled to stay put, then moved in a daze as I guided him to the door
    Vivian and Andrea took Shane's hands and gently pushed me away. They went down the hall