Read Online Zompoc Survivor: Exodus by Ben S Reeder - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ben S Reeder
Ads: Link
dropped, I could see the rest of the ones who’d jumped after us limping along slowly. There was no way they were going to catch up to us, but I couldn’t just leave them up and walking around. I thumbed the fire selector to single shot and took aim at a man in bright red workout gear. My first shot blew the left half of his head away, and I went to the woman in a miniskirt and a tight blue top behind him. Four, I counted as I stroked the trigger. She lurched at the last second, and I missed cleanly, then adjusted and fired again. She dropped on the second shot, and I went to the next one. Five, six, seven, I added to the count as I put a bullet into the head of a kid with his hat skewed sideways. It took three shots to hit a guy in jeans and a black concert t-shirt, bringing my shot count to ten. Recalling Nate’s coaching on one of my weekend trips up to Wyoming, I took a long, slow breath, then brought my sites down on one of the last two. He lurched along, and after a couple of steps, I could predict his rhythm. The gun bucked against my shoulder, and he went down. Eleven. The last one rounded the corner, a woman in nurse’s scrubs. My breath caught as I saw a flash of black hair like Maya’s. Was it her? Too skinny, too tall, no tattoo on her arm. My finger stroked the trigger, and she went down. Twelve.
Finally, Flash started to move. His head came up and he slowly pushed himself to his feet. The front of his white lab coat was stained dark with his own blood, but when he started moving, it was with the slow, lurching movements of the six infected I’d just killed. I put round number thirteen through his forehead and turned to Porsche.
“Alright, let’s go,” I said with a sense of satisfaction. She gunned the engine and the truck surged forward. We sped across the road and back onto the grass again. From both sides of us, I could hear screams and the occasional gunshot from a distance. The road to our right was eerily quiet, though. I kept my eyes on the line of cars as we sped along the concrete trail. The line was more random now, and there were gaps in it that hadn’t been there before. A few cars showed body damage, and more than a couple of them were burning. As we passed a dark colored Volkswagen, I could see someone inside, flailing at the glass. There was a pop and the almost musical tinkling of glass as the driver’s side window shattered, then the sound of an enraged, inhuman scream ripped through the night. Even as I felt a shudder run between my shoulder blades, I put the new knowledge into a spot in my head, and gave it a name. The fast, feral infected were ghouls. The slow ones were zombies. The most frightening thing was that the ghouls still seemed to be alive.
We were close to the line of trees that marked the drainage ditch we’d skirted when I heard a deep bass sound, like the rapid thumping of a helicopter, but not like the St. John’s Life Flite. This was faster sounding, and louder. A black shape loomed over the houses across Sunset and flew north, blotting out a part of the night sky for a few seconds as it went overhead. Twin rotors at the front and back held the long body aloft, and I heard the familiar whine of a turbine engine. A Chinook, flying with no running lights and no markings that I could see. I filed it away as one more entry on a list of weird shit that was getting longer and longer by the second. We cleared the edge of the trees and for some reason, I felt a little safer as soon as we were out of the black chopper’s line of sight. Porsche wasted no time getting back on the trail, and soon we were heading toward the cover of trees.
We slipped past the first branches and found ourselves looking at more asphalt. The Greenways trail paralleled a residential street here, and for almost a quarter of a mile, it looked like we would be exposed on the left. I leaned forward and stuck my face near the opening in the cab’s rear window.
“Turn your headlights off and stay
Finally, Flash started to move. His head came up and he slowly pushed himself to his feet. The front of his white lab coat was stained dark with his own blood, but when he started moving, it was with the slow, lurching movements of the six infected I’d just killed. I put round number thirteen through his forehead and turned to Porsche.
“Alright, let’s go,” I said with a sense of satisfaction. She gunned the engine and the truck surged forward. We sped across the road and back onto the grass again. From both sides of us, I could hear screams and the occasional gunshot from a distance. The road to our right was eerily quiet, though. I kept my eyes on the line of cars as we sped along the concrete trail. The line was more random now, and there were gaps in it that hadn’t been there before. A few cars showed body damage, and more than a couple of them were burning. As we passed a dark colored Volkswagen, I could see someone inside, flailing at the glass. There was a pop and the almost musical tinkling of glass as the driver’s side window shattered, then the sound of an enraged, inhuman scream ripped through the night. Even as I felt a shudder run between my shoulder blades, I put the new knowledge into a spot in my head, and gave it a name. The fast, feral infected were ghouls. The slow ones were zombies. The most frightening thing was that the ghouls still seemed to be alive.
We were close to the line of trees that marked the drainage ditch we’d skirted when I heard a deep bass sound, like the rapid thumping of a helicopter, but not like the St. John’s Life Flite. This was faster sounding, and louder. A black shape loomed over the houses across Sunset and flew north, blotting out a part of the night sky for a few seconds as it went overhead. Twin rotors at the front and back held the long body aloft, and I heard the familiar whine of a turbine engine. A Chinook, flying with no running lights and no markings that I could see. I filed it away as one more entry on a list of weird shit that was getting longer and longer by the second. We cleared the edge of the trees and for some reason, I felt a little safer as soon as we were out of the black chopper’s line of sight. Porsche wasted no time getting back on the trail, and soon we were heading toward the cover of trees.
We slipped past the first branches and found ourselves looking at more asphalt. The Greenways trail paralleled a residential street here, and for almost a quarter of a mile, it looked like we would be exposed on the left. I leaned forward and stuck my face near the opening in the cab’s rear window.
“Turn your headlights off and stay
Similar Books
