The M-16 jerked with recoil as she pulled the trigger, spraying the crowd milling below with a shower of hot lethality. She leaned out of the broken
window to see if her efforts were coming to anything, but there were so many of
them that it was difficult to tell.
Thick, dark-gray clouds had gathered once more, as they had the previous night, and the fat raindrops of a summer storm were splatting in wind-driven
sheets among the undead masses below and into the shattered windows of the
school. Lightning pulsed and glared in wild streamers and thunder rumbled
angrily above them, as they desperately fought to hold off the army of
corpses.
Corporal Alana Hashbarger squeezed the trigger again, seconds later emptying the clip. She dropped the empty to the floor, stretching a fumbling hand to her
right for another, which she slammed home, flicking her sweat-and-rain-damp,
strawberry-blonde hair out of her eyes with a swipe of her hand. She also wiped
away the rivulets of cool rainwater running down her face. Despite the horror of
the moment, she had to admit that the wind and rain felt good; it cut the heat
and humidity, at least a little.
As she stood firing her rifle, her body running on automatic, she allowed her thoughts to drift a little.
Her MOS was actually clerical but in these times, such help was somewhat less
than in demand. The old political football about women in combat went out the
door when the world was being turned upside down by the appearance of hordes of
reanimated, cannibalistic corpses. Everyone and anyone who had qualified with a
weapon was issued at least one standard issue M-16 and a .9mm sidearm and sent
into the field.
She had come to this rescue station, in actuality a Middle School, in
Wheeling, West Virginia with what was left of her Army National Guard unit from
Evansville, Indiana. There was a lot of scrambling going on right now; things
were rapidly falling apart.
They had been cobbled together from the remains of several other units and
placed under the command of Colonel Mark Tucker, a regular-Army lifer charged
with holding onto whatever semblance of order could be held. On the way here,
they had absorbed other military personnel, including three Marines: Deaver, Fox
and Webster.
Tucker had been given command of the tattered remains of units that had been decimated by confrontations with the undead hordes, and the demoralized
leftovers of units that had splintered in the face of the impending loss of
order, resulting in an epidemic of desertions. Tucker had taken these dregs and
pulled them together into a disciplined, cohesive unit. He had managed, all
within a couple weeks or so, to restore morale and unity among at least these
troops, and was loved and admired for it.
Alana saw with sadness the sight of the colonel weaving his staggering, unsteady way amid the rotting mass of mobile dead. Colonel Tucker, now dead
himself and his flesh torn open and partially devoured, was gnawing on the
bloody, recently liberated lower arm of some hapless denizen of their violated
rescue station. His face was smeared with rain-streaked gore, and as she
watched, her stomach flipping with nausea, she sighted him in. His image trebled
through the site as her eyes flooded with tears, which she blinked away with a
sniff.
She was good, but she was no sharpshooter; the shot went slightly off, hitting him the neck. Torn flesh spattered the undead creatures around him; his
head bobbed to the left, and he staggered from the impact, but, unconcerned,
continued to eat. Seconds later, one of the snipers on the roof finished what
she'd started, freeing the colonel to rest in peace.
She drew back wearily from the window and slumped to the floor. Her back against the wall, she sullenly began shoving live rounds into the empty clips
that littered the floor around her. She was so tired. Gunfire filled the halls
of the school building, as the remnants of the unit fought to keep the zombie
masses at bay. The downstairs was filled with them now, she knew. And they knew
they were up here; if they.........!
She inhaled sharply, eyes widening and, leaping to her feet, took off across the wide room, the school's library.