Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America by R.J. Spears Page B

shoulder and I looked up to see Jeb’s giant looking down on me, his face drawn in a horrible grimace.
    “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
    “The hell out of here,” I said. “Just like you and the rest of you crazies should be doing. In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a shitload of zombies headed our way.”
    “You’re not going anywhere,” he said and increased the pressure to such an extent that I felt like he was going to crack my collar bone and pop it through the skin.
    I started to pivot to take a punch at him when I saw a robed figure move up behind the giant. This new robed figure was swinging something above its head in a fan like circle, the motion creating a slight whistling noise. The robed figure flicked his wrist forward and there was a hollow sound like someone dropping a hammer on a marble floor. The giant’s eyes flickered for a moment and the lights went out of them and he went down, collapsing like a skyscraper. Fortunately, I side-stepped his body as it smashed into the ground face first.
    The robed figure let what it had held in his hands drop to his side and I immediately saw that it was a set of nunchucks. I also noticed that were several more robed bodies lying on ground behind the giant. All of them were unconscious.
    The figure brushed back the hood on his robe. It was Chuck. He didn’t even seem to be breathing hard.
    “I never suspected you would be a badass ninja, Chuck,” I said.
    “This is no time for talk,” he said as he opened his robe. Attached to his torso was an impressive array of weapons. I saw two assault rifles criss-crossed on his chest attached in some sort of harness, along with several handguns and enough ammunition to supply a platoon.
    He reached into a pocket, retrieved something that jingled together, and tossed it my way.
    Instinctively, I grabbed it. It turned out to be handcuff keys which I used to unlock my handcuffs When I looked back up, Chuck was surveying his bevy of weapons and extracted what looked like a tear gas grenade. A second later, he pulled the pin on it and then heaved into the ranks of Jeb’s men who were firing on the zombies with their backs turned to us.
    “Look away. Close your eyes and cover your ears,” Chuck yelled.
    I was slow to comply, but did get my eyes closed.
    Two seconds later, it went off. Despite the fact that my eyes were closed and I had my ears covered, a searing white light nearly burned away my retinas and an explosion almost blasted away what was left of my hearing. And that’s when the screaming started, seemingly far off and muted. When I re-opened my eyes, I saw that many of Jeb’s men had dropped their weapons and clutched at their heads, half blinded and deafened from the explosion of the flash bang grenade. Some writhed, nearly insensate on ground from the shock of the blast while others screamed in pain.
    The zombies were largely unfazed and just kept coming. That was nothing new. Chuck could have launched a tactical nuclear warhead and they would have ignored it. Hunger was their only concern, not being shot or incinerated in an explosion. Theirs was the simple life, eat and eat, then eat some more.
    Before I knew it, Chuck was thrusting a rifle and two pistols into my hands. Half dazed, I fumbled with them for a moment, nearly dropping the two pistols, before understanding what I needed to do. Chuck was a man in motion as he grabbed another cannister and stepped forward.
    About fifteen feet away, one of Jeb’s men who was only half dazed swiveled around and started to bring his weapon up on Chuck. Chuck’s hand darted to his chest and his wrist flicked like greased lightening. A split second later, the man dropped his gun and screamed. Both his hands went for his face where a ninja throwing star protruded from his eye socket. A small gout of blood shot from the man’s face and he pitched over and rolled on the ground in agony. Chuck could have easily shot the guy, but he must have