Ground Zero: A Zombie Apocalypse by Nicholas Ryan Page A

to Cutter as though she was gliding across the ground. She was coming on slowly, her head tilted at an impossible angle so that her cheek touched her shoulder, and her eyes were vacant and mindless. She was about twenty feet away. Cutter lined up for the head shot, but his hands were shaking. He felt the gun waver, and he knew that if he fired he would waste a precious round. He spun away.
    “Come on!” he dragged Glenda to her feet. “Run!”
    Jillian and the other woman were already at the next SUV, scrambling around the hood and tugging at the driver’s side doors. It was an old blue Subaru Forester. Cutter pushed Glenda ahead of him and turned in a quick circle.
    The zombie girl was still the closest threat, shambling towards them slowly, but others were coming more quickly from behind her, and from other nearby buildings. The ghouls that had surged from the bank on the corner were a more pressing threat. Their numbers were swelling.
    He turned and ran.
    Glenda had reached the SUV. She had the AR-15 propped on the roof of the Forester, resting the barrel on one of the vehicle’s roof racks. She fired three quick shots at one of the ghouls swarming towards them. It was a figure wearing shredded army fatigues and a helmet. The man’s face was emaciated, as though the blood had been sucked from his body, leaving the tatters of its skin shriveled and dry as parchment. The man’s nose was missing and its lips had been gnarled away so that its gums were exposed and its teeth were bared in a moaning, howling rictus.
    Glenda put a round into the empty, darkened socket that had once been his eye, and the ghoul was flung backwards, its helmet spinning from its exploded head in a high lazy arc.
    “I’m out!” Glenda shouted. She shouldered the semi-automatic and spun Jillian around. She thrust her hand into the black nylon bag and felt for a fresh magazine.
    The last woman in the group was about the same age as Glenda. Maybe twenty-five. Maybe a little older. She had short black hair and a pretty face, perched on a long graceful neck. She flung open the Forester’s passenger door and scrambled into the vehicle. Slammed her fist down on the door lock, and then turned in her seat to lock the door behind where she sat. She was crying out in fear and panic, screaming to Cutter and the others to hurry. One of the ghouls broke from the group and slammed its bloody mangled hands against the glass of the window. Inside the Forester, the sound was like a sudden explosion. The woman flinched away and covered her face.
    Cutter raised the Glock and fired. His first shot missed. He fired again, reaching across the roof of the Forester until the pistol was just inches away from the monster’s ravaged face. The bullet went through its brain and it fell slowly to the ground, dragging its clawing hands down the side of the car with a sound like fingernails on a blackboard.
    Glenda had reloaded the AR-15. Cutter saw the empty magazine clatter to the ground at her feet. Then she had the weapon up to her shoulder and was firing again with deadly, controlled shots at a range so close it was impossible for her to miss.
    Jillian threw herself in behind the wheel of the Forester. The keys were still jangling in the ignition. She pumped the gas pedal with her foot and then fired up the motor. The engine coughed, whirred – and then died. Jillian punched the steering wheel in desperate panic. She tried again – and this time the Forester burst into growling life, the engine revving madly, and the air around the car hazing with exhaust fumes.
    She leaned out of the door and screamed at Glenda and Cutter.
    “Get in!” she shouted. The Forester’s engine was howling, revving hard. Glenda fired four more shots, and then pulled open the rear door. She turned to Cutter. “I’ll cover you. Get in!”
    Cutter shook his head. “You get in!” he said, his voice loud in the sudden silence.
    Cutter didn’t wait. He fired two more shots at ghouls,