Snareville by David Youngquist Page B

came.
    Platoon leaders barked orders to their troops. I glanced at Pepper. She stood beside me, eyes wide.
    “ We’ll be okay. Just hold on.” I laid my hand on hers.
    She glanced at me. “I know. I’ve just never been involved in something like this.”
    “ Easy to run, hard to hold.”
    She nodded.
    “ Don’t fire until I say. That gun doesn’t have the range.”
    She nodded again. We stood beside the fire trucks. At one hundred yards, we ordered fire and cut down a swath of Zeds. Heads exploded. Brain splattered across the countryside. Everyone shifted to new targets. Deaders went down in piles. Still, they came.
    At fifty yards, I yelled at Pepper to open up. Her slugs swept the first row like a scythe. As her muzzle made its pass, Zeds hit the ground. We ordered our troops to fall back. We still had close to two thousand zombies in front of us.
    Kenny slapped the door of the fire truck beside him. The firefighters opened up their high-pressure hoses. At twenty-five yards, we ceased fire as the water tore into the swarm. The geysers scattered the front ranks like rice in the wind. We fell back to our trucks. It was a short mile into town, where we sent our troops to their rooftop positions. Our radios crackled. They were past the trucks. Ken ordered the firefighters to stay buttoned up until everyone got past, then reel their hoses in and follow.
    I stood at the last gate with Bill and Tony. We were the bait. It worked.
    The Zeds stumbled toward us. We popped a few singly. That seemed to encourage them. If we could shoot, we must be alive. Fresh meat.
    When they were twenty-five yards from us, we started to back up. We led a sick parody of the annual Snareville parade between the fences and along the main road into town.
    Their moans filled my head. The noise grated on my nerves and made me want to break and run. I ground my teeth together and popped another deader. My radio crackled to tell me everyone was in place. Good.
    We turned the corner onto Main Street. For a moment, the swarm paused. Some of the Zeds looked undecided, like maybe they sensed the trap. Tony dropped one, and that seemed to make up their minds. They came on.
    We backed up three blocks. I watched the roof lines. I saw the top of a head here and there, but I couldn’t pick out any particulars. Some of the Zeds wandered off from the crowd, as if they knew the place and thought they might check out some of their old hangouts.
    When the street opened up into the residential area, I opened fire. As fast as I could pull the trigger, I cracked Zeds. The swarm surged forward.
    Tony and Bill ran behind me to swing the gates shut. We'd welded pickup beds onto steel rails and mounted them on hinges strapped to power poles. I heard the bar fall into place, and an end loader crawled forward to reinforce the gates. At the other end of Main, the other set of gates swung closed. I scrambled out of the cage, hoping the Zeds couldn’t do the same.
    As soon as I got clear, the order went down the line. The people of Snareville stood up and started hurling everything they could. Rocks, bricks, and chunks of concrete block rained down. From two stories up, the missiles crushed skulls and knocked Zeds to the ground. Kids cheered one another on. Adults laughed and hooted as one zombie after another hit the pavement. Pockets of deaders backed away from the kill zone, and a few shooters finished them off.
    From the front door of the Catholic church, Father Ed stepped out into the swarm. For a moment, he stood on the steps, resplendent in full vestment. His sash fluttered in the wind. Behind him, Father Joseph swung the pot of incense. A few months back, the two decided the Zeds were demons from Hell. Father Ed wouldn’t fire a gun, but now there he was, going after the deaders with a vessel of holy water.
    He made about three steps before the zombies came up to meet him. He splashed some holy water on them before he died. His assistant followed in short order. One