After Siege (As the World Dies 4)

Nerit must have realized the man wasn’t a threat for the brakes squealed. The sports car shimmied and left streaks of rubber on the road behind it as it jolted to a stop. Not too far behind, the runners howled as they closed in.

Emma witnessed the moment the man grasped the error of his ways. He must not have realized the purpose of the sports car roaring through the streets of Ashley Oaks and assumed he was about to be rescued. The sight of the runners sent him into a blind panic and he bolted toward the wall. The razor wire trap sprung so fast, Emma didn’t even see it strike the man. The flying pieces of his legs and arms announced his awful end.

“Shit,” she gasped.

A woman’s shrill screams immediately followed. Emma caught sight of several people emerging from the alley. There were at least ten, including a black woman holding a small child wrapped in a blanket with only dark curly hair showing over the fabric.

“We’ve got survivors!” Rashmi shouted.

The scene below devolved within seconds. The runners altered their path and headed straight toward the easy prey on foot. The Mustang roared forward, cutting off the runners, sending a few hurtling through the air. A few struck a nearby store front, shattering the display window. Undeterred, several runners clambered over the hood and dove onto the dismembered man and tore into his torso.

Zombies didn’t eat the dead.

“He was still alive. Oh my god!” Katarina wailed.

Emma fought the sudden need to vomit.

The rest of the runners were closing in on the frightened people on the road at such a fast speed it was hard to track them. Another trap went off, fire pluming into the air. A runner, engulfed in flames, thrashed about wildly. The sight of fire panicked the rest of the zombie pack and they fled toward the Mustang.

The runners’ retreat bought the people on foot valuable time. Unfortunately, the freaked survivors splintered apart, some foolishly running toward the Mustang, while others scampered toward the wall.

“Give them cover! Give them cover!” Katarina yelled.

Emma wasn’t sure who fired the first shot, but she took the second. She sent a bullet through the head of the runner closing in on the mother and child. She immediately searched for another clear target, but smoke billowing off the corpse and the frantic chaos below made it difficult. The survivors and runners rushed in different directions, making it even harder to tell them apart.

Another fire trap exploded near the location of the Mustang. This time a living man shrieked in pain and terror as he was engulfed in flames. Nerit and a tall black man, who must be Kevin, emerged from the sports car. Nerit immediately fired a bullet into the head of the burning man, putting him out of his misery.

“Avoid the marked sections on the road!” a voice shouted over a loudspeaker. “Those are traps! Avoid-”

The thick smoke from the burning zombie and dead survivor was foul and made visibility difficult. Emma concentrated on tracking the woman holding the child. So far she’d managed to avoid the traps and the zombies. The immolated corpses soon became smoldering ruins, the flames dying out on their blackened flesh. Drawn by the cries of fear and frenzied movements of their prey, the runner pack doubled back and split apart to pursue the panicked people.

A frightened young black man in an Atlanta Braves baseball cap rushed toward the Mustang with runners rapidly closing in on him. As he darted past Nerit and Kevin, they opened fire with pistols, providing cover.

“Stay close,” Kevin barked.

Instead, the survivor dove into the car.

Nerit shouted after him, “Don’t!” but the car door slammed shut.

A second later, the car engine roared to life. Yelling, Nerit kicked the side of the sports car as Kevin dragged her aside. The Mustang barreled forward, knocking away the runners trying to scramble onto the hood. The car hit a fire trap a second later, flames licking over the hood. The driver realized his folly and tried to course correct only to hit a razor wire trap. The front tires blew out instantly. Again, it was Nerit and Kevin that saved him when he scrambled out of the car. Resorting to machetes, probably to avoid friendly fire, they hacked through a throng of slower zombies that had arrived from one of the side roads.

Losing track of the mother in the smoke, Emma swore and barreled out of the hunter’s blind. It was worthless now that the zombies were on a rampage. She ran along the catwalk, the wooden structure trembling beneath her feet, and found a better location. Spotting the screaming woman clutching the small child, relief washed over her. They were nearly past the traps.

“Stay away from the spray painted areas!” Emma shouted at the frightened woman.

Sighting a zombie right behind the fleeing survivor, Emma fired. The bullet struck it square in the forehead and it tumbled back into a razor-wire trap. It was instantly sliced apart, pieces of it skittering across the road. Screaming, the woman wrapped her arms tighter around the child.

“Don’t move!”

Emma’s shout was subsumed by the screams of both the living and dead. Nerit and Kevin held their ground while the people on the wall attempted to pick off the zombies. The festering bodies on the road threw up black smoke, making visibility difficult. Many of the shots missed their intended targets.

Another fire trap went off, the heat washing over Emma. It was closer to the wall, and the body engulfed in flames went down in cries that could either be those of the living or undead. Frantic, Emma scanned the area for the woman and child. She spotted them through the haze dangerously close to the razor traps.

“Don’t move! Stop right there!”

Constant weapon fire culled the number of runners along with the slower zombies stumbling into the chaos. Emma again lost sight of the woman when another fire trap exploded. Several runners darted away only to be hacked apart by a razor trap. Blood and viscera sprayed the area. Over the noisy mayhem, Emma heard a female voice screaming. Setting one hand on the top of the wall between rods of rebar, she leaned forward to see how far the drop to the road would be if she tried to jump down.

“Help me! Help me!”