novelraw Chapter 375: What Came Next
Chapter 375: What Came Next
They moved through the street as a unit, checking the bodies around them.
Lachlan crushed skulls fast with his heel. Alexei froze heads or necks before kicking them into a thousand peices. Elias used a knife when he had to. Zubair burned a pile of half-moving ones near the diner door.
Sera only touched the ones that tried to reach for her. Those she tore apart without slowing.
The air cleared a little. With the new zombies gone, the street felt open again.
But in the distance, they could still hear engines. Faint, not yet close. Someone was out there deciding whether to try again.
Elias finished tying off a stubborn wound on Zubair’s arm that refused to heal. "You’re going to need to rest that."
"I’ll rest when we’re out of town," Zubair said.
Sera snorted. "You don’t rest."
"You don’t either."
"I’m more fun about it."
Alexei heard glass crack inside one of the nearby buildings. He straightened and aimed, but it was only one of the stupid zombies forcing its way out of a back window to flee.
It saw him, paused, hissed, and ran faster to get away.
He lowered his arm. "They won’t fight us."
"They’ll find people who can’t fight," Elias said.
"Then the people in this place should have chosen better friends," Sera said dryly. "Harrow filled it with idiots."
Lachlan laughed, low. "Tell him that when he sends the next crew."
"I will."
Alexei looked toward where Rourke had fallen.
The man was still there. Alive, barely. He had pulled himself up against a bike and sat slumped, watching them clear his men. His face was pale under the soot. His missing arm had stopped bleeding only because the blood had frozen where it hit Alexei’s ice.
"You did this," Rourke said, voice hoarse. "You brought this rot."
Sera walked over to him. She crouched so they were level. "No," she said. "You did. You kept taking. You kept gathering. You made a buffet."
He spat blood at her boots. "General will burn you out."
"Tell him to send more than you," she said, and stood.
A distant howl cut through the street.
But this time, it wasn’t the zombies, but more engines.
Alexei turned his head. "More vehicles," he said. "Same direction as the first group."
"Then we’re done here," Zubair said. "We fall back to the highway."
Elias looked around at the frozen, burned, and torn bodies. "We can’t leave this for scavengers."
"We can," Zubair said. "We have to."
Sera stepped back toward the center of the street and called out to the empty stores and windows, just in case anyone was hiding. "If you’re alive, leave now! This town isn’t safe!"
No answer.
She glanced at the last stupid zombie still visible at the far end of the street, running on all fours toward the fields. "Funny," she said. "I thought cockroaches would be harder to kill."
Lachlan grinned wide. "You scared an entire street of fresh zombies. That’s impressive."
"They should be scared," she said. "We eat better."
Alexei didn’t smile, but the line sat right. It matched the order he felt in the air. They were higher. Everything else knew it.
He checked the sky. Smoke was rising high enough to mark their position for kilometers. Anyone looking would find them.
"Move," he said.
They began to pull back the way they’d come, keeping formation. Sera in front, Zubair on her left, Alexei on her right, Lachlan slightly behind to cover, Elias in the pocket where he could reach all of them.
They passed bodies that hadn’t twitched yet. Alexei froze a few more heads. Lachlan crushed one just in case. Sera ignored most of them.
Behind them, in the center of the town, the fire finally reached a stack of fuel someone had stored beside the diner.
It boomed.
Flames jumped.
And someone out on the road gunned an engine and started heading in.
Flames hit the sky in a long, orange tongue. The sound of the blast rolled through the town and down the highway like a second impact. A truck farther out answered with a horn. Headlights cut through the smoke and came on in a long line.
They did not pull back.
Alexei felt the order in the air. It was not spoken, but it was clear. They had let every warning come and still landed here. Now they would finish what needed finishing.
"Hold position," Zubair said.
No one argued. No one made plans for retreat. They formed around the center of the street like a ring. Sera ahead, Zubair and Lachlan to the sides, Elias and Alexei in the pocket. Engines closed the distance, and the first convoy rolled into view.
It was larger than the first—armored trucks, mounted guns, a heavy command vehicle in the middle with a raised platform. Men in thicker vests leaned out and watched. Someone on the platform waved a flag.
The General’s emblem—something slick and official—was nailed to the roof like a promise.
If Rourke’s men had been the bait, then this was the real force.
On the platform, a figure in dark gear looked small in the high light of the headlights. He raised a hand and spoke into a loudspeaker. "This is Harrow. Drop your weapons. We will take your leader and your woman. We will burn the rest. Surrender and your deaths will be quick."
Alexei watched the figure. He noted the way the lips moved. He tasted smoke. He smelled oil and metal and fear.
Sera’s smile was quiet. "He talks too much."
Zubair’s fire rolled low along the street, a wave meant to scare engines off balance. The lead truck slowed, then kept coming. Men on the sides fired into the ruins. Bullets struck ice and steam. The convoy kept rolling, and men started to dismount.
"Now," Alexei said.
They moved as one.
Alexei exhaled first. Frost came out in a white ribbon.
It hit the front of the convoy and hit metal hard. The lead truck’s grille glazed, then cracked under the strain. Metal teeth shattered. The driver yelped. The truck swerved, slammed into a pile of burning debris, and flipped.
Lachlan hit the second vehicle as it tried to pull forward. He vaulted onto the hood, half a blur of blue muscle and lightning. He sank his hands into the windshield. When he pulled back, the driver’s chest had been torn open. The truck lurched, then spun and crushed itself against a lamppost.
Zubair sent a wall of fire through the middle lane. It crawled under wheels, into axles, up into fuel tanks. Engines blew. The convoy staggered.
Men poured out. They had worse gear than the first wave. They had discipline. They had orders.
Too bad they had no idea what was coming.