Just a random section from later on in my story.

I think I see a few

potential holes in this part, wanted to see if they were obvious or not.

The city looked so different in the daylight, over the last

months he had gotten so used to seeing the city through the green hues
of his night vision, relying on the safety of the night. But today he
was taking a chance. He had spent the last three nights watching the
horde of zombies laying siege to his mysterious neighbor, trying to
formulate a plan. There were far too many around the house for him to
be able to take them all out and get to whoever was inside. He hadn't
been able to get an accurate count, but he estimated that there were
probably close to two-hundred of them amassed outside of the house. He
had tried setting off a car alarm a couple of blocks away, but that had
only drawn away a small portion of them. The zeds must have spotted
whoever was hiding in the house recently enough that they held their
full attention. He had decided he was going to have to do something
rather daring and direct to get their attention.
He had left his usual scavenging gear at the safe house and had
loaded extra weapons and ammunition both onto his person and in his
Explorer and had snuck out of his safe house in the darkness shortly
before sunrise. He arrived on the street that the house was on after
the sun had fully risen and began creeping towards the house. Once he
came around the bend and the house came into view he was able to see
that there was still just as strong of a concentration of zombies
around the house. He smashed down on the horn and let it blare as he
approached, watching as all of the zombies at once turned their heads
in his direction and immediately began stumbling towards him.
He slammed down on the accelerator allowing him to jet past the
house before they were able to clog up the street then slowed down to
ten miles per hour so he would stay close enough to keep their
attention. He checked the rear view mirror and saw that he had the
vast majority of the zombies in tow behind him. He drove another three
blocks at this pace being careful not to let the zombies get too close
then sped off quickly outdistancing his pursuers.
Once he was a few blocks ahead of them he turned off onto another
street and swung out and around using other streets in the neighborhood
to bring him back to the street on the far side of the house where he
had first started. The route he took made it so the zeds that had been
following him shouldn't be able to realize that he had swung back
towards the house and they would likely still be moving in the opposite
direction.
As he returned to the house he noticed that there were still
roughly thirty zombies that had not been drawn away from the house. He
honked his horn again drawing most of them away from the house and drew
the Beretta from the makeshift holster he had attached to the center
dash. Keeping his left hand on the wheel he lined up the sights on his
pistol with the closest zed and started snapping off shots. It was
difficult shooting one handed from a moving vehicle, even only going
ten miles an hour, but his fifth shot connected with the head of the
closest zed dropping it to the ground. He saw that he finally had the
attention of all of the zombies and sped up again drawing them away
from the house in the same direction of the initial larger group. The
next intersection was only five houses down, he figured he could lure
this group that far then lead them down one of the side streets before
looping around back to the house.
When he looked forward at the road ahead of him his heart nearly
skipped a beat. There were at least thirty zeds from the first group
that he guessed had turned around and headed back for the house when
they lost sight of his explorer and they were now between him and the
intersection he needed to reach to get off of this street. Beyond the
intersection he could see dozens more zombies that had turned around
and were also headed in his direction. With the group he had been
drawing away only twenty feet behind him he decided it would be best to
get through would be the mass in front of him and turn off onto a side
street since there were far too many to fight. He slammed down on the
accelerator to get as much momentum as possible before getting to the
group. They were spread out over the road enough that he knew he
wouldn't be able to make it through without having to hit some of them
so he aimed his car to the right of the group where their numbers
looked the thinnest and hoped for the best.
The first zombie he hit with the front left of his bumper and she
was thrown out to the side as he passed. The second and third both
were knocked down in front of the SUV and he felt the vehicle lurch as
the wheels passed over the bodies. He was able to swerve between
zombies for the next twenty feet before he came upon another pair that
he couldn't avoid hitting. He hit both zombies square and the vehicle
wobbled as it passed over the bodies but didn't return to it's usual
smooth driving after passing the bodies. Brendon suddenly had a hard
time keeping the vehicle straight and after a few seconds lost all
driving ability. He swore to himself and let the vehicle come to a
stop at a forty five degree angle in relation to the direction of the
road. From the way it rested tilted to the left he knew he had popped
the driver's side tire, more than likely on a broken bone, probably a
rib from one of the last zombies he had ran over.
A quick look around him let him know that he didn't have more
than a handful of seconds before his vehicle was swarmed. He double
checked to make sure that all the windows were up and the doors were
locked then held down the button to open up the moonroof with his left
hand while he reached into the passenger seat and grabbed his M-4 with
his right. He stood up on his seat poking the upper half of his body
out of the moonroof and began snapping off point blank shots at the
closest zeds with his M-4. At this range he couldn't miss their heads
and after taking out the closest half dozen and giving himself a little
bit of breathing room he took a quick second to survey the area around
him. The intersection was still at least forty feet to his front and
there were far too many zombies between him and there for him to be
able to make it that distance, even if he did there were likely still
zombies on the other streets as well. Behind him was the group of over
thirty zombies closing quickly on his vehicle, and he could see more in
the distance behind them, no doubt drawn by the sounds of shots he had
snapped off with his Beretta. The houses on either side of the street
didn't offer any help either. There were enough zombies between him
and the houses on either side to give him trouble and the closest
houses all had their doors closed so there was no way of telling if
they were locked He knew he wasn't going to have the time to break
through a locked door so that would be a gamble. Even if he was able
to get into a house they all had plenty of ground level windows and
would offer little protection unless he was able to find a staircase
and make it to a second floor. But even that would mean at best he
would be somewhat safe but trapped. From what he could see in the gaps
between the houses it looked as if they all had high interconnected
fences that likely ran around their backyards so he wouldn't be able to
sneak between the houses either. All in all he really had to admit to
himself that he didn't have a route of escape.
He knew he was screwed, but dammit was he going to put up a
fight. He resumed firing at the closest zeds until his magazine was
empty and quickly slapped in a fresh one and released the bolt. He for
a moment entertained the thought of standing up on the roof of the
Explorer to give himself a higher vantage point but dismissed the
thought when the image of zombies grabbing his legs and pulling them
out from beneath him crossed his mind. At least with his lower body on
the interior or his vehicle he could likely anchor himself in and
prevent them from dragging him off the top if they got a hold of him.
Brendon emptied his second magazine as quickly as he accurately
could, but no matter how fast he put them down others just kept getting
closer and more and more were coming into view in all directions. By
the time he had his third magazine loaded there were already four of
them at the edges of the vehicle reaching up trying to grab him. One
was just tall enough to be able to reach him and managed to get a hold
of the side of Brendon's vest. In a near panic Brendon swung the
barrel of the M-4 in line with the forehead of the man and pulled the
trigger. The man's fingers relaxed their grip immediately and he fell
out of view only to be replaced by two more zeds.
Deciding that he needed a little more firepower he crouched down
and reached into the passenger seat where he also had his 870 shotgun
and his M-249 SAW. He threw the shotgun onto the roof behind him and
raised up the SAW. It was a version of the SAW that had been modified
for urban combat so it had a shortened barrel and collapsible stock
making it even shorter than his M-4. He already had a 250 round drum
attached to the bottom with the belt fed into the weapon and the bolt
locked to the rear. Since it was an open bolt weapon he just had to
thumb the safety and it was ready to go. He held down the trigger and
swept it across the right edge of the vehicle hitting three of the four
zeds on that side in the head. He repeated the same motion on the
right side and managed to take out all five zombies on that side.
Another zombie had managed to climb up onto the hood and was on all
fours and Brendon fired off a four shot burst managing to hit that one
in the head as well. After finishing off the last zombie that was at
the edge of the vehicle Brendon focused on the other zombies that were
still approaching. The SAW was not a weapon built for accurate fire,
it was made to suppress enemy positions so it was somewhat more
difficult to make accurate headshots with but that wasn't what he was
going for. He actually threw aside his habits from the last months and
focused on aiming for the center of each zombies chest initially then
let the recoil of the light machine gun bring the muzzle up. The first
couple of rounds would hit each zombie in the chest but with the recoil
the last rounds would fire in the direction of the zombies head
sometimes scoring a hit. He was firing four to five round bursts at
each one and even when he didn't hit them in the head the handful of
rounds that did hit each zombie in the upper body was generally enough
to knock each of the clumsy zeds onto their backs. At this point he
wasn't as concerned about killing them as he was keeping them back from
his position, and this was slightly faster than focusing on lining up
perfect headshots on each zombie.
 The tactic was working but he knew he wouldn't be able to keep it
up forever. He only had one spare drum on his person and that was in
the pouch on his left thigh alongside his spare night vision. Plus it
took considerably longer to reload a drum into the SAW than it did to
load a fresh mag into a M-4. At this point he was keeping all of the
zombies at least ten feet away from his position but it was a losing
battle. He had probably killed over seventy zombies and the bodies
were at least slowing down the clumsy ones that were still on their
feet, but he could see one particularly thick concentration of them
approaching from down the street in front of his vehicle. It was a
cluster of about forty zombies all within a few feet of each other.
Probably a portion of the first group that he had attempted to lead
off. Once they got to his location he wouldn't be able to fight all of
them off, and with dozens of others approaching from other directions
he couldn't focus on thinning out that group with weapons fire as they
approached.
He continued firing at the closest zombies as they approached
keeping an eye on the large mass. Once the lead of the group got
within sixty feet of his position he stopped firing and reached around
to a row of molle pouches he had attached to the right side of his back
and pulled out a frag grenade. He had four of them on his person all
in pouches on his back. At first he had questioned his choice to bring
them, frags weren't very practical against zombies since it was hard to
direct where the shrapnel went and only head wounds would actually kill
a zombie. He hoped however that with that heavy of a concentration of
zombies he would at least be able to do a fair amount of damage to a
high number of them. He had already removed the small safety pins
before leaving his safe house so all he had to do was tightly grip the
grenade with his right hand to keep the spoon in place and pull the pin
with his left hand. He cocked back his right arm and threw the grenade
with all of his might wanting to get the grenade as far from his
position as possible since he had no cover to get behind.
As soon as the grenade left his hand the spoon released and he
knew he had roughly five to seven seconds before the detonation. He
reached his right hand back and retrieved another grenade as he ducked
down and covered his face with his right arm. He winced as he heard
the grenade explode but no shrapnel embedded itself in his flesh or
shattered the windows of his explorer like he had feared. He pulled
the pin on the second grenade and threw it in the same direction and
ducked down once again. As soon as this one went off he brought the
SAW back up and began firing off more rounds. He had lost a lot of
ground taking the time to throw those two grenades and zombies were
beginning to reach the sides of his vehicle again. He again dispatched
the zeds along the sides of his vehicle and moved on to taking out the
closest approaching zombies. He was able to keep up that pace for
another thirty seconds before his SAW quit firing mid burst and he saw
that there were no more rounds leading into the weapon. He tossed the
machine gun onto the roof behind him and raised up his M-4 from it's
slung position. He hastily fired off ten shots from his M-4 then
grabbed his third grenade. The concentrated group was much closer now
and Brendon had to admit to himself that he was really nervous to use
the grenades at closer ranges than before but things were getting
desperate.
The third grenade went off without causing him any harm so he
decided to use the final one. As it exploded he felt his vehicle shake
and heard broken glass hitting the pavement. He looked inside the
vehicle and saw that the passenger side window had been taken out by
shrapnel. He cursed under his breath knowing that now if he let them
get to the side of his vehicle they could snake through the broken
window and latch onto his legs.
He resumed firing his M-4 focusing more on the zombies on the
right side of the vehicle than the left, wanting to keep them from
getting to the window. He took a quick look in the direction he had
thrown the grenades and was satisfied to see that they had done quite a
bit of damage. Between the four grenades it looked like almost a dozen
zombies had been killed, which was more than he had actually expected,
but many more had become lesser threats because of damage done by the
shrapnel and blasts. There was a good number of zombies that were now
unable to walk because of damage done to their legs when the grenades
went off on the ground near them, but even with all of that damage done
there were still far too many to handle and he was beginning to be
overwhelmed. Every time he took out one zombie it seemed like there
was another one just a few feet away from him that needed taking care
of. He soon realized that he wasn't going to be able to keep them away
from the edges of the vehicle any longer and pulled his legs up out of
the moonroof and stood up on the roof of the vehicle just as one of the
zombies reached it's arms through the broken window.
The remainders of the main group of zombies were just starting to
get to the edge of the Explorer when Brendon loaded his fourth
magazine. He heard a strange muffled popping noise coming from behind
him but he didn't have time to turn around and investigate. He started
to panic as more and more kept reaching the side of the explorer and
reached as far as they could trying to grab onto his legs. He even had
one brush it's fingertips across his shins just as he put a bullet
through it's left eye. He had to back up a step to keep another of the
zombies in front of him from grabbing him and suddenly a pair of strong
hands latched onto his ankles from behind and pulled his legs out from
under him. More sets of hands grabbed onto his legs and he was quickly
dragged off of the top of the vehicle. The wind was knocked out of him
as he hit the ground but he fought through the pain and drew his Glock
17 and rolled onto his back knowing that these were his final moments
as three of them came down on him.
One still had a hold of his left leg and he planted the heel of
his right boot in it's face to keep it from biting his leg, but even a
kick to the face wasn't enough to make it let go of his leg. Another
dropped down on top of him grabbing onto his shoulders and bringing
it's head down to bit him on the neck. He grabbed it by the lower jaw
and pushed the barrel of his Glock to it's temple and pulled the
trigger.
The zombie slumped down motionless on top of him and Brendon felt
a searing pain in his left thigh as the zombie he had kicked sunk it's
teeth into him. He shoved off the dead zombie from on top of him and
sat up in time put a bullet in the biter's head before it could
actually tear out a chunk of meat but the motion gave the third zombie
a chance to grab onto him from behind. He couldn't get turned around
with the zombies strong grip on his shoulders and he winced, preparing
himself for the pain that was to come when it sunk it's teeth in his
neck but instead he heard another of the muffled pops and the zombies
hands released his shoulders as it crumpled to the ground.
Brendon looked to his left and saw a black haired man that looked
to be in his early thirties come running up to him with a silenced MP-5
at the ready. He was wearing a black tactical vest that had a large
SWAT emblem on the right side of his chest. Running behind him was a
young girl that didn't appear like she'd even hit her teens yet and
looked scared to death. Brendon holstered his Glock and rose to his
feet as the SWAT officer started firing on zombies that were coming
around the edges of the vehicle. It hurt to put weight on his left
leg but it was only a flesh wound so he figured it wouldn't actually
hinder his mobility.
"We have to move now!" the officer yelled as more and more
zombies kept coming at them. Brendon agreed that they had to get out
of there. A quick look behind them showed him that the officer had
took out most of the zombies between the house they had been holed up
in so their numbers weren't too concentrated behind them. It was quite
a jaunt back to his safe house but he knew it was well fortified and
could sustain all three of them.
"Cover me one second, I need to grab something," Brendon shouted
back. He raised his rifle and took out three zeds that were coming
around the vehicle then reached on top and grabbed the SAW and shotgun.
He ran back to the other two as the officer covered him and handed the
shotgun to the little girl after checking to make sure the safety was
on. "Hold this and be careful, don't try to shoot it." The girl
didn't say anything back, but she took the shotgun and held it
awkwardly in her arms. He didn't know how much ammunition this guy had
left but he was down to twelve more magazines for his M-4 and didn't
know how much shooting it would take for them to make it back to the
safe house. He still had the Remington 700, an M-16A4, a couple of M9
pistols and extra ammunition in the back of the car but he didn't want
to take the time to grab all of that, especially with one zombie in the
front seat of the SUV.
He put a fresh magazine in his M-4 then let it hang by it's sling
as he loaded his second and last two-hundred and fifty round drum into
the SAW. "I'm good to go," he said as he locked the machine guns bolt
to the rear. "I have a safe house we can go to, it's about a mile away
though, think you two can make it?"
"I'll be good," the officer said between shots. "But We're gonna
have to go slow so she can keep up, I'm not leaving her behind." he
said motioning to the young girl who was staying close to his side.
"Don't worry, I'm not that type," Brendon responded. "Stick
close to me and make sure she stays between us." He headed off down
the street in the direction the other two had came from firing bursts
from his SAW at any zombies in their way. The officer took his time
and made more carefully aimed shots making sure to only fire one shot
at each zombie. When the area around them was relatively clear they
would speed up to a slow jog but would slow down whenever they needed
to take shots. At this rate they were moving slightly faster than the
zombies behind them so they didn't have to worry too much about
covering their rear so long as they kept moving.
Brendon could still see plenty of zombies on the road ahead of
them and thought it would be best to get off of this street as soon as
they could. He began watching the houses on either side of the street
as they moved and spotted one that had a somewhat shorter fence than
the rest. He led them in that direction and was relieved to see that
the gate was unlocked. They went inside and Brendon latched the gate
behind them hoping that it would at least slow down their pursuers.
There were no zombies to be found in the backyard so the three of them
went to the back side of the fence and Brendon sat the SAW on the
ground. The fence was only about six feet tall so he grabbed the top
of the fence and pulled himself up so he could see over. The next yard
back looked to be empty so Brendon swung his right leg up and over the
fence and sat up so he was straddling it, then leaned down and helped
the girl get over the fence when the officer boosted her up. Next the
officer handed Brendon the SAW and the two of them crossed the fence
together. They moved to the gate at the front of the yard and
cautiously headed out onto the next street closing the gate behind
them.
They heard excited moans as a handful of zombies wandering this
street spotted them but there weren't near as many as had been on the
previous street. Brendon lead them off to the north in the general
direction of his safe house. They kept a pretty good pace, the city
had been fairly quiet in recent months so a lot of the zombies were
more spread out as they randomly searched the city for prey. Brendon
tried not to fire his SAW unless he had to in an attempt to prevent too
many more zombies from being drawn to their area.
A handful of blocks later Brendon noticed that after the SWAT
officer emptied another magazine he let his weapon hang by its sling.
He drew his sidearm which turned out to be a 9mm USP and dropped two
more zombies that were too close for comfort before reholstering it,
grabbing the shotgun from the girl and unfolding the stock. "I've got
two more rounds in my pistol," he shouted to Brendon, "How many shells
does this thing have in it?"
"It has eight in the tube and one in the chamber," Brendon
shouted back, unsure if the officers ears were ringing as badly as his.
"I've got twenty more shells on my vest and a Glock on my lower back
you can grab if you need it. It has four extra mags in pouches on my
back." Brendon didn't mention the ten shells that were divided between
holders on the stock and left side of the receiver since he was sure
that the officer had noticed those by now. Since there was only a
small supply of shotgun shells Brendon did his best to take out the
majority of the zombies that they came across, the officer caught on
without him having to say a word and would only fire a spread if the
zombies started to get too close.
After another ten minutes he heard a click come from his M-249
mid burst as he fired the last of the rounds from the belt in the drum.
He didn't have a sling on the SAW since it had been an emergency weapon
he stored in his truck and it would be too heavy for the girl to lug
around so he decided that he would just dump it. Once they reached the
next intersection he looked at the street signs and memorized the
street names before placing the SAW on the ground below the sign. He
figured that if he was able to locate a new vehicle to use to get
around the city before the next rain he would come back for the weapon
since he still had plenty of belts of ammunition back at his safe
house. He did have a dozen thirty round mags left for his M-4 that
were also compatible with the SAW, but he figured if he gave that to
the officer it would eat up ammunition too fast and he would be
constantly reloading. Plus he hadn't tested out this particular SAW
with thirty round mags and in the past he had found that only some M-
249s were able to properly feed from magazines without jamming up
frequently.
It didn't take long to adjust to shooting the M-4 again. A
couple of times he caught himself putting his crosshairs on the chest
of a zombie, but he always remembered to shift up to their head before
squeezing the trigger. They only had about ten blocks to go and the
officer seemed pretty proficient with a gun and there should be enough
ammunition for him to use with the shotgun and Glock. At this pace if
they were lucky they might just make it back to the safe house in one
piece.
 Blaine was almost ready to collapse by the time they got into the
safe house. Before this all he had been in great shape but he had been
living off of water and scraps for a long time, giving almost all of
the little food they had to Emily. He found it interesting that this
man had completely sealed off the first floor of the house and had set
up a rope ladder that was dropped from ground level with a pull rope.
Although he was yet to figure out how he had rolled the ladder back up
when leaving. The room they climbed into looked as if it had once been
a bedroom but was now filled with supplies. Blaine noticed a loaded M-
4 leaned up against the wall next to the window and some form of semi-
auto shotgun leaned up against the far wall next to the door leading
into the hallway.
Their rescuer walked over to an opened case of bottled water,
pulled out a pair of bottles and tossed them to Blaine. He handed one
to Emily and opened his and began chugging water. He had more than
half of the bottle down before he realized that he should probably be
pacing himself. The other man placed a couple of cans of fruit and
some plastic forks on the end table then headed for the door. "Eat
up," He said on his way out, "I'm gonna go make sure the house is still
clear, after that I'll cook up something a little more suitable and
we'll talk."
Blaine sat on the bed next to the end table and realized that he
was still tightly gripping the other survivors Glock in his hands. He
sat it down on the end table and grabbed the two cans of fruit. "So
which do you like better," he said to Emily. "Looks like we've got
fruit cocktail and pineapple chunks."
"I like pineapple," Emily said as she sat on the bed next to him.
The cans had pull tabs on the lids so he peeled the lid off of the
pineapple can and handed it to her along with a fork then dug into his
can of fruit. It was different being able to eat that much without
worrying about rationing and Blaine started to feel full before he even
had half of the can down but he forced himself to push through and eat
more since he knew his body was starving for nutrition. He had gotten
used to only eating scraps over the last weeks. He saw Emily slowing
down before too long to and told her that she needed to eat at least
half of her can.
He was curious to see what the rest of the house looked like.
From this room alone it looked as if this guy was pretty well stocked.
So far he had seen enough food to feed the three of them for probably
close to a month with rationing. Although with this much food he
wondered if it was just the one man or multiple survivors living here.
After a few minutes the man returned with a satchel and handed it
to Blaine. He opened it up and saw that it was filled with 9mm
ammunition. "Figured you'd like to fill all of your mags back up.
There should be about three hundred rounds there, I've got plenty more
in my arms room as well."
"Arms room?" Blaine asked intrigued.
The man let a slight smirk cross his face before he answered.
"I've spent quite a bit of time scavenging stores and the military
perimeter so I have a pretty good stock of weapons, I'll have to show
you later. But first things first, I'm Brendon," he said as he stepped
forward and offered his hand.
 Blaine took his hand and shook it firmly. "I'm Blaine and this
here is Emily," he said tilting his head in her direction.
"Nice to meet you Emily," Brendon said offering her his hand as
well. Emily hesitated for a second and looked to Blaine first. Blaine
nodded to her letting her know it was ok so she slowly reached forward
and shook his hand but didn't hold it for long. "It's ok," Brendon
said to her trying to sound calming, "I'm usually pretty shy with new
people as well." Brendon backed up and sat on a stack of water bottle
flats then began unhooking his tactical vest. "So are you really SWAT
or did you just come across that gear?" he asked.
"I've been on the city's delta team for seven years now," Blaine
replied. "We lost echo team in the early hours of the outbreak. When
the National Guard was ordered to quarantine the city and not let
anyone leave the rest of the teams along with the remaining police
force was tasked to hold the line along highway 2. The infection
started on the northern part of the city and we had hoped to prevent it
from getting to the south. We were spread too thin though and were
overwhelmed in less than an hour. We fell back to the southern police
station and tried to hold out there but it was a lost cause. A handful
of us escaped and found Emily a few weeks later. We kept losing people
until it was just Emily and myself. The two of us had been living in
that house for the last month until,.." Blaine paused when he saw how
Brendon winced as he unhooked the straps that held the pouch to his
left thigh. There was blood soaking through his pant leg and Blaine
could see a pair of curved tears in the fabric. "You got bit when they
pulled you to the ground did you?" he asked. He began to creep his
hand towards his USP hoping Brendon would keep a level head, it may be
hard to take him with only two rounds in his pistol and the Glock a
couple feet away.
"Calm down, you won't be needing your pistol." Brendon said.
Blaine stopped his hand not wanting to provoke him, Brendon still
hadn't unhooked the holster that held a suppressed pistol from his
right hip and Blaine didn't want to have a quick draw competition
unless he had to.