Earth's Survivors - Dell Sweet - Bog

The Nation begins to rise from the ashes of the old world...The attack came fast when it came. Mike only remembered the details after the fact.Molly had the right side, Tim the left, Mike had taken a lead of fifty feet or so right up through the middle of the tall grass. It left him blind for the most part. The grass was higher than his head in most places, unless he walked right on the hump in the middle of the old road, and that was not an easy task. He found himself spending too much time concentrating on the next footfall. So he came down off the hump and walked slowly beside it. Watching for darker shadows within the golden brown of the grass.He turned his head to look over to the right and Molly when his eye had caught movement in the trees just over her head. There was no time for thought. He swung his rifle up and fired. He had no time to register what he had accomplished. He dropped his eyes from the woods, alerted by a yell from Tim on the other side of him and the Zombie was on him just that fast. Afterward he realized it must have been hidden in the tall grass and had sprung at him as soon as he was distracted by the movement in the woods.He was out of position to fire so he reversed the rifle's stock smashing it into the forehead of the zombie that had sprung at him. She went down but she was back up just as quickly. Mike kicked her hard in the stomach as he bought the rifle barrel around. He squeezed off a quick burst as she was falling from the kick.It seemed as though the entire world turned into a solid wall of noisy gunfire. On both sides and front and back.The zombie hit the ground thrown back by the force of the bullets. A huge section of her side blown away, one arm gone, but she had no sooner hit the ground than she was twisting to her side and rising to her feet, hissing and snarling as she lunged at him again.The shock nearly kept him from firing. He had never expected her to get back up. The rifle barrel rose on its own as he fired blowing holes through her chest and finally taking her head from her shoulders. She staggered a few more feet and then collapsed in a heap.In front, somewhere beyond the cars and trucks that blocked the road, the firing continued. Mike looked left to right. Both Molly and Tim were gone. He got his feet moving and started off through the tall grass.The gunfire fell off abruptly. He reached the beginning of the cars and trucks and began working his way down the length of a pickup truck when he caught movement on the opposite side of the truck out of the corner of his eye. He swung the rifle up fast, finger on the trigger, squeezing as it came up. The only thing stopping him from firing the uncertainty of what his peripheral vision had caught, when his eyes finished the split second trip he nearly squeezed the trigger anyway when Tim's face came into sharp focus."Christ," He breathed. Tim's face was streaked with blood. Pasty white under the scarlet. Tim nodded and swiveled his eyes behind Mike, he turned to find Molly peering around the edge of a van fifty or so feet beyond his own position. He motioned both of them over."Dead?" he asked in a whisper. They both nodded.