"Keep shooting!" Sgt. Cobb yelled over the din of rifle fire.

"Awe shit!" Pvt. Tarry growled.

"What?" Cobb continued to fire steadily into the advancing mass of of infected. With every round expended another body dropped.

"They did get Randy."

"Damn. It figures." Cobb had liked Pvt. Randy Hicks. The boy had been sixteen at the time of the outbreak and two years later he'd joined the 4th Kentucky. Steady under almost any circumstances Hicks had wanted nothing more than to protect his mother and see that his sisters had a safe world to grow up in. Now he was walking among the infected with his cheek torn away and blood running from a bite in his upper arm.

The patrol had been boxed in. They had been ordered to make a sweep on the edge of Radcliff and were in visual contact with a group of a dozen infected when the rear guard alerted Cobb to another group coming from behind. More bad luck when they turned down into the trailer park and another pack had appeared from a wood line almost on top of them. Pvt. Hicks had begun firing and run away from the patrol drawing the infected after him. That was just the kind of guy he was. No longer. He was one of them now. The patrol had made a dash for a trailer and having kicked the steps away from the front door to make it more difficult for the infected to get in they'd checked the rooms and taken up firing posts to await the mob that was sure to be attracted. Now they were laying down fire steadily and taking their toll on the undead.

"Take your time with each shot!" Cobb roared as some of the men began missing their targets. "We've only got so many rounds and they aren't going to send out a chopper for the five of us. Not in this mess."

"Should I shoot Randy?" Pvt. Tarry asked.

"No!" Parker snapped.

"He's a goner, Parker." Cobb said as gently as the noise of gun fire would allow.

"I know." Parker fired another round. "But he's still got ammo on him. Let him get right up next to us and then pop him."

"Fuck that!" Tarry barked.

"I'll go out and get his web gear off him. you guys can cover me for that long." Parker volunteered.

"Everyone hear that?" there were calls of accent all around. The riflemen continued their fusillade cutting down the oncoming infected in droves. The team members knew though that for eery shot they fired there were at least a dozen infected yet to come. Finally Randy had gotten within a few yards of the trailer and there were no others close to him. Parker took careful aim and shot. Randy dropped on his side and lay motionless. It had been a clean kill.

"I'm ready." Parker yelled out.

"Okay. Everyone concentrate your fire to clear the space around Parker while he's out there." Cobb yelled loud enough for everyone to hear.

Parker set aside his rifle and dumped his web gear. From the holster on his hip he drew out his 1911. The big frame automatic had been designed for the U.S. army nearly a hundred years ago with one stipulation being that the round had to be able to stop a charging horse. Parker didn't know if that were true but he knew that the ball ammo could knock a man down with a single round. As he moved to the door he jacked the slide back to chamber a round and then taking a couple uneasy deep breaths he tore the door open and leaped to the ground. Bullets whizzed by him as he took the three long stride needed to get to Randy. With his pistol pointed at the fallen man's head he knelt next to him.

"You were a good guy, Randy." Was all Parker had time for as he ripped the web gear off the corpse. He looked up and found one of the infected about eight feet from him and he put a bullet through the thing's brain. Without a backward glance Parker turned and sprinted for the door which still stood open. He hurled himself up into the frame and turned to fire two more rounds into the advancing tide of the dead. An arm swept around his waist and dragged him inside the old trailer. Cobb slammed the door and gave Parker a scowl.

"Brave thing you did but don't leave the god damn door open for them!" Cobb returned to his window and again began firing. Outside the bodies were stacking up in a semicircle. The infected were having a tougher time getting across the yard and in some places the bodies were blocking them from advancing at all.

Parker was back at his window now with his weapon up. He watched the dead carefully as they continued to try to climb the bodies. As one would scramble on top of the pile and just start to cross it Parker would fire. The pile, already four deep, was growing steadily.

"Hughes." Sgt. Cobb yelled. "Look out the back window and tell me what you see."

Hughes was an old hunter. He'd fought in the first Gulf war and had a shady area before that that he wouldn't talk much about. His best trait aside from being hell with a rifle was that he could see routes into and out of anywhere. He moved to the small back door with its porthole window and peered out. There was an overgrown field of weeds but he could see no sign that anything had moved through it. The infected never sneaked up on anyone. They just didn't have enough mental power to come up with anything like that. Walk, eat and moan was all most of them ever did. Across the field was a narrow strip of woods and beyond that was what looked like a road or a parking lot. If the team could make it there they could out run the infected and call in a chopper to pull them clear of the mass before the dead could overwhelm them. He went and told Cobb as they both fired through the window.

"No fences or anything?" Cobb asked.

"None that I can see from the back door." Hughes assured him. "Might be a guard rail by the pavement though. I didn't see anything."

"All right. Take watts' firing position and tell him to hit the chicken switch and send our GPS. Tell them where we're heading and that we'll move as soon as we hear the rotors."

Ten minutes later they heard the whump-whump-whump of the Blackhawk as it came to pull them out.

"Hughes, you're point. Parker, you and me will hold the rear." Cobb ordered. "The rest of you in single file follow Hughes. Stay in his tracks and keep your eyes open."

Parker looked out the window as he continued to fire. The bodies were stacked up and spread across the overgrown lawn. There must have been at least three hundred dead and and maybe another hundred still moving. They could take their time now. The infected were falling over those that had already fallen and then floundering around until they either got back on their feet or they got a bullet in the head. Parker put a round through a little one that couldn't have been more than eight years old when he'd been bitten. Those were the ones that sometimes bothered him. This one though was just another target in the heat of the moment. Cobb was firing steadily and looking over his shoulder out the back window to see how far the rest of the team had gotten. Above them they could hear the Blackhawk in a slow turn.

"Let's move, Parker!" Cobb slapped Parker on the shoulder as they both turned to the door. They jumped out the narrow door each turning in opposite directions to cover the ends of the trailer. With rapid steps they followed the path that the other team members had taken and soon had fetched up next to the blacktop. It was an old parking lot with a store to one side. The Blackhawk circled in but they could see the infected coming. The team spread into a thin skirmish line and once more began to lay down fire. Dust swirled up as the helicopter swooped in to touch lightly down some fifty feet behind them. With a hand signal Sgt. Cobb ordered the men to the helicopter. They would go home. Tonight they would drink a toast to the man that had sacrificed himself for them. They were still alive and one day they would be able to walk the streets of the city without fear. Tonight, though, they would have nightmares.