CHAPTER 4

"Lemmie get this straight. You're going to the OPP station to drop off a heavy support weapon, then go to the school to steal a bus?"

"Yep"

"OK with me."

A few seconds later, the jeep pulled into the station, and a window on the upper floor opened, an automatic weapon spitting fire in their direction.

Peter looked behind them, only to see that the fire was directed toward the zombies behind them.

"Keep going!" He shouted

The jeep was in front of the 2 cars blocking the entrance.

To everyone's relief, the doors opened, and 6 SWAT team members and a few other people who had automatic weapons started firing into the hoards of undead, to cover the new arrivals.

Vash jumped out of the jeep, tossing the bag of weapons over towards the door.

He ran over to the bag and brought it over to the entrance. The SWAT were defending the jeep, knowing that it could very well mean everyone's survival.

He tossed a few nods over to the SWAT and went to work setting up the SMG.

One man came over to him to ask what was going on.

"I'm Steve, leader of our little outfit here. What are you doing?"

"Name's Vash. I'm setting up this heavy weapon for you guys, then getting a bus over from the school to get everyone outta here. This thing here is belt-fed. Point, and fire. Be back soon."

Vash ran back to the jeep with the remaining weapons, and motioned for everyone to get back in.

Steve the SWAT guy covered the jeep's exit with a burst of machinegun fire, and dragged the weapon back inside along with his team.

The people who had most likely saved them all ran down a few zombies before it got back on the main road and headed toward the school.

The Umbrella plant where the spill had originally occurred was about 2 klicks south of the school, meaning the zombies here were quite thick.

Another 3 round burst, and yet another zombie went down; it's skull collapsing in itself.

"Clip!" Akito yelled down to whoever happened to be closest to the pile of M16 magazines.

He reloaded and fired on full auto into the group that was in the direct path of the jeep. Besides annoying them, the 5.56mm shots did nothing to move them out of the way. Then Akito remembered why this gun was so heavy. He twisted around and pulled a 40mm frag grenade shell out of his pack, loaded it into the launcher's breech with a subdued "thunk" and reached for the trigger in front of the clip.

The jeep hit a pile of rotting corpses and threw his aim off a bit, but he fired anyway.

The grenade arced through the air, landing in the middle of the group, exploding and sending shards of metal in and through the zombies. It's didn't really help much, but it did make Akito feel better.

Vash swerved the jeep around the burning undead and was almost threw Akito out of the jeep.

They were all glad that the jeep was 4 wheel drive, because they were constantly driving over dead bodies that would have caused a lesser vehicle to spin out of control. The school was now in sight.

"There!" Vash pointed to the few undamaged busses in the school parking lot.

"Let's grab a bus and get those people outta here."

"But...there are still people in the school! We gotta get them out too." Matt interjected.

"Ok. We'll make 2 groups. One will work on getting the bus started and ready and the other will go into the school and get the kids out."

"Ok. I know the school the best, so I'll be point for the school team" Matt said.

"Shinji, you're a mechanic, right? You and someone else will stay behind and work on the bus." Vash concluded. "So, the school team will be Me, Matt and Peter and the bus team will be Shinji and Akito."

"What about the jeep? Won't the zombies trash it?" Matt asked.

"No. Not if there isn't anything living in it that would attract them to it."

"Good enough for me"

The jeep stopped between the busses and the school's main doors. Matt grabbed the bag of weapons and slung it over his shoulder before they all got out. Vash adjusted the strap on his SAW, preferring to use his high- powered rifle for the time being, Akito loaded in a new clip for his M16 and a 40mm shell, just in case. And Shinji reloaded his Ithaca 57 with shells. Peter put a new clip in his VP70 and set his MP5 to full-auto.

"Everyone ready? Give us an hour in the school, and if the zombies overwhelm you, or our times up, get the survivors out and we'll make it back to the jeep.

GO!"

Vash heard a few automatic bursts among the heavier sounding blasts of the shotgun, but didn't look behind them. He just had to hope that the two got their job done.