Chapter 13

Elliot's eyes shot open and she flung herself into a sitting position, hands rushing to her neck frantically. Nathon leapt back from his position in front of the backseat, where he had been shaking her awake. Elliot took in the expression of total terror in his widened green eyes and reached for the gun in her pocket. "What's going on?" She asked in a voice that barely managed to cover her own alarm. "Where are we?"

Nathon opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out as he gestured out the windshield. As the situation they were in became clear, Elliot fought the urge to join Nathon in his fit of hysteria. They were in the middle of the road a hundred feet from her driveway. Half way between them and the house an enormous mob of infected began, and a number of the zombies at the back had begun to notice the idling hybrid behind them.

Elliot quickly weighed her options before shoving Nathon out of the way and maneuvering herself into the driver's seat and slamming the accelerator, steering right into the crowd.

…

Sarah had been in the library when she heard the gate slam. She had thought that perhaps Elliot and Nathon had had some mishap and were knocking to get in, but the sound continued at an increasing volume and force, and Sarah's walk towards the balcony became a run. The dogs were positioned at the end of the railing, barking and growling with such ferocity that Jimmy, who had been following Sarah, yowled and ran back down the hallway with his hair on end.

Sarah slid down the rope, rushed to the front door, and opened it, turning the noise into a cacophony. A horde of dozens of dead were moving as a wave against the steel gate. Sarah cursed as she saw the hinges begin to give. She spun around and slammed the door behind her, ascended the rope, and ran through the kitchen and dining room, grabbing a box of ammunition from the counter as she called for Jimmy. She ran up the stairs and into Elliot's room where she threw open a window, taking a moment to kick off her heels before stepping onto the roof, followed closely by her cat.

She carefully edged her way over the eaves of the roof towards the front of the house, just in time to see the gate fall. She pulled both guns she had tucked into the waistband of her slacks and began to fire, but she only succeeded in barely slowing the seemingly endless flow of intruders. She had just begun to reload for the second time when she heard the hybrid rev and ram into the horde. She let this distract her for only a moment before continuing her shooting, now focusing on the figures that clung to the vehicle and now begun to claw at it.

…

"Why the fuck did you do that?" Nathon screamed as the car came to a halt a few feet away from the garage door. "Were you planning on walking through the crowd of zombies?" Elliot screamed back, as she waited for the last of the infected on top of the hybrid to roll off before opening the sunroof and starting to shoot into the still incredibly intimidating number between them and the house. Nathon scrambled for his own weapon and joined her. Elliot reloaded with ammunition in her pockets before climbing onto the roof for a better position while Nathon covered her, then followed suit.

By the time the two had almost run out of ammo, there were still a half dozen zombies directly between them and a scalable spot on the wall. Elliot and Nathon shared a glance before Elliot took a deep breath and grabbed Nathon's hand before leaping off the car and into the crowd. Nathon ended up recovering first and dragged Elliot behind her as he forced his way through the crowd, firing when he had a good shot, using the butt of the pistol when he could, and trying his best to attract the most attention.

They were only a few feet away from the wall when Nathon's arm was yanked back and he lost his grip on Elliot's hand. He whipped around just as Elliot let out a scream. A male zombie in a torn and stained button-down had her by the ponytail and was inches away from her neck when Nathon aimed and fired, blowing his brains in a gruesome splatter over the other zombies behind him. He fell to the ground with his hand still tangled in Elliot's hair. Nathon rushed to her as the zombies around them began converging.

By the time he reached her, she had managed to disentangle herself but they were surrounded once more. Pulling Elliot to her feet, Nathon once again began trying to drag her through the crowd. As he made a move to knock the last zombie between them and the wall, it grabbed Nathon's hand and brought it to its mouth and bit down as Nathon let out a yell.

Before it could pull back, the top half of its head was blown away by a bullet that must have come from Sarah. Nathon freed his hand from the mess and pulled Elliot ahead of him to boost her up the wall, hoping Sarah was taking care of the zombies behind them. When she reached the top of the wall she stopped dead and called down to Nathon. "They're in the yard! How do we get in?" Her voice was shrill and as Nathon pulled himself out of the reach of the grabbing hands behind him, trying his best to ignore the fire emanating from his hand, he looked for a way to get inside. Looking further down the wall, he saw that it connected to the garage and with a boost one of them could get on to its roof and from there pull the other up and climb into the house by window.

Following Elliot, he balanced his way along the thin ledge and reached the conjunction of the wall and garage. With his instruction, Elliot steadied herself against the siding of the garage and cupped her hands, allowing Nathon to pull himself onto the roof, where he then leaned down, and, grimacing at the pressure on his bleeding hand, pulled Elliot up with him. As the percussion of Sarah's gunfire continued, the two made it to the window and though it was stuck edged it open far enough to slip through, finding themselves in Nathon's room.

Elliot slid down the wall she had ended up leaning against, ending up huddled with her knees to her chin. Her eyes spun around wildly and looked on the verge of tears. Nathon slammed the window shut and crouched down next to her and was at a loss of what to do as the door banged open to reveal a wind-blown Sarah with boxes of ammunition cradled in her arms.

"The hell are you waiting for?" she asked.

…

The next hours were spent in a blur of aiming and firing, aiming and firing, in a hypnotic and gruesome pattern. Nathon found himself catching glimpses of Elliot, but her stare remained vacant, and her motions remained automatic and calculated. The zombies had broken into the first floor, and when the yard had been cleared, the trio migrated to the balcony and cleared that as well. Though Elliot refused to descend the rope, Nathon and Sarah managed to at least drag out the bodies and prop the gate back up with barricades taken from the first floor windows in a reasonable amount of time, finishing as the sun began to set.

Exiting through the garage, Nathon found the car still running and with only slight hesitation drove the car into the garage, despite the number of bodies in the way. Sarah helped bring in the bags Nathon had packed into the back, and Elliot bandaged his wounded hand through her stupor. After a silent meal of crackers and peanut butter, Elliot went up to her room. Sarah shortly went to her own room, followed by Jimmy, leaving Nathon with no one but the dogs at his feet to ask what would happen next.