3. The Madness of War
Katie found herself wedged behind a table with her back against the wall with Travis beside her and Nerit standing on the bar behind them.
She hated being stuck in the corner.
The gun kept jerking in her hands. Her fingers ached as she tried to aim true and take the heads off as many of the zombies as possible.
There had been estimates that only twenty people were in the hotel.
That estimate had been seriously low. At least a dozen lay dead on the ground and maybe thirty were still moving around and trying to get to the living flesh.
A zombie pushed his way past a nearby table and charged at the barricade. He hit the table Katie was behind and it started to tip.
Pressing her back against the wall and bracing the table with one foot, she aimed at his head as he snarled, reaching for her. Pulling the trigger, she was already flinching, knowing blood and gore would splatter her.
“Gross,” she muttered as wiped brains off her face, and aimed at the next one rushing toward them.
Next to her, Travis was busy reloading someone else’s gun for them. Jenni was screaming at the zombies as she fired. Nerit was cold and calculating above them as she systematically eliminated the quickest of the undead, leaving the slower, more mutilated ones staggering toward the tables.
“Gawddammit! Why are there so many?” Felix exclaimed.
Beside him, Shane didn't answer as he shoved the end of his rifle into a snarling zombie mouth and fired.
Four zombies hit the barricade at the same time and some people had to stop firing so they could brace it. Nerit was in the midst of reloading so Travis picked up a heavy candlestick and brought it down hard on the head of one of the female zombies snarling at them.
Katie screamed as something grabbed her leg. She looked down to see the hand of a zombie gripping her ankle. It had reached through the gap between the table and wall. Its growling face was barely visible.
With surprising strength, it tugged on her, sending her tumbling backward into the bar.
Travis brought the candlestick down hard on the head of another zombie as more hit the barricades. Now only a few people were firing into the crowd of zombies. The others tried to keep the tables from toppling over and allowing the zombies through. The room was filled with the screams of the humans and the growls of the zombies.
It seemed everyone was shouting at once: Mike ordering people to hold the tables in place, Katarina screaming that her table was slipping, Nerit telling everyone to be calm, Felix and Shane were shouting as several zombies were trying to topple their table, Katie screaming because the zombie was dragging her leg out into the open.
It was chaos.
Travis continued to slam the candlestick downward, blood and gore flying everywhere. One of the zombies grabbed his arm and, for a horrible moment, everyone panicked. Nerit put a bullet through the zombie’s head, but more were grabbing at Travis’s arm.
“Jacket off!” It was Katarina’s voice.
Travis yanked his arm through the sleeve as fast as he could, Katarina helping him pull the jacket off. It was ripped off him and dragged into the mouths of the hungry zombies on the other side of the barricade. Jenni grabbed Travis' arm and saw that he had escaped without a bite.
“Shit! That was close! You're fine!” she said, and went back to firing at the very frustrated looking zombies.
Katie, meanwhile, was on the floor and trying to pull her leg away from the zombie. She had trouble getting leverage to yank her leg back.
“Some help here!” Katie tried to aim at the zombie’s head, but it was out of view behind her captured foot.
“Keep the tables in place!” Shane roared.
Beside him, Charles and Ned struggled with a table.
Mike’s voice was fierce over the shots and screams. “Hold the line!
Don't let them through!”
Nerit kicked Mike in the shoulder. “Katie’s in trouble!”
Mike looked over to see what was happening. “Shit! Travis! A zombie has Katie!”