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Allison and Lia started laying on the Jeep horns. The infected’s heads looked up, snarled, and then came running towards the team. Webb observed all this in his binos.

“Oh shit, that caught their attention. They’re coming now. They are thinned out, but it still looks like several hundred and they are coming this way in a hurry.”

They positioned Lia in a wood line to the north of the highway. They had found the deer stand in the woods and thought it would be a perfect sniper point.

Shaw, being the first line of defense, was positioned behind a berm they built along with his M48 on the southern side of the highway. He had all the claymore triggers, C4 detonators, and a planned out contingency if the LZ got too hot.

Webb was on command point and Izzy and Allison were ready to drive the Jeeps out of there so they were not lost. Webb, Izzy and Allison were equipped with M4’s and grenades.

Webb trained his bino’s on the advancing host of infected and was the one who would call out the firing and shock positions. Shock positions (the locations they had placed the explosives) were staggered in a way to provide maximum damage. Since the infected didn’t react the same as regular human troops, it was slightly easier to set up the fields of impact to take out as many infected as they could before the team ever fired a round. The fast runners of the infected were a about 25 yards ahead of the main pack.

Webb keyed his comms, “Ok, Shaw. Get ready to engage.”

“Ready to rock, Cap.”

Webb keyed Lia. “Take out those runners. I’m waiting for the bulk of the crowd to enter the blast zone.”

“Got it, Cap,” Lia replied.

“Shock A, hit it!” Webb shouted.

Click, click, click, Shaw activated the claymore trigger. Baboom! The first string exploded, sending thousands of ball bearings into the pack of infected. Bodies shredded, bones shattered and viscera scattered. With some infected already suffering decay, the devastation was indescribable. Those who were freshly turned the landscape crimson. There were a few of the runners who were already ahead of the blast zone.

Webb saw them coming out of the smoke, “Lia, you have…”

Bang! Bang! Bang! “Yeah, I got them,” she said with a giggle.

“Nice,” he said. “Ok, ready, Shock B, go!”

Shaw activates the next set of triggers with the same effect. Things were looking manageable, Webb thought. As soon as that thought entered his head, he saw something coming over the horizon that he couldn’t make out. There were flashes of bright orange.

“Lia, can you make out what those flashes of orange are that I keep seeing? Way behind the mass of infected.” A moment of silence went by.

“Shit! It looks like three county maintenance trucks. Judging from how they are being driven, I would guess it’s infected behind the steering wheels.”

“Damn, they are fucking unpredictable,” Webb expressed. “Ok, guess we have another factor to plan for.”

Lia continued, “Ah, Captain. That’s not all. Those maintenance vehicles are dump trucks and are filled with infected. I’d say another 30 per truck.”

“Fuckin A. Shaw, heads up. We got 3 dump trucks filled with more infected coming behind the mass on foot!”

“Shit Captain, they are getting smarter.” Shaw barked.

Izzy spoke up, “They appear to be evolving. Advancing their thought patterns, being able to think and process. At least elementary cognitive functions. Possibly a basic memory recall of muscle memory behaviors.”

“Well ain’t that a fuckin peach!” Shaw spat.

Webb was still monitoring the battlefield, “The first two blast zones worked fairly well. Not only did the blasts take out quite a few of the infected, it also slowed the mass down considerably with all the bodies on the ground they now have to negotiate. Tripping over bodies, slipping and sliding on blood and internal organs, they can’t keep their footing.”

Shaw took a minute to pull his binos and survey the field. “Yeah, we took out about a third, but those trucks coming are going to be a pain to deal with. Hopeful

ly, those C4 mounds will give us the edge.”

“Copy that,” Webb replied. The next wave of infected had made their way toward the half-way point of the field. The first of the trucks was coming up behind them at a high rate of speed. It wasn’t even trying to maneuver around the infected who were on foot. The crazy bastards were driving right over them, trying to get to Webb and company.

Lia was attempting to dial in a shot on the driver, but with the uneven terrain and the irrational head tilting back and forth, it was nearly impossible.

“I can’t dial in the driver, Captain. They are bouncing around in there like a couple of kangaroos,” Lia communicated.