End Game.

Everybody hates End Game. Wanker, Rampage, Tongs, Nana... everybody.
They say that it is irresponsible, reckless, dangerous and unnecessary and I agree with them, except for the unnecessary part.
End Game is the unofficial Final Phase of every clearance and battle that we enter and it was very fucking necessary.
They hate it because, in a worst case scenario, I could die and this would leave them without a leader.
Well, first off, at that particular moment I didn't want to be their fucking leader, I didn't ask to be their fucking leader, and I sure-as-shit didn't need the eternal fucking responsibility of providing for them and making sure that they lived from one fucking season to the next.
I needed End Game to keep me sweet.
Usually I only enter End Game with a dozen or so zeds but that day would be different. That day I really didn't care if they if, after the dust had settled, they found me dead and themselves leader-less.


"Go to Phase 4." I ordered the Chief Headhunters.
On my command I watched the aquarium as the North end machete team, led by the towering Rampage came striding purposefully from the rear of the building and onto the sand.
A couple of them faltered as they saw the huge number of zombies they had to face but Mo had done a good job of preparing them as they didn't miss a step in their advance on this massive horde. This was helped, in no small degree by the excellent job the Suicidal Fucks were doing of keeping the pack contained.
With this amount if zombies I wanted to give Wanker and Mr Full-Bore the order to "Fire at will." but with the Fucks still riding round the pack it would have been too risky. Instead I turned to Shotgun Trevor.
"Change of plans for you, my mate" I told him.
"What's up Bolo?" he asked, unable to mask the concern in his voice.
"I think I'll be okay up here mate, so I need you to hop down and be fluffer for these two." I indicated down to the cab of the van.
"Not a problem, Bolo." he assured me, "Do you need this or shall I take it?" he asked. He held up his shotgun, an excuisitely ornate side-by-side Krieghoff. The fact that he'd even offered me his £15,000 gun in case I needed it showed me how much he trusted me and, if anything, brought me back from the brink of possible (probable?) suicide.
I managed a smile "You take it, cheers Trev. I'll be okay."
He hopped down on to the bonnet of the van (and judging by the "HOLY FUCK!" I heard, scaring the crap out of Wanker and Mr Full-Bore), then lightly dropped to the floor as he pulled out a small towel from his pocket. He draped the towel on the bonnet and delicately lay his shotgun on it to avoid it getting scratched.
"Morning chaps," he said brightly, "You've got yourselves a fluffer."

Rampage and his team were just 50 yards away from the pack now. I thumbed the two-way,
"Spook, time to move." I ordered.
"Okay, Bolo." came the reply.
Spook and his team came out of the communal toilets into view of the army of undead. Again a few of them baulked as they had on Rampages team. It wasn't unexpected, these were basically ordinary people, not the fucking 300, but despite their obvious fear they carried forward.
For Rampage it was time to engage.
"Gobby, break off!". I said it with some urgency as the timing was crucial but to my relief they both broke off simultaneously and swooped in behind the Rampage just as he and the machetes got within 10 yards of the group of snarling, moaning undead.
I shouted down to the two snipers, "Fire at will!" and instantly I heard the muted "pap"s of their silenced semi-autos, each firing once a second. I looked into the pack and saw the zombies on the near edge start falling, with each and every shot smacking into their heads with almost perfect precision.
When Gobby had split away and re-grouped behind the machetes Rampage had made full use of this momentary distraction to fan his people out into a curved front and they had started to smash into the front of the pack like a steel tsunami. The low morning sun glinted off their blades as the 16-strong, leather clad army took heads from shoulders and cleaved skulls in two. Dirty, stinking patches of dark fluid were staining the sand as more and more of the grasping undead were destroyed by Tongs' hand forged blades and "warriors" that wielded them.
The Fucks were revving the shit out if their engines as planned and as Spook and his team entered the fight it was obvious that their presence was well masked by the noise. Then the paddle team started attacking, slicing and thrusting as they advanced, viciously carving their way through the rear wall of zombies. Every now and again I'd see a paddle upend and it would be thrust towards the sand as another crawler was sent to Hell.

I heard Wanker shout "Out!" below me and I looked down to see Shotgun Trevor pass him a fresh 20 round clip and, in his role as fluffer, he grabbed the empty clip off Wanker and started reloading it in a rapid, practised fashion, ready to pass it to the next sniper that called "Out!".

I scanned the battle field-
The Fucks were making a racket. Zombies were dropping from sniper bullets. Spook and his paddle team were wading through the corpses of the fallen, destroying the rear of the horde and depleting the deadly threat of crawlers. No leatherheads down that I could see.
But there was something wrong.
The pack was advancing too quickly and Rampage and his team were in danger of being over run.
The beach was pretty flat out to a couple of hundred yards and as the tide was approaching the sand was starting to soften.
There were still over a hundred and fifty zeds on the battlefield and they were moving forward faster than the machetes could strike-and-retreat.
My mind was screaming at me to get out there and join the fight. It was sickly ironic, really. One of the best fighters in the family was being kept out of the fight for safety reasons. Fucking ridiculous.
Still, I was more use to them where I was, co-ordinating the battle, and right now Rampage needed that co-ordination.
He needed help.
I flicked the switch on my two-way.

"Gobby. Come in." I said.

"Tell me what I want to hear, yeah?" he said in anticipation.
"Time to shine, you fucking lunatic." I told him, "Leave your bikes running, get off, split up and join Rampage, extreme left and right, you copy?"
He didn't reply. Instead he signalled to his partner, they dismounted and even over the sounds of battle I heard him scream "COME ON, YOU FUCKING SCUMBAGS! AAAARRRGGHH!!".
They split up and attacked from the outskirts, either side of the machete team. They first picked off the few zeds that had tried to depart from the pack and then they just whirled in, almost to the center of the horde, but nothing could even get near them as they attacked and dodged and spun into violence.
This what what Rampage needed to halt the advance and so the battle was back in the favour of the living.

Both the North team and the South team were drawing together now.
The battle had slowed due to the amount of corpses underfoot but the killing was still steady.
"Cease fire!" I called down to Wanker and Mr Full-Bore, "But keep your sights on, fellas."
I watched both muzzles fall silent but still held steady on the remaining ghouls, ready to fire should anything try and take the piss.
The pack was down to about 80 zombies and despite the imminent success of our most testing and dangerous battle so far my temper had not improved at all. My concern for my own well-being was still non-existent.
My owerwhelming need for violence still raged.

It was time for the End Game.

80 zeds remaining and the machetes and the paddles were still fighting.
I stepped on to the bonnet of the van and dropped to the ground.

74 zeds...

"What are doing, Bolo?" asked Wanker.
He knew exactly what was happening. I ignored him and as I walked I popped the clasp that kept Precious contained.

71 zeds...

I grasped the handle of my machete and jumped over the sea wall on to the soft, amber sand.

67 zeds...

I drew Precious from her sheath. She shone in the sun, but for some reason I felt she was sad for me.

60 zeds...

Nearly there. A few fighters saw me coming and stepped back from the battle.

54 zeds...

"What's up, Bolo?" asks Rampage.
"End Game." I reply, quietly.
"Bullshit, man, there's too many." he says.
"Don't worry." I tell him.
"No fucking way, Cool." he says.

...snap...

"BACK THE FUCK OFF NOW, MO! BACK THE FUCK OFF ALL OF YOU! IF EVEN ONE OF YOU TRIES TO FUCKING HELP ME I WILL LET THESE CUNTS EAT ME. DO YOU FUCKING COPY!?"

"Okay, motherfucker. Have it your way."

Everybody broke off, leaving me breathing heavily and face-to-face with these demons, the bringers of man's destruction, with nothing but a sharp slab of metal containing the soul of a memory.
She was the reason for End Game and these fuckers were about to find out how much that meant to me.
"COME ON!" I screamed at them, "COME ON, YOU EVIL FUCKS!"
Half of me told me I'd lost my mind, the other half said I was doing just fine. "Who do I believe?" I thought, and almost laughed.

The first came towards me. Tall, blue shirt, brown shorts and flip-flops. I fucking hate flip-flops. I jumped in the air towards him and slammed the chisel tip of my machete through the front of his neck, I felt a little resistance and the tip came clean out the back, severing "flip-flop's" spinal column. His dirty, stained teeth were still gnashing as his body crumpled onto the sand.
I stood there for a second, just watching him twitch until the moans of my enemy filtered through my thoughts and the remaining ghouls advanced on me with one thought in their decayed, collective brains.

Then I was in motion, hacking and chopping, slicing with my blade through necks and skulls, side-stepping the grasping claws of these demons as I attacked from the side, from the rear, any direction that I needed to ensure a perfect, lethal strike.
With every blow Precious sung in my hand. I felt she was enjoying this, but I was starting to tire and I didn't care if I died right there and then, on that blood stained beach as long as she was with me. The way it should be and should always have been.
But just remembering brought with it even more aggression, and with that came a renewed energy to annihalate even more demons. I watched brains explode, brown, muddy fluid jettison across the sand as every strike was a killing blow.
I lost track of how many, until one was left.

I could tell from his eyes that he'd been dead for a long time. Maybe since the beginning. No doubt he'd been directly responsible for many of the walking dead we'd had to deal with on that beach. His eyes were so scratched I doubted if he could even see me, but for some reason I didn't kill him straight away.
I looked at him and waited... I waited until he almost had me and I felt the brush of his broken nails against the leather of my jacket then I stepped behind him and swung Precious low through the back of his legs, allowing the weight of the blade to carry itself through and round where I raised her up and brought her smashing down, sinking her six inches into the shoulder of this filthy fucking creature, cutting his entire arm off.
It's legs were useless now and it toppled forward to the sand, using it's one remaing arm to try and claw it's way round to face me.
I put my boot on the back of it's head and pushed it's face down as I heard it snarling and gnashing impotently at the sand.

And then I stood there, for all eternity, staring down at this pathetic creature as it grabbed weakly at my boot and all I could do was wonder "Was this the one that destroyed my life?

My thoughts were broken by the feeling of somebody standing behind me.
"Erm... Bolo?". It was Tongs.
I didn't reply. I was still looking down at the filth beneath my boot.
"Er... The tide's coming in." he said.
I remember thinking that was a bizarre statement but before I looked up I raised my machete and swung it back down, slicing cleanly through the back of the zombies neck, disabling his body permanently.
I looked at Tongs, and he was a sight!
He was stood there, in full angling gear, with his fishing rod and his tackle box in his hand. He was fighting on Spooks' team but must've gone back to the caravan to get his gear and obviously missed the near-psychotic breakdown of his leader because he was stood there asking me if he could go fucking fishing while the rest of the leatherheads were looking at me like they wished they'd brought a fucking straight jacket with them.
I laughed. A hearty, natural laugh, and I could see the people around me relax a little.
"Alright Tongs," I said "If Spook wants to stay with you then that's fine by me. But be back by one, okay?"
"Thanks Bolo." he said.

We checked the corpses, destroying any slow-moving crawlers that were left, then left them for the Squads to dispose of.
Gobby hotwired a car for Tongs and Spook to get home in and the rest of us got into our vehicles. With a final look at the once beautiful beach, now covered with dis-membered and destroyed bodies we realised how big this battle had been and what a miracle it had been for nobody to have been killed.
We were proud of each other and ourselves. Rampage had a new found respect for the Suicidal Fucks, as did I. It was a good feeling.

We'd sleep well tonight, I thought.