Outbreak Chapter 22

Brendon took over covering in all directions hoping that the additional fire from the others on the balcony would be enough to keep the infected back. They had probably killed a few dozen of them in the minutes since they had shown up but there seemed to be even more of them than before. Brendon aimed at a grossly overweight man that was about forty feet away and pulled the trigger. His shot hit low tearing through the side of the man's jaw but missed the brain and spinal cord. The force of the impact barely even slowed the man down but before Brendon could line up a second shot a round from above took the man in the top of the head dropping him instantly. There were still a large number of infected rushing towards Brendon and he knew that he would have a hard time keeping them all back even with all of the help from above. He glanced up and decided that Aidan was close enough to the top of the ladder. He jumped up and grabbed one of the metal bars that had been placed over the ropes to make the rope rungs more sturdy and began climbing up as quickly as he could as visions of hands reaching up and grabbing his ankles ran through his mind.
It was awkward climbing up the rope ladder with all of his gear on but he climbed to the third story balcony in no time. Once he reached the top his good friend Justin Wiggins met him and helped him over the railing. He and Wiggins had been friends since high school. Wiggins was slightly taller than Brendon at six feet two inches and had been a football player in high school giving him a larger physique. After high school the two were roommates at the local university for a short while. The two had enlisted together in the army and had gone to Cavalry Scout training at Fort Knox, Kentucky at the same time. Brendon was deployed to Iraq for nearly two years while Wiggins got his commission as a lieutenant through the ROTC program at the University. Ever since high school the two had shared their interest in guns and had spent countless afternoons killing paper targets and wildlife. At the moment Wiggins was wearing one of his uniforms as well along with a load bearing vest. Each pouch on his LBV was filled with magazines for the AR-15 that was hanging on his chest. On the belt attached to the bottom of his vest was a holster that housed his subcompact Springfield XD chambered for .40 S&W.
“Welcome to the party,” Wiggins said as he pulled the length of the rope ladder up onto the balcony. “You kids have any trouble getting here?”
“Surprisingly enough things actually went pretty smooth, Murphy’s Law didn’t strike for once in my life,” Brendon replied making reference to the law that stated anything that can go wrong will go wrong. “We picked up Tom over there by our apartments and there seem to be enough uninfected people left all over the place to keep the infected occupied. But as many of those things as we did see I’d guess by this time tomorrow normal humans are going to be pretty scarce and it’s gonna be almost impossible to move between locations.”
“Yeah, whatever it is seems to be spreading pretty quick. Just a couple hours ago this area was pretty quiet, now there seem to be hundreds of zombies in the area,” Wiggins replied
“Zombies?” Brendon asked raising an eyebrow.
“Sounds pretty fitting doesn’t it?” Wiggins said. “From what the news has been saying for the last half hour it sounds like whatever this disease is it actually kills people before making them rise back up as one of those things. That’s why hitting their organs won’t kill them.”
“Which means we’ve actually been fighting undead and not real people, which makes it a little easier for me,” Andrew Griffin chimed in speaking for the first time. Griffin was a little shorter than Brendon at about five feet ten inches. He had a little bit more weight to him than Brendon and Wiggins but was far from overweight and still in good shape. He wore his hair closely cropped similar to Brendon and Wiggins. They had met Griffin when the three of them were attending the local university. Griffin and Brendon had initially been in the ROTC program along with Wiggins but Griffin had decided to pursue a career in law enforcement and Brendon had decided to leave the program so that he could deploy and have some fun in the Middle East.