Cassie (Adrian's Undead Diary Book 8) by Chris Philbrook Page B

the windows we could see a few moving figures, so we knew the breach would be violent.  
    As a result, I decided I’d breach the house on point with a 12 gauge. Nothing against the M4A1, but I wanted the knockback power of a shotgun. The 5.56 rounds are so high velocity, they can frequently buzz right through someone and barely stagger them. However, buck shot from a 12 gauge to the chest… does a bit more than stagger someone. And besides, close is often good enough with a shotgun.
    We breached with a team of three. I was on point, Harold second, and Abby third. Abby and I are a pretty well oiled machine for this, and Harold in the middle was added comfort. He’s a good man, and a very good Marine. Royal Marine to be specific. Have I mentioned I dig his accent? It reminds me of watching Guy Ritchie movies. Note to self: Watch Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels soon. I had Angela make noise on the far side of the house as we prepared to go in the door. Hopefully she would attract the undead inside away from us, or at least get them turned around to buy us a few seconds.
    I pried the door open with the halligan and we were in. The house was tight, just like I thought I remembered from the other side. The main hallway led straight, then hooked right sharply. To the left was the kitchen and living room. Bedrooms were all off the right side of the hallway, with the stairs up after the hook right. Does that makes sense to you? Makes sense to me. I hate describing shit like this, I feel like I suck at it.
    The hall was clear, and I went left into the kitchen. An older lady was in the doorway at the end area of the room, facing towards the dining/living room. She was gone, and after calling out contact, I bucked her up side the head with the 12 gauge. Her head disappeared, and I stepped over her body into the dining room. Immediately after stepping through the doorjamb I saw two more zombies turning from the windows to face us.
    I saw Angela through the window, and after racking another shell into the chamber of the shotgun I motioned for her and hollered for her to get down. I didn’t want her to catch any errant shotgun blast bits through a window. Once I saw she was out of danger, I blasted the dead older man in the upper chest, disconnecting his head from the rest of his body. What was left of him went down on his knees for a moment before falling chest first on the hard wood floor. The other undead in the home was just a young teen boy. He’d been bitten several times on the neck and chest, and judging by the blood on his grandparent’s faces, they’d done it to him. I pumped the scatter gun one last time, and put him down, breaking the window behind him in the process.
    The rest of the house clear was fine, although very cold. The broken windows from all the shooting let in the cold air from outside. We took our sweet ass time checking the upstairs, as each door was locked. The whole house smelled bad too, so there was no way of telling if a room had a zombie in it just by smell alone. No fun. Fortunately, no injuries, no deaths, no problems.
    We radioed Bastion all was well on the breach, and started clearing the house. As usual, Patty and Abby took everything not nailed or screwed down. Blake and I focused on getting the generator in the basement out of the bulkhead door, which meant shoveling an assload of heavy snow, covered in crusty, sharp ice. Unpleasant work, that.
    The generator was a beast though, and was diesel, which is nice two-fer. It took Hal, myself as well as Blake the better part of twenty minutes just to get it into the back of the deuce. Heavy fucker. The old guy who I assume owned the place also had some pretty awesome handyman books in the basement too, which we grabbed. Blake was impressed by them, which meant they had the how-to on stuff he didn’t know… how to do. New information is great. As I’ve said before, Google is still down.
    Which reminds me… we need to hit the town library.