Payload by RW Krpoun

the driver’s and front passenger’s captain’s chairs and extracted a shoulder holster, a loaded speed loader, and a box of .357 Magnum hollow points. “Once you’re comfortable with it, get it turned around. If we don’t catch up, meet at the gear, or one mile north of the gear if the zeds get too close.”
    “Got it.”
    Marv closed the door behind him as he exited. “Here,” he passed the ammunition and accessories to Dyson. “Sneak up and grab as many hammers as you can carry and get back to the RV. If it takes off before you get back, escape and evade back to the gear.”
    “Got it.” Dyson slipped on the shoulder holster, dumped the rest of his acquisitions inside his shirt, and headed south.
    “Doc…,” Marv came around the RV only to see the medic digging in the rear of a wrecked blue hatchback with a corporate logo thirty yards south of the RV. “Little maniac.”
     
    Bear heaved a rock at the nearest zombie and trotted back a few yards. Their initial fusillade had dropped five and gathered the attention of more than a hundred; since then all they had to do was hold their attention and keep them moving.
    They were a chilling bunch to see-the recently infected were hardly distinguishable from the living except for visible wounds and their jerky, slow movement. Those who had been infected for longer periods actually looked like zombies: gray, lifeless skin, hair falling out, clouded eyes, open sores.
    After the initial chorus of wailing cries that chilled the blood in his veins, they had been mostly silent, just the occasional dragging moan, and a sort of hissing they made when they really got close.
    The front ranks faltered, so he leveled the Mossburg and shot the least fresh zed square in the face-the older and deader they looked, he found, the easier it was to shoot them. Captain Jack shot another a second later, and the infected resumed their lurching pursuit.
    “How much longer?” Captain Jack called, thumbing fresh shells into his shotgun.
    Bear glanced at his watch, lifting his wrist up to eye level rather than letting the infected get out of his sight, backing steadily as he did so. “One minute.”
    Addison, the Mac-10’s stock unfolded and in place, fired three evenly spaced shots, cleanly dropping three infected.
    Bear shot another infected and swore as he backed into a deep puddle. “OK, we’re done. Stop shooting and let’s make tracks.”
     
    The RV rumbled to life as Marv ran, arms laden with green fabric bags of canned goods taken from a wrecked mini-van. He paused to let Dyson, who had a grimy white five gallon plastic bucket in each hand, precede him into the big vehicle.
    JD started backing up even as the Ranger cleared the top step. “Dyson, set the thermostat to seventy and hit the green button,” the promoter said over his shoulder. “It should be near the fridge.”
    “Got it.”
    Marv dumped the bags on the floor and stepped to JD’s side.
    “Where’s Doc?”
    “Dunno,” JD muttered, eyes on the cam monitors. “Shut up-I’m rusty, and there’s not a lot of room.”
    “Oh, shit,” Marv muttered. The vehicle’s height and the broad expanse of windows gave him an excellent view of the blockage to the south, the parking lot of wrecks and abandoned vehicles that stretched for a half mile or more.
    “What?” Dyson and JD asked in chorus.
    The Ranger unslung the payload’s black sling and hung it on the back of JD’s seat. “Keeping driving, JD. Dyson, come with me. And keep the door shut,” he added as he descended the steps, the Georgian on his heels.
    Fifty yards deeper into the blockage Doc was rooting in the back of a white van with a media satellite dish on the roof, blissfully unaware of the scores of zombies drawn by the sound of the RV’s big diesel engine.
    “That little asshole,” Dyson swore, shaking rounds from the box and slotting them into a speed loader.
    “He is gonna regret this-if they don’t kill him, I will,” Marv agreed.