Zombie Killers: Ice & Fire by John Holmes, Ryan Szimanski Page A

truck.”
    “But” she stuttered, “but that’s insane! You’ll get killed, or bitten.”
    “I have faith in Allah, that what I am doing is his will. Besides, I will keep one bullet for myself and soon have milk and honey and more virgins than I ever want to deal with again. Who wants to be surrounded by that many women for eternity? A man would go insane!” He laughed and put his hand on the door. 
    Doc slid his window down and threw a grenade as far as he could. It went off with a flat BANG, muffled by the snow. The Z’s swarmed towards the explosion, temporarily clearing Ahmeds’ side of the truck. He opened the door, slipped out, and ran ten meters, then turned and fired into the crowd.  As one mass, they started after him, and he disappeared into the wood line. I hoped the snow wouldn’t slow him down too much.
    I rolled out my door and into the snow, and crawled under the truck to the far side, looking for the broken linkage. I saw Brit’s boots hit the snow, and she ran for the nearest tree, unbuckling her belt as she ran.
    I saw where the linkage had been shot away. The shifter extended down next to the transmission, and where it entered the housing, the metal was scored by the shotgun pellets. I took the piece of hanger wire that I had grabbed and tried to twist it around the broken linkage.
    “Go ahead, try it!” I yelled up to Doc. I saw the shifter move, but the hangar wire didn’t have the stiffness to force the lever on the transmission. Damn, I thought to myself. I took my K-bar knife out of its’ sheath and started hammering on the lever with the hilt. I dull CLUNK and the truck jumped forward, then stopped as Doc hit the brakes. I quickly crawled out from back under, just as the 240 opened up, tracers racing into the woods just of the left of where I could see Brit’s legs as she squatted up against a tree. Note to self, next time, make someone go with her.
    “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!” she yelled, and struggled to pull up her pants. Jonesy let another burst fly at a shambling figure that had emerged from the woods. One round caught it in the head, dropping it, but a half dozen more came charging out.
    Brit ran for the truck holding her helmet on her head with one hand and her pants up with the other. She dove into the truck, and her pants fell down as Doc stomped on the gas, slamming the heavy armored door shut. Jonesy looked down from the turret as Brit struggled to pull her pants up.
    “Damn, you skinny, white girl! You need to EAT! Nick, what the hell do you see in that skinny little butt?” Doc started laughing as Brit tried to slap Jonesy in the crotch and he rotated the turret away from her. I just shook my head and looked for Ahmed.
    We picked him up, just ahead of the crowd of zombies, on the side of the road. He jumped in, and we headed off down the road.

Chapter 25
    We swung up and around Saratoga Springs, moving through deserted small towns. Outside Corinth, coming down from the hills on Route 9, we ran into a barrier across the main street in town. On the south side, piles of skeletons glistened in the snow. Refugees, shot down by the townspeople as they tried to storm their way into town.
    The bride to the North, across the Hudson River into Hadley, had a barricade made out of an old school bus. Behind it, a plume of smoke came from a makeshift chimney on a Stewarts shop at the intersection.
    “Stop the truck” I told Ahmed, who had taken over driving. We had stopped an hour before and rigged up a shifter for the truck. I wanted to talk to these people and intel was intel. Maybe some allies up here would be useful.
    “HELLO THE BRIDGE!” I yelled.
    No answer.
    “UNITED STATES ARMY SCOUTS!”
    An arrow flew out of the shattered building windows, and buried itself at my feet. I reached down and plucked it out of the snow.
    “WE’RE NOT HERE TO FIGHT, WE JUST WANT TO TALK!”
    Someone inside the building yelled “FUCK OFF!” and another arrow bounced off the roof