Liam's plan was straightforward: lure the horde away from Hickory Street, loop them around the block, and draw them off through the western intersection. Once the undead were diverted, the Ford would circle back through the eastern end and head straight for the gun store.
Inside the vehicle, Liam watched the mass of zombies recede in the rearview mirror. He turned to Old Mike. "You can kill the music now."
The Ford sped down Wilmer Street, took a sharp left onto another avenue, then another left onto Fourth Avenue, which connected to the eastern end of Hickory Street. From there, they turned back into Wilmer.
The horde, numbering in the thousands, had dispersed along Wilmer Street. Some, hearing the engine, veered back toward the Ford, converging on the gun store.
With a screech, the Ford halted in front of the shop.
"Move!" Liam shouted. Everyone jumped out, slamming the doors. Jason, wielding an axe, rushed to the entrance. He swung twice, shattering the padlock on the roll-up door.
Together, they heaved the heavy door open just enough to slip inside. One by one, they ducked in, pulling it shut behind them. Outside, the undead howled and clawed, but the group was safely out of sight.
Buzzing filled the dim interior as motion sensors triggered the overhead lights, illuminating the vast store. Rows of shelves and glass cases displayed an array of firearms—from compact revolvers to heavy machine guns. In a corner, antique weapons gleamed under spotlights.
"Stick to lightweight, high-capacity firearms. Don't forget suppressors," Liam instructed. The group dispersed, eagerly selecting their weapons. They couldn't carry everything, so choices had to be made.
Meanwhile, two blocks away on Elm Street, chaos reigned. A group Liam had encountered weeks ago was in trouble: black gang leader Jordans, his top shooter Robby, Robbie's brother Dogg, and two underlings, Arthur and Anthony.
They had tried to escape by car, but abandoned vehicles blocked the road. Now on foot, they were surrounded by the undead.
"Move it!" Jordans barked, firing his pistols at the encroaching zombies. Arthur and Anthony followed, with Robby close behind. Dogg brought up the rear.
A scream rang out—Dogg had been bitten. Clutching his bleeding shoulder, he emptied his clip into the corpse that had attacked him.
"Dogg, come on!" Robby shouted, rushing back. In seconds, he fired seven shots, dropping seven zombies. The furthest was nearly forty meters away—a testament to his sharpshooting skills.
"I'm bitten, Robby. I'm done for," Dogg muttered, still firing at the already-dead zombie.
"It's dead. We need to go," Robby urged, dragging his brother along.
Robby's twin pistols barked as he covered their retreat. But the gunfire attracted more undead, swelling their numbers to over five hundred.
Jordans and the others reached a small auto repair shop. He blasted the roll-up door open and ushered everyone inside.
"Robby, hurry!" Jordans called, firing at the approaching horde.
"We need to close the door!" Arthur yelled.
"Damn it!" Jordans cursed, firing a few more shots before yanking the door down.
"Hey! Robby's still out there!" Dogg's voice echoed from inside.
Robby heard the door slam shut. He turned, disbelief etched on his face. Now alone, he was the sole focus of the undead on Elm Street.
What does despair look like? It's when you're alone, surrounded by a horde of the undead, your firepower dwindling, and death feels imminent. Even for someone like Robby—a gang enforcer with deadly aim—this was the edge. Though panic gnawed at him, his face remained a mask of calm. He was like Liam in that way—steady, calculating, unwilling to die without a fight.
His Beretta 92F, the same model Liam had once hurled at a zombie when it ran dry, barked in his hands. The M9, as the U.S. military called it, had replaced the M1911A1 back in '87 and had since become a staple in civilian hands. Robby was fast with his reloads. Each magazine held fifteen rounds. In just three minutes, he'd emptied seven mags. Two remained—one in each pistol—and both nearly spent. Over a hundred zombies lay dead, but the tide kept coming.
They closed in from all sides, slow but relentless. Robby's method was brutal and simple—shoot a gap, run through, shoot another gap. But his ammo was running out, and his lungs burned. The street was only half a kilometer long, but he'd zigzagged, stopped, started, dodged, and fired so many times it felt endless. His left-hand pistol clicked empty. Without hesitation, he hurled it at an approaching zombie. A gun without bullets was dead weight. He wasn't about to use it as a club and risk infection from a scratch. A real shooter avoids hand-to-hand unless there's no other choice.
"You filthy bastards!" he spat, turning and firing the last rounds from his remaining pistol. Then he spotted it—a car parked outside an old breakfast café, a GM sedan, intact. The owner had probably been inside when the world ended. Robby could hotwire it, sure, but not with the undead on his heels.
"Shit!" he cursed, realizing he had one bullet left. He always kept count. It was a shooter's instinct.
"Die, all of you!" he roared, sprinting forward. Instead of firing, he shoved a zombie aside, leapt toward the car, twisted mid-air, and aimed. The shot rang out. The bullet struck the gas tank. The explosion was immediate. Robby hit the ground hard, arms over his head. The blast shattered nearby shop windows, tore the car apart, and sent shrapnel flying. Zombies closest to the blast were incinerated or shredded. Flaming debris rained down, and within a hundred meters, few of the undead remained standing.
Robby lay prone, ears ringing, vision swimming. The world tilted and spun.
Meanwhile, a battered Ford tore down the road, mowing through zombies. Blood smeared the windshield, and the wipers worked overtime. Inside were six people and over fifty guns—mostly pistols and automatics, with a couple of shotguns. Old Mike had a thing for shotguns. They hadn't taken many weapons, just what they could carry. But they'd grabbed a lot of ammo. Small black bags filled with bullets littered the seats and floor. Bullets aren't that heavy—a thousand nine-millimeter rounds weigh about fifteen kilos. Not much, unless you're hauling them for miles. A decent handgun lasts six to ten thousand rounds, rifles even more. They'd taken extra guns not because they expected to break them, but because guns can jam, and backups are insurance.
"Listen… gunfire, up ahead," Liam said from the middle row, fiddling with a Colt 2000. Zombies howled outside, but he could still hear the distant shots.
"Yeah, lots of it," Jason added, setting down his AK-47 and listening.
"Probably on Elm Street," Old Mike called from the front. "We have to go that way. Should we detour? Gas is low."
"Drive straight through," Liam said, picking up an M16. They'd taken plenty from the gun shop. The M16, like the AK, was a legend. To Liam, using high-caliber rounds on zombies was wasteful. A 5.56mm round to the head killed just as well as a 12.7mm, and the latter was heavier. Still, he'd taken a Barrett M82A1 sniper rifle—a .50 caliber beast known as the king of snipers. He had plans for it.
As they approached the north intersection of Elm Street, the Ford sped in from a side road.
"Gunfire's drawn a lot of them," Liam muttered, eyes scanning the chaos. Just as they were about to cross the intersection, he shouted, pounding the back of Old Mike's seat.
"Stop! I know that guy—stop the car!" He'd seen Robby. But the zombie howls drowned out the engine noise, and Robby, only two hundred meters away, didn't notice the Ford.
"Shit! Everyone down, cover your ears!" Liam yelled.
The car outside the café exploded