Death is only the Beginning (EDITING)

Chapter XI

"So, one hundred and forty three 5.56mm rounds including the twenty three in my Scar-L, seventy two .45 caliber hollow point rounds including the twenty four in my M1911s, sixty one 9mm hollow point for my M9 including the fifteen in the magazine and one in the chamber, two M67 frag grenades, couple bottles of water, some aspirin, a couple bags of those little pretzels, but only one lousy can of corned beef," he says, holding up a rather large can and sighed. He quickly repacks his gear and takes a look at the streets below him. "With the undead quire down there and night time soon approaching, I might as well get some sleep," he mutters as he rests his head against his pack like one would a pillow and closed his eyes.

Loud thunder shakes him from his slumber, the black night sky lighting up, and heavy rain drops beginning to fall. He quickly gets up and looks at his watch he keeps on his left arm. "Two hours of sleep. Hope Jenkins is doing better than me," he says as he looks over to the streets, the rain now pouring heavily. He puts his gas mask helmet back on, adjusts the lenses to a tolerable setting, and puts his backpack back on.

Thanks to the light given by the still working street lamps, he can make out only three undead lingering around the alley. He takes a deep breath and quickly descends the ladder. The three infected, two men in torn police uniforms and a woman in a bloody flower dress, greet him with a gurgling moan and approach him with raised arms. The man shoves the woman aside and pulls out a Kabar knife that he kept sheathed by his left shoulder. The woman slams into the brick wall as the man thrusts the blade into the skull of one of the undead police officers. He sacks motionlessly to the ground after the man cleanly pulls out the knife.

Immediately he thrusts it into the other police officer while the torn apart woman was about to grab him. The woman too fell with a loud thud in the seconds it took the man to pull out his knife and thrust it into her temple. He wipes the blackish red blood from the blade and returns it into its sheath as he leaves the alley and heads down the street.

The loud thunder and the pouring rain lets him to slip by dozens of undead quietly as he slowly passes crowded street after crowded street unnoticed. A feeling of dread overcomes him as he sneaks by the undead. He turns right and came along several more infected trotting through the trashed street. Thanks to the thunder, his suppressor didn't get their attention as he finishes them off, one bullet at a time.

"Serg..zzzz..ear...zzz...e?, over!" a rustly male voice suddenly spoke from his built in radio. The man quickly stops, looks around, and then presses the red button on the small box attached to the right side of his helmet where the gas mask connects.

"Say again Jenkins? You're breaking up,"

"Sergeant Robi...zzz...Christ. I need..zzz..help," answers a male voice in a loud whisper. "I am trapped..zzz..ket by the..zzz..River Plaza, over!"

"Jenkins you are still breaking up. Where the hell are you?"

"I'm at the Wallmart..zzz..River Plaza..zzz..run by hundreds of Z's. I locked myself at the..zzz..yees lounge. The door won't..zzz..long, over!"

"I'm on my way. I'll be there as soon as I can. Hold tight and stay quiet, out."

"Rog..zzz..Sergeant, out."

The Sergeant pulls out his map and after pinpointing his location through the nearby street sign and the addition of markings and symbols to the map, he pinpoints Jenkins' location.

''Two fricken miles. Goddammit Jenkins you owe me big," he says to himself as he began running through the rain, the thunder making him invisible to the countless infected he carefully avoids. After twenty something minutes, he stops a only block away, the Wallmart only down a small hill.