The Dead Walk The Earth (Book 4) by Luke Duffy Read Free Book Online Page B

to where Al was indicating. A throng of dark shapes were clambering over the low sill of the large window that covered the majority of the store front. He turned his barrel and fired, the tracers tearing their way through a number of the infected, causing them to glow from within as the magnesium burned right through their dried and withered bodies and causing a few of them to spontaneously combust.
    There were too many of them. Dozens of the infected bodies were pouring in from outside, relentlessly trampling over the mutilated corpses of the fallen as they advanced on the two living men, howling lustfully while they dragged themselves into the building.
    “Watch your left,” Tommy cried across to his partner.
    Al turned in time to see that one of the infected, its legs having been severed at the knees, was crawling along the floor through the aisle on the left. It was now only a metre away and could very easily have taken a bite out of Al before he even knew it was there. He blasted its head wide open with a single shot. He turned and glanced at Tommy, giving him an appreciative nod in way of thanks.
    They continued to fire into the tide of rotting flesh, their empty cases piling up at their feet as they struggled desperately to halt the progress of the crowd. Their weapons jerked and chattered endlessly as scores of the dead tumbled, but they were steadily being forced back as more and more of them spewed in through the gaping windows and shattered doorway, wailing with excitement as they caught sight of the living.
    There was no way that Al and Tommy could stem the flood and they knew it. For every one of the dead they managed to kill, five more would take their place in the line. The men continued to move backwards, deeper into the shadows of the building, relinquishing ground under the enormous pressure as the rotting corpses pressed their attack. Their rate of fire would have forced a living enemy to retreat, but the reanimated bodies, uncaring about the bullets that ripped through the air, never took a step back. Their only concern was to reach the men and strip the flesh from their bones.
    “Magazine,” Al yelled, hitting the release catch and dropping the empty to the floor.
    Grabbing a fresh one from a pouch on his vest, it was slapped into place within the magazine housing, and the barrage of fire into the rotting mass continued without letting up.
    “Here,” Tommy shouted over the roar of rifle fire and dead voices while grabbing hold of his friend’s harness and dragging him backwards into the dark storeroom behind them. “Get in, close the fucking door.”
    The pair of them disappeared from sight and into a cavern of blackness. Once inside they began grabbing hold of anything they could use to block the entrance and give them a moment to form a plan of action. A plan that could get them out of the mess that they were in. Crates of beer, boxes of bottled spirits, even a rickety steel stacking shelf and a filthy old mattress, was thrust up against the door, creating a flimsy barricade that both of them knew would not hold for long.
    “Grab anything you can,” Tommy ordered, throwing a wooden stool through the air and onto the growing pile.
    Within seconds, rotting hands began to pound at the door from the other side, causing it to shudder against its hinges and lock. Heavy thuds, the sound of heads and bodies slamming into the thick wooden obstacle that separated them from their meal, boomed through the darkness, sending terror rippling through the bodies of the two trapped men. They slowly stepped away from the barricade, watching it with eyes as big as footballs. They knew that it would not hold, but if it could just keep them back for a few minutes, then maybe they could find a way out of the trap.
    “What do we do? What the fuck do we do?” Al screamed over the noise, the pitch of his voice heightened with panic.
    “How the fuck do I know? You got us into this mess.”
    Together, with the narrow