Foundered

Yarachmiel IV: The Great Undead Army

Lost in his mind, Jasper hoped to wait out the storm, but the giant's unending prowl for them only assured him otherwise. "Once we die, will we be raised again as thralls?" he questioned.

"Not today," said Anatoli, showing his phone at them: the Serbs had come to the rescue.

The giant struck once more, carving the wall of their room out. It pulled its hand back once again, letting out a gurgling roar like the cry of a whale. And bam! The thing's hand fell withering down.

As it turned its face, the orchestral version of Serbia Strong filled the air. Two tanks rolled in, three armored vehicles following with heavy guns. Squads of soldiers ran in, unleashing a barrage upon the zombies which followed the giant.

The giant roared and closed in with the tanks, but they pulled back and barraged the giant with flaming shells.

Explosions barraged upon the giant, each shot knocking off multiple zombies. As the spreading fires engulfed the zombies, more and more of the viruses died, but that wasn't enough to take down the giant. As it came closer and closer, grenadiers and mortar crews launched their projectiles upon the thing, destroying its legs. For a minute and a half the chase and kiting continued, the giant collapsed to the ground soon after.

"Way to go," said Jasper to Anatoli, "you've repaid the debt, well done."

"Nope," he nodded, "I just did what I had to. And don't worry; it's all cheeki breeki."

"Come on then," Yara said, "let's go back. We do have a lot to discuss about."

They nodded and headed down to the streets, the soldiers wandering around town. "Sir," a soldier spoke, "we've found an abandoned tank here."

"Splendid," Anatoli said, "another tank, we can perfectly use it for our own defences."

"Aye, take whatever you can and kill whatever zombies you find, we have to head out and back home." Jasper stretched up with his shotgun on his shoulders, "I have a lot of things to take care of, plus a lot of things to update."

With that said; they entered their jeep and set off for the castle. It would've taken an hour for them to reach their destination following the long roads. They were exhausted, their mail shirts were badly torn apart, their ammunition packs half emptied in the chase.

"We should really invest in more powerful weapons, maybe like devastators or grenade launchers," said Jasper, "no matter how fun killing zombies with swords and axes is, neither one of the bigger opponents nor the giants can be taken down by simple weapons."

"Yeah, and thankfully they're pretty low on heavy artillery," said Anatoli, "when have you heard of zombies using towed or self-propelled artillery to take down castle walls?"

***

As they talked on, Yara turned his gaze to the setting sun. The verdant grasslands separating their castle from the other villages rolled on as a great sea of grass, a shadow looming over it. At first he thought it was just the shadow of the distant hills, but no.

As he turned towards the growing shadow with his night vision goggles, then we saw what it was: his blood ran cold, a chill breeze grasped his heart, and a spear of dread pierced his will.

"What is it?" asked Jasper, Yara handed him the night vision goggles.

There at what seemed to be a few miles off the road, a terrible shadow moved. Atop undead horses trotted the horrendous Dark Walkers, surrounded by ghouls and wolves and behind them tagged the great army of the fallen: an almost endless line of half-withered undead, following the marching lords as a wave. Observing their endless lines, they must've been a million or two in number.