The Mercy of the living

Chapter 4. Hope

The radio in the tank went off again."Hey. Are you alive in there?". I started to crawl over to it and hit my head on a pipe. I grab the radio."Hello? Hello?", I said desperately. " Oh thank god. I thought I lost you in there. ", said the voice. " Listen, where are you? Can you see me right now?'",I said into the radio. " yeah, I can see you.", the voice replied. "Look,the other side of the street is less crowded. You have a chance." "What about that bag out there? With guns. Can I get to it?" "Forget the bag,its not an option. What have you got on you right now?" "Hang on.",I said in to the radio. I looked at the dead soldier and grabbed a Beretta off of his holster and searched in his vest and got a grenade. " I got a Beretta,one clip. Fifteen rounds." "OK, make them count"." Where are you?", I said in the radio. The voice sounded annoyed." Have you been listening?!? You're running out of time!".

I grabbed a shovel, breathed deeply, and opened the hatch of the tank. A biter was on the tank,growling at me. I smacked it in the face with the shovel,cutting off its jaw and it fell to the ground. I jumped off the tank and did a combat roll on the ground. I started running and firing off rounds one at a time into the Biter's heads. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! They started to drop as blood poured out their lifeless brains. I ran around the corner of an ally. I aimed my gun and this guy yelled at me," whoa whoa! Not dead! Not dead!". I started to run with him."Come on faster!", He was yelling. I was down to my last bullet. I shot another biter in the head.  I went to pull the trigger again but the gun clicked and the slide went back. I was out of bullets. The guy looked down at me and yelled,"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!?! COME ON!!". I put the  gun in the back of my belt and quickly climbed up the ladder as the biters swarmed the alleyway. "Nice moves there dude. You the new sheriff? Come ridding in to clean up the town?". " It wasn't my intention. ". I said." Yeah,whatever. Yehaw! Your still a dumb ass." "I'm Ryan,thanks." I held out my hand. "Glenn. Your welcome.".We shook hands.

" Where you the one watching over me?" I said to Glenn. "Yeah", Glenn said to me." I saw you hiding in that tank,and I saw the horse too.",Glenn said. "Come on let's go." We walked down some steps and he brought me to a group of his by the looks of it. He opened the door and we ran inside. He closes it then this woman runs up to me and puts a gun up to my neck. " we're dead because of this stupid asshole! Dead!",she yelled. "Andrea! Back off!", a man yelled at her. " Andrea,back the hell off." Andrea pulled the gun away from my throat and started to panic."We're dead. All of us. Because of you." I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. "Every geek heard you popping off rounds from miles around.", the man said to me." We need to find a way out fast. And pretty damn soon.", I said. The others agreed that we needed go get out of here. Or become a meal for the biters. We quickly walked up to the roof and looked through binoculars and saw some construction trucks. "Those trucks, they always keep keys on hand.", I told Glenn. " Even so, we'll never get passed the biters Ryan.", Glenn told me. "I have a plan.", I said to Glenn. "Follow me.".

We went around the back of the shop and dragged in 2 dead bodies that we found. I got an axe and dressed myself in a coat and put on a  helmet with a glass visor.  I raised my arms and started to chop the bodies into blood and guts. "That should be enough", I said. Glen and I got the blood and guts on our coats over our clothes and Glenn threw up from the smell." You'll be OK Glenn.",I joked." Shut up.",Glenn said with a disgusted look on his face. We opened the door and I took the axe. We started to walk past all the biters and it seemed to work." I can't believe this actually works!",Glenn said with excitement. " Don't draw attention.", I replied through clenched  teeth. A biter started to smell Glenn, so he groaned and it left him alone.

We were half way down to the truck. Then the worst thing happened: it started to rain. "Oh no", said Glenn panicking. " The smell, its washing off,isn't it? It's washing off!!"."No it's not!", I re-insured him. A biter started sniffing me. "Well, maybe.", I said to Glenn, worried. The biter charged at me so I split its head open with the axe." Run Glenn,Run!", I yelled. The biters started to catch up to us. We threw off the coats and ran to the truck. Biters started climbing the fence. I pulled out my gun and I started popping off rounds at the biters and hitting their heads. They fell off the fence one by one. "Ryan!", Glenn yelled. He threw me a pair of keys and we unlocked the truck and got in. I started the engine and a biter came up to the window." Go go go go!". Glenn yelled. I slammed down on the gas and off we went.

"Look, tell everyone to be ready at the front of the store. You'll draw away the biters." "How?", Glenn asked." Noise ", I replied. I got out the truck and broke a window on a camaro. I hot wired it and the alarm went off.

Glen got in the car and drove off. All the biters near the store turned around and followed the car. I turned the truck around and drove back to the store. Everyone was ready and I opened the back of the truck and we all got in. I closed the back and drove off." Wait a minute? Where's Glenn?",Andrea asked me. I shrugged. Mean while, Glenn was driving down the lane out of Atlanta and he was yelling in joy. I guess he really likes that car.