The Air is Fear (2)

Alexei moved his scope up, and he caught sight of the first walker.

It was slow, slow as fuck, but there were hundreds behind it.

No.

Millions.

He couldn't even see the end of them, but what he could do...

Bang!

A bullet flew straight through that walker's skull, and it fell to the ground in an instant.

Denzel quickly joined in, the loud boom of his Barrett joining the sound of the M2 Browning bang bang banging.

The air suddenly felt humid; and by god, was it full of the scent of gunpowder.

The soldiers on the ground had started firing, the ones in the other parking garage too.

...boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!

The M1 Abrams started firing their cannons into the horde, their machine guns also shredding undead bodies.

But that was the problem; their heavy guns, their heavy weapons, were only getting the bodies. Maybe one shot every ten bullets hit a head, but that simply wasn't enough. The zombies would just stand back up, continue their slow march towards the soldiers.

Pfewh! Pfewh pfewh pfewh pfewh!

The MLRS started firing, the missiles launching into the air and slamming into the ground, into the horde.

More walker bodies flew, but at least this time, most of them didn't get up.

Everything was going fine. Alexei estimated that if they kept this up, they would be done in maybe twenty hours without a walker getting in biting range.

They were holding the line and keeping their shit together. That was all that mattered.

He popped yet another walker's head; and another, and another.

The boom of Denzel's Barrett got him a little curious, and he looked over at where one of the bullets hit- for a split second, his eyes followed the bronze cartridge, before it ripped straight through one, two, three walkers and sent them all flying into the others.

And Denzel? He held up fine, even though the recoil must've been huge.

Alexei focused back on his own shooting; he couldn't get distracted now, of all times... even though he already did. Well, it wouldn't happen a-fucking-gain, how 'bout that?

Two hours later, and the walkers had managed to get closer. Not a lot, and certainly not within biting range, but closer.

They were holding them back, though. Maybe a million had been killed already, maybe more. Everything was going fine.

But then...

Then the air changed.

Alexei couldn't explain it. First, he saw the soldiers down on the ground freeze. He could see them start shaking even from up on the 9th floor of the parking garage.

The firing from them became frantic; sure, they were close to the walkers, but not close enough to be worrying about anything.

Then the firing from everyone on that line became frantic, and then they started running.

Running away from the horde.

And that's when Alexei felt it too.

An all-powerful, overwhelming urge to run from what he knew to be his doom, even though the walkers were at least a good 50 meters away.

The private manning the M2 Browning was the first to turn tail; he ran, ran, and tripped over an ammo box.

He fell right over the edge of the railing and plummeted to the bottom floor of the garage.

Denzel just dropped his rifle and started running down the ramp, towards the exit; Alexei soon followed suit, and before long, he noticed Hazel running with him.

This feeling... it was absolute terror. He didn't know what he was running from, but he knew. He knew he either ran, or he was dead.

The front line was all but abandoned. Every single soldier had left, and now they were running like panicked ants. Alexei saw more than one soldier get stomped into the ground by his friends or teammates.

Later, when he would be interviewed about the incident, he would go to claim that more people died to other personnel than any did to the walkers.

But now was not later. Now was now, when Alexei was running on pure adrenaline and fear.

It was overwhelming. That cannot be overstated. It filled every inch of his being, every molecule in his body.

Even the HUMVEEs started speeding away, and the M1 Abrams went too.

Soldiers were screaming all over the place; "Run!" "Save me!" "Wait!".

Alexei's boots just hit the asphalt, and his eyes just stayed forwards.

It was such a primal fear. Such a controlling fear inside him, inside everyone.

Another person tripped and fell, this time in front of Denzel. The big guy just kept on running, ended up crushing the poor man's skull with his boot.

He stumbled a little but didn't stop. Neither did Alexei, neither did Hazel.

More fell. More were trampled.

The undead were still far, far behind everyone. Far, far away. But everyone still ran, still panicked, still screamed.

Alexei didn't know why.

A HUMVEE sped right past them; the gunner was just blindly firing in the general direction of the horde, accidentally shooting his own soldiers in the process.

The driver had no care for the safety of others either; all that mattered was him getting out of there, and more soldiers were crushed and rammed aside.

Alexei looked ahead- and immediately regretted it.

The HUMVEE slammed right into a Fox News van, and both of the cars exploded in flames.

Suddenly, he felt an arm grab his shoulder, and he pulled out his combat knife before Hazel yelled in his ear, "Get in the damn car! GET IN!"

She practically threw him in before getting in herself and closing the door; it was a HUMVEE, one that had been abandoned... hopefully. The alternative was almost scarier than what Alexei was feeling right now. Denzel was in the driver's seat.

And they sped off down the road, away from the horde.

There were more than a couple bumps.

Alexei preferred to think of those as potholes, or dropped items.

Not soldiers.

Not what they really were.

And that's when he thought, really, seriously thought, for the first time in 3 minutes, we fucked up.

We fucked up bad.