The explosion only grazed the SUVs bringing up the rear, but whatever damage it had caused was enough to send the vehicles spiraling out of control. One of them went off road, head first into a rock wall. Now motionless, its back tires spun wildly. The other slammed on the brakes before it hit the school bus in front of it.

Surprise. Speed. Violence of action.

Four men clambered out of the SUV. Precise, fast shots from Blaze brought them down. The other two took cover behind the SUV, but our angle allowed me to see one peeping out from the edge. I brought him up in my sights and squeezed the trigger. My first hit tore through his right eye.

The buses rocked. Through cracked, blood splattered glass, I saw movement, but couldn't make out what they were doing. I heard gunfire. I wasn't sure if it was us or them.

Two men came running from the crashed SUV, wildly pointing their guns everywhere as they tried to escape the carnage.

Tap. Tap tap.

My shots hit. Their bodies fell to the ground and twitched. One was a headshot, the other pierced the torso. The man got to his knees and tried to crawl back to the nearest SUV. I exhaled and brought his terrified, dirty face into my crosshair, then I shot.

A flood of people poured from the emergency exit of the nearest bus. It was hard to tell who was alive and who was dead, until a runner tackled a living person to the ground.

"Take out the Zs and living," I said, just loud enough for Blaze to hear. "While they're distracted!"

I picked out a runner hunched over a woman struggling to get a handgun out of her belt. His neck gushed blood that blinded her. He leaned down and tore a chunk out of her cheek, then pulled back and howled at the sky as he chewed it. As he went down for another bite, I blew off his head. Next, I focused on the woman.

Aim. Fire.

A kid not a day over fifteen, with his arm torn off.

Aim. Fire.

Hispanic man shooting an AK-47 at a runner.

Bald man covered in blood, ripping the larynx out of a twitching body.

Aim. Fire.

People blurred together and became targets. My pulse leveled. A flat sense of bleakness and satisfaction mingled in the pit of my stomach with each kill.

I shoved an empty mag into my dump pouch. Swiftly, I grabbed a third full magazine from my vest and slammed it in.

Finally a minute passed with no moving targets. An occasional pop from Lasko and Ghost sounded from farther down the road. Other than that, the buses creaked under the weight of swaying undead passengers. Beating their fists against the windows, they gave frustrated howl as they tried to get out. Some tried to climb through the few broken windows, but jagged glass sawed into their corpses. They had yet to realize there was no more fresh prey.

I let out a long, shuddering breath I didn't realize I'd been holding.

Six minutes. It only took six minutes to kill them all.

Chapter 28.

"Any opposition?"

The four of us met halfway through the forest, and we kept one eye on the road. Some Zs milled about, but most were still stuck in the buses. They hadn't seen us, since the forest provided sufficient protection.

I realized Ghost asked us a question.

Cowboy up, Cyrus. This is what you wanted and you got it.

"No. They broke out of one of the buses, but we took care of it." I said. "You?"

"Not really. The explosion caught two SUVs in the lead. They're lower to the ground. Passengers are still inside. Dead of course. Never had a chance." Ghost motioned to the buses. "They escaped one of them, also, and we took care of it, but the other two got it pretty bad."

"Looks like they bottlenecked when they tried to escape and, well, none of them could get out," Lasko said. "Let's head to the jeep. This is done."

Blaze pressed her fingers against her temple and gave me a strange look. "I want to clear the buses."

"What?" If I was in a daze, that broke me out of it. "Blaze, there's at least 50 people in each of those buses. That's a hundred Zs. Do we even have a hundred rounds between all of us?"

The last part was an exaggeration. I had six mags left, plus my sidearm and all of its ammo. We could afford the bullets, but the notion was ridiculous.

"Blaze." Lasko's voice was soft. "Hun, its suicide. Those stiffs see us, they'll go berserk, and if they really want to they will get out of the bus and kill us."

Blaze's gaze stayed on me. "I want to check to see if my brother is in there. Or Gabe. We leave the buses here, full of Zs, they could get out. That's a hazard. We come back to do it later, they might be gone. Someone might come by and trigger them."

She was desperate. I could hear it. Until she knew Beau was dead, she'd jump on chances like this. No matter how many times she told me or herself she'd stop looking, or stop believing, she'd never give up. "We vote on it. Sorry, Blaze, but I'm not asking Lasko and Ghost to put their lives at risk any more than they have for something like this."

Blaze nodded stiffly. "I understand and agree. What's your vote then, Cyrus?"

"I'll do it. They all had guns. We use what they dropped to do it and we won't waste our own."

She turned to Ghost. He frowned, glancing back at the road. "Negative."

All eyes were on Lasko. She studied Blaze, then me, then Ghost. "I'm in."

"We start in the front and work our way back," I said. "Take it slow. No mistakes."

As we made our way through the forest to the front of the convoy, I took in the smell of cordite, blood, and death. My body was still surged with adrenaline, yet my mind was calm. I felt like I was waiting for something.

We cleared the forest and stepped onto the road. Bodies were scattered everywhere, some likely killed by the claymores and others by Zs. I bent down and snatched up a rifle, a bolt action .30 cal. The stock was splintered nearly in half, ultimately rendering the weapon useless. I set it aside and searched the mess. Finally I found an AR that looked almost identical to my own, but held .22 rounds. I dropped the mag and counted 15 rounds. It would do.

There weren't as many weapons as I anticipated. I wondered if they were storing them in the SUVs or the buses for transportation. They had to be loaded, after they took everything Brickston had. Maybe there was a meeting point where they were storing the gear. I made a mental note to look for it once it was all over.

We walked down the highway towards the kill zone. Groaning and howling grew louder as all the trapped undead caught sight of us.

The highway had thousands of welts and damage from where the claymores hit. Smoke stung my eyes. Somewhere nearby, liquid trickled from one of the vehicles, and I smelled gasoline.

The inhabitants of the lead SUVs struggled against their seatbelts, and the ones who wore none thrashed wildly as they tried to coordinate their clumsy limbs and climb out the shattered windows. In the front seat of the nearest SUV, a Z was occupied with chewing the face off the other passenger.

"I'll keep watch," I said. "Start looking."

Lasko withdrew her zombie killing spike and the three descended upon the car, quickly dispatching the Zs inside. They repeated the process on the second vehicle with no results.

We moved forward. The bus closest to the SUVs was empty. We approached the second bus in the convoy, which was full. Multiple undead tried getting through the windows, but they blocked each other from escaping. The yellow vehicle was shredded from the claymores and seeping red.

Zombies snarled at me. Their glassy eyes fixed on everything yet nothing. Freshly turned, their skin still looked alive. It was a bloody colander in there, full of shattered bones and dead flesh.

"We'll take the next one," Lasko said, as she and Ghost moved to the next bus. "Get this done quick."

This really is like shooting fish in a barrel, I thought, as I clicked off the safety on the rifle and aimed at the first Z. The .22 rounds were all I needed at point blank range. Once the mag ran dry, I switched to my own rifle. We had to go to the other side of the bus to finish the job. With the pileup of dead bodies on one side of the bus, paired with the upward angle, it was becoming harder to get the rest of the Zs.

We waited until Ghost and Lasko finished their bus and went to the other side. The door on our bus was still shut. Two Zs waited there for us, beating their fists against the view panes. They were louder now, more intent on getting us than they had been before. The buses shook as they paced and threw themselves about.

I caught movement to my left. The other bus's door caved and runners stumbled out. Ghost and Lasko were closest, so the Zs made a dash for them, and two more branched out towards us.

Then there were too many to count. We were in one another's line of fire, but Blaze brought down the Z nearest to us.

"Move back around the bus!" she shouted.

I couldn't see Ghost or Lasko. I had to focus on saving my own skin. We squeezed around the bus and SUV until we no longer risked firing at Ghost and Lasko, then we took out as many runners as we could. They were fast, and pushed us back towards the forest. For every shot I took, another one came around the corner.

I glanced to my right and saw Lasko stumbling back from the bus, firing into an approaching horde. Two tried to drag down Ghost, and their teeth ripped into his poncho. In a burst of strength, he tossed them off.

In front of me, a massive runner barreled through the others, saliva and bile flinging from his mouth as he gnashed his teeth. I fired, but the shot only grazed the side of his head. Soon, he was on me, smacking the barrel of my rifle away. With all his bodyweight, he pummeled me to the ground.

My arm shook as I pushed against his chest, and my free hand groped for my sidearm. Flecks of blood dripped from his face onto me. I squeezed my mouth shut and turned my head away.

Finally the handle of my Glock met my hand and I released it, bringing it up under his chin and pulling the trigger. Brain exploded from the top of his skull and his body sagged. I used his momentum to tip him off me and got to my feet. Then I grabbed my rifle just in time to take down another oncoming Z.

I emptied the rest of my mag into the dwindling crowd of undead, reloading and turning to help the others the second we'd cleared our own attackers.

For a second, my brain denied what I was seeing. Ghost was dragged down by three Zs, while Lasko fended off another four who slowly pushed her farther down the road.

I fired on one of the Zs and the bullet entered his ear. Blaze fired two shots in quick succession, both only hitting torsos. We fired at the same time, and the remaining Zs fell atop of Ghost.

Fuck. He barely moved beneath them. He was hurt.

Lasko still fought off a horde that had grown larger.

A stray bullet whizzed by me, and two Zs dropped. We couldn't fire at the group without risking hurting her. She saw us and made a sharp turn to the right, into the forest.

I took the opportunity to fire at the pursuing Zs. Blaze followed suit, and in a moment it was over. Lasko ran full speed back to Ghost. He was still buried underneath the corpses.

My chest was tight. I held my breath as I shoved the bodies off him and dropped to my knees. Lasko shouted his name, intermingled with a string of profanities.

A vicious bite wound gushed blood onto the asphalt, even though his hand was tightly pressed against it. His other arm was limp, and a tear in his long sleeved shirt revealed another deep bite. His dark eyes darted back and forth, rainwater, sweat and blood pooling into them. He coughed and a mist of blood spurted from his mouth.

"Oh fuck, he's fucking bit! He's fucking bit!" Lasko cried, kneeling down and pressing her hands against the wound on his arm.

"Blaze." The word gurgled in his throat. His hand left his neck as he reached out to her.

She stood five feet away from us, staring at him. Tears welled in her eyes.

"This...this is not your fault." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then looked at me. "Gun."

I clenched my jaw, my eyes never leaving his as I handed him my Glock.

Lasko went silent and drew her hands away from his arm. Ghost placed the muzzle under his chin, his hand steady. He took a ragged breath.

"I'm not afraid."

He pulled the trigger.

Chapter 29.

Lasko took one of his dog tags, tucking the necklace back under his shirt. She stood and wobbled on unsteady legs. "Take his gear. He would've wanted us to."

No one spoke as we took what ammo he had left and a few other items he carried. Most of his gear was in his pack, back at their detonator sight. We dragged his body out of the fray of dead Brotherhood and into the forest. It took over two hours for the three of us to dig a shallow grave and layer rocks over his corpse.

I didn't ask Lasko to finish checking the bodies at the buses. It seemed callous even by my standards. Instead, we left her at Ghost's grave while we finished the work.

Neither Beau or Gabe's bodies were amongst the group. My suspicion that their guns were stockpiled elsewhere was confirmed after a brief search of the gore filled buses. We found weapons, but not as much as I thought they should have.

We scavenged compatible ammunition and retrieved Lasko for the walk back to the jeep. I gave the coordinates and compass to Blaze, who I knew had a better sense of navigation than me.

You lost people. That was life now. Best case, you died from a wound to the head because it meant saving your friends the trouble of putting you back down. I'd seen my fair share of death, but Ghost's hit me as hard as Frank's did.

It upset me most when the noble, courageous, and strong died. The ones who fought harder than everyone else, that stood for something when no one else did. Ghost saved us from having to do the dirty work of killing him.

Fuck. Ghost said he didn't want to clear the buses in the first place, yet he used his dying breaths to try and save Blaze from years of guilt and self-hatred.

Life wasn't fair. That much was too damn true.

We found the jeep and drove to the NF road that would take us closest to the river that lead to the mine. A somber mood hung over us during the drive and the first two hours of hiking. We ate on the move, chewing handfuls of whatever freeze dried food we had left. It tasted like nothing, since all my senses had withdrawn as I replayed Ghost's death over and over.

After hiking by the light of our Dynamos for two hours, we found the river and stopped under a massive oak tree. The rain died down, but drips of it still slipped from branches and made the ground muddy. Though the river was small, it ran fast and wasn't flooded like the bigger one in Sultan. Rushing water soothed me, and I let my eyes close for a moment and took a deep breath of fresh air.

"I'm going to build a fire," Lasko said, speaking for the first time since Ghost's death. Then she walked down the river, following the shoreline.

I was about to stop her-stumbling around in the dark was a stupid idea-when Blaze stopped me. The look said, let her go.