Battlefield Z Series 2 (Book 2): Headshots Read online

  BATTLEFIELD

  Z

  HEADSHOTS

  By

  CHRIS LOWRY

  Copyright 2017 Grand Ozark Media

  Orlando, FL 32707

  All rights reserved

  www.Chrislowrybooks.com

  Follow me on Twitter @Lowrychris

  E-Mail: [email protected]

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  HEADSHOTS

  a Battlefield Z series

  Ben Taylor stood on the grassy knoll a couple hundred yards from the Dallas Book Depository and stared at the road below him.

  He wondered how JFK would have dealt with zombies.

  The spot of one of America’s downfalls was a tourist trap now. At least it had been up until the Z plague swept the nation.

  Taylor had thought about making for one of the Coasts and the proposed border walls before they sealed off the interior of the country in an attempt to contain the spread.

  He didn’t know if it worked.

  He got on the front of a government bus that was supposed to carry refugees to the wall.

  Someone turned Z on the bus before they got outside of Rockwall and Taylor escaped out of the back.

  Emergency exit indeed.

  “You got any movement?”

  A man squatted next to him on the knoll. Rat.

  That was his name, or at least how he introduced himself.

  “Call me Rat,” he held out a hand and they shook on it.

  Fast friends were easy to come by these days, especially if they didn’t try to kill you in the first couple of hours.

  Taylor wasn’t sure which was worse, the survivors or the walking dead.

  He was one of the lucky ones.

  He guessed Rat had been too.

  The wind gusted and tugged at the corners of the jacket he wore. It was hot as hell in the summer sunshine but with the Z around, he wasn’t going to take it off.

  Survivors wore covering now, head to toe, if they wanted to stay surviving.

  He shook his head and smirked.

  The wind blew a scattering of paper across the knoll.

  Before, he would have had an internal monologue about littering and the environment. People were just so thoughtless.

  Now, he couldn’t give a crap about it.

  One of the pieces of paper caught against his leg. He reached down a gloved hand and snatched it before it swirled away.

  It was a black and white actor’s headshot. Someone had marked the photograph with a bullseye on the forehead of the smiling white male, mid-thirties, coiffed and paint brushed to perfection.

  “Know him?” Rat asked.

  “Maybe in another life.

  “Did you kill him, man?”

  He said it with the casual air of someone who has had to do it too often. Too many times to count, and way too many times to care.

  Taylor glanced down at the picture and let it go. It lifted off in the breeze, twirled a couple of times and slid under the overpass out of sight.

  “Maybe.”

  Taylor had killed a few people too. More than he cared to count, though sometimes he saw their faces at night.

  Not the zombies, but others who survived.

  He and Rat had hooked up a couple of weeks ago, a strength in numbers arrangement that evolved into a friendship based on surviving.

  That’s what he was good at.

  Surviving.

  “I did my neighbors . . . after you know? That som’ bitch stole my hedge clippers, so it kind of felt right.”

  He giggled through his nose. It wasn’t as annoying as it had been the first ten times Taylor heard it.

  Rat kind of grew on him, once he realized the awful jokes and sick sense of humor were the man’s way of coping.

  They had been in a few firefights together and Rat held it together like a champ.

  A champ with no training, but then Taylor knew everything there was to know about tactics and warfare that any one person could get from watching war movies and seasons of BAND OF BROTHERS.

  “Let’s keep moving.”

  He held a hand down and pulled Rat out of his squat. They stood there a minute stretching and getting ready, ears up for anything out of the ordinary.

  Ordinary was a relative term now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  They moved through the city in an easy fashion. Before the Zombie plague that turned the city into a ghost town, he couldn’t go two blocks without getting accosted by a homeless person begging for change.

  Now they walked past the bus station terminal in abandoned silence. It made it all the eerier because the ghosts of memories played at the edge of his mind, making him a little jumpy.

  Taylor could tell his mood was affecting Rat.

  That’s what happened when two people hung out together for a while. They started to pick up on each other’s tics, habits and gestures.

  Like Rat moving his mouth all the time. Just working his tongue over his lips and teeth, a nervous habit that kept him from talking but made his mouth move in weird shapes, and lines.

  Taylor almost said something the first couple of hundred times it bugged him.

  Then he got used to it.

  The movement was an indicator. If it stopped, Rat was sensing trouble and needed to concentrate.

  Taylor kept glancing out of the corner of his eye just to watch the movement.

  It stopped.

  “What you got?”

  Rat shook his head. He didn’t know he had a tell, and that Taylor picked up on it.

  He just thought the man was sort of psychic.

  A shadow moved in the distance, hard to make out from where they were. The buildings in downtown Dallas cast long shadows as the sun slipped toward the western horizon, creating dark pockets and valleys of light.

  “Eyes up.”

  Taylor lifted an AK-47 to his shoulder and sighted up the canyon.

  The weapon was good for close quarter work, and when the two men had found it in the back of a drug dealer’s car, along with a now worthless bag of cash, they thought they hit the motherload.

  There were two automatic rifles, two 9mm pistols and a snub nosed .38 in the trunk, along with ammo for each.

  Taylor would have traded it all for a hunting rifle.

  He didn’t like letting the Z getting close. He would have preferred accuracy at a distance.

  The something ambled closer toward them, slipping out of the light and getting lost in the shadow.

  “You hit it from here?

  Taylor sighted down the barrel.

  “Too far. You?”

  Rat didn’t even have to check.

  “Nope. Think he smells us?”

  A soft, distant roar echoed up the canyon of buildings.

  Whatever it was, a body, once a person, started running up the long street toward them.

  “Won’t be too far for long.”

  “Let’s just get out of here,” said Rat.

  “He could be another neighbor of yours. Borrowed your mower.”

  He smiled but it was empty.

  “They run in packs,” Rat reminded him.

  Too late. A second body joined the first, the slap of feet on the asphalt bouncing off the concrete as they moved toward them in a fast-steady march.

  “I got them,” Taylor kept the rifle to his shoulder.

  He lined up on the first one’s bouncing head, timed it and squeezed the trigger.

  The shot echoed through the silence.

  The second dropped ten steps further than
the first.

  “No problem.”

  A roar surrounded them. Taylor and Rat glanced around, but couldn’t tell which direction it’s coming from.

  “We should have kept moving,” Rat sighed.

  “This way.”

  Taylor took off at a trot up the road. Even though he couldn’t tell which direction the zombies were coming from, he knew waiting for them was a mistake.

  One that could come back to bite them in the ass. Literally.

  They could hear the sound of shuffling footsteps all around them, a stampede of undead.

  Taylor scanned the buildings around them. Dallas went through a gentrification process in some portions of downtown every couple of years.

  First it was the West End being reclaimed from dilapidated buildings. Then the improvement district that crept block by block, reclaiming portions from the denizens.

  With each new iteration, the developers followed the same rulebook. Retail on the first floor, offices on the next few, then residential.

  They called it mixed use space, an incentive for people to live close to where they worked.

  Right now, the buildings on either side of them had been a drugstore, a convenience store, a candy shop and some small boutiques.

  He scanned the storefronts searching for one that was still whole.

  “Rat!”

  He spied one unbroken door and turned toward it. The windows were still intact, a good sign.

  Taylor slammed into the door. It didn’t budge.

  “Locked,” he grunted.

  The moaning grew louder. He couldn’t be sure how many of them there were, but if the sound of them was enough to bounce off buildings, well, that meant a big herd.

  Too many to fight.

  The fear made him slam his shoulder harder and this time it moved in an inch.

  He threw his body against the edge again, and Rat pounded with him.

  The door cracked open and they fell inside and slammed it closed behind them.

  Both men turned to the interior, guns held ready. They had done this before.

  It made no sense to watch the front door if a Z jumped you from behind.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The store was zombie free, at least the front section.

  It was a record shop catering to the whims of a nostalgic crowd. Racks of vinyl albums spread out in open rows with a counter at the back.

  “Clear,” said Taylor.

  “Clear,” Rat answered back.

  Taylor grabbed a rack and began scooting it to the front of the door as an extra security measure.

  It scraped along the floor with a squeak. Rat slung his rifle and picked up the other end.

  They were able to block the door with just a few more grunts and heaves.

  “Think we made it?” Rat hissed.

  Taylor peeked out of the dust covered window and ducked back as shadow forms filled the street outside.

  He ducked away and scurried to the counter at the back of the room, Rat on his heels.

  They squatted behind the long wooden partition.

  “I hope so.”

  Rat glanced up and spied a treasure on the other end of the counter.

  “They have a snack rack.”

  He crawled across the floor and reached up for a bag of peanuts.

  Something banged against the glass front door and his hand froze.

  A zombie in work coveralls bounced off the door twice and stood there. They couldn’t be sure if it was staring into the shadows, or something inside attracted its attention.

  For all they knew, the Z was staring at its own reflection.

  Neither of them moved.

  It bounced off the glass again, and a second Zombie joined it, a woman in her Sunday best.

  Taylor eased the barrel of his rifle up, aimed at the door.

  Both zombies bounced off the door, joined by a third.

  Rat lifted his rifle up in one hand, the other still frozen in mid air.

  The zombies stood there as if staring through.

  Then the last one moved away

  Rat slowly swings his gun to bear- training in on the Zombies head. His upraised other hand still didn’t move.

  Then it was gone.

  Rat glanced at Taylor and let out a quiet sigh of relief. He shifted his back to rest against the counter. The board cracked behind him and sent the snack rack crashing to the floor in a loud clatter.

  “Shit,” he grunted.

  The Zombie plowed through the glass door. It lunged for Rat.

  Taylor pumped a round into it’s head, but the loud bang drew others into the doorway. The zombies bunched up at the narrow chokepoint, but clawed and fought their way through.

  Taylor jerked Rat up off the floor and shoved him toward the back of the store.

  “Back door!” he screamed.

  “But the snacks!” Rat gave a longing look over his shoulder as he sprinted toward the dark rear of the store.

  A zombie clerk lunged out of the dark storeroom.

  Rat fell backwards on his ass and slid across the slick dust covered tile floor. Taylor raised the barrel of his rifle and jammed it into the clerk’s gaping maw.

  He pulled the trigger and decorated the wall with what was left of it’s rotting brain.

  He didn’t bother to help Rat up this time. The Z were in the door and lumbering after them.

  He slammed a shoulder against the back door.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  Rat shouldered him aside and shot off the lock.

  The door bounced open and back again. There were more zombies in the alleyway, but room to run.

  Both men jumped out.

  “This way,” Taylor steered Rat to the back of the alley. There were no zombies in that direction and an open path to the next street over.

  Until a zombie rounded the corner.

  “No problem,” Rat slowed and lifted his rifle.

  Then another, and another appeared, an offshoot of the herd.

  They were trapped.

  Taylor scanned the alley and spied a dumpster.

  “Up!”

  He ran to the large metal box and climbed on top. He tossed his rifle onto the roof and leaped for the edge.

  It was almost too far away, but the tips of his fingers caught. He fought for purchase against the smooth side of the building, working his hands up further and further until finally he could get a grip and haul himself up.

  Rat scrambled up behind him.

  “A little help here?”

  Taylor leaned over the edge of the roof. He reached down. Rat held up the rifle to use as a rope.

  “Get your hand off the trigger,” Taylor gasped.

  “Sorry.”

  Rat adjusted his grip and danced his feet away from the grasping hands of the undead.

  “Come on.”

  Taylor grunted and heaved.

  Rat planted his feet on the wall and shoved while Taylor yanked him up.

  He spilled over the lip of the roof and both man collapsed against the edge to catch their breath.

  “That was close.”

  “Closer than I like,” Rat licked his lips. “Wish I could have grabbed those nuts though.”

  “Just don’t grab mine,” Taylor shoved himself up and adjusted his rifle.

  “Have you seen them climb yet?”

  Taylor peered over the side of the roof at the zombie horde growing below. They bounced off the dumpster, off the wall, and the sounds of their moaning grew louder.

  “Not yet, but they might learn. Or crush each other enough to make a ramp.”

  “Gross.”

  “Yeah, pretty much. That bought us a little time.”

  He glanced around the rooftop.