Dead Frontier/Issue 10

This is Issue #10 of Dead Frontier by Walkerbait22, titled Cornered.

Issue 10 - Cornered
"Run!" yells Cole. They all run in the opposite direction, trying to get over the many cars blocking their path. But the infected move faster than they can and are soon closing in on them.

"Get under a car!" Dwight orders. "And don't make a sound!" They all fall to the ground and roll under the nearest vehicle. Billie and Cole take cover under an SUV; Hannah hides under a blue sedan and Mercer under a Hyundai Tuscan; Dommy and Adam are under a minivan; and Dwight is under a green Jeep.

Cole tries to control his ragged breathing as he hides with Billie and the thundering footsteps of the infected chill his bones. He can see Hannah hiding under the car in front of him, teary eyed and shaking. He mouths 'We'll be okay,' and she nods her head.

Cole can see the feet of the infected as they walk past the cars. They grunt and groan loudly, and it makes his stomach churn. He can see Billie shaking a little next to him and grabs her arm to comfort her.

The infected start to slow down, and a few stop completely and sniff around. Flesh, the one thing the mindless corpses want. A bald infected with a large bite on his neck sniffs some more and follows the scent back to the large SUV Cole and Billie hide under.

Cole sees the infected stop next to the vehicle. His heartbeat speeds up dangerously. ''Come on. Walk the other way...'' But it doesn't. It bends down and spots Billie. It lets out a hungry groan and snatches her leg. She screams loudly, attracting the other infected.

Luckily, the infected's mouth can't reach under the car. Billie pulls out her gun and and shoots the corpse in the eye; it releases its grip on her leg, a large, bloody hole where his its eyeball should be. Cole and Billie both scramble from under the car, not wanting to get trapped in, and see everyone else shooting at infected, except for Adam, who stands frozen in place.

"What are you doing, Adam?" Mercer yells, firing a shot into an infected's brain.

"I c-can't," Adam stutters.

There are about twelve infected approaching Cole and Billie, cutting them off from the rest of the group. "We need to go!" Cole shouts.

"Where?!" says Billie as they scramble away from the infected. She shoots one between the eyes.

Cole grabs her arm and pulls her in the opposite direction of the infected. All there is is a large metal bar on the side of the highway to protect cars from what would be a pretty long fall. Cole leans over the barricade and looks down. "We need to jump!"

"Are you fucking crazy?!" says Billie "We'll break our legs!"

Cole scrambles his head for an idea, the infected rapidly approaching him from behind making it hard to do so. One of the infected falls to the ground with an arrow to the back of the head, showing off Mercer's amazing accuracy with his bow. "Aim for the top of that truck." He points to a large truck on the street below and steps onto the metal bar. Billie does the same.

Cole jumps and hits the top of the truck, but he falls on his leg. He instantly clutches his calf and yells in pain. He must've snagged his leg on the barricade because blood spews from his calf. Billie takes one last look behind her at the herd of infected. She can see the rest of the group running away, trying their best to scramble over the plethora of vehicles, back towards the direction of the motel. She jumps and hits the top of the large truck, and lands on her shoulder.

"You...okay?" Cole asks.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine." Billie rubs her aching shoulder. "Are you?"

"No," he groans. He squeezes his eyes shut, fighting back tears. "My fucking leg." He tries to sit up, but shrieks at the pain. "Did they...get out?"

"I don't know," says Billie. "I saw them running in the direction we came, but I'm not sure if they made it out." She scoots toward him. "Let me see your leg."

Cole stops clutching his leg so Billie can inspect it. She grabs his leg and as gently as she can, tries to straighten it out. Almost as soon as she moves it, he yells and grabs his calf again. She removes her jacket and uses a small knife to cut off the sleeve; she then wraps it around Cole's calf in hopes that it will halt the bleeding.

Billie sighs."Guess we're stuck here. Don't want to aggravate your leg anymore."

"This was a terrible idea."

"Maybe. At least we weren't dinner for the infected."

Cole is rendered immobile because of his leg, and he and Billie are forced to stay on the roof of the truck. They've been there for a few hours now, just talking, when it starts to get dark out.

"What'd you do before all this?" Billie asks. She lays and her back, looking into the sky and folds her arms across her head.

"I worked at a call center for this online company. They just sold crap children's toys."

"Did you like it?"

"God no. I swear, every time I went to work, a small part of my soul was being sucked out."

Billie laughs. "A bit of an exaggeration?"

"Nope. Not at all. "

"Alright. Then what did you want to do?"

"What do you mean?" Cole asks.

"Since it seems like you weren't destined to be a call center worker, so what was your passion or whatever?"

Cole thinks for a second. "Passion? I've wanted to be a screenwriter since high school. I was in the middle of a script. But forget about it. It's stupid."

"No, it's not. That's cool. Are you any good?"

"Nah. I mean, I was okay, but, y'know. What about you? What'd you do?" Cole asks.

"I was in college, at UIC. Pretty far from home, I guess," Billie says.

"And where would home be?" Cole asks

"Louisville, Kentucky."

"Really? Now that I think about, I can hear a little bit of that country accent in your voice."

"Are you calling me a hick?"

"No, of course not. Well, maybe a little." He laughs as she playfully nudges him in the shoulder. Suddenly, Billie sits up straight, looking further down the road.

"What is it?"

"I think I see cars," Billie says. "They're coming this way." She starts waving her arms. "HEY!"

Cole pulls her down. "What the hell are you doing?" he scolds her.

"I'm not going to sit here forever. And if they're trouble, I've got my gun." She pulls away from him and continues waving and yelling.

The two cars speed towards Billie. She sees a man lean out of the passenger window of one of the speeding vehicles, holding a wooden bat. He aims at a lone infected and smashes it across the head. "Fuck yeah!" he yells, and high fives his buddy in the driver's seat.

The cars come to a stop in front of the truck Billie and Cole are on. Four men exit the cars, each of them large and menacing.

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