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reach of the chopper and in a good position to help the fleeing survivors.
    “Here,” Cahz said. “We’ll cover them from here.”
    He turned the corner and a body slammed hard up against him, pressing so closely he couldn’t swing his carbine round. Out of instinct his hand grabbed the figure, ready to push them out of biting range. In that fraction of a second Cahz hadn’t registered who had run into him.
    A young woman gripped by fear and holding a girl in her arms stood panting beside him. Her body trembled in his grasp.
    Cahz used his grip to propel her on round the corner. “Go to the helicopter!”
    Turning back to Cannon, he said, “Watch my six.” He knew his old buddy would have anticipated his tactic but his sense of caution demanded he say it anyway.
    Cannon gave a smile and a nod. “Sure thing, boss!”
    Cahz turned and took up position. In a different conflict against a different enemy he’d been taught to stick to cover, to stay low, but that was a long time ago. He didn’t concern himself with redundant doctrine. This enemy didn’t shoot back.
    Cahz stepped out from the cover of the building and, standing up straight, braced the butt of the carbine to his shoulder. He peered through the scope and selected his first target.
    Not far from him a zombie came hobbling after the young woman he had directed to the helicopter. It was a gaunt creature; a woman in life, now a sagging mass of sticky, syrupy, brown pustulence; wild sprouts of wispy hair on an otherwise leathery scalp, torn dress caked to her rotten flesh. Its lips were drawn back in a snarl, exposing a line of cragged and equally soiled teeth. Its pathetic limp was mirrored in grasping hands, arms glued to its sides, forearms outstretched from the elbows only. The decrepit beast looked like it had been dunked in oil like some wretched sea bird caught in an oil slick.
    Cahz pulled the trigger. A spray of bullets ripped through the zombie’s face, destroying its head.
    “Shit,” Cahz said. He thumbed a catch on the side of his carbine and flicked it from burst fire to single shot. He chastised himself for the waste of ammunition. “Get it together.”
    He aimed his gun again and in two smooth shots he obliterated another two walking dead. Another two shots and the path ahead was cleared for the next batch of survivors.
    The two men came lurching towards him, an old woman supported between their arms. Cahz could hear a stream of encouragement from the young men as they hauled the exhausted woman along.
    “Keep going down to the chopper!” Cahz shouted to the trio.
    Before taking aim again, he surveyed the street. Along the sidewalks, spilling onto the roads, staggering between the mangled cars, came an army of cadavers. All wore the same uniform of tattered brown stained clothes, all with the same pallid grey faces.
    Hundreds—if not thousands—of infected corpses, shambling forward, charging in slow motion.
    But there among the palsied attackers was a knot of fury. With lighting strikes a tall balding man with dark hair was battling obstinately against the swarming horde.
    Cahz braced his weapon and lent his assistance to the fight. Framed in the dark circle of his sight, he took aim and fired. Tracking from left to right he fired, trying to weed out the zombies on either side. He couldn’t risk a shot at the knot within the mêlée, so entangled in the combat were the targets that the risk of hitting the men he was trying to save was too likely.
    A spray of blood, red and warm and alive, spurted from the brawl. Cahz caught the spurt in his view as he picked targets. Had a shot missed a zombie to strike the survivor? Or had a zombie’s bite found an artery?
    He knew he couldn’t dwell on the reason. All he could do was continue to obliterate zombies.
    The scope went black. Cahz pulled back from his blinkered view and took a shocked step backward.
    Arms outstretched, head clocked at a crooked angle, a zombie was trampling its way