Swarmed?

Erin and I sat around the fire trying to figure out what we could do. We had last watched Tony walk off alone over 4 hours ago. We had no idea where he was going or what was running through his mind. I could only imagine the anguish that was tearing him apart at not being able to find his family. I looked over to Erin and she was half lost in thought and half on the verge of tears. I sat there thinking that she was now beginning to feel the pain of loss that Tony was feeling and it was finally getting to her.

We sat in silence staring at the fire and occasionally into the woods. We had spent weeks trying to get here and now the first person we had found that we were looking for had lost his mind and wandered off alone. I knew there was no way I could leave yet I knew soon I would have no choice as there were other I needed to find. I pondered how I would locate the others; would they be as easy to find as Tony had been or would we run across more difficult obstacles along the way.

As I sat looking up at the night sky, something I had not taken the time to do in a long time, I heard a loud gunshot ring out from the woods. I jumped up with my guns drawn staring at the direction from which the sound had come. I glared into the darkness of the woods trying to see if I could see anything coming towards us. After a few minutes of looking I saw a dark mass moving quickly down the path. I trained the two handguns I was holding on the moving object as it raced down the path. As the object got closer it began to take shape, that's when I realized that the quickly moving mass was not a enemy; it was Tony.

As Tony raced from the words he yelled something that I could not make out. He turned back towards the woods and fired another round from the sawed off shotgun. I sat thinking that he was just shooting random shots to blow off steam when I saw what he was shooting at. There was a horde of zombies running through the woods towards us. I yelled for Erin to get up and run, we had to somehow get to the car and get out of here or get to higher ground and try to fight back. I dashed for the car only to realize that there was no way we could get everything loaded and drive away before we were swarmed. Erin ran to the closest trailer and dove in while Tony ran to another. I was to far away to try to reach the door to one of the trailers so I jumped on top of our car and hopped onto the roof of the nearest trailer.

I heard Erin screaming out trying to found out where I was. I yelled back telling her that I was ok and just t start shooting. I was cut off by the sound of her shotgun blowing a whole through the nearest walking dead. The pieces of the creature blew backwards and covered the rest of the horde. The proximity of the blast naked the creature back and it bowled over the nearest zombies. I ran across the top of the trailer and jumped to the next. I barely landed on the roof but gained my footing after a few seconds. I slid to the end of the trailer and started firing off shots. Shooting in the dark is more difficult than one can imagine. The rounds struck various parts of the mass of moving dead, a few dropping in the process.

As on st on the roof trying to figure out how the hell we were going to get back to the car, I heard a noise I did not think I would here in the middle of a fire fight. I heard the sounds of a ripcord being pulled and a engine starting. As I listened to the whir of the engine I could not figure out exactly where the noise was coming from. I continued to fire shots into the mass below watching the mass continue to move forward and swarm our makeshift campsite.

I watched as the mass slowly moved towards the trailers and began pounding on the walls and doors. As I continued to fire into the crowd I saw the door to the trailer Tony had run in burst open. Like something out of a bad horror movie I watched as the zombies rushed towards the now open door. I fired rounds towards the door trying to stop the creatures before they could overwhelm the trailer but I could not stop them all. As I sat firing shots I heard the distinct whirring noise get louder and louder. I listened to what I assumed was Tony screaming as the creatures rushed him.

As I ran along the trailer and again jumped to the next one in the group I heard the whirring still going but still could not understand where it was coming from. It appeared to be coming the trailer that Tony had been hiding in, the same trailer that was now flooded with walking dead. As I jumped to the top of the trailer I could tell that the noise was definitely coming from this trailer and that it was unbelievably loud. I ran to the hatch opening on the roof and looked in, what I saw blew me away.

I looked down and saw something straight out of a b list horror flick. Inside of the trailer was Tony with a welding mask over his face, his shotgun in one hand and a chainsaw in the other. I could swear I was looking at something inspired by Army of Darkness. Tony swung the chainsaw at head level and caught every walking dead that moved towards him. There was a pile of bodies in front of him getting bigger and bigger. As the creatures tried to climb over their fallen brethren Tony continued to hack away. I yelled down to him from the hatch and told him to get over to me. He slowly backed away from the mass and headed for the roof hatch. Once he reached the opening he dropped the chainsaw and slipped the shotgun back into its holster. I reached out and told him to grab my hands. I struggled but slowly pulled him to the roof with me.

I looked into his eyes once we were on the roof together and could tell I was no longer looking at the same Tony that I had known before he walked into the woods. I could see the blank stare he had, his eyes were glossed over and staring through me. I knew this was a man who knew that he may never see his wife and child again but would not accept that they may be dead. I yelled for him to snap out of it and start moving. He glared into my eyes, grabbed on of my handguns and started moving for the edge of the trailer.

He hopped over to the next trailer and stared back at me. I knew he had something planned and I needed to get my ass moving. The whole trailer was moving at this point as the creatures continued to pile in through the door. I rushed to get away from the trailer as I saw Tony raise the gun to eye level. He was taking aim at something on the ground but I had no clue as to what. I jumped just as the hammer came down on the round out of my handgun. The round flew straight into something that I had not seen previously. I now understood why Tony had been piling them into that particular trailer. Outside of the door was two propane tanks that he was had seen prior to running in. The round struck the tank and blew the tanks up. The blast tore the trailer and everything on the ground near them to shreds. The explosion was deafening but did its job. Nearly everything within the vicinity of the trailer was gone. The other trailers had rocked with the explosion. Tony and I had lost our footing on the trailer we were standing on and fell to the ground.

I slowly stood up and looked around. My ears were ringing from the concussion of the blast. I looked over to the trailer Erin had run in and watched as the door slowly opened and she stumbled out. The explosion had caused her trailer to nearly fall over and she had been banged around in the process. She walked over to where we were standing and just looked at me without saying anything, For now the threat was over as nearly everything had been destroyed. We walked through the camp ground putting the final shots into the few that were still moving.

We walked around the camp gathering up our supplies and headed for the car. The blast had knocked one of the creatures onto the hood and smashed the windshield. The remnants of one of the tanks was lodged in the creatures head. The damage to the car was pretty significant, we would need a new ride soon but for now this would have to do. We tossed everything we could gather in the back and got in. I looked back to Tony and knew in that instant that we needed to go back to his house to see if there was any sign of Karen and Abby.