Page 22 of My Apocalypse Mountain Man
One of the wandering zombies catches our scent. It moans, and suddenly we've got five of the dead bastards coming at us through the trees.
"Contact!" Sierra shouts, already firing.
I drop two with headshots, but more are coming, drawn by the noise. We're caught in the open, Old Pines' defenders can't help us, and the raider battering ram team is almost at the gate.
"Run!" I grab Sierra's hand and we sprint for the outcropping. The zombies are faster than they should be—these aren't the shambling kind, these are fresh enough to still have speed.
We make it to the rocks with seconds to spare. I boost Sierra up first, then haul myself up as dead hands grab at my boots. One gets a hold, and I have to stomp its face in to break free.
"Jesus," Sierra pants, reloading. "That was close."
"Tell me about it." I focus on the battering ram team. They're at the gate now, three men swinging a massive log while the fourth provides covering fire. "We need to stop them."
"I've got the shooter." Sierra lines up her shot. "You take the ram carriers on my mark."
She fires, and the covering shooter goes down. I immediately start dropping the ram carriers—one, two. The third tries to pick up the ram alone, and Sierra's second shot stops him.
The fourth raider—the one we saw take cover earlier—suddenly appears from behind the fence, rifle raised.
"Sierra, down!"
I tackle her as bullets ping off the rocks where her head was a second ago. We're pinned, and the raider has a clean angle on our position.
Then Old Pines' gate opens, and Tom comes charging out with three others, weapons blazing. The raider goes down.
"Clear!" Tom shouts up to us.
The remaining zombies are being systematically eliminated by the settlement's defenders. No more raiders appear. The attack is over.
An hour later, we're inside Old Pines, helping tend to the wounded. The settlement took casualties, but it could have been much worse.
"You two saved our asses," Tom says, passing me coffee. Real coffee, not the instant shit we've been drinking. "We didn't see the second group until they were on top of us."
"How organized were they?" I ask. "Radio jamming, coordinated attack, using the herd as a weapon—that's not your average raiders."
"They've been hitting settlements up and down the valley," the doctor says, wrapping a bandage around a defender's arm. "Same pattern every time. Use zombies to distract, breach during the chaos."
"Someone's training them," Sierra observes. "Teaching them tactics."
"We think it's a group called the Iron Wolves," Janet adds. "At least that's what one of them said before he died. They're trying to wipe out the settlements, claim the territory for themselves."
"Have they hit other places?" I ask.
"Three in the last month. We're lucky—we survived. The others didn't."
I look at Sierra, and I can see her thinking the same thing I am. Our mountain is isolated, but these Iron Wolves are moving north. It's only a matter of time before they find us.
"We need better coordination," Sierra says. "Real-time communication during attacks, not just morning check-ins."
"Agreed," Tom says. "But how? We don't have the infrastructure."
"We build it." Sierra's already in problem-solving mode. "Emergency frequencies, relay protocols, designated backup channels. If we're going to survive this, we need to actually work together, not just chat."
"You volunteering to set that up?" Tom asks.
Sierra looks at me, and I nod. We're committed now, whether I like it or not.
"Yeah," she says. "We are."
