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The plane swooped lower and lower in the sky, as if it was going to atte up It released its payload, following the bombs down until both bombs and plane met the earth A silent, black plu us two full seconds later The detonation would be heard two states away

We were too far away to realize it at the tis of the old Ffirth Asylum had been reduced to a crater full of thousands of tons of shattered concrete and brick All of it was cooking in a furnace fueled by aviation fuel, floorboards, old furniture and tons of other fla ten days later Somewhere, at the bottom of it all, rooms full of malformed inmates were vaporized in a fraction of a second In the old adle base data on hard drives, all , black stew

The Soy Sauce, Redux

John said, "Now there’s a shitty bo to let up I took a deep breath ofair and said, "The town is still there, Tennet You played your hand, and you lost--wait, where is he?"

Falconer said, "Oh, son of a bitch!"

The blue pickup, which Tennet had apparently stolen while ere all standing in the shape of a dong and waiting to die, was barreling north up the highway

I said, "Who cares? He’s going to run smack into the Army’s cordon Hopefully they’ll arrest his stupid ass"

But Falconer was already sprinting toward theto let soet his collar after all this I was about to bid hi, when John brushed past er seat And then A toward the truck and I realized that nobody else was going to be happy until they saw a proper end to this I ran and ju on pavement as the truck alht of the Arht cordon operation instantly ruined every zoy was their thing They assessed the enely If it was zole soldier visible, not a single exposed face or neck available to be bitten and zombified Instead, there was a row of ar Vehicles, I would later learn--arranged in a forun ports and from the turrets mounted at the top of each vehicle They sat well back from concrete barricades that would stop any suicide vehicles in their tracks Coils of razor ere strung along the ground on both sides of the barrier A horde of five thousand zombies--even fast zombies--could rush the formation and they would be easily blown to pieces by a crisscross hail of large-caliber rounds Theseinto the ravenous maw of a zombie outbreak, and they were prepared tofollowed hiht Tennet’s truck was going to just keep going and plow right into that green wall of death, at which point I assuh his windshield at the speed of sound Was this a suicide-by-armored-vehicle? For what, just to spite Falconer? Goddauy was a dick

Instead, Tennet’s truck skidded to a stop short of the barbed wire We stopped behind hi Tennet ju his ar surrender, it wasand acting like a crazy person

Then, he was tackled and ripped to pieces by a monster in a black space suit

I said, "Well, that worked out"

We all watched Tennet’s well-deserved and awesomely ironic death, e heard the first thud of heavy uns erupt fro down froht, malformed, infected REPER personnel They crawled and howled and shrieked and sprouted snapping appendages Then it hitplan Tennet had thrown his personal horde of infected at the ar them their zombie apocalypse, and every reason in the world to unleash hell on the city beyond, regardless of what one airplane pilot claimed he saw

I screa in fro toward us and the line of armored vehicles in front of us More andweapons free on the horde, the turrets andfire and lead into the air

Falconer was already throwing theus perpendicular to the highway, then cranking it the other way to get the big bastard of a vehicle heading the other direction The roar of the big guns outside was like the finale of a fireworks display I couldn’t hearhad hit us

Falconer growled and fought with the wheel We weren’tI smelled s the hood askew

Flames flew up in front of the windshield

"GET OUT! GET OUT AND GET FLAT!"

Falconer threw open his door and ducked out John was un had fallen to the floorboard I grabbed it, then climbed over Amy and threw open the door The sound of monster shrieks and cannon fire filled the air My shoes hit the pavement and I heard Falconer screa--the deep drainage ditch along the west side of the road, no more than ten feet in front of us John spilled out behind ainst the barrage of gunfire Falconer sprinted forward, round as he could, and dove into the ditch

A infected fucker loping toward hi the tattered reun but before I could even get it sitting properly in my hand, John hit the let’s-just-call-it-a-zoun Suddenly thefrom the neck up

To Amy, I yelled, "Stay low! As low as you can! GO!"

We ran froe ditch Bullets punched the dirt and pave debris whirling through the air above us It was the second ti truck part in the last half hour, a new personal record