The kid's eyes snapped back to the tunnel he came through, and his jaw dropped at the sight of dozens of zombies pouring in. The kid swallowed at the sight, panic creeping up on him. That fear was short-lived as he quickly realized that the zombies weren’t so good with stairs. Running at full speed, they would suddenly find themselves without a floor beneath them. With nothing on the brain but eating fresh flesh, they would blindly run down the steps, either stepping on air and falling or catching their feet as they ran down faster than their bodies could keep up. Either way, they quickly went from a swarming horde to a herd of lemmings, falling violently down the stairs, breaking bones and necks as they tumbled down.

Despite being essentially out in the open, their position provided them some level of defense. But that was short-lived as well, as hundreds poured out of the tunnel, falling over the first waves to land on the growing pile of bodies at the bottom. As the pile of dead rose the number that stayed down shrank. The kid just realized that a significant number of zombies had gotten back up and were headed their way when the repeated bangs of a machine gun practically deafened him from just overhead.

The helicopter dropped to hover about 50 ft off the ground, a gunner hanging out the door was shredding the field. In just a few seconds, all the zombies on the field were dead, and the gunner concentrated fire on the tunnel. Judging by the chunks of bodies and blood that continued to stream out of it, zombies were still trying to push through before being cut to pieces. The kid just watched the destruction, amazed by the fact that a simple thing like a good position and a single machine gun could hold back a horde. Roland grabbed his arm and shook him from his daze.

"Get your shit together," Roland yelled. The kid winced at the noise as it came over the radio in his ear. "We have incoming." A box dropped to the kids left, something that had been carried on the underside of the chopper with several cables still connected to it. Roland kicked a large switch on the box and the lid opened to reveal 2 large machine guns inside. Roland reached in and picked one up with one hand as though it were some sort of toy. He grabbed some kind of tube off the crate and jammed it into the side of the machine gun, obviously, it was some sort of belt to feed the gun ammo, then grabbed 1 of the legs for the tripod attached under the barrel and used it as a foregrip.

He swung the gun around to face the opposite direction the helicopter was firing. The kid turned in the same direction to see at least a hundred zombies coming from the ramp he saw earlier. Most of the zombies hit the gate and ran down one of the ramps on either side. Roland fired into the crowd, holding the machine gun like a rifle. Each round was launched with an eardrum-shattering crack, but Roland screamed over the noise for the kid to hear. "Pick up the damn gun."

The kid looked to Roland, then back at the swarming mob before practically diving for the machine gun in the box. It was about half the size of Roland's, though he probably wouldn't have been able to hold one of that size anyway, and was obviously designed for a regular person to use. He picked it up, grabbed the strange ammo feed and jammed it in, only missing once before it locked in place, flicked the safety, and started firing. Together, the kid and Roland each covered a ramp with suppressing fire, cutting down their numbers as they closed in. But even that wasn’t enough.

After a full minute of continuous fire, the zombies were about to break through. The ramps, gates, and narrow paths acted as bottlenecks, and the growing mounds of corpses slowed the progress of the approaching horde as well, but there were just too many. It was only a matter of time until the zombies started slipping through the last bottleneck and made it onto the field where they would spread out. The kid was just about to say they should fall back or run or something when someone started throwing grenades. The first 2 eviscerated the mob pouring onto the field and a 3rd did the same to those on the ramp. Another popped to the kid’s left, a quick glance showed him that the tunnel they were pouring in through was now on fire, hit with some kind of incendiary that was spreading quickly. He took this in for only a moment before turning back to the zombies rushing at him, only to see that they were right on top of him.

The kid didn't think about his reaction, just jumped. He put 1 foot on the zombie's shoulder and smashed his other heel into the zombie's nose. He unknowingly killed the zombie with that kick but had no concern for that as the fast-moving corpse swept his feet out from under him. He landed on his stomach, still pointing the gun and still shooting the machine in front of him, cutting down zombies at the knees. He pushed himself onto his knees and continued shooting. He screamed in rage or frustration until Roland swung around to concentrate fire on his side. The kid's gun fired much faster, but Roland's gun punched through multiple bodies at a time. 10 seconds of concentrated fire and the ramp was cleared, just in time as mobs started pouring in from all sides.

It turned into a shooting gallery, zombies coming from all sides, seemingly pouring over the walls and lunging down the rows of seats while the kid constantly spun to sight new targets and blow them away. Roland was actually impressed with the kid, he was unrefined, rough, and scared, but was doing well. That wasn't from practice, that was natural talent and coordination, something that was difficult to get from training. Roland smiled a little, this could work. "Alright, guys," Rolland yelled into his earpiece.

2 seconds after his call, and just as he was opening his mouth to curse out the pilot and the crew for being lazy and or sloppy, the helicopter unleashed hell. A machine gun under the nose of the helicopter, 2 forward-facing guns on either side of the glass cockpit, a gunner on each of the side doors, and 2 more turrets under the hinge of the rear ramp all fired on full auto, along with several dozen grenades or small missiles, tearing apart the stadium and everything in it. After only 10 seconds the air was thick smoke, dust, and the metallic smell of blood. The kid hadn’t noticed before, but with literal gallons of the stuff hanging in the air it was hard to miss the fact that infected blood smelled different from human blood. There was a distinct smell, almost like ozone with a bit of rotten fruit, and the air was charged. The hairs on his arms raised up, not standing on end but raised as though a statically charged balloon was hovering over the surface.

After a minute, the shooting stopped and the dust began to clear. Barely anything of the stadium or field remained, replaced with churned earth and a ring of debris and blood speckled rubble. It was only now that he realized just how powerful those machine guns had been, blasting through concrete structure and weakening the supports until its own weight caused it to collapse. The kid looked down at his gun just as Roland stepped into view from his right and grabbed it, ripping it from his hands. Roland was yelling at him, but the kid couldn't hear him. He couldn't hear anything. He tried popping his ears, digging his fingers in, and speaking out loud to try and bring it back. He was mostly unsuccessful. The ear with the earpiece had some major hearing loss but he could still hear the sound of the helicopter above him, but the other side was shot.

Roland slapped the kid across the face, snapping him out of his daze before he could panic and freak out. He sighed for the kid to put his earpiece back in, and the kid did as he was instructed. Roland then reached up into the helmet and turned a dial to increase the volume of the earpiece. "How’s that?" Roland asked. His voice sounded muffled like he was gagged or speaking through a door, worse was the high pitched ringing screech that persisted in the background.

"I can barely hear you." The kid yelled. He tried to continue, but Roland put a hand over his mouth to keep him quiet.

"Your hearing was damaged from the guns. We can fix it, but for right now you need to follow me." Roland tossed the kid's machine gun into the crate it came from like it was nothing, then he turned and started walking towards the mound of rubble. The kid started to follow but stopped when he noticed the black ooze that was leaking out from between the broken stone. "Keep moving," Roland said, stopping to look back.

"What is that stuff?" The kid asked, remembering not to yell the words.

"That's the stuff that’s gonna fix you."

Back at the bar

"Hold on a sec." Bart interrupted.

"What?" Roland asked as he lifted his glass. "Don't believe me?"

"Not that. I need to serve those guys," He nodded to a gay couple who were using the booth as cover to fool around under the table. "I just don't want to miss anything. Give me 2 minutes." Roland shrugged and took a drink. "Be right back." Bart actually jumped over the bar and jogged to the couple instead of just going around.

"So what happened next?" The short blonde asked.

"You don't want to wait for Bart?"

"It's not a DVD, you can't just pause when you want. Keep going, I wanna know how the kid dies."

"Who said he died?"

"Did he die?"

"Maybe, maybe not. You'll just have to let me tell the story."

"Doesn't really matter." The redhead said, sipping her iced tea. Roland wondered if she had a regular ice tea without alcohol, or if she just had a really high tolerance, but she didn't seem even a little tipsy. "The whole thing's made up."

"Why would you think that?" Roland asked with a sigh.

"Because zombies can't run, jump, or scream in the way you described."

"People just think that. They aren't as abundant, but there are more than just the shambling undead variety."

"Yeah, sure. And what kind of helicopter has that much firepower?"

"I don't know their exact designation but the crews always refer to that specific kind as a Halo."

"I thought that meant high altitude, low opening." The blonde said. "Like when you jump from a plane and don't open the chute until the last possible minute."

"That's called a Halo jump. But like I said, I don't know the proper designation for the craft. I'm not military, sue me."

"What?"

"Now I know you're full of shit." The redhead said with a laugh.

"How are you not military?" The brunette asked.

"Technically I'm not military," Roland said. "I work for an agency that works with the military. The military is practically the only one that contracts us, and they allow us to tap their resources, but we aren't under direct military control. I'm not just another military dog."

"So you're a mercenary?"

"Kinda. Think mercenary that does legitimate work."

"And tells tall tales to try and get some tail." The redhead said.

"Who's getting some tail?" Bart asked as he jumped back over the bar. He caught his foot and almost fell forward, but Roland reached up and grabbed Bart's belt and the back of his shirt before he could fall into the liquor shelves. Bart scrambled to get his legs over and Roland dropped him to the ground. "Thanks," Bart said as he pulled at the collar of his shirt which had dug into his throat when Roland grabbed his shirt. "So what's going on?"

"We're calling him out on the bull shit in his story."

"What bull shit?"

"Zombies that can run, scream, and jump. That stuff is straight out of a movie."

"They can do that," Bart said somewhat blandly. "I've seen it in person so I know it's not bull shit. Someone told me that it was because certain zombies would maintain higher motor functions during initial infection. In truth, it sounds to me like he's actually downplaying how vicious they are. The few I saw literally beat a reinforced wooden door down and dragged itself through while leaving a damn arm behind."

"Eww." The blonde said as she took a handful of nachos and smeared them across her face. She was probably aiming for her mouth, but considering how little made it in, she missed.

"Those were from the first generation," Roland said, offering the blonde a napkin. "The ones that are kicking around now are 2nd gens. They're a bit… well, not worse just different."

"2nd gen?" The redhead asked.

"There's a reason I chose to tell this story. I could have started with my first encounter during Z-day, but you wanted to know about the state of the world outside the wall so I started with a relatively recent story."

"Speaking of which," The blonde interrupted, lifting her drink and spilling a good deal of it on the counter. "Get back to the story." Roland laughed and picked up where he left off.