Chapter 84 Calculation
Alright, let's give this a more laid-back, American web fiction vibe:
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Man, those advanced zombies are like lightning, no way you can load bullets one by one. So, in the apocalypse, folks just swap out the whole magazine. Takes like ten seconds, tops. Some pros can even do it in a few seconds flat.
Years of practice made mag swapping a smooth operation; one group changes, then the next, no need for reminders.
As the mags got swapped, in just a few seconds, the zombies had only moved about 200 feet. When the flare went up, they were about 400 feet away. So, in the twenty seconds it took to change mags, the zombies had closed in about 300 feet, leaving just 100 feet between them and the humans.
"Flare!"
Ethan yelled, all tense. Right then, he wasn't just a leader, he was a badass warrior. Even before the flare went up, he was already popping off a few shots. In that brief flash of light, you could see the zombies just 100 feet away, swarming in.
As the flare shot up, only two this time, the last two. If they didn't take out the zombies before the flares burned out, they'd be screwed in the dark. Once the zombies got into the crowd, their weapons would be useless.
The flare was like a starting gun; as soon as it lit up, everyone started blasting away at the zombies. Rows of them dropped, but the rest kept coming, closing the gap to just over 30 feet in no time. Under the flare's glow, the zombies' gnarly faces looked even scarier in the night.
"Fall back, fall back, keep the formation tight, and watch for any advanced zombies!"
The whole crew shifted into a guerrilla formation, splitting into two teams. The first team stayed 100 to 150 feet ahead of the zombies, while the second team hung back 150 feet, ready to jump in. When the zombies got within 30 feet of the first team, they'd haul ass back, falling behind the second team to reload. Then the second team would start shooting, keeping the zombies at bay from 150 feet away.
This back-and-forth, guerrilla style, used the speed difference between humans and zombies to slowly pick off the regular ones. With this setup, a hundred soldiers, as long as they had enough ammo, could take down thousands of regular zombies.
But those advanced zombies? Yeah, this guerrilla stuff didn't work so well on them, which is why taking them out first was a must.
Setting up a guerrilla formation needed some serious coordination. But Ethan's squad was a mix of five or six groups that hadn't worked together before, so when they fell back and switched formations, it got messy. Luckily, Ethan quickly got everyone to sort themselves into first and second columns based on their teams, stopping the chaos.
Once they got the formation right, the first team started firing. With over a thousand people shooting, the hit rate in the dark was only twenty to thirty percent, but still, three to four hundred zombies got headshotted and dropped, only to be trampled by the ones behind them. The gunfire was like a crazy symphony, with zombies dropping to the beat.
Alright, let's give this a more laid-back, American web fiction vibe:
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When the mag ran dry, the zombies were already breathing down their necks, just 30 feet away. At the captain's shout, the whole first column fell back, and as they moved behind the second column, the second group started blasting away. This back-and-forth shooting kept the zombies from charging and kept mowing them down. Without those advanced zombies, the regular ones were just like moving targets, no big deal.
This time, about twenty thousand zombies had shown up.
Based on the usual mix, there should've been a few hundred advanced zombies in that horde. But as they got closer to the settlement, most of the advanced ones had already been taken out by the Zombie Hunters. What was left were mostly regular zombies, which didn't really interest the Zombie Hunters much.
After a few rounds of switching formations, they finally ran out of flares. Watching the last flares slowly drift down, everyone felt a heavy weight in their hearts.
Without the flares, they could only see a few feet ahead. Some folks had flashlights, but the beams were too narrow to stop zombie attacks. The only silver lining was that most of the zombies had been taken out in the earlier rounds, and the few left could still be handled with some care.
Wellington checked their position with the shaky flashlight beams, only about 600 feet from the barbed wire. He had wanted to grab some infrared binoculars during the lull, but there wasn't enough time, and the ones available were just crappy knock-offs. Night vision gear wasn't an option either, and there wasn't time to hit up a military store.
Wellington had everything under control. Even before they got there, he had a force of five hundred lying in wait behind the trees near the barbed wire.
This wasn't to ambush them but to stop them from desperately breaking through the barbed wire. The plan was to lure the zombies and drain their ammo. This plan wouldn't work during the day because their hit rate would jump to sixty or seventy percent, and they could wipe out the twenty thousand zombies with just a few shots each.
"Rick, how much ammo do you think they have left?"
Rick had been keeping track of their shooting intervals and estimating their ammo. Hearing Wellington's question, he grinned and said, "Most folks carry two to three mags. Judging by how many times they've swapped, they're on their last one. Even if they have a few bullets left, the zombies have pretty much drained their ammo. We should be able to take them down easily."
When Wellington heard about Ethan's attack, he had already planned to absorb this armed force. With over three thousand people, the weapons alone were a huge asset.
If Wellington were to recruit such a large force, the cost, especially for weapons, would be massive. But now that they had come to him, why not take them? Plus, it was totally justifiable, and no one could argue against it. This was a golden opportunity.
Now, Wellington was more pissed at the Twelve Families. Without them, would Ethan have dared to be so reckless?
So, taking down these three thousand people would be a huge win for Wellington. At the very least, it would instantly boost his power above the Twelve Families, giving him more clout.