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.‘Single shot only.Aim for the head.Only the head.’As the Marines took aim and began firing at the approaching group of Biters, Gladwell and the others took aim with their handguns.Gladwell ensured the safety was off on Jane and Jo’s guns and steadied Jane’s hands, pointing them towards the Biters.‘Sweetheart, don’t worry about the heads.At this range, we won’t hit them with pistols.Aim for the legs so we can at least slow them down.Take a deep breath, count to three, aim and fire, and then repeat.Don’t fire blindly or too fast.’And then the group opened fire in a deadly volley that would have massacred any human opponents.With the Biters, it had less of a dramatic effect.The two Marines were trying their best, but with the Biters moving, most of their initial shots missed their targets.Some hit the Biters in the chest and neck, and sent them staggering back till they resumed their approach.Then one of them scored a direct headshot and the Biter went down for good.The group cheered, but it was a small victory.That still left almost twenty Biters now closing in on them.Jane and Jo were firing away and Gladwell noted with dismay that most of their bullets were pinging off the pavement around the Biters.With human adversaries, even such near misses would have sent them scampering for cover, but Biters did not seem to care.He was about to say something when he saw how badly Jane’s hands were shaking.He took aim, focusing on a large Biter closest to them, a man wearing only a pair of shorts, his bare torso covered in blood and gore.Gladwell fired two rounds, one smacking into the Biter’s thigh, the second hitting him in the stomach.The Biter doubled over for a second and then straightened up and made straight for him.Jim and the Marines had been busy and at least three Biters were down but now they were less than fifty meters away and it was a matter of time before the Biters overwhelmed them.That was when Gladwell did something quite extraordinary.Under normal circumstances Gladwell would never have worked up the insane courage to do something like this, but all Gladwell could think of was protecting his family and so he stepped into the middle of the highway and began to walk briskly towards the Biters.Jo screamed out his name and he did not look back as he replied.‘Keep shooting!’He was now less than ten feet away from the nearest Biter, a thin man wearing a bloodied Superman t-shirt.Gladwell shouted back, though he would have no recollection of what he had said, though much later Jo claimed he had said something along the lines of ‘Eat shit and die’.Gladwell felt a stab of fear as the Biter came closer, and he tried to give him a name, to think he was a living, breathing enemy who could be killed, not some undead monster.So this one naturally became Superman.As Superman howled, Gladwell put a bullet through his forehead, sending him flopping down on the road.Gladwell was hardly a crack shot, but at such close range, he did not need to try too hard.Another Biter, this one a woman with flowing long hair now matted with blood oozing from her neck, took his place and came towards him.Gladwell missed with his first shot, which hit her in the shoulder, but the second put Rapunzel down for good.Another Biter went down from a headshot, and he turned to see that Jim had joined him.The two Marines had also come to join them and at such close quarters, they were putting down Biters with almost every shot.A large Biter, who towered over him, came so close that Gladwell could smell his putrid breath and see the yellow gore on the corners of his mouth.He put a bullet in his mouth and as the Biter staggered back, Gladwell kicked him in the gut and shot him in the head.Gladwell was suddenly aware that the Biters were no longer just in front of him but beside him.In the chaos of the battle, he was no longer facing a mob of Biters but in the middle of one.He shot another Biter down and took a step back as two more Biters reached out towards him.That was when both Biters fell, their heads cracked open by direct hits from large-caliber weapons.The deep rumble of heavy engines rose and Gladwell looked up to see several trucks and one SUV.Men in the black commando fatigues of the National Security Guard jumped out of the trucks and began mowing down the Biters with precisely aimed shots to the head.The bearded and turbaned face of Randhawa peered out from the passenger side window of the SUV.‘Gladwell, I thought you were a diplomat but you would put bloody John Rambo to shame.Come on!’As Gladwell shepherded Jo and Jane into Randhawa’s SUV, he turned to see the two Marines and Jim looking at him with an expression he had not seen before.Till now, he had been the ranking diplomat.Now, he was respected.In the new world that faced them all, this was one of the subtle changes they would all come to adapt to – the ranks and badges of the past meant nothing.Respect, and indeed survival, had to be earned in blood.***They sat in silence for a few minutes, each of them quietly taking in how everything had changed.Gladwell was glad to see that a few stragglers from the Embassy who had arrived late had been picked up by Randhawa’s convoy.In all, they numbered about a hundred men, women and children, all headed towards the relative safety of Randhawa’s base.Jo and Jane were in the back of the SUV with Randhawa’s wife and child and four armed commandos, and Randhawa had decided to drive the SUV himself, asking the driver to take a break in the back of one of the trucks.The terrified young soldier had saluted gratefully and jogged back to one of the accompanying trucks.Unable to contain his curiosity any longer, Gladwell asked Randhawa if he knew any more about what was happening in the world.Randhawa looked at him with bloodshot eyes.‘It’s really the bloody end of the world, that’s what it is.First we have these Biters crawling out of every frigging corner, and what they haven’t ripped apart, we will ourselves.’When Gladwell asked what he meant, he got a chilling account of the multiple nuclear battles being waged.Contact with much of the Middle East had been lost as Iran and Israel engaged in a last orgy of mutual nuclear annihilation that engulfed much of the region.Chinese missiles were flying into Taiwan and India and Pakistan were at each other’s throats.Gladwell closed his eyes and sat back, wondering if this was all a bad dream, if he would wake up and find that his biggest worry was fetching American Chopsuey for Jo at odd hours.He opened his eyes, and seeing the abandoned vehicles littering the highway, he realized that the world he had come to take for granted had indeed died.What would arise in its place was a terrifying prospect and he wondered how long he could keep his family safe.Thunder rumbled and Randhawa flinched before recovering.Randhawa grinned at him, and not for the first time, Gladwell wondered how he could manage to smile at a time like this.‘Never a better time to get out of the city.’Gladwell looked back and saw smoke rising in the distance from numerous fires that had broken out.He shook his head sadly.Even when human civilization was threatened, man’s baser instincts could not be tamed.The soldiers in the back were talking about how they had seen looters rampaging through the streets and with no apparent law and order, raping and pillaging at will [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]