The street was a mess of bodies already — dead walkers strewn across lawns, steps, pavement. But more kept pouring out between the houses, stumbling into the open like a slow, inevitable tide.
"Shields up! Hold the line!" one of the officers barked.
The officer's mentained the riot shields in a tight wall, shields braced shoulder-to-shoulder. The walkers continuing to slam into them with wet thuds, fingertips clawing over the polycarbonate surface.
Behind the wall, soldiers fired over shoulders and between helmets, trying to land clean headshots.
CRACK—CRACK—CRACK!
PFC Ramirez fired point-blank at a walker ramming the shield directly in front of him. Bone and brain sprayed as the skull burst.
The two officers behind the shield flinched hard.
"HEY! What the hell, man?!" one shouted, ducking.
"You tryin' to blow our damn eardrums out?" the other snapped.
" Do you prefer to have them bitten off then?
Hold your ground, if you don't!" Ramirez fired back, slapping a fresh mag in.
To the left, another officer grunted as a walker's arm got wedged between two shields.
"Shit—SHIT—get that one off! It's grabbing my strap!"
A soldier beside him shot the walker in the head with his sidearm and pushed the slumped walker away.
"Left side! LEFT SIDE!" someone yelled.
Three more walkers came limping out of a driveway at a fast, hungry pace. Two soldiers pivoted, firing in sync. First walker dropped, second staggered, third kept coming with half a jaw missing.
"Jesus, where the hell are they all keep coming from?" a young private gasped.
"Every bloody house in this place, looks like," Soap responded as he fired two rounds past him.
More walkers collided with the shields, the force driving the first row of officers back a step.
"Hold it—HOLD IT—!" one yelled through gritted teeth.
Soap kicked a crawler off his boot, then fired downward. "We're gettin' boxed in here, Cap!"
Price dropped another walker with a controlled double-tap, then glanced both directions — the street narrowing, dead funneling from multiple angles, the line starting to be slowly surrounded.
"Everyone fall back!" he shouted over the chaos. "Back to the gate! Do it now—MOVE!"
"FALL BACK! FALL BACK!" the rangers echoed.
The shield wall began stepping backward, careful but quick, soldiers firing in short, disciplined bursts to keep the walkers from pushing through. Every step left another corpse on the asphalt.
"Don't trip, don't trip, keep spacing!" a ranger yelled.
"Fuck. On our six—CHECK BEHIND!" another warned as a walker stumbled from around a house behind them.
Price fired a round into its skull without breaking stride.
More dead spilled into the street, drawn by the gunfire now echoing from both the inside the community and from the main gate.
Soap shouted over the din, "They're closing fast! If we don't move now—"
"I know!" Price snapped. "Mentain the formation — MOVE!"
The entire formation tightened, shields up, muzzles flashing, feet pounding over broken glass and corpses as they began their fighting withdrawal toward the entrance .
···
Gunfire cracked and snapped across the entrance of the estates. The insurgents used the walls at the gate as cover. At the stone planter where the scarred man crouched low, his jaw clenched and breath sharp.
Across the road, the soldiers were taking cover behind the Humvee and the armored police van, returning controlled bursts. Muzzle flashes lit the street in quick, disciplined shots.
"Shit—!" one of the insurgents yelped as he leaned out to fire. A round clipped his shoulder, spinning him back against the gate pillar. He dropped his rifle with a cry.
"Get him!" the scarred man barked.
Two others scrambled over, dragging the wounded man back by his shirt, cursing as bullets chewed chips from the brickwork above them.
The scarred man risked a glance around the planter — only to jerk back as a bullet cracked against the stone inches from his cheek. Dust sprayed across his face.
"Goddammit!" he snapped. "Whole thing's fucked! The plan's blown to hell!"
The firefight wasn't going their way. The soldiers were holding, steady and coordinated — and their return fire kept the insurgents pinned.
Worse yet… the dead were coming.
The woman with the hunting rifle screamed over the gunfire, voice sharp with rising panic.
"HEY! The other soldiers are coming THIS WAY — and the goddamn herd's right behind them!"
The scarred man swore under his breath, peering through the haze of gunpowder and dust. Down the street, he caught sight of movement — uniforms falling back from the inner rows of houses, walkers spilling out behind them in staggering numbers.
"Perfect. Fucking perfect," he muttered.
Another rifle crack forced him flat against the planter.
"We're gonna get eaten or shot if we stay here!" one of the insurgents hissed.
"No shit," the scarred man snarled. Then, shouting towards the others he said "We're leaving! Now!"
He jabbed a finger toward the woman.
"Smoke! Throw the damn smoke!"
She didn't argue. She yanked the canister from her coat pocket, thumbed the pin with shaking hands, and lobbed it out toward the open gate.
The cylinder clattered on the pavement, hissed once — then erupted into a billowing plume of thick gray smoke, quickly spreading between them and the soldiers.
"GO!" the scarred man shouted. "MOVE, MOVE!"
The insurgents scrambled to leave as the smoke swallowed the entrance, the growls of the approaching dead rising behind them like a tide.
They staggered away from the gate, half-running, half-dragging their wounded comrade toward the treeline. Smoke billowed behind them, swallowing the entrance of Wiltshire Estates, but the distant moans of the dead still carried through.
Branches snapped under their boots as they pushed into the brush. The scarred man slowed only once they were deep enough that the road disappeared behind a wall of foliage. He turned toward the woman with the hunting rifle, breath steaming in the cool air.
"Where are the ones we sent in?" he demanded.
She shook her head, adjusting her grip on the rifle. "The pair from the west side made it back, but… nothing from the other two."
The scarred man swore under his breath. His shoulders sagged with a tired, angry resignation.
"They're either stuck in there," he muttered, "or dead."
Just then — the crunch of rapid footsteps.
A figure burst out from around the far end of the wall, panting hard, eyes wide. One of the climbers.
The scarred man stepped forward. "Where's your partner?"
The man bent over, hands braced on his knees as he sucked in air. When he finally looked up, his face was pale beneath the dirt.
"Geeks… the geeks got him," he rasped. "We tried to get out — but they were everywhere ... we didn't stand a chance."
He wiped sweat from his brow with a shaking hand. "What the hell happened out here?"
The scarred man released a long, bitter exhale.
"What happened is this whole damn thing was a failure," he growled.
He jerked his head toward the shadowy tree line.
"We'll talk back at camp. Move."
No one argued. No one even answered.
The group just turned, grim and silent, slipping one by one into the forest canopy — the wounded limping between them, the smoke behind them thinning, the sounds of the dead echoing faintly through the trees.
···
Ghost and Gaz pushed forward at a run, passing the houses they previously cleared as they cut down walkers that lunged out from the sides of the same houses. Their rifles barked in short disciplined bursts—headshots, clean and quick.
"Bloody hell, this place is crawling," Gaz muttered as he stomped a corpse's skull in while reloading.
Ghost didn't answer. He simply pointed ahead.
The convoy loomed at the end of the street, idling. Gunfire cracked from beside the armored police van and the humvee behind it. That's where the soldiers were holding the line.
They rushed to join them.
Behind the armored van, a soldier sat slumped against a tire, gritting his teeth while a teammate dug gloved fingers into a bloody shoulder wound.
"Hold still, man—damn it, hold still," the teammate hissed.
Ghost and Gaz moved past them, taking positions at opposite corners of the van.
"Two at the wall," Gaz called out over the gunfire. "Stone planter, left side!"
He leaned, found a target breaking cover. An insurgent with a rifle stepped out of cover, raising his weapon. Gaz aimed center mass—but another rifleman peppered his corner, forcing him to duck. His shot clipped the man's shoulder instead of dropping him.
"Shit—hit 'im!" Gaz snapped.
The insurgent yelped, spun back into cover, dragged by a companion.
On the opposite side, Ghost sighted on the scarred man partially exposed behind a stone planter. Calm, silent, deliberate—Ghost squeezed off a round. Concrete chipped inches from the man's cheek, forcing him to hug the planter.
Gunfire cracked back and forth, bullets sparking off metal and asphalt.
"Movement!" someone shouted.
A small canister arced through the air, landing just inside the open gate.
"Smoke." Ghost called out.
A heartbeat later—fist-sized plumes erupted, white clouds billowing, swallowing the gate entirely. The insurgents vanished behind the screen.
Gaz swore. "They're legging it!"
But the chance to pursue evaporated immediately.
From the houses and street behind them came the unmistakable snarling chorus of walkers.
The first one stumbled into view, then another, and so on.
Ghost chambered a fresh round. "Forget them."
Gaz raised his rifle beside him, voice tightening. "Yeah. We've got bigger problems."
The soldiers shifted fire instantly, with most of them abandoning the gate to contain the tide of dead pouring toward them.
With the undead closing in. The smell of rot thickened.
Ghost adjusted his grip on his rifle, stepping forward into the fray as the moans grew louder.
"Let's get to work."
···
Price and Soap pushed hard toward the gate, rifles up, boots pounding against pavement slick with blood and gore. Ghost and Gaz were already in sight—firing in tight, controlled bursts alongside the soldiers part of the scout team , that remained with the vehicles.
Walkers poured from behind the line of houses they'd just passed, drawn by the gunfire. Price pivoted mid-stride and put several shots into a cluster trying to close the gap. Soap followed suit, breathing hard, blood flecked across his sleeve from a close call.
"Keep movin'!" Price barked. "Don't let 'em flank you!"
They fought step by step, pushing through the bottleneck of bodies to reach the idle vehicles. A soldier firing from near the JLTV shouted, "Captain! Right side—right side!"
Price swung right, dropped a walker dragging half a leg, then shoved past the JLTV-s bumper.
Ghost spotted them immediately. "Captain— we are getting surrounded. We need to move ."
Gaz reloaded stepping next to the armored van, brass clattering to the ground. "They're everywhere, mate. Whole bloody estate's emptying out."
Soap slid beside them, as he fired a burst toward the oncoming mass. "Aye, well—let's make sure it stays empty."
They pushed the final few meters out into the open space just outside the gate.
Turning to his team Price said "Hold! Check your angles—insurgents might double back. Ghost, Soap watch our back's"
Both Ghost and Soap gave an affirmative nod and took position on the outside wall.
Price exhaled. "Right. Then we finish this."
He and Gaz turned back toward the interior of the community—toward the main street where the walkers continued to funnel from between the rows of homes.
With no risk of being surrounded now, their defensive line held firm.
"Line up!" Price called. "Slow and steady. Give yourselves room!"
The officers with riot shields braced against the tide of walkers, boots dug in. Soldiers stepped in behind them, rifles raised over their shoulders.
Walkers pressed forward—stumbling, piling, clawing over the bodies of the ones already dropped. Some climbed the mound forming near the gate, slipping on slick flesh, tumbling down only for more to crawl over them.
"Jesus—look at 'em stackin'," Soap muttered.
"Keep shootin'," Price said flatly.
And they did. Methodical, controlled, precise.
Every walker that reached the front slammed into the riot shields with a wet thud before a round punched cleanly through its skull.
Minutes dragged out like hours.
Then, finally… the noise shifted. The snarls thinned. The movement slowed. Until there was nothing left but soft groans, then silence.
Price lowered his rifle first.
The street of Wiltshire Estates was carpeted in corpses—dozens upon dozens sprawled across lawns, sidewalks, and driveways. And at the main gate, a grotesque mound of bodies piled one over the other where the last of the herd had fallen.
Soap let out a long breath. "Bloody hell… that's a mess."
Ghost and Gaz just stared at the carnage, jaw tight.
Price scanned the perimeter one more time, ensuring no more threats lingered.
"Alright," he said finally, voice steady. "That's it. We've done it."
The dead were dealt with.