Breakthrough
"He's here, look at this."
Three middle-aged men have their arms held on our guys, clamping them behind the blades of machetes that are touching their throats. Serx was included. The other three have bows aimed dead at our heads. I turned around, my hands hung loose, immovable. I saw more unknown people with pistols on the other side of the road. All pointed at us.
"You can leave. These three puny boys will follow. Fighting us will cause you more harm." This man, who is probably their leader, said.
"Pile all of your weapons there!"
We have no choice except to let go of our weapons. We can't attack them without having Serx and two of our people die. Every piece of our self-made weapons is piled beside a small sapling in front of us; the spear, club-ax, knives, bows, and even the two shotguns from the supply box.
"Whoa, you lil-kiddos have quite a lot of shits. How scary. I'm really afraid of you guys. But now you can leave." He said in a sinister, approaching the weapons.
But there's something nobody did notice. I still have my pistol strapped on my back, held by the waistband of the trousers behind my clothes. Just in case anything goes wrong. I took a look at the weapons we've put there. On anything I thought had been put onto the pile, to realize that something is missing.
The bomb. Dan's improvised explosive device. I took a look behind and saw that Dan is not even there.
"Not so fast!"
It's him. He came running out of the bushes on our right. In his hand was an armed bomb. The bandits have no time to react when he tossed the bomb behind the three machete-bearing men. Then immediately ...
BOOM!!
The explosion blew them. They dropped to the ground, letting off Serx and the other two. We took the movement at the same time arrows started to unleash. The guns began to blast off. The time was sluggish for a moment.
"Take your arms!" Vo shouted.
I take my pistol out. Vo got his club-ax back. Serx knocked one of the captors with their enraged fists. Anton quickly grabbed the shotgun. A man rushed towards him with a machete held above, only to receive tens of lead slamming into his torso.
And a gunfight erupted between me and the shooters across the road as the others clashed with the melees. I took a cover behind a large trunk of a tree. The wood chips splatter around, struck by the flashing bullets. Deadly twinkles went off behind the bushes as they shot their guns.
I tried to peek out of the cover. Shot one of them who stood in the open.
One more by the foliages.
The boys quickly took cover behind large boulders and. The remaining threats are those shooters across the road.
Dan shot his bow. Hit one.
Two left, and I shot one. Anton got the other.
Everything suddenly plunged into silence.
"Their master is missing. Got a sight on him?" Vo asked as he strode through the bodies.
"I heard of a truck engine leaving. Maybe it's him." Dan responded.
"Let the zombies finish him off."
Two of us were wounded in the fight. An arrow was stuck in Fran's leg. And another guy was shot - a fresh wound appeared on his upper thigh. They sat by the boulders, and their legs straightened out. The first aid from the supply box would help a lot for the treatment.
"Ah, that's bad."
"At least it's not because of the zombie, Fran," Anton said. "We'll reach the zone. We will."
"Hey, there's some painkiller shots in this bag. It will help lessen the pain when we remove the arrow." Dan showed up with a medkit from the supply box.
Inside the bag are two rolls of bandages, a painkiller syringe, a stitcher, a bottle of povidone-iodine, and some antibiotic pills. These things are precious in this kind of situation. Anybody would fight over that box.
"Look at this, it's a sharpened wood. No arrowhead. This can be easier to remove." Vo said as he took a fallen arrow off the ground.
The next hour was spent treating the wounds. Nobody of us had the first aid capability better than Vo and Dan. They successfully treated the ballistic wounds. But the wounded guys still can't walk.
And we don't have time to wait.