He nodded, and Hawk sidled up next to him to help brace the door. Troy took a deep breath, and then turned the handle, pressing his shoulder against the door and inching it open. He grunted as a body slammed into the door, a bloody arm flailing out of the gap.
Grace took her time lining up her jab, as Troy and Hawk had a fairly good brace on the door. When she managed to get a good look at a snarling face, she lunged forward, avoiding the arm to stab the creature in the head.
The corpse fell, the rotted limb still hanging out of the bottom of the door, and Troy waited a moment before pulling it a little further.
Footfalls echoed in the hallway, and Hawk dropped his stance, really digging in his feet as the door shuddered from the force of bodies slamming into it.
“Jesus Jesus Jesus,” Joseph moaned, clutching his tire iron to his heart with white knuckles, and backing up a few steps.
Eddie threw himself between Hawk and Troy, the latter ducking down as a flailing arm whizzed past his face. Grace brought the crowbar down on the limb, snapping it at the elbow so that it dangled harmlessly. The upper arm continued to bob about, the corpse unperturbed that it had lost functionality of its claws.
She managed to stab the zombie in the face, right through the eye socket, and it slid down a little, revealing two more scrambling to get past it. “You need to open the door a bit,” she said, widening her stance.
“What?” Troy huffed as he struggled.
“I can’t reach the heads,” she explained impatiently. “I need them to be able to get partway out the door.”
He grunted and turned to Eddie. “Let’s slide back a bit, so I’m out of the swipe zone.”
Eddie and Hawk nodded, then moved back towards the hinges to give him room to slide. As the trio eased towards the wall, the door opened another inch, and three ghouls wormed their way into the opening, snarling and snapping at Grace.
She timed a jab, going high and stabbing into the forehead of the top zombie. It flopped back as the other two writhed around, one of them snatching her arm in its dead hand. She wrenched her arm away, but the death grip on those things was intense, and she couldn’t shake it.
Troy stared at her, wide-eyed, and she put a foot against the brick wall to hold her flesh away from the snapping jaws.
She noticed with a sour taste on her tongue than none of their other four teammates were coming to her aid. The door men wouldn’t be able to leave their posts, otherwise they’d have all the maintenance hallway monsters pouring out and overrunning them.
She wrestled her crowbar into her free hand, smashing it down on the hard-gripping arm as hard as she could. There was a sickening crack, but the fingers didn’t let up. These things had no chill—all they wanted was to feed, and nothing but a direct blow to the brain would stop them.
Aly screamed from behind her and lunged forward, swinging her tire iron hard into the gap in the door. Something crunched, and then the arm holding Grace dropped, taking her wrist with it. She pried the fingers off as Aly continued to flail away, smashing the tire iron with abandon.
Grace ducked to avoid one of the back swings, and then another head shimmied through the corpses on the bottom, managing to wriggle its torso out through the widening gap. She stabbed it in the top of the head, and soon the pile of corpses was still.
Aly continued to smash the zombies, despite them not moving, and Troy stepped away from the door, pushing her arm down. It was gentle but firm at the same time, as if he were trying to avoid getting smashed himself.
“Thank you,” Grace said, chest heaving, as Aly backed up, eyes wide.
The woman swallowed hard and nodded jerkily, quivering.
Grace glanced over her shoulder at the other three men, still rooted to the spot. She was starting to feel like Hawk was right, and this team wasn’t going to be good for them. But it wasn’t like they could change it, or do anything about it. She just had to hope to hell that having someone she trusted on each team would be enough to get them through this.
“Ease up on the door,” she said, and Eddie and Hawk leaned forward, letting it open another few inches.
Grace poked her head in and strained her ears, listening for any more movement down the maintenance tunnel. She spotted the door at the end, blessedly closed, with no more bodies moving about. She grabbed the brown collar of one of the corpses and hauled it out of the way of the door.
“Help me,” she said, inclining her head to Troy. “I don’t want to leave any doors open if I don’t have to.”
He nodded and reached down, and between the two of them, they dragged all the fallen zombies from the doorway, leaving them on the asphalt.
Once clear, Grace led the way into the tunnel. There was only one other door on the way to the mall proper, but it was locked tight with a warning sticker on it, likely electronics or water heaters or the like.
When she reached the door leading to the mall, she and Troy sidled up next to each other, peering out into the open area.
“What a shitshow,” Troy muttered, and her stomach sank.
She agreed with him. They were looking at an open area, the broken down escalators about fifty yards away. But there were zombies everywhere on the main floor, and they could see lots on the top floor balcony as well.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” she mused, and then stepped back to face the group. “Everyone take turns having a look, make sure you get a lay of the land.”
The group moved up two-by-two, all coming away from the window with concerned, pale faces.
“What’s the play here?” Eddie asked, voice tight.
Grace took a deep breath. “Same as we said outside,” she replied firmly. “We’re gonna fight our way across to the escalator, and then at the top, my team will go right towards the department store along with the sporting goods store team, and the decoy team will go left. I can’t see far enough that way, but you should be able to find somewhere to make enough noise and fall back somewhere safe.”
“Should,” Eddie replied dryly.
She shrugged. “You volunteered for that job,” she replied, waving a hand at him. “I know you’ll be able to figure it out.”
“Thanks,” he quipped.
“But there are so many of those… so many of those…” Joseph stammered, pointing shakily at the door. “How are we going to get even to the escalator?”
Grace took a deep breath. “They’re fairly spread out, and not in bigger groups than two or three.” She held up her crowbar. “Your best weapon is fists and shoulders. If you can’t knock them aside, barrel ‘em over. Don’t stop moving, or you’re dead. Don’t even go for kill shots, just focus on making a path for yourself. Hawk and I will take the lead, and we’ll try to move in a train, two by two, with the decoy team bringing up the rear. Questions?”
Aly raised her hand with the tire iron. “What if we trip or fall?”
“Get back up fast,” Troy replied dryly.
Grace nodded. What else was she supposed to say? “Let’s go,” she said, and turned towards the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Grace waited until the door was clear about ten yards on either side, and inched it open, slipping through. She held it until Hawk passed it off, and then darted forward, stabbing a ghoul in the face as the others bustled out into the mall.
She knew she was breaking her own rule of not going for kill shots, but she was confident that she could take the time as she waited for the group to catch up. The door clicking shut and the sound of the corpse falling alerted some of the nearby ghouls to their presence, and then the chase was on.
Grace and Hawk moved forward side by side, stabbing and shoving zombies as they went. Sounds of struggles and grunts echoed behind them, but she couldn’t afford to look back to see how her team was faring. They had their instructions, and they had to follow them—she needed to focus on moving forward.
Halfway to the escalator, a pack of four ghouls tore towards them, with a fifth straggling behind, a lot slower than the
rest. She didn’t have time to ruminate on how No Name had reported that some of the zombies were slowing down, and that if that was the case, why not just wait for them all to slow down?
She and Hawk moved as one, lowering their shoulders to barrel into the first two ghouls to get close. They drove back the duo into their brethren, tripping them all up.
Grace did glance over her shoulder this time, unsure if they should leave the ghouls here for their friends or not. Aly screamed as she kicked a zombie in the chest, and Joseph cowered behind her, waving his tire iron wildly at another.
Grace grunted and knelt, stabbing efficiently at the fallen zombies. Hawk shook his head and took one out too, and then leapt up at the fifth shambling ghoul, giving it a hearty shove back into a few runners to slow their progress.
Grace darted for the escalators, finally seeing a clear path, and skidded to a stop at the bottom, whipping around to defend the area until the rest of the group could catch up. Troy, Eddie, and Aaron reached her first, and they formed a perimeter around the foot of the escalators.
Aly and Joseph tore over, hot on Hawk’s heels, while Leo smacked down a few ghouls and sprinted to catch up.
Grace turned and spotted some zombies staggering down the escalator towards them, on the left side. “Stay right!” she cried and began the charge up the stairs. The zombies weren’t very steady on their feet, and began to fall, all flailing limbs and snarling mouths as they tumbled down the stairs.
One managed to grasp on to the center median, slowing its descent, and swiped at her. She smashed down on its skull as she went by, and though she wasn’t sure she killed it, at least it was out of the way.
A few steps from the top, a zombie tore into view, launching itself off of the second floor towards her. She lashed out, holding her crowbar with both hands to push it back, grappling with it as she braced the bar across its putrid throat. She wrestled it to the side, trying to throw it over, but it was too strong, and had the high ground.
Hawk reached over her shoulder and smacked it in the head, and though he didn’t drop it, it faltered enough that she was able to shove it over the side, plummeting to the first floor below.
Grace took the last few steps quickly, emerging onto the second floor. She immediately dashed to the right, lowering her shoulder and barreling into a zombie right by the balcony railing.
“This way, fuckers!” Eddie whooped, and his weapon echoed as he smacked it along the railing.
Grace didn’t look back as ghouls converged, tearing towards them from the department store. She trusted Eddie to do his job, and she needed to focus on the doors.
Hawk was next to her then, swinging and smacking. It seemed easiest to shove as many as they could towards the railing, and that way the fallen bodies were out of the way. Plus, if they landed on their heads and happened to break their necks, then that was more dead corpses that wouldn’t get back up again.
The sporting goods store came into view, and Grace turned to Troy, who waved back at her. He tugged Aaron after him, and they moved to the left side of the corridor, knocking over a few ghouls to tear for the store.
Eddie hollered some more in the distance, Leo whooping as well, though not quite as loud and proud.
Grace and Hawk each grabbed an arm of a particularly thick ghoul, running like defensemen together and slamming it into the railing, sending it toppling over to the first floor. Aly and Joseph clustered behind them.
“I thought we were supposed to just run!” he cried.
“We gotta clear a path to the doors!” Grace hissed. “Hopefully the decoy team can keep the rest away, but the ones between here and the doors won’t just run past us. If you can get to the doors first, start working on them, but we gotta kill what we can.”
The rest of them nodded, but didn’t have time to strategize any further, because three more ghouls tore for them from the department store.
Gotta think on our feet, remember? Grace thought bitterly and swung her crowbar for a mighty kill shot.
CHAPTER FIVE
Troy burst into the sporting goods store, the metal chain doors only half-closed. It was probable that they were either just opening the store, or just trying to protect themselves with locking up, when things went from bad to worse.
There were five zombies inside, and they perked up as soon as Troy and Aaron crossed the threshold.
“Get this closed!” Troy barked, banging on the metal barrier, and his partner began to struggle with it, dragging it along the track as quickly as he could.
Troy sprinted across the three waist-high aisles of various equipment, a ghoul in each, three in the far end. He snatched a hockey stick from the wall display and thrust it out lengthwise, attempting to use the business end to hold the oncoming ghoul at bay. Instead, it sank into the rotted corpse’s chest cavity, sticking inside.
Troy fought back a gag, and swung the zombie back and forth, using it as a shield to bonk back its brethren. He changed tactics and began to use it as an undead battering ram, consistently shoving them back.
His reasoning was to keep them busy while Aaron dealt with the other two, but that seemed to be taking longer than he’d anticipated. He chanced glancing over his shoulder, and saw Aaron just locking the metal barrier, and leaping back as a bunch of zombies in the mall hallway smacked into it.
He raised his weapon, as if to jab it through the holes.
“Leave them!” Troy barked. “There’s two more in here!”
Aaron whipped around just in time to see the two ghouls heading up the aisles, and he darted around to Troy’s aisle, wide-eyed.
“Fuck,” Troy muttered under his breath. He’d misplaced his hope, but at least the guy had managed to get the barrier locked. They had to get these zombies taken care of, though, before the others came back to hunker down in the store.
Aaron at least had the forethought to grab a hockey stick, and huddled up behind Troy, holding it in his opposite hand to the tire iron with white knuckles. The ghouls came around the end of the aisle, about to box in the duo.
“Once they get close, we’re gonna hop the shelves,” Troy said. “Ready?”
Aaron nodded, eyes wide.
“Now!” Troy cried, and shoved his ghouls back before throwing himself over the shoe shelves, rolling over into the clear aisle. Aaron followed, but he was a bit slower, and one of the zombies grabbed his ankle on his way over.
He screamed, swinging the hockey stick wildly, so hard that Troy had to duck, unable to get close enough to help him. The heavy shelves managed to keep the ghouls at bay for the most part, though he had to back up to avoid their grasping arms.
He jumped to his feet, stabbing his trio in quick succession, and then finally lashed out to grab Aaron’s flailing stick, wrenching it out of his hands. He brought it down hard on the zombie’s neck, cutting into it slightly. Aaron kicked up with his free leg at the rotted arm, finally dislodging it, and Troy lunged with the crowbar, catching it in the temple with the curved end.
He jerked downwards, tearing the front of the zombie’s skull clean off, leaving only one ghoul to deal with.
It shrieked as it clawed at him, mouth open, bloody drool flying everywhere as it gnashed its teeth together trying to snap at him.
Troy sneered at it, and then jabbed forward with the tip of the crowbar, burying it into the monster’s eye socket. As it fell, he stepped back, chest heaving. He looked down at Aaron, who was still on the floor on his back, covering his face with his arms.
“Thanks for the help,” Troy muttered, and poked Aaron’s shoulder with his shoe. “Come on, we gotta check the back and make sure it’s clear.”
The prone man swallowed hard and got up, picking up his tire iron and following Troy to the cash counter. There was a rack of baseball bats off to the side, and Troy dropped his hockey stick to grab one of them, sliding the crowbar into his belt loop. He gave the heavy wood an experimental swing, and then approached the back room, peering through the glass window.
; A zombie in a striped umpire’s outfit smacked into it, and Troy jumped, his muscles relaxing a bit at the fact that the door was shut tight. He reached out and gave it a push just to make sure and then turned back to his partner.
“We need to get back to the front of the store, see what’s going on,” he instructed. “And unlock the door if the others are coming back.” He swallowed hard. “When the others are coming back.”
He stalked to the front of the store, Aaron scurrying after him. The metal clanked and jangled as ghouls wrestled with it, their nasty fingers curled in through the holes. Troy stared at them for a moment and then set the baseball bat against a shelf of rock-climbing gear.
He pulled his crowbar again, and lined it up with one of the holes, waiting for the right moment to jam it through into a face. He hit his target, and one of the corpses fell. He glanced over at his reluctant partner.
“That tire iron isn’t going to do it,” Troy said, motioning behind him. “Find something sharp and get stabbing.”
Aaron clenched his jaw for a moment. “Isn’t the decoy team supposed to be drawing them away?”
“They might be too far away, now,” Troy snapped, rolling his eyes. “We might as well do our part. No use sitting in here cowering when we can be thinning the herd.”
His partner chewed his lip, eyes wide, but looked around for something to use.
Troy stabbed another one and then inclined his head towards the back. “Check behind the register, maybe they have a box cutter or something.”
Aaron nodded and scurried off, not as quickly as he could have, and Troy rolled his eyes again, assuming that the man was stalling for time. Really, of all the ways they could be fighting zombies, safely from behind a metal barrier was one of the best ways to get to do it.
After stabbing two more ghouls, he was just about to bark at his partner to hurry up when a loud noise echoed out through the mall. It almost sounded like… an electric guitar?
Dead America: Lowcountry | Book 5 | Lowcountry [Part 5] Page 2