Troy laughed at the sound of some crunchy distorted power chords began to fill the air, and the zombies immediately dispersed, taking off towards the direction the decoy team had gone.
He shook his head, smiling. “Rock’n’roll.”
CHAPTER SIX
As Eddie broke away from the group at the top of the escalator, his heart hammered even faster in his chest. There were zombies everywhere, and they were going to be on top of them fast. He hoped Leo was keeping pace with him okay, because he didn’t have time to glance back over his shoulder.
He tried to stay in the center to avoid getting boxed in, as most of the stores were closed up tight. He shoved through the ghouls he could, toppling those close to the railing over to the floor below.
At the huffing behind him, he was comforted that Leo was keeping pace. They reached a bit of a lull, and he slammed his metal weapon down on the railing, echoing a loud clang.
“This way, fuckers!” he bellowed, looking back towards the department store. There was a plethora of ghouls all over the place down there, and though Grace and Hawk were holding their own, they needed the door clear if they had any hope of getting them shut.
He kept hooting and hollering, turning towards the direction they needed to go, and soon enough, Leo joined in, although without as much vigor. Eddie knew the man was scared—hell, they were all scared—but he was going to have to pull his weight if they were going to get out of this.
They tore across the gap of hallway, and out into a more open area of the second floor. The outer shops were all fancy boutique stores, high-end jewelry shops and the like. And the whole area was full of zombies.
“Oh, fuck,” Eddie breathed.
Quick on our feet, he thought, trying not to panic. Need to think quick!
They had to make noise, but they also had to not die, so he looked around frantically for somewhere they could do that.
“They’re coming!” Leo cried, looking behind them, and Eddie grabbed his wrist.
“There!” he yelled. “The music store!” He pointed and began to run, tugging the middle-aged man behind him. Leo almost stumbled, but thankfully caught his footing, because the yelling caused every single ghoul in the area to turn towards them.
He ran with everything he had, pumping his legs until they screamed, and he was moving so fast that he realized too late that zombies were coming out of the music shop towards them.
Just run, just go, he thought, and lowered his shoulder, knocking between two of the ghouls and tearing into the shop proper. He could hear the thundering footsteps behind them and had to make a quick decision. They couldn’t change course now, or they’d be overrun.
“Into the back!” he yelled, though he was still dragging Leo behind him like a running rag doll.
He skirted the counter and burst into the backroom, Leo stumbling in behind him, and slammed the door, locking it with the deadbolt. Soon a wall of zombies smacked into it, some getting caught on the cashier’s desk, others flying over it into the door and falling to the floor. But soon, they converged on it, and the whole window was just a pile of rotting flesh and gnashing teeth.
Leo cried out, and Eddie whipped around, crowbar held high. The older man grappled with a zombie with blood-matted dreadlocks down to its waist. They toppled over into a drum set, cymbals clashing loudly as Leo shrieked in fear, trying to hold the ghoul’s mouth away from his own face.
Eddie waffled, trying to line up his shot but afraid to accidentally hit Leo.
“Get it already!” Leo grunted, and gave a great push, shoving the zombie up as far as he could.
Eddie reacted, stabbing it in the temple, dropping it on top of his partner.
Leo immediately shoved the corpse off of him, backing up along the floor like a crab, and pressing himself against the far wall. “Are there any more?” he gasped.
Eddie shook his head, looking around the open store room. It looked more like a jam room, a place where music lessons took place. Off to the side was a desk, with a pretty impressive soundboard. Ignoring the pounding on the door for the time being, he approached the mixer, noting it was hooked up to a stereo.
He cocked a brow and hit the power button on the stereo. Some soft crooning piano music waved throughout the store, and he looked out at all the speakers lining the ceiling.
“That’s not gonna do it,” he murmured, and looked around for a stack of CDs or something. When he noticed a patch cord running from the mixer to a large amplifier, his eyebrows hit his hairline, and he grinned.
“What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?” Leo moaned, pressing his hands to his head. “We’re stuck in here!”
Eddie shook his head. “Our job is distraction, so distraction is what we’re going to do,” he explained as he picked up a bright red electric guitar and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Once they’re done their job, they’ll come get us.”
“Are you sure?” Leo babbled. “What if the others die, and they just leave us in here?”
Eddie shrugged as he plugged the patch cord into the guitar, pushing up the main slider on the mixer. “Then we’re going down rockin’.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Grace reached the department store first, and her heart leapt into her throat at the sheer number of zombies inside. Even on the second floor, the place was packed. Why were there this many people in the mall before things were even open?
Hawk slid up next to her, and they slid one of the doors closed, clicking the floor bolt down into place. This sent the ghouls into a frenzy, and they thundered towards them at full tilt.
“Hurry!” Grace screamed, and Hawk pulled on the second half of their door, managing to get it shut just in time. She looked over at the second set of doors, expecting Aly and Joseph to be there, doing their job, but they were still catching up.
Fuck fuck fuck, Grace thought, and tore for the other set of doors. The ghouls followed her, and Aly reached them just as she did, managing to throw both of their bodies into the doors just as the zombies crashed into them.
“I can’t!” Joseph blubbered, and quickly turned tail, hurrying off towards the escalator.
“Get back here!” Hawk cried as he pushed in next to Grace, trying to dig in his heels. Their shoes squeaked against the smooth tile floors, and the three of them breathed heavily, grunting as they tried to close the doors.
“It’s not working!” Aly shrieked, her eyes wide with horror.
A loud squeal echoed from the far side of the mall, followed by a series of rapid distorted power chords.
“We’re not going to get these closed,” Grace said, shaking her head. “We’re going to have to make a run for it.”
Hawk swallowed hard as he tried to dig in harder, fingers starting to wiggle through the gap in the doors. “We won’t make it to the sporting store before they overwhelm us,” he replied.
“If we go the opposite way, maybe they’ll run towards the guitar noise and we can hunker down and wait for them to be clear so we can close these doors,” Grace suggested.
“That’s a big maybe,” Hawk groaned.
Aly whimpered as her feet slid. “Make a decision!” she urged.
“On the count of three, we let go and run for that cafe over there,” Grace blurted quickly. “Ready? One, two… three!”
The trio pushed off all at the same time, diving towards the little cafe at the end of the second-floor balcony. If they couldn’t make it in, there was nowhere to go but down. It wasn’t the best tactical decision, but it was a gamble they had to take, better than being trampled by zombies.
As the doors flew open and ghouls poured out of the department store, some of them moved towards the guitar solo, but a good number of them took off after the fresh meal.
Aly tripped over her own feet and fell face-first onto the floor, smacking her face into the tiles. She screamed, and Hawk looked over his shoulder as zombies piled on top of her. Grace’s blood ran cold at the sound of tearing flesh, but it didn’t slow her down. Th
e woman was gone, done like dinner. Literally.
As morbid as it was, Aly’s gurgling body slowed down the bulk of the zombies chasing them, and they managed to skid into the empty cafe, dragging the Plexiglas divider across its track and locking it. It bowed a bit as a quartet of creatures crashed into it, but held.
“Fuck,” Hawk cursed, bringing a hand to his forehead.
“We need to clear the back,” Grace said, voice thick. She hadn’t known Aly for very long, but it was still a tragedy when anyone died because of these stupid missions they were forced to complete. However, there was no time to mourn, they had to do their jobs so they could survive.
Hawk nodded grimly, and they gripped their weapons, miraculously having held on to them during their battle with the doors. “I don’t hear anything,” he said, but they stayed cautious as they approached the counter.
“Me either,” she replied, and when they reached the curtain for the back room, she strained her ears before hooking her finger in the edge of the fabric and pulling it aside.
The back area was a small prep room, with two ovens built into the wall. A tray of muffins sat on the prep table, and Troy approached them, relaxing once realizing they were truly alone. He poked one of the muffins, and then knocked on top of it.
“Hard as a rock,” he lamented, wrinkling his nose.
Grace took a deep breath and pulled the walkie-talkie from her pocket, raising it to her lips. “No Name, are you there?” she asked, and turned around, heading back out into the cafe proper to keep an eye on the front.
Hawk followed her out and poked around behind the counter. He pulled a few levers and discovered the machine that spit out hot water, muttering under his breath as he pulled a few mugs down from one of the shelves.
“Copy, what’s your status?” No Name’s voice came through the radio.
Grace leaned on the counter as Hawk puttered around behind it and held the speaker to her mouth. “We couldn’t get the doors closed,” she reported. “Hawk and I are holed up in a cafe past the department store. I think Troy and Aaron are in the sporting goods store, and somebody from the decoy team is playing the electric guitar somewhere down the way. We can still hear it.”
“That is not good,” No Name said dryly. “What about the other two civilians that were with you?”
Grace rubbed her forehead. “Aly’s dead, Joseph ran away as soon as we got to the doors.” She sighed. “I don’t know if he’s alive or not. He ran towards the decoy team.”
No Name grunted on the other end with dissatisfaction. “So the doors are still open, and all of you are trapped?” he asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Maybe if we had proper preparation, and a team that was actually trained to do this kind of shit, then I wouldn’t have to tell you shit like this,” she snarled. “Or, you know, maybe if we weren’t slaves to a—”
“That’s enough,” No Name cut in sharply. “Let me talk to some of the guys on the roof and we’ll see what we can do.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Hey!” Troy cried as Joseph ran towards them, pumping his legs hard with what looked like a lot of effort. “Hey!” He fumbled with the lock on the metal gate, hoping he could get it open in time so that the man could come inside to safety.
Joseph completely ignored them, spurred by fear, and ran past them towards the decoy team.
“Is he stupid?!” Aaron blurted, pressing his hands to his head. “The noise is where the zombies are gonna be!”
“Asshole coward,” Troy snapped, shaking his head. “I’m not going out there and risking my neck to get him back.”
He turned to stare at the department store, where the others were struggling to hold the second set of doors shut. Before he could unlatch the grate to go and help them, they dove out of the way, letting the floodgates open.
“Get back!” he hissed as the department store zombies tore towards them. He shoved Aaron around the corner from the metal gate, pressing them both against the wall. The ghouls thundered past, towards the still-wailing guitar, and Troy peeked out, trying to see what was happening at the store.
A woman’s scream pierced the air, and he winced, spotting a cluster of ghouls bearing down on the floor. Guilt twisted his guts when relief washed over him that it was Aly and not Grace who’d fallen. The latter running for the cafe on the other side with Hawk.
“Who was that?” Aaron moaned, sounding near tears. “What’s going on out there?”
“Shh,” Troy replied. He wanted to make sure that the zombies eating Aly were going to steer clear of them. When they finished their meal, they took off towards the cafe instead of the guitar, slamming into the plexiglass barrier protecting Grace and Hawk.
He sighed heavily at the sight of the department store door still open. Every once in a while a zombie would come tearing out, catching wind of noise from the mall. The zombies banging on the cafe were loud enough that two more headed that way, including Aly as she reanimated, peeling her half-eaten corpse from the floor.
“Aly’s dead,” he murmured, and Aaron took in a ragged breath behind them. “Hawk and Grace are trapped in the cafe.”
“We’re fucked,” he groaned. “What are we going to do now? They’re just going to let us die in here, QXR bastards!”
Troy shook his head. “Just stay quiet,” he instructed. “If we get an opening, we can go close the doors and then kill the zombies outside of the cafe.”
“No way, no way we’re going to do that,” Aaron argued shrilly. “They said there are hundreds of those things in that store! Our job was to secure this spot, and we did it, and that’s all we’re doing!”
Troy turned to him, eyes blazing. “How do you go from crying about us being left to die in here, to standing by our job?” he hissed. “Clearly the plan didn’t work, so we have to change it. Grace and Hawk aren’t going to be able to get out of there by themselves, and we don’t know how long Eddie and Leo are going to be able to keep up the distraction down there. Not to mention how screwed we’ll be if all of the hundreds of those things get into the mall and are drawn to that noise. If they get too packed in here, we’ll really be trapped. We need to get those doors closed.”
“I’m staying right here,” Aaron said, swallowing hard.
“You realize if those of us that are useful die in here, and you’re the only one left, they’re just going to leave you in here, right?” Troy asked, voice low and menacing. “You realize that Grace is the only one who can get us out of this alive, right? No Name gave her a gun. You want to stick with her.”
“She wasn’t able to do her job!” Aaron protested. “They’re trapped too! What we should do is get down the escalator and back to the exit while all of the zombies are distracted!”
Troy rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, and those guys won’t just shoot us as soon as we come out, huh?” he asked, poking the man in the chest. “If we walk out that door, tell them that we abandoned what we were supposed to do and left four able-bodied slaves in here to die instead of completing the mission, they’re not going to put bullets right into our foreheads.”
Aaron’s resolve seemed to be slipping, but it was being quickly replaced by blind fear, and Troy was seriously starting to think there was no saving his team. He looked back towards the doors, trying to work out if he would be able to get there and shut them on his own.
He figured he probably could, and get them shut, but he wouldn’t be able to take out the ghouls at the cafe by himself. He’d have to run back to the sporting goods store and hunker down and regroup. But he wasn’t sure if Aaron was the type of guy that would be so overcome with fear that he’d lock him out. Especially if he had any zombies on his tail.
He chewed his lip. If only he could talk to Grace, try to figure out the best course of action. If he could plan with her from the outside, so that they could help from the inside, they could probably take out the zombies outside of the cafe without Aaron’s help. He grunted in frustration, ducking out of sight again as a
nother pack of ghouls poured out of the store.
There were too many ifs, and not enough solutions.
“Doesn’t she have a radio?” Aaron suddenly said. “She’s supposed to call for help once it’s done, right? She’s probably figuring something out right now.”
Troy hated to admit it, but he had a sinking feeling that Aaron was right. She likely was relaying the information to No Name and figuring out what to do next. If he tried to play hero, which he really didn’t want to do, then he might throw a wrench into whatever plan they’d have going on.
He kept his eyes firmly locked on the cafe, waiting for some kind of signal, some kind of instructions. Come on girl, give us a sign…
CHAPTER NINE
“Grace, do you copy?” No Name asked through the radio.
She and Hawk sat at the cafe bar, sipping some surprisingly delicious coffee he’d managed to make with one of the pour-over stations.
“I’m here,” she said. “What have you got?”
“We’ve done some recon from the skylights on the roof,” he replied. “There’s a couple hundred zombies throughout the mall, with dozens still in the department store.”
Grace took a long, thoughtful sip of her hot brew. “Wonderful,” she said dryly. “So what’s the plan?”
“We have the opposite problem now, where the bulk of the zombies are in the mall instead of the store,” No Name explained. “So same plan, but I’ll need you on the other side of the locked doors, inside the store. You clear out in there, and then we’ll do the fish-in-a-barrel routine from the other side.”
Hawk took a sip of his coffee, and then motioned to the barrier, where there were now nine zombies—Aly included—pawing at the plexiglass. “What about them?”
Grace nodded, bringing the radio to her lips again. “We’ve got nine of those things boxing us in here,” she explained. “They don’t seem to care about the decoy team’s noise.”
“There’s an access panel just outside of the department store,” No Name replied. “I’ll get one of my men to shoot something loud to draw them away from you, so you can get into the store.”
Dead America: Lowcountry | Book 5 | Lowcountry [Part 5] Page 3