I asked, “How’re the doors?”
With my back to the rest of the group, I didn’t know the doors were wide open, and Richard and Brother Ed were already inside. So, I was surprised when I looked behind me. I turned to Alex, who stood poised, ready to take on more zombies and said, “Inside. Now.”
She seemed a little reluctant to head into the room but must have made the same calculation I had and started backing toward the doors. I let her pass me and enter first, but I grabbed the door handles and yanked the doors shut behind me.
Phase One of our mission was complete. I wasn’t sure we’d live through Phase Two, though.
“What’s the situation?” I asked as I turned around to see Richard wheeling an eight-foot section of the wall my way.
He pulled to a stop next to Alex and me. Almost instantaneously, Alex shot up a skeptical eyebrow and said, “Those don’t seem all that sturdy to me.”
“Well, they are portable,” Richard said.
Brother Ed came next with a second rolling wall and said, “If we put them back-to-back, they should hold.”
“Am I the only one to say this, but the zombies will just push them out of the way,” I said. “They are on wheels.”
“Geez, you really think we’re dumb,” Richard said. “We’ll have to find something to hold them in place.”
“Like what?” Alex asked.
“On that, we’ll have to improvise,” Richard said.
Something slammed into the door behind us, causing it to rattle. Another something joined it. These ‘somethings’ were zombies, of course. They were building up outside as more and more began to pound away at the doors, wanting to get inside. Wanting the tasty meals that were us.
The pounding and clawing grew in intensity. There was no way to tell how many were out there, but I could only guess we had underestimated the numbers to the north side of the room.
“There’s no way we’re getting past them rolling these walls,” Alex said. “There’s just too many of them.”
“So, we’re screwed?” Richard said, and it was partially a question and partially a whine.
“No, we are not,” I said, as I slid my baseball bat into its sling and pulled my rifle off my shoulder. “It’s time to burn the ships.”
“What?!” Alex said.
“After Cortez arrived in North America, he was afraid his men would turn around and run back to the ships. So, he ordered the ships to be burned.”
“Is this little history lesson going anywhere?” Alex asked.
“It’s time to go all in,” I said as I flipped off the safety on my rifle.
“As soon as we start shooting, every deader on the outside is going to want inside,” Alex said. “Plus, we have at least fifty or more waiting for inside the building.”
“Then we’ll have to get the walls in place and kill every last one of these dead sons of bitches on the inside.”
“You know, if this doesn’t work we’re probably going to die,” Alex said.
“You have to think positive,” I said. “These walls are going to work, and we’re going to shoot a lot of zombies.”
Chapter 28
Risky Business
After being forced to use hand-weapons on our entrance, it was quite liberating to be able to let loose with our guns as we blasted our way out of the room. Alex had the right side and also covered our flank. I was on the left side and led the frontline of our attack. It had been my idea, so it was only fair that I took the lead.
Brother Ed and Richard both had one of the portable walls and were positioned on the inside of them. They had the walls facing perpendicular to the front of the building. Their job was to keep the walls moving in synch with each other. It was like we were inside a little enclosed room, only it had two sides instead of four. And oh yeah, it was moving. Plus, there were lots and lots of zombies headed our way.
Being in front, I got the first wave of the undead. Two zombies had the lead for a small group trudging toward us. I showed them no mercy as I sprayed bullets across their torsos and heads.
It wasn’t fair, but I wasn’t complaining. My bullets ripped into them, and literally tore them apart. Their moribund colleagues didn’t give two shits about their newly dead comrades, and powered on toward us. I rewarded their tenacity with bullets, blasting brain matter, bone, and blood out of the backs of their heads.
Shots boomed behind me, and I could only guess that Alex was back there blasting away. Her shots seemed a little too frenetic. There was little doubt that she had her weapon on auto. When I looked back, she was firing with abandon, sending out a relentless volley of bullets. She was taking out a lot of the zombies coming at us from the right, but she was also burning through her ammunition supply like it was water.
A zombie surged ahead of the others headed my way, and I planted a bullet in its brainpan. After its body slapped down against the floor, I turned and shouted in Alex’s direction.
“Slow it down, Alex,” I said.
When she glanced my way, I saw a wild look in her eyes verging on panic. I had failed to acknowledge that while Alex had lived through the worst of the early days, she had spent a lot of time in the safe confines of this building. On the other hand, my resume was a little more colorful as I had been out in the wilds like an old west gunfighter.
“Pace yourself,” I yelled. “You’re going to run out of ammo.”
“But they’re coming at us,” she said, and there was a shrillness in her voice that I had never heard before.
Three zombies came at me from the right. One was pretty big and also very hairy, looking like an undead Big Foot. The second one was average size and did not have the hair of the big one. The final one looked like a kid, and something had mauled it badly as it had most of its fingers missing. I sort of felt like I was Goldilocks. This zombie is too big. This one is too small. And this one is just right.
To get a better aim, I stepped away from our procession, stopped in place, and let my breath out as Greg had shown me so many months ago back at the church. I targeted the big guy first, taking dead aim (no pun intended) on his face. He bounced back and forth, making it challenging, but I timed my shot and blew his face off.
I swiveled my aim to number two, repeated my process, and blew the brains out of the back of his head. Shorty was next. To get a good aim on him, I lowered myself down to one knee and fired. He sullied my Olympic performance by jerking to the left just as I pulled the trigger. My bullet flew past him and struck a zombie thirty feet behind him in the knee. The impact snapped the leg in two and dropped the undead thing to the floor where he slid about five feet into two more zombies, taking their legs out from under them.
I could have said I did that on purpose, but where’s the dignity in that?
I knew I’d have to settle for the silver medal, but brought my aim back to Shorty. He was just ten feet away and was totally locked in on me. That made my job easy. Two seconds later, he was missing most of his head.
That all transpired in less than seven seconds. I think I’m getting good at this.
I turned back to Alex and said, “Take measured shots and breathe. You can do this.”
Her expression didn’t seem to display all that much confidence, but she shook her head vigorously and said, “Got it.”
I wasn’t sure she did, but we’d have to go with it. When I looked to the gaping hole in the front windows, I saw a lot of curious zombies peering in at us. It would be only a matter of time before they decided to come inside to see what was up.
“We gotta speed it up, folks,” I said.
Richard replied, “We’re going as fast as we can.”
“Alex, move up front with me,” I said. “We have to get to those windows - now.”
Alex asked, “What about behind us?”
“Brother Ed, can you push and shoot?” I asked.
“I guess, with my pistol,” he said.
“Then do it,” I replied and blew a big hole in another zombie’s head.
“We’re going to push the schedule up.”
Alex stepped in beside, and together, we started shooting. After moving up with me, she seemed to have settled down, and her shots were less spastic. It must have been my calming presence.
“Over your shoulder!” Alex shouted.
I whirled around just in time to see bony and desiccated hands heading for my face. I didn’t have time to pull the gun around and shoot, so instead, I brought the rifle back in a whipping motion. The butt end of it slammed into the zombie’s mouth, sending teeth scattering onto the floor like dice.
The blow knocked it back but didn’t put it down. It gave me enough time to pivot with my rifle. I planted two bullets in its face, and it was a goner.
When I turned back around, I discovered that Alex had just leveled three zombies off to her right, and the path to the window was clear.
“Push!” I yelled.
The zombies outside shambled excitedly toward the gap in the windows, salivating to get some of those tasty humans inside. One eager-beaver was just about to come through the hole when I jumped forward and shot it twice in the head. A geyser of reddish-black blood sprayed in the air as it pitched backward onto the ground outside.
“Out of the way!” Brother Ed shouted.
When I turned around, I saw both Richard and Brother Ed pivoting their sections of the portable walls, readying for the final move to jam them against the gaping hole in the windows. Two more zombies shuffled for the gap and it seemed as if they knew their literal, and figurative door was closing.
Just as those two were about to make those final strides to get inside, Richard and Brother Ed slammed their sections of the wall in place. They quickly turned their backs and pressed them against the wall in preparation for the onslaught. Alex and I did, likewise. My back was no sooner against the wall than I felt several impacts against it. The wall rocked forward, but it held.
It would hold as long as we held our backs against it, but that put us in a new predicament. It left us exposed to all the zombies still inside the building. Moving at all would let the ones outside in. So, that was out of the question.
As my twelfth-grade history teacher used to say, we were between a rock and a hard place. Only, in our case, we were trapped between a horde outside and a few dozen inside. We all liked our odds better with the insiders.
“Joel,” Alex said, and the panic was back in her voice. Her head jerked back and forth, and her eyes were wide as she took in the twenty-plus zombies headed our way.
“As the British say,” I said, “stay calm and shoot.”
“Well, I’m an American,” Brother Ed said. “And I can shoot now.”
“Let’s do this,” I said.
The zombies outside continued to pound away at the wall, making it a little more challenging to shoot, but the zombies inside made easy targets of themselves. Plus, they weren’t very crafty as they came at us. They went with the ‘straight on’ approach with no concern of being shot. That tends to make for easy shooting, but we still had a buttload of them coming at us.
We gave them what they came for -- which was bullets. That brought on a new concern, though. What if we ran out of bullets?
Holding the wall in place left us quite exposed at the front of the building. If we had to abandon our makeshift walls, then that meant we would have a flood of zombies pouring in through the window. They hadn’t stopped pounding away at the wall behind us, but I had somehow learned to block them out.
Every few knocks, though, I felt my feet being pushed forward. The idea of the wall toppling forward caused my sphincter to tighten.
As for the ones inside, they just kept coming as if it were Thanksgiving dinner and we were the turkey and all the trimmings. We hadn’t counted on the ones coming out of the recesses of the building.
“Holy shit,” Alex said. “How many undead bastards are still in here?”
One stumbled at her with his arm outstretched, wanting a piece of her. She swiveled and pulled the trigger, and that was it for that one, but like the hydra, two took its place.
“Ammo count,” I yelled.
“Down to two mags,” Alex said.
“Three here,” Brother Ed chimed in as he blasted the head off a zombie just ten feet away from him.
“Two,” Richard said.
“Make each shot count,” I said, and I got a zombie’s face in my crosshairs. A millisecond later, I pulled the trigger, and the zombie’s face was no more.
We each measured our shots and made them count. I sure as hell didn’t want to go hand-to-hand with the deaders.
“Last mag,” Alex said.
“I’ll be out soon, too,” Richard said.
Brother Ed spoke next. “I still have both my pistols in case I run out.”
“We can go to handguns if we need to,” I said. “But we might need something to clear out the dock area.”
“Let me speak for myself,” Alex said, “but I’d rather not die, so my Glock is coming out sooner, rather than later.”
In the end, we didn’t need to go to our handguns as the last few shambled in from a back hallway. I had always wanted to ascribe human emotions on them, so they looked eager. In all honesty, they just heard all the racket we were making and came to see what was up. Also, to check if the sound meant dinner might be available.
“Who wants the last ones?” I asked.
“I do, I do,” Alex said like an eager child.
“Getting a little excited there, huh?” I asked.
“I’m just so done with these undead fuckers,” she said as she aimed at an on-coming trio. By now, she had settled down, and she was no longer firing away willy-nilly. She took in two long breaths and locked her weapon in place. Three trigger pulls and three dead zombies. Brother Ed took out two more, and we were finished with our mayhem. At least for now.
Still, bloody bodies of zombies filled the foyer and the place stunk of blood and gunpowder, but we had re-claimed the building. There was an unexpected gratification that I hadn’t expected. It, indeed, was a job well done.
I guess any job was well done if you came out the other side of it alive.
As we took a breather, I let my eyes linger on a doorway on the back wall. A sign above it stated it led to the tunnels. There was a portal window in the door, though, but a zombie’s face bobbed back and forth in it, eagerly peering in and wanting to come inside.
I decided that it was an idea to explore another day. Maybe.
The zombies outside continued to slap, claw and pound at the wall behind us, desperate to get inside. Delicious humans were only feet away, and they just had to have a bite. But not today.
“You know we can’t stand against these things forever,” Richard said.
“Yeah, we should do something about that,” I said.
“Any ideas?” Alex asked.
Five minutes later, Brother Ed and I had four massive tree planters jammed up against our temporary wall as Richard and Alex held it in place. It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it would hold until we found one.
Chapter 29
The Hunger
“How much longer can you hold out?” the dark man asked, his voice seeming to echo in the room and suffusing her being.
Was he even real, or was he a figment of her imagination? Was this hunger driving her insane?
“You are very brave, but no one can stand against the insatiable hunger you’re feeling,” he said. “And why should you? Is it your fault that you’re in this predicament?”
Kara pressed her hands to her ears, trying to block out his words, but they bore their way into her mind like a swarm of insects.
“This isn’t your fault,” he said. “You know whose fault this is.”
She heard his footsteps behind her, shifting in the dirt and grit on the floor. She felt his warmth radiating onto her.
“You wanted to stay behind with the old man. Didn’t you?”
“Please, be quiet,” she said, sounding like a small child.
“It’s Joel’s fault. You’d be safe and sound right now and not this...thing you’ve become.”
“Please, stop talking,” she said as she tried to ignore his words.
“You know he’s still fully intact and human, don’t you? While you are here suffering.”
She bolted from the chair she was sitting in and wheeled on him, “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I can’t listen to you. What you’re saying isn’t true.” She felt her blood pulsing in her head.
He stood his ground just a few feet away, his arms laid across his chest, as his eyes emitted that dim red glow behind them.
“Am I, really?” he asked, his voice calm and reasonable.
She clenched her fists but felt no pain as her fingernails dug into her palms, drawing blood. “Leave me alone!” she screamed, her voice resounding off the walls of the small room.
He didn’t blink or even move as she glared at him. It was as if she hadn’t said anything.
“Do you really want me to do that? I have so much to offer you. Your life back. Your baby.”
He went silent again and let that sink in as he stared at her unblinking, those red eyes seeming to fill her being.
Kara’s breaths came in explosive bursts and her vision filled with red as the fury boiled inside her, roiling like the hottest cauldron.
“I know who you are,” she bellowed. “You are the prince of lies.”
She spun around and stumbled for the door. Two seconds later, she slammed through it and found herself in a dim, narrow hallway. Before the door shut behind her, she heard his voice spill out into the corridor.
“I am your only hope, Kara.”
Her feet kept her moving as she surged down the hallway, running in a panicked and reckless fashion. She had to get away from him. She had to get out of this building. She had to escape from this dark man. This unholy creature.
The hallway cut to the right, and when she cut that way, she saw the outline of light bordering a door, making it seem as if it were cut out of thick, black paper. It called to her, and she rushed toward it. She had to step over a desiccated corpse, but she was out the door five seconds later.
Books of the Dead (Book 8): The Living Dead Girl Page 14