by Won, Mark
The roof trembled again and I could sense that the ogres were below us, searching. For them ‘searching’ meant moving around, breaking through walls, until they found something to kill or the building collapsed. I thought that still wasn’t too bad, because I hoped that eventually they’d make the mistake of crashing through a wall and out into the street. Then we’d head-shoot them. I kept waiting for one of them to make that critical blunder, but they all seemed inconsiderately happy to remain indoors. It didn’t take long for me to develop serious reservations regarding the structural integrity of our surroundings.
I heard Connor yell, “They’re here!” and a moment later the sound of Mr. Moon’s horn overwhelmed the moaning and roaring of the crowd. Everyone in the RV began firing into the mob but the ogres still wouldn’t come out and play. It was almost as if the building itself had enraged them. Either that or maybe they just got lost in the ruin of what used to be the ground floor.
Finally something important in the building’s support structure broke and stuff began shifting alarmingly. I found myself sliding downhill toward the fire escape, so I dropped Bob and grabbed ahold of a projecting length of metal while the roof ledge gave way. With my off hand I grabbed Steven before he went over the side. He did the same for Hunter. With the building collapsing around us the sheriff was nowhere in sight, he must have fallen over the other side, the side closest to the RV. The three of us more or less fell on the balcony below, which promptly gave way, leaving us on the ground. By the hand of Providence Bob was at my feet, so I retrieved him immediately.
We heard the ogre’s loud hate filled cry on the other side of the building and heard people shouting and shooting. We moved around the building as well as we were able, but Steven had busted an ankle in the fall, and that slowed us down some. By the time we’d gotten around to the other side of the building we saw four ogres loping off after Mr. Moon’s motor home. They were being followed by a horde of zombies. The RV was, at least, drawing them off. The motor home had a hole where it used to have a door and there were a bunch of dead zombies and maybe an ogre or two in front of us, laying on the pavement, each with an extra hole in its head.
Steven said, “They left us,” in a tone of stunned disbelief. I thought he was being a bit harsh, especially since it was all his fault. If he hadn’t opened fire with that shotgun (which he seemed to have lost, by the way) then we’d have been just fine, waiting for the horde to move on.
Hunter was looking around, desperately, for somewhere to run. I told him, “Help me with Steven. We need to get inside, now!”
Hunter had a choice, I could see it in his eyes. All the zombies had run off; so could he. Alone, he could run in the opposite direction, and get out of this suddenly awakened town. Then, once at a respectable distance, he could circle around and make his way back to camp. I don’t know if he’d thought everything through that far ahead or not, but I had. It would be easy. Heck, I’d make it easy for him.
I said, “Actually, I got this. You take off in that direction,” I pointed directly away from the direction the zombies had taken. “Once you get clear of town just circle around and find your way back to camp. Tell them we need help.” As if that would come by the time we’d need it.
Steven was looking at Hunter with an absolutely pathetic desperation. His very posture screamed ‘don’t leave me!’ but he was way to proud to say anything. If their situations were reversed I wondered what Steven would have done.
Hunter wanted to run. I mean he really, really wanted to. He even took a step toward safety. Then he mastered himself and I could see the resolve flow back into him. It was beautiful. He wasn’t the only one who saw it. Steven exhaled a pent up breath that had nothing to do with the pain in his ankle.
Hunter grabbed Steven’s arm, wrapped it around his shoulder and practically carried the man over to the nearest storefront, a Chinese restaurant. It looked like all of its ground floor windows had been smashed out a long time ago. I held the door open while drawing a huge red X on it (Zombies can’t read but our friends could). Once inside we pretty much had the place to ourselves, all the trouble seemed to have run off after Mr. Moon. I hoped he was smart enough to lead them away from our camp in the woods.
I searched around until I found the stairs to the second floor. Clearly the upper story was used for storage. They had all kinds of canned soup and vegetables, as well as a bunch of neat ornaments of dragons and stuff. There were boxes and boxes of paper table mats, too. There must have been a special on bottled water and soda pop just before the Change, because it looked like there was enough of that to bust through the floor. What I was really hoping for were fireworks (I love fireworks) but no luck.
The stairs looked like they’d be pure torture for Steven but staying on the ground floor wouldn’t be safe for long. I looked over Steven’s ankle and improvised a splint. It wouldn’t do him much good if he kept trying to walk around, but we didn’t really have much choice. I stood on one side of Steven and Hunter took the other, and we went up the steps sideways one step at a time. By the time we made it Steven looked like he was ready to pass out.
While the other two rested I took out a string saw and began cutting the stairs out as quietly as I could. It took some doing, but by the time I had five steps out I was feeling much more secure. Now all we had to do was keep still for a month or so, until Steven got healed up, and sneak back to camp. Simple.
We all retreated into another room. I removed a door to one room and secured it at the head of the stairs. I also piled up a number of boxes to completely block the windows so no wandering ghouls could peek in on us. As long as the ogres didn’t have a reason to come looking we should have been just fine, I thought. The only problem was, it was real dark.
Objectively, it wasn’t that bad. Just kinda boring. We had plenty to eat, and there were a few cases of toilet paper and rolls of garbage bags for waste disposal (so we weren’t going to choke to death). We even found some hand sanitizer.
Steven muttered, “I can’t believe they left us.” He just wouldn’t let that go.
Hunter replied, “They didn’t have a choice, man. Did you see the hole they tore in the side of the RV?”
I told Steven, “They did the right thing. In fact they saved our lives.”
“What do you mean?” Steven was a bit slow. He reminded me of Bruce that way. I wondered what Bruce was doing just then.
“If Mr. Moon hadn’t drove off then you all would have been ripped to pieces by the horde. Our friends running gave you the time you needed to escape.”
Hunter wondered, “What do you mean ‘you all’? Don’t you think they would have got you too?”
“I might’ve lived. I’m spry.” He could tell I was joking so they laughed with me.
That was how the whole day went. We couldn’t even play games for fear that a returning zombie might hear us. Not that I was worried about one puny zombie, but rather the ogres who might discover our location if given enough warning. So we sat, each absorbed by his own thoughts.
I felt the time dragging by like I was trapped alive in some ancient tomb, cursed to a half life for the sins of my youth, waiting for the end of the world to release me from a horrid living death. Or maybe I was living paralyzed between the ticks of the clock, yearning for a chronological juxtaposition to cause my essence to finally reintegrate with reality. My favorite, was that I had stumbled upon a magical non-place of non-being, in which I was desperately striving to reenter some reality, any reality, where there were some laws of nature I could cling to, and thereby retain my sanity.
That was my thinking when we all heard a noise from downstairs. There was a surprising amount of crashing around and stumbling about. At first I thought that an ogre must have figured out where we were hiding, and had come over to look for us, but then Norm called out to us in a half whisper, half shout, “Hey, Steven, are you guys in here?”
Steven gave out a shout and Hunter ran over to the door I’d screwed in place. The way he at
tacked it was hilarious, like he could just pull it off its hinges, or something. I went over and, in the near total darkness, tried taking the screws out one at a time. It took awhile.
While I was doing that I heard Norm climbing the stairs on the other side of the door. I tried to warn him about the top stairs being out, but he couldn’t hear me very well so he fell right through. I hoped he hadn’t broken an ankle, too.
By the time I had that door open there were three faces looking up the stairs at Hunter and I. The sheriff and Neil both looked relieved but Norm’s face was still full of fear. I told him, “Don’t worry, we’re all alive. Your brother took a tumble and broke his ankle is all. Here,” I shoved the door at them, “put that down and nail it into place. That way we can slide Steven down to you.”
I have to admit, I was glad they’d come back for us. Waiting in the dark with nothing to do except wait for Steven to heal might have proved hard on the nerves. I was pretty sure that I could’ve handled it, but the other guys looked like they were just about ready to crack.
It took us longer than it should have to get everyone back in the RV because we had to be so careful of Steven’s injury. The door that we tried to bridge the missing steps with proved to be too short for the job. I guess I had cut out more steps than I should have, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. We finally had to add a couple pieces of wood to the door so as to finish bridging the gap. As soon as we were outside the restaurant, Tracer came running out from behind a fire hydrant, bounding over to me, begging to be petted. By the time we were all settled in Mr. Moon’s RV, the horde had begun catching up to the motor home again. I took a position at the rear window and used Bob to take care of all the ogres I could before we pulled out of range.
Neil asked me, “Isn’t that a waste of ammunition? We’re home free.”
“It’s never a waste of ammo to kill either an ogre or a ghoul. Once all those are cleared out of a location it’s much easier to move around. Also, those things never stop. Maybe you think that you’ve given them the slip, but then they show up during the night when you’re asleep. This is actually an opportunity for us. Ask Mr. Moon to pull over so I can kill those last few ogres.”
The group had a brief discussion about the wisdom of my plan. A surprising number were against it, but fortunately wisdom prevailed. After Mr. Moon had pulled over I stepped outside and killed them as they came. Since ogres are only as fast as a regular human I didn’t have any trouble. Eight shots latter we were back on the move again, heading toward where we’d parked the rest of our cars.
On our way there I asked what had happened to the group of looters working with Neil. I was curious who had opened fire and why, since that’s what got all the zombies riled up in the first place.
Mr. Reese answered, “A zombie snuck up behind us so I had to shoot it.” That was about what I’d figured. I had known it was a mistake to take firearms into a situation like that, but try telling that to people with no experience. Mr. Reese probably could have just as easily bashed the thing’s head in.
Then again, I hadn’t been there.
Chapter 14
“What do you think about making another run into town tomorrow?” Sheriff Slim asked Rob.
Ever since our first trip into Paxton, looting the place had gotten a lot easier. It was to the point where everyone (well the guys, anyway) wanted to make a solo trip just to show how easy it was. Even Steven was planing on making a trip once his ankle finished healing up (it was still stiff). And I had to admit, with all the ghouls and ogres gone, it wasn’t very dangerous (still, stupid for anyone to go alone). We had even managed to procure a number of new firearms from the remains of the gun shop, which were handed out to the sheriff’s family and a few others. Rob had been especially adroit at moving through the former town and picking out things useful to the group. That’s why Connor asked him. That and the fact that Rob was worthless with a fishing line.
I, on the other hand, am an excellent fisherman. If I had my way that’s all I’d do all day at our camp. It was great to sit in the shade with Steven, Hunter, and Norm seeing who could make the biggest catch. Sometimes the others caught more fish than I, but I always got the biggest one (at least that’s how I remember it). That’s what we were doing when Connor asked his question.
Rob said, “Sure, no problem. Just let me reel this in and I’ll go right now. It’s not like I’m catching much anyway.” That sure was an understatement. Rob was an expert at wasting worms.
Still, he made me feel guilty because I really hadn’t been pulling my weight lately, so I decided to volunteer to help out. Besides, heading out in the afternoon could get dicey if we took to long.
We made our way over to the vehicles and got in Rob’s favorite. It was some kind of red sports car, a convertible, that he stolen on his last trip into town. I didn’t have the heart to remind him that all the gas would probably go bad in a few more months.
Once in town everything went simply enough. We had already picked up the last of the ammunition that the town had to offer. A lot of food, too. Now we were searching for quality tents. If we were going to be camping out for the winter then we might as well get comfortable, and Mr. Moon had put in a special request for a replacement door for his old motor home, as well.
There was a sportsman store in Paxton so we decided to head there first. Our plan was simple. We blew the horn until we got everybody’s attention and then drove away. After leading the zombies away for an hour or so we circled back into town from the opposite side. From experience I knew that it would take at least an hour for the zombies to make it back into town, assuming they didn’t just wander off (which also happens sometimes).
At the ‘Sportsman King’ we found a lot of what we were looking for, including a replacement door for Mr. Moon. There were a few campers around back and we could take our pick of replacement doors from them. My idea was to take a door from one for Mr. Moon’s RV and hitch another camper up to Rob’s new car. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a hitch for it so I had to go back inside to try and find one (we’d already finished off the five or six zombies that had remained in the store).
I was still looking when I heard Rob honking his horn. Knowing that had to be a bad sign, I dropped everything and ran outside. There was Rob, already pulled up in front of the doors and waiting for me, with a horde of zombies entering the parking lot. They all began converging on our location.
Tracer and I jumped over the door and landed next to Rob. I made sure that Tracer was at my feet, where I felt he’d be safest. Rob decided to put the pedal down and charge the horde. Not the wisest move if you happen to be in convertible, because the zombies tend to get knocked onto the hood. From there some of them can try and climb over the windshield. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. Before that day I’d never even ridden in a convertible. Lesson learned, though.
The crowd we smashed into were mostly knocked aside, although a couple hung tight. Rob deftly swerved around a bit, dislodging them, but there was one zombie who just wouldn’t let go. It used its zombie strength to cling to the hood and crawl right into Rob’s face.
Rob couldn’t see where he was going, but I could. We were headed right toward a parked SUV, so I tried to help out by shooting through the windshield at our overzealous zombie friend. It really shouldn’t have been a problem, but between the sound of Bob firing in his ear, the shattering of the glass, and me yelling, “Sorry about your windshield!” Rob flinched and lost control of the car.
Instead of him hitting the SUV, Rob way overcompensated and the next thing I remember we were driving back to camp, doing over a hundred, with the horn blaring the whole way. I tried to say something, but it came out way to quiet for Rob to hear over the roar of the engine and the noise of the horn. Then I decided to fall asleep again.
I was abruptly awakened from my nap by Rob pounding on the breaks. I slid forward onto the dashboard (for the second time that day, I suspect), and almost passed out again. Tracer w
as flung forward onto the floor, at my feet. I hadn’t remembered him getting onto my lap in the first place. The horn was still stuck making its horrendous din. Our wooden fence was blocking the dirt track ahead of us, and we were parked where we kept all of the extra cars (we’d always try and pick up an extra one hear and there, just to have some spares).
Before I could start to feel good about being home, Rob popped the hood and was out of the car. He ran around to the front of the vehicle and pulled something loose from underneath, killing the horn. I tried to thank him for that, but all that came out was a dull croak. It was then that I realized I must be injured. I noticed Tracer was on my lap again and licking my face.
Uncle had trained me for every contingency, but the trouble about trying to remember what to do when you have a cranial hemorrhage is that the head wound makes you too stupid to remember. About all I did was get Bob in one hand and Abby in the other. I remember that the most confusing thing for me, at the time, was that there was nothing around for me to kill. Usually when I’m hurting there’s something around for me to kill which will make me feel better. The whole situation was terribly disconcerting.
It didn’t take long for everyone to come rushing out to see what the problem was. They hoisted me out of the car (which was a mess, by the way, with the whole front end all smashed up), and got me into the RV. During that time they got the full story from Rob.
I have a tough time remembering everything that happened for the next few hours. I remember there was a lot of headache, which I could have done without, and a lot of people looking in on me, bringing me food and medicine and a drink of water. I also knew I was forgetting something, that something was wrong, but I couldn’t remember what.
Everyone was pretty upset but I didn’t see any major problems. In fact, I felt pretty good. Steven had a ‘special stash’ of what I suspected were illegal stimulants, which he was kind enough to let me sample. His stuff was way better than what they had to offer back at the insane asylum, so I was on cloud nine with all my concerns vanished. The trip hadn’t been a total loss by any means. Our back seat was full of tents and that new door we’d been looking for. So, aside from me collecting a goose egg and Rob losing his favorite ride it had been a pretty good day.