by Bible, Jake
“Your voice is stupid,” Elsbeth says. “How about if I rip it out for you?”
There’s a scream, and the sound of shotguns discharging fills the pit. Lourdes and her men don’t waste time with the Zs behind us, and stand and open fire at the shotgun men, moving quickly from their cover and towards the landing.
I, on the other hand, only have a crowbar and can’t exactly sprint at the moment, so I keep my attention on the encroaching Zs. They’ll reach me way before I can get to the landing, and that’s assuming I don’t get cut down by a shotgun on the way. So, it’s Z fighting time!
I get up, raise my crowbar, and run at the Zs. Then I trip over a rock and fall flat on my face. Guess what? That gash on my forehead opens up again. Fresh blood pours as I struggle to stand. Guess what else? Zs love the smell of fresh blood.
I swear half the horde comes for my ass.
Fuck the crowbar, I’m bailing!
But instead of running to the landing, I run parallel to the front of the Zs towards the far wall of the pit. I see a boulder, and I have an idea. With the lights on, the pit looks so much smaller than I thought it would. Sure, I saw it when I was first brought down here, but you know how it is when you visit or travel somewhere the first time, it always takes longer and everything seems bigger. The magic has worn off for me, so it’s not so imposing now.
I run (and by run, I mean quickly and painfully limp) as fast as I can. The Zs are getting closer and closer, and I know that if I just make it to the wall, I’ll be fine. Why do I think this? Because, like I said, I have an idea.
All the Zs’ attention is on me, and when I get to the boulder right by the wall, I clamber up it as fast as possible. Unfortunately, only having one hand, this means I have to let my crowbar go. No worries, I’ll get it back when it’s all over.
“Stuart!” I yell. “Now!”
“Now, what?” he yells back, fighting off a dozen Zs at once. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I wipe my forehead and flick blood down on the ground. The Zs go completely apeshit and swarm over the fresh blood.
“Sitting ducks! Fish in a barrel! Turkey shoot!” I shout.
Stuart blasts a Z’s head off, cracks another’s spine, takes a third out at the legs, then crushes it’s skull with a boot, and blasts another Z’s head off. He looks over at me, and how the majority of the horde is surrounding my boulder, all eager to get at my sweet, sweet Jace juice. My blood. I’m talking about my blood when I say Jace juice.
Thankfully, I see Stuart smile.
“Critter! Rafe! On me!” Stuart yells as he turns his rifle on the horde of Zs. A horde that faces me, since I decided that being bait was my best chance of survival.
They say the best offense is a good defense. Is being bait defense, though? Is it offense? What would bait be classified as in warfare terms? Or professional football terms? Because I always think of that saying referring more to football than to warfare.
Stuart, Critter, and Rafe open fire on the horde and start cutting them down. I curl up in the fetal position and cover my head with my arm, since I’d really not like to catch any friendly fire. Not that my one arm will exactly save me from a bullet, but I like to be optimistic in these situations.
The gunfire is deafening, and my ears are ringing so much that it takes me a second to realize that it’s finally stopped. I pull my arm away and peek over the boulder. Nothing but piles of Z corpses. The few that decided they didn’t want to stand there and die, and instead turned and went after Stuart, Critter, and Rafe, are quickly being taken down by those three, melee style.
I glance at the landing and see blood and bodies everywhere. Lourdes and her men are climbing up onto the landing, having obviously out fought Kelvin’s shotgun bitches. I do a quick count, and see that Lourdes didn’t lose a single guy. My count also tells me that there are two important people missing.
“Where’s Reptile Jesus and Elsbeth?” I shout.
Lourdes gets onto the landing and looks over at me. “Who?”
“Reptile Jesus! I mean Kelvin! The asshole that was talking! Where is he?” I shout.
“He ran!” Lourdes shouts back. “Elsbeth took off after him!”
“Oh! Okay!” I yell.
“Jace, shut up, and get down here,” Stuart says.
“Right-O,” I say, and slide down off the boulder. I start to walk past the Z corpses, then stop as I recognize a face. “Oh, wow.”
“What? Who is it?” Stuart asks.
“Her name was Tara,” I say as I kneel next to the young woman’s body. I look at the others and realize I recognize a lot of them, and they are mostly all women. “Fucking A. The son of a bitch sacrificed his own followers to fill the pit.” Then terror fills my guts. “Greta!”
I start tearing through the piles of Z corpses like a madman, hoping and praying I don’t find my daughter. The others realize what I’m doing and help, but after a few minutes of searching it’s obvious she isn’t here.
“She’s still up top,” I say. “Come on.”
I’d be lying if I say my climb onto the landing is graceful. So I won’t say it is. With Lourdes leading once again, with me navigating the twists and turns, we sprint through the mine and get to the mouth just in time to see Elsbeth and Kelvin face off in the middle of the compound. I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that it’s a pretty cool face off. Kelvin has some skills.
Elsbeth sends a flying roundhouse kick at the man, and he actually catches her leg in midair and throws her to the ground. He drops a boot right where her head was a split second earlier, but Elsbeth is fast enough that she dodges, and answers by slamming a fist into his exposed crotch. But Kelvin only smiles and falls to one knee, planting it right in Elsbeth’s chest.
“I always wear a cup!” he yells.
“That doesn’t seem practical for everyday use,” I say to Stuart. I shut up without him having to tell me.
Elsbeth responds by boxing Kelvin’s ears, then whips her legs like a helicopter, throwing the man off of her while flipping to her feet at the same time. So fucking cool!
“You have a cup for your face?” Elsbeth shouts, then rams an elbow into Kelvin’s nose over and over again. The man sort of sways for a moment, then tumbles over onto his side. “Didn’t think so.”
“Totally badass,” I say as we all run up to Elsbeth. “I so wish I could have recorded that. Fuck TV when you have an Elsbeth around.”
“Why would someone fuck a TV?” Elsbeth asks. “That would hurt.”
“Funny,” I say.
“No, painful,” Elsbeth replies. “That’s what hurt means, Long Pork. Not funny.”
“No, I meant... Oh, forget it,” I say, and look around the snow covered compound, then point. “Those are the women’s trailers. Greta has to be in there.”
While Lourdes and her men pick up Kelvin, and not so nicely, I may say, Elsbeth, Stuart, Critter, Rafe, and I all hurry to the cluster of trailers where I saw the women at earlier. We get almost to the first one when the door is kicked open, and out comes my daughter.
Only one problem: there’s a woman behind her holding a pistol to Greta’s temple.
“Let Kelvin go!” the woman yells. “Or I kill your girl!”
“You must be Jobeth,” I say. “Kelvin spoke so highly of you the other day. He especially said what a kind and caring soul you are, doing God’s work by making sure the ladies of the compound don’t come to harm.”
“He never said that!” Jobeth snarls. “He hates me!”
“Uh, then why do you want us to let him go?” I ask.
“Because he promised to take me with him!” Jobeth yells. “He said once we were done here he’d show me where—”
She doesn’t get a chance to finish as her head explodes into a thousand bits of bone and brain. Greta screams, and runs her ass off over to us as all of a sudden the compound is filled with rifle fire. Huh, I guess they don’t just have shotguns.
I wrap my girl in my arm and hit the deck as E
lsbeth falls on top of both of us. Stuart’s face is close to mine, and we cower there, a pile of survivors, while rifles, carbines, pistols, and shotguns blast the ever living fuck out of everything. I now know why dogs hate the Fourth of July. There is nothing worse than a fuck ton of bang bangs going on when there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
The gunfire starts to slacken, and I feel Elsbeth’s weight lift off me.
“Get up, Long Pork,” she says, and pulls me up.
She smiles down at Greta and pulls her up too, then gives her a huge bear hug. Greta’s eyes about pop out of her skull from the hug, but I don’t think she minds too much.
“Come on,” Elsbeth says, and tugs us back towards the Tomb, which I am now going to just call a mine, since Reptile Jesus can’t make me call it the Tomb anymore. “We’re leaving.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to go out the front?” I ask, then duck as gunfire erupts again in that direction. “Oh, right.”
We get to the mouth of the mine, and then stop. It’s pretty obvious we aren’t going out the backdoor.
“Why are you giggling?” Greta snaps. “This isn’t funny, Dad.”
“Backdoor,” I snicker, then stop as I get that teenage girl death glare. “Right. Not funny.”
“What’s goin’ on?” Critter asks as he and Rafe come up behind us. “Why ain’t we goin’ in?” He looks at what we’re looking at and frowns. “Well, fuck me. That ain’t good.”
There’s a whole lot of smoke coming from the mine. Yeah, I’m thinking that shooting guns in a place filled with combustible coal dust was not the best thing to do. Looks like the backdoor is on fire. Kinda like the next day after eating Thai food.
“Dad!” Greta shouts. “Stop giggling! It’s fucking creepy!”
“I was just thinking that...” I start, then see that none of the faces around me give a shit what I was thinking. “Sorry.”
“We go out the front,” Elsbeth says. “Only way.”
We all turn and see Lourdes and her men pursuing the last of Kelvin’s guys. But I don’t see Kelvin anywhere. He must have gotten away from them. Oh, no, wait ... there he is.
Right by the compound gate. Hey, he’s opening the gate. How nice of him.
“It is God’s fate!” Kelvin yells as he throws open the gates. “I know that now!”
After throwing open the gates, he throws his hands in the air.
Instead of making a bold escape, Kelvin has decided that a bold sacrifice is the plan of attack. Once again with the best offense is a good defense. Hmmm, I still don’t think I’m using that right.
You remember that massive herd of Zs we fought through to get away from that last farmhouse? Yeah, it’s found the compound. And it’s bursting through the gates, all hungry mouths and clawing hands. Some of those mouths and hands rip into Kelvin as he just stands there, his arms and face raised to the sky.
“Slaves, be willing to serve your masters! Do this with all respect!” he shouts. “You should obey the masters who are good and kind, and you should obey the masters who are bad!”
Well, that’s one way to go out. Hey, looks like some of the Zs get to find out if Reptile Jesus tastes like chicken.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Greta says, and covers her face with her hands. “Will someone make him stop?”
“Girl, if we could do that we would have a long time ago,” Critter says as we stare at the hundreds and hundreds of Zs that stream into the compound, all heading right for us.
Chapter Eleven
Choice isn’t exactly your friend when you’re facing the numbers we are. It isn’t like before when we fought our way through the Z herd from that farmhouse. That was a risk, and one that paid off because we were only cutting across. We weren’t actually fighting the whole herd, but just the few we needed to fight to get from one side to the other.
Here, now, is a whole other melon. That’s a saying, right? A whole other melon? I don’t know. Fuck it. It’s a saying now.
You see, what we’re facing is the entire herd, coming right for us. There’s no cutting through, because that would be like traveling from a shark’s mouth all the way out its anus. It can be done, but you sure as shit aren’t going to be alive at the end of that journey.
“Come on,” I shout. “I have an idea!”
“That isn’t comforting!” Stuart shouts back.
“Just follow me, dickhead!” I yell, and limp off towards Kelvin’s cluster of trailers. “I know where the safe room is!”
I know they don’t really trust my judgement at the moment, but no one argues, and they all follow quickly behind me. I glance to the side and see Lourdes watching us.
“Come on!” I yell. Yelling is good because then she knows to rally her folks on us and get to the trailers. But yelling is bad because it also lets the Zs know which way we’re going. “Poop.”
We get to the trailer cluster, and Rafe is the first one to the door. He yanks it open, and then half his back explodes out at us in a spray of spine and fluids. His body does a brutal pirouette, then collapses at my feet as I look up and see Maury standing there with a high-powered rifle in his hands. I guess that answers who started all the shooting.
The world slows down. Maury’s finger starts to press down on the rifle’s trigger again just as a blur shoves me out of the way and flies through the trailer’s door. I hear a gunshot, and even feel the heat of a bullet whiz past me, but luckily I feel no pain. Well, other than when the world speeds back up, and I don’t get my hand out in time to stop my fall. Forehead and ground meet once again. Those two should get a fucking room.
I roll over and watch as Maury tries to get the rifle up in time to block Elsbeth’s blades, but he doesn’t stand a chance. None of us say a word as Elsbeth literally dismembers the man before our eyes. Limbs fall away, clothes fall away, ears, lips, nose, all fall away until all that’s left is a stump of a man lying in a huge pool of his own blood. He tries to say something, but Elsbeth doesn’t give him a chance as she jams a blade through his mouth and out the back of his head.
She looks back at us, rage filling her features.
“Little Canny,” is all she says.
Critter and Stuart help me to my feet, and we look down as Greta is on the ground, cradling Rafe’s head in her lap. His mouth is open, and he’s trying to say something, but Greta puts a finger to his lips, and he stops. She leans over and kisses him on the forehead, the nose, then the mouth. He gets a smile halfway finished before the life leaves his eyes.
“Shit,” I say. “I think I’m going to miss that kid.”
“Yeah,” Critter says.
“What are you people waiting for?” Lourdes yells as she and her men reach the trailer. Then she stops as she sees the scene. “Oh. Fuck.”
“Nothing we can do,” Greta says, tears filling her eyes as she gently gets up from Rafe’s body and looks at me. “Where’s the safe room?”
“This way,” I say, and move past Elsbeth and the many pieces of Maury. “Back here.”
I show them into Reptile Jesus’s torture room, then turn around.
“You coming?” I ask Elsbeth.
She doesn’t answer, just steps out of the trailer for a second. The unmistakable sound of a blade sliding through a skull reaches my ears, and I realize what she’s doing.
“Thanks,” I say to her. She still doesn’t answer, just follows me into the torture room.
It’s a little cramped with all of us in it, but the sound of the door latching and all the locks clicking into place tells me I made the right choice.
“Now what?” Critter asks. “We just stay in here until the herd goes away?”
“Uh ... yes?” I reply. “I wasn’t thinking of an exit plan, just a stay alive for a few more hours plan.”
“Weapons check,” Lourdes says to her people. They comply, and all sit their asses down and start stripping their carbines, quickly going over them and cleaning them with their field kits.
It’s kind of hypnotizing t
o watch, but that effect goes away as soon as the trailer begins to rock. The whole thing shifts at an angle, and then the pounding at the door begins.
“Looks like the Zs found Maury,” I say. “I wasn’t counting on that.”
I can tell everyone would like to look at Elsbeth, but we all know better than to do that. It’s not her fault, and if even one of us gives her a look like it is, she’ll lose her shit. The last look on her face was not a judge Elsbeth look. It was more like a let’s leave Elsbeth alone because she’s in a bad place look. You learn these things when the woman saves your ass a few times.
The trailer keeps shaking, and the undead hands keep pounding. What do we do? Well, what can we do? We stand there and stare at the one way in and one way out, watching the heavy door shudder in its frame.
You see, this is the flaw of so many structures. Everyone thinks a solid door is how you keep a room secure. They put all kinds of locks on it, drill in braces for heavy bars, even use chains, but they forget about one very simple architectural fact: a door is only as strong as the frame around it. You can have a door made of fucking diamond, and it doesn’t mean shit if the frame is made of goddamn particle board!
And that’s exactly what the doorframe around this door is made of. Goddamn particle board. Okay, well, the frame itself is made of two by fours, but the walls are particle board. And the walls are connected to the frame. So we stand here, watching as the paint next to the door begins to crack and splinter. Then the wood that isn’t really wood and more like wood stuffs (it’s the Velveeta of wood!) begins to show through the paint and old plaster.
Yeah, it looks like the Zs are coming in, invited or not. How rude! Fucking rude Zs! I fucking hate rude Zs!
“We all hate rude Zs, Jace,” Stuart says. “You can stop saying it over and over.”
“I’m not saying it on purpose,” I reply. “You think I like having the contents of my thoughts just spewing out of my mouth without my consent? It is no fun, trust me.”