The gate shuddered and managed to push ahead another inch. Then it stopped again. Buddy looked hopeful as it started moving and then jabbed at a controller in disappointment when it stopped. “Fuck. They said it wouldn’t do that no more!”
“Don’t have all day,” Zeke told him. “Let’s kick these ones out before the zombies turn up.”
“Maybe they’ll have those deli sandwiches at the Power Rangers depot like last time,” Buddy said, opening his door. “We’ll kick back with a hot pastrami or tuna melt while they refuel us.”
“And those beer-battered fried pickles. I like those.”
The cab doors opened. Xan felt the vibration of the doors slamming, each a punch to his gut. This was his chance, his only chance. Feet scraped on the pavement, Buddy coming along faster than Zeke. Xan slid over the floor quietly and positioned himself right at the edge where Buddy was about to come around. Sitting there like a deer in the headlights, Selena just waited for her personal doom to arrive.
A muzzle appeared, Buddy drawling behind it, “All righty then! Come on, man-”
Xan grabbed the barrel of the rifle. He jerked it hard, the bait man stumbling as he held on. Then Xan jumped off the back and right onto him. They hit the ground with Xan on top. Catching a fistful of the guy’s hair, he tried to pound his head into the concrete. But Buddy was shouting and thrashing around, squirming like a fish. He wouldn’t let go of his rifle. Nor could he use it, since Xan was crushing him flat.
Zeke whipped around the corner with his gun pointing into the truck. Realizing the problem was in the road, he turned. Xan rolled and put Buddy in front of him as a shield. “Shoot him! Just shoot him!” Buddy yelled.
“I can’t . . .” Zeke tried to take aim at Xan, but Buddy was in the way.
Adrenaline was firing Xan. He was frighteningly aware of his surroundings, the faded yellow paint on the curb, the pale blue of the sky, the acne scars on Buddy’s neck. A thin line of blood came over the back of the truck and dripped onto the bumper. Buddy threw back his head to butt Xan’s face. Xan was ready for it and jerked out of the way. He had the guy in a bear hug, both of them still with a grip on the gun.
“Shoot him!”
When the bait man squirmed, lifting the upper half of his body off the ground, Xan moved his arm up swiftly and crooked it around Buddy’s neck. He tightened it as Zeke shouted, “Push him away, Buddy! I can’t get a shot at him!” Then it occurred to Zeke just to walk around them, where he would have a clear view of Xan’s back. But just as he began to do so, something caught his attention out in the trees.
A zombie was coming.
Buddy kicked at Xan’s legs. The gun slid a little along the ground, the guy’s grip weakening as he wrestled around and struggled for air. Then a blast shattered the quiet. It wasn’t Buddy’s gun but Zeke’s. Something thumped across the street. Immediately on its heels was the sound of the gate. It was moving again, Selena whimpering and more blood spilling down to the bumper.
“Oh, fuck,” said Zeke, his attention still drawn away from the fight. Then he looked back to see how Buddy was progressing. Xan prized the rifle away and released him. Turning over, Xan clambered to his feet and jumped around the side of the truck for cover.
“You give that back!” Buddy shouted, lunging after him.
Xan pulled the trigger. The blast joined a cacophony of sounds: sheets of plastic crinkling loudly, the thud of the dead woman’s body striking the ground, Zeke yelling at Selena to get lost and Selena crying out. Then footsteps were running around the other side of the truck.
Falling to his knees, Buddy screamed, “You asshole! You fucking shot me in the stomach!” His hands were pressed to his dirty T-shirt in a futile attempt to hold himself together.
“Please don’t leave me here!” Selena cried out. “Please!”
“Zeke, come and get me in the cab!” Buddy yelled. He rose onto one leg, flinching and turning pale as blood leaked around his fingers and down through his jeans. The bullet had gone right through him, not through his spine but near it, and his efforts to stand failed.
A door slammed.
“Zeke!” Buddy shouted desperately.
But Zeke was leaving. The truck’s engine roared. Xan ran for the passenger door. He got his fingers under the handle and jerked as the truck began to move. The door opened, Zeke roaring and whipping out a handgun from a miniature Christmas stocking hanging from the gearshift. His finger drew back on the trigger just as Xan’s fingers slid along the fabric of the seat. Then the bait man yelled, “Shit!” He hadn’t taken off the safety. Xan got a firmer hold on the seat as Zeke fumbled with the gun and took his foot off the gas pedal.
“Get the fuck out of here!” Zeke shouted. The handgun swung to Xan and then the bait man dropped it in favor of his rifle. But he was also trying to drive at the same time, one hand on the steering wheel and his foot going back to the gas when he wasn’t even looking forward. The truck struck the island and the Christmas stocking swung wildly. No sooner had Zeke gotten hold of his rifle than he released it to jerk the truck away from the island. He didn’t know what to do, so he was doing a bunch of things all at once and none of them successfully.
Xan got a foot in the cab. Then Zeke yanked the wheel the other way and rammed into the island on purpose. The truck bounced up it and threw Xan off. He fell onto his back in the road as the truck sped up and careened over the island. Going down hard into the opposite lanes, a massive pop rang out from a tire. The truck skidded as Zeke stomped on the brakes. Then he tried to make a U-turn. But the lanes weren’t wide enough for a truck to do that, and zombies were coming out of the trees.
They ran for it. And Xan had left the passenger door wide open.
He forgot the truck. There had to be another vehicle in this city, one of those hybrids that could go on its battery. Run the car out of gas and it still worked for two miles, so long as the battery had juice.
He rolled over onto his side, adrenaline papering over the pain in his back. More zombies were coming out of the trees on this side of the road. The dead woman was in a bloody heap among a forest of plastic; Buddy was crumpling forward. Selena was upright, a lost little figure upon the broken white line. She was taking weak, panicked, ever-so-tiny steps to get away from the zombies. They had spotted her and she was terrified, but she could go no faster than that.
She was teary and screaming as she hobbled away from them. She knew she was done for. She knew. It was in her eyes, the hopelessness. But life wanted to live, and she could not lie down for them willingly. She would hobble until they cut her down, scream until they ate out her throat, and those tiny steps to get away were the most terrible things that Xan had ever seen.
He scrambled to his feet. He had to get out of here this instant and there was nothing he could do for her. He turned away and she wailed, “Mr. Spencer!”
His instinct to leave was overridden by another one, and he turned back. He scooped up the rifle and burst into a run to get to her. They’d find that hybrid together and flee back to Newgreen, and if the hospital wouldn’t accept her for palliative care, he would take her home with him. She could die there, tucked in on the sofa because they were fucking human beings and the zombie apocalypse shouldn’t have eradicated common decency along with everything else.
He fired at the zombie in the lead, the man’s shoulder blowing back as the bullet punched through. Getting to the girl, Xan turned around and dipped down a little. “Climb onto my back!”
She didn’t need telling twice. Thin, bony arms went around his neck; thin, bony legs wrapped around his waist. He helped her pull them up. Then she locked herself around him like a spider. He took stock of their surroundings, the leafy green road, the truck lurching as Zeke screamed and fired his rifle, the zombies pushing out of the trees almost everywhere he looked . . .
They had to get away from the body of the dead woman, and Buddy bleeding and dying on the ground. The blood was luring every zombie around to this precise spot. Xan ran down
the road, searching for an end to it, some offshoot to homes where they could break in and hide. This area was going to be seething with zombies in minutes.
Buddy shrieked behind them. “No! No!” Xan didn’t turn back, only swallowed down on saliva.
Selena’s breath was ragged in his ear. “Th-there,” she whispered, and he looked to the right where she was pointing. Across an old soccer field with weeds growing up the goals was a long line of trees, and past that was a building. His eyes skimmed up it to a sign high in the air. The red letters spelled out –INK-, followed by a picture of a ball curving around and trailing stars. Trees concealed the rest of the lettering on the sign.
He recognized that logo of the ball with stars. It was a Sinkhole, a kids’ entertainment chain where Xan and Colette had taken Katie many times for her friends’ birthday parties. On both sides of the Sinkhole were buildings, more chances of unlocked doors. Wheeling to the right, he leaped up the curb and started for it.
Buddy was screaming as Xan spun onto a path that curved around the overgrown soccer field and ran. He was gripping the rifle so tightly that his hands seemed fused to the metal. When they got in somewhere, if they got in somewhere, he had to bandage his head and wash the blood off himself. He was shark bait in this condition. Hopefully, the two he was leaving behind, three if Zeke hadn’t gotten away, were creating a far greater scent than his head wound.
He made it across the soccer field and to the trees. His breath was coming so fast that he could no longer hear Selena’s. She clung to him with every ounce of strength in her feeble body. Across the street was the Sinkhole, a two-story gray building with few windows. That was normal for any Sinkhole. Light gushed in through the giant skylights on the roof, illuminating the web of crawl pipes and obstacle courses below.
On the right of the Sinkhole were a parking lot and an aquatic shop, and on the left was a clothing store for women. The sign hanging in the door of the clothing store read CLOSED. The aquatic store had a CLOSED sign as well. The contagion had come about in the morning before these stores had opened for the day. He was disheartened at the sign posted beside the door to the Sinkhole. It opened at noon. The doors to all of these places were going to be locked. There were only two cars in the far back of the parking lot between the Sinkhole and the aquatic shop, neither of them hybrids.
In. The nurse had had the right idea, whether she made it or not. Look for cars later. For now, they had to be inside and locked up tight.
Zombies were trailing down the street. When they saw him come through the trees, they trailed a lot faster. There were three of them, all men, unaware of each other’s existence but frighteningly aware of Xan and Selena’s. Xan opened fire, striking one, and ran over the road as the zombie fell and a second tripped over him.
More zombies appeared on the road. He couldn’t run either way without having to go right past a small clot of them. So he aimed for the parking lot. There would be businesses beyond it, or a block of homes. All he needed was a door to lock.
“They’re . . . they’re coming,” Selena panted.
He didn’t look. He didn’t answer. He knew.
At the end of the parking lot was a chain-link fence almost obscured in shadow. And there was a zombie on the other side, a shambling thing of rags and hair. It smelled the blood in the air but couldn’t figure out how to get over the fence, so it was walking into it over and over.
Footsteps slapped lightly upon the concrete. Xan turned around and fired at the zombie coming up behind them. The guy hit the ground. The last one of the trio was hesitating, farther back in the lot and his nose in the air like a hound dog. His eyes were clenched almost shut. Near-sighted, or blind. He was using scent and sound to lead him on. His head swung back and forth between Xan and Selena’s approximate position, and the approximate position of the drop point.
Xan moved away quietly, rounding the back of the Sinkhole. The shot one grunted and kicked in its death throes in a parking space. The noise of it drew the blind one closer, a vaguely confused look on his face. The small smell of blood from Xan . . . the greater smell of blood from the dying zombie, although that was tainted . . . the smell from the drop point, whatever was riding over in the air . . . It wasn’t sure where to go.
Selena squeezed Xan, trying to relay a message to him. He followed her finger to a door in the building. It was going to be locked. The place hadn’t been open yet when the contagion went down. He slid to it, put his hand to the handle, and depressed it.
The door opened. It opened. He glanced into the dimness and saw no one, then looked behind him. Farther down the fence line was a huge gash in the links. Zombies were coming through it, one pair of eyes after another turning to him. In a flash, he was through the door and closing it. There was a deadbolt latch. He turned it and jiggled the door. It held.
“Shhhh,” he said softly as Selena started to whisper. This door had been unlocked for two years and an army of zombies could be in here.
They had entered a cobweb-strewn break room, the only light coming from a small, tinted window by a time clock. Multiple cards were in a gray holder on one side of the clock, and on the other side, only two cards were in a second, identical holder. That was what had happened here. Two employees had come to work to get the Sinkhole ready for the day, entered through the back and left it unlocked for more employees to show. When the contagion hit this area, they walked outside to see what was going on. And never even made it to their vehicles.
A line of light shined underneath the door. It dappled as zombies clustered on the other side. Xan backed away.
Across the break room was another door that led deeper into the building. Xan went to it and listened. All was quiet within. The noise was coming from the door to outside, feet scratching and the door shaking as a zombie pressed on it.
Xan turned the handle and blinked at the shocking amount of light to flush his vision. It was the main play floor, green crawl tubes rising up high over his head, a black mesh at his side surrounding a ball pit, the lights along the walls turned off but irrelevant with the sunlight streaming in from above.
He closed the door behind them. It only locked from the other side, and there was nothing easily accessible around him with which to block it. His heart was beating fast and painfully. Breathing in a steady rhythm to calm himself, he listened to the sounds of the place.
There were none. He still had to search this building, make sure that they were truly alone, and that every door and window was locked or blocked. He thought about setting Selena down in the ball pit and covering her up while he searched, but that would make too much noise. He had to put her somewhere, though. His back was aching from the run with her weight.
Just over his head was a platform that led to the shadowy opening of a slide tube. “Selena?” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Spencer?” Selena whispered.
“I’m going to put you up there, okay? So I can check out this building and see that it’s safe for us. You stay still and silent until I come back.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“I know. But I can do this a lot faster on my own, and if I have to fight, it will be easier for me this way. You hide.” She peeled off him. Then he hefted her up to the platform. She withdrew her legs at once and backed off from the ledge. Crawling to the slide tube, she disappeared into the shadows.
“Please come back,” she whispered.
“I’ll do my best,” Xan said. The rifle clutched in his hands, he left her there.
Two deflated bounce houses in pink and purple heaps were at either end of the room; the tables and chairs for parents were upright and empty. He let himself into the boys’ restroom and then the girls’, alert for danger, but the only motion was from dust bunnies whirling away from the wind of the opening doors. He paused to look at his injury in the mirror, and left it alone. Later.
No one was lurking in the obstacle course of punching bags beneath the crawl tubes. He didn’t climb up to the tubes themselves b
ut listened, and concluded that the only one up in the apparatus was Selena. Then he approached the big double doors that led to the front of the building. Sinkholes usually had a long, wide hallway of arcade games there. Edging a door open, he peered out.
An arcade, just as he had expected. He was thankful for the consistency of chains. The skylights were not as numerous over the arcade, making it much dimmer than the main play floor. Boxy arcade machines were pressed against the wall to one side; an elaborate prize counter was on the other. An open, plastic container of candy rested on the counter. Mice had gotten into it. Shreds of paper and plastic were scattered in the container and over the glass.
There was no one between the games, or behind the counter. The light under the door to the street was wavering, but the door was locked. Xan went to the only other door in the arcade and tried it. Also locked. He assumed it went to an office, as there was an Employees Only sign posted beside it. Trying it one more time, he backed out of the arcade. They were okay for now.
He went back to the tubes and called up, “Selena?” Rustling. Then her sharp, anxious face appeared over the side. “I didn’t find anyone in here. Are you all right?”
She was shivering. “It’s . . . it’s a little cold. I had socks on in the hospital . . . red socks with white treads on them . . . they were there when I went to sleep but they’re gone. Someone . . . took them off. But I’m okay. Don’t worry about it.”
It was cool in the room, not cold, but all she had on was the hospital gown and she didn’t have an ounce of fat on her. What sick staff member at the hospital had halted the flow of drugs into her system and then stripped her of her socks on top of it? She was lucky to still have the gown.
He stood there, rubbing his back and wishing he had extra clothes to give her. There hadn’t been any T-shirts or socks in the prize area, although he had just given the prizes a cursory look. Perhaps there were extra employee T-shirts in the locked office, but those were out of reach.
“If you . . . if you don’t want it . . . could I have the jacket?” Selena asked. “The jacket that was in the other room . . .”
Zombie Tales Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 31