by Won, Mark
The work took about a half hour before finally hitting pay dirt. It was noisy as hell, too. I figured that if there were any zombies left in the region all that noise would have brought them in from a mile around. I was actually surprised that we got no takers; usually no matter how ‘clear’ a space is, there’s still a couple of the Changed who come out to play.
Once the hatch to the steel shipping crate was uncovered, Luke was the first one down. It was his job to start handing things up to John, and he got right to it. The storage container was one of those twenty by eight foot types, filled to the brim with ammunition, consumables, heavy clothing, medicine, and whatever else Old Man Althaus thought might come in handy after some inevitable disaster.
My job was to start moving the goods into the back of the semi while Mr. Althaus remained standing sentry. When I open the trailer door I got the shock of my life, almost had a heart attack. There stood Gideon Storm dressed in his ridiculous red cloak, with his two custom swords sheathed at his sides and carrying a big pink unfurled umbrella. By his side was a small ugly mutt with a huge nose. His rickshaw bicycle was at his back, and he had a giant, ear to ear Cheshire cat grin planted all over his mug. At least his acne had cleared up since the last time I’d seen him.
The overgrown brat laughed at my expense as he jumped down to join us. Mr. Althaus and John both seemed pretty surprised as well, especially John. That dumb kid was lucky one of us didn’t put a bullet through that stupid smile of his. Without a word he put down his umbrella and started hauling goods into the trailer, as if he’d been there all along just waiting to help. Which I guess he had been.
Mr. Althaus broke the silence first, “How long have you been in the trailer, son?” Thunder cracked and the wind began picking up, lightning flashed in the distance.
Gideon answered, “Actually, I’ve been in there ever since Paul started out from Fisher Bay. Pretty funny, huh?”
“Um, no,” commented John, “I’ve had some bad experiences with things jumping out of the back of semis at me. Your lucky your joke didn’t cost you half your head.”
Gideon countered, “Pshaw, that would have been even funnier, if you think about it. Wow, you got abnormally big muscles. Do you work out?”
While John offered a confused, “No,” I asked, “Why didn’t Mark tell me you were back there? He’s not too big on practical jokes.”
“Because I didn’t tell him, that’s why,” came the answer. “He asked me if I wanted to tag along and I said ‘sure’, ‘cause that’s how I roll, a total team player, see? Then I hurried over from Flat Tail Island and snuck in back of the trailer. When I called Mark on the shortwave, I didn’t tell him how I was going to get to Old Man Althaus’s house; I just said that, quote, ‘I’ll be there by the time Paul is.’” Gideon let another giggle slip out, and added, “You should have seen your faces, especially yours, Paul! Not bad for somebody whose so...intense, huh?” Suddenly all laughter left his face like someone flipped a switch, and I could tell he’d heard every word I’d said about him last night, and wasn’t too happy about it. Spooky.
John wondered, “How could you hear Paul last night? The rig was parked all the way over on the driveway, and you were inside.”
“Duh!” answered Gideon. “I snuck out so I could listen in on what everybody was saying. You got a real friendly pig, Mr. Althaus, but your dog is as dumb as a box of rocks.”
He was referring to Zilla, Mr. Althaus’s thousand pound pig, a friendly animal if a bit intimidating, and Spot, a trained guard dog. Spot was a trained guard dog; not trained to engage, but to bark at strangers. There was no way that kid could have snuck past that dog.
Mr. Althaus asked, “How did you sneak past Spot? He’s a good dog.”
John added, “How come we didn’t hear the trailer door open?”
Gideon, the arrogant twerp, visibly puffed up and answered, “Dogs trust me. I told Spot (I didn’t know his name at the time) that I didn’t mean any harm and he believed me. As far as the door goes, I don’t think your question’s fair. If I was too far away to hear you ‘cause I was stuck in the trailer then I was too far away for you to hear me open it. See, you’re not making sense.” The wind picked up some and the rain began coming down a bit harder.
While we were having that scintillating conversation, Luke was down below piling up the goods under the hatch. He yelled up, “Hey, what’s going on up there? Is everything okay?”
Before any of us could answer, Gideon piped up, shouting down the hole, “No, were getting surrounded by a huge army of really smart undead. They’re kind of fast, too. You better get up here.” Gideon started some more snickering. I was not amused. Then I looked around and my anger suddenly evaporated. The kid was telling the truth. In the distance there was the flash of lightning.
I could see a number of the Changed peeking from around the corners of the mall while a crowd of them were using the cars around our location for cover. The closest of them were about forty yards away. While Luke shouted up the hole wondering who he was talking to, Mr. Althaus remarked, “Where did they come from?”
I began shouting for Luke to climb out, that we had hostiles incoming, and it was time to abort the mission. Hearing us, the ghouls broke from their cover and began that loping fast gait they have. There were too many to count at first glance. At least forty, I’d never seen that many ghouls in one place before.
While some of their number had been sneaking around the corners of the strip mall toward us, others had climbed over the roof and were now jumping down at us from above and behind. I took aim and began to whittle down their numbers. Old Man Althaus and John chipped in as best as they were able but neither of them were snipers. They used their shotguns to good effect by taking the legs of the ghouls out from under them, while I concentrated on head shots.
Luke wasn’t up out of the storage crate when the ghouls began leaping at us. That was when a pair of revolvers (like something out of a Western) appeared in Gideon’s hands and he began making head shots.
With all humility I can tell you that I’m a very good shot. My life has routinely depended on my ability to hit whatever I’m aiming at, dating from decades before the Change. So when I say ghouls are hard to head shoot, I’m not exaggerating. I can usually hit two out of three at fifty yards, assuming they’re on the move- otherwise they’re no harder to hit than anything else. That damn kid, though, put this old man to shame. Gideon emptied both revolvers is less time that it takes to tell, killing them as they came.
He had one arm stretched out to the right, holding a huge pistol which was way to big for his hand. Gideon’s left hand was meanwhile stretched out in the opposite direction firing simultaneously. He seemed to be aiming using his peripheral vision, or maybe he was using the force, it was hard to tell. In any case he dropped at least ten ghouls while spinning in some kind of effeminate ballet dance.
Even with my own contributions that still left over twenty ghouls at close range. A trio leaped at John, who slammed them aside using his shotgun. Then he drew the big maul he carried with him and began swinging for the fences. Two of them fell before the bladed side of his maul as the third one got inside his guard. Then another one managed to leap on him from behind. Grabbing the one in front of him by the neck John slammed its skull into the pavement, mixing its brains with the running rain. Before the one on his back could do more harm, I manage to shoot it off him.
Old Man Althaus needed a bit more of my attention. I don’t doubt that the man could hold his own against all comers back in the day, but right then he was pushing eighty and, like I said, ghouls are hard to hit. The two of us went back to back. I was able to clear off any of the enemy that came my way, but I felt Mr. Althaus get shoved against me and knew he was in trouble. I had to spin around and began using the but of my rifle to bash in the heads of the ghouls which were trying to swarm the man. The only thing which saved him was the high grade body armor he made a habit of wearing.
The sky suddenly darkened as th
e storm broke in earnest. Suddenly it was raining buckets with the only thing to break the gloom being the occasional bolt of lightening, followed immediately by a deafening boom of thunder.
While all that was going on, Gideon had drawn his swords and engaged the enemy in close quarters combat. He kept up that screwy looking ballet dance he’d been doing and managed to sweep through the ghouls like a scythe through the harvest. His plan was clearly to stand over the hole leading down into the supply cache to keep any of the horrors from slipping below.
That’s when I realized the boy’s (well, technically man’s) strategy. He gunned down all the ghouls which had been coming at us from over the rooftops of the mall first. That gave us a little space to retreat into. Then he’d reversed direction and held his ground over the hole leading to Luke. While Mr. Althaus, John, and I had been driven to retreat, Gideon had held his ground. Naturally, most of the ghouls went for him as the nearest target. That in turn gave Mr. Althaus and I a chance to get back to shooting while John moved in to melee the ghouls immediately surrounding the kid.
I had to be especially cautious to avoid friendly fire in such a mixed up situation. Mr. Althaus was similarly careful. I had no idea how the kid was still standing. Somehow John managed to get another ghoul on his back. He was so concerned about all the enemies in front of him he just did his best to ignore it. That’s when Gideon threw one of his swords over John’s shoulder and straight into the ghouls skull without even nicking John. It was almost like he’d practiced the move a thousand times.
With only one sword Gideon was beginning to slow down some. At the start of the enemy’s charge the kid had yelled to his dog, “Frank!” and I finally saw why. The mutt had returned from the back of the semi with a small hatchet in his mouth and Gideon took that up as a kind of replacement. Then, while Mr. Althaus was reloading, he threw that too, right into the back of the head of another ghoul as it leapt at the old man.
Fortunately, it looked like things were winding down, and in our favor. that’s when the ogre wave showed up. I was a bit surprised that I was surprised. I mean, isn’t that how it always goes? First the ghouls show up with all their speed, then the ogres come along to finish us with their strength. I turned all my attention to taking them out.
Mr. Althaus took my cue and we managed to manage a steady stream of head shots. They seemed to be moving a bit faster than the usual ogre but no faster than a jogging human. Between the two of us we were able to vastly reduce their numbers in short order.
I was able spare some attention back on the melee happening less than ten yards in front of me. John had left his maul buried in some ghouls lower jaw by way of its cranium, and was in the process of grabbing two of them by the neck and smashing their skulls together, a move I’d never seen. Seeing the trouble John was having, Gideon threw his last sword to make an end of one of John’s antagonists and then jumped down the hole into the storage container, feet first.
That was when I first realized there was some fighting going on below. One of the ghouls must have fallen or leaped into the hole. I could only pray that Luke was smart enough to not try any shooting down there. If he did then he’d shoot himself with a ricochet for sure.
I ran over to the hole and plunged in, myself. What I saw was not encouraging. Everything was a mass of confusion and chaos. I could tell right away that far more than one of the enemy had found its way down below, and that my two companions were fighting for their lives.
By the dimmest glimmer of light from above I recognized a ghoul ahead of me attempting to grapple with someone. I brought up my hammer and painted its brains all over the walls. By the time I had my long handled claw hammer up for another blow, Gideon had turned on a flashlight with one hand and opened fire using a little bitty knuckle duster .22 in the other.
Another ghoul came my way and I put it down, too. The bullets from the knuckle duster went pinging all over the place as the kid opened fire indiscriminately. I would have yelled at him to stop firing but the situation was desperate enough to warrant almost any excess. Finally, Gideon stopped shooting and all was silence.
By the illumination of the flashlight I saw five dead ghouls and one seriously gnawed Luke. Although his helmet had managed to keep the ghouls away from his face, and his armor had saved his torso, Luke’s arms and legs had taken a bit of a thrashing. Luke seemed barely mobile, and was bleeding from a number of deep bites. With all the supplies still heaped down below, the eight by twenty foot space was quite cramped. Together, Gideon and I hauled Luke over to the exit and began hoisting him up through the hole.
John pulled him up and we followed shortly. As I’d anticipated, the final mass of zombies were headed our way. My first thought was to get in the semi and make away, grinding all opposition beneath eighteen wheels of American built freight transportation, but it was not to be. The zombies had already closed past that point. We had no choice but to run into the strip mall with John practically carrying Luke the whole way.
Gideon did something foolish then. Instead of running with us, he ran over and picked up his swords. That put him squarely in the middle of the path of the approaching horde. The rest of us didn’t have the time to help out. If we had remained then we’d only have died with him. As it was John was supporting most of Luke’s weight as we moved toward the front entrance of a specialist diet store.
We shut the door behind us to the sounds of Gideon’s singing, ‘Hark the Herald Angels’, and his poor dumb mutt’s barking. We made our way through the shop without facing any troubles. I knew for a fact that Mark had sent a hundred guys to this very strip mall some months back, so I would have been surprised if there had been any zombies lurking within. Then again, I had no idea where the current horde we were facing had come from, either.
In the back of the shop we found an emergency door next to the loading dock. On the other side we had to let loose a lot of lead to clear our way; the zombies were everywhere. With John and I trying to haul Luke along we weren’t exactly making any land speed records. We struggled through the rising thunderstorm, with the rain coming down in torrents, and made our way about a hundred yards, cutting across back yards and side streets, before the mass of the dead began to close in around us. Old Man Althaus was looking pretty concerned as he told me, “I know a place around here we can rest,” and he held up his key ring, holding up one key in particular.
I was happy as long as someone had a plan. My first choice would have been to hot wire a car (there were plenty about), but after sitting in place for over four years I was pretty sure none of them would be functional. We didn’t exactly have time to do any serious mechanic work.
We got along for another quarter mile before the situation worsened. Whenever some zombies would get in our path, either Mr. Althaus or I would put them down, but after the first couple of hundred bodies dropped we were running low on ammunition.
The Old Man pointed to an opening in a long cemetery wall to our right, “Hurry up! We’ll be safe from the undead once we’re in the graveyard!”
That seemed like an optimistic perspective to me, but who was I to judge? Maybe there was some holy ground or something (if that’s even a thing).
Anyhow, once we got past the open gates Old Man Althaus began leading us along a paved way. As we hustled along as best we were able, I heard behind us the screaming of something horrible. Casting about, I saw another ghoul perched atop the cemetery wall, screaming its head off. No doubt it was calling all its buddies, the bastard. I took a shot and nailed it right through the eye. No sooner had it fallen than two more of the hellish entities leaped atop the same perch. We kept moving forward.
“Everything will be okay once were in the grave, you’ll see,” continued our aged leader. Not exactly a morale boosting declaration, however.
I was keeping an eye on our six and caught those two ghouls advancing to keep pace with us by paralleling our course. Both of them made real sure to take advantage of all the cover afforded by all the tombstones. They
were like wolves waiting for an exhausted prey to drop, except with way more hate.
As we approached a mausoleum at the back of a chapel I heard Mr. Althaus proclaim, “We’re here!” Then came the distinct click of a deadbolt sliding aside. Still the twin ghouls kept their distance.
I backed into that house of the dead just as the ghouls charged. We slammed the door and slid home the bolt as the enemy came crashing against it. The door was a reinforced steel slab fit into what looked like a vault frame. Maybe an ogre could get through but not a ghoul. I took a look around.
It was a ten foot square room fit with two sarcophagi. There was a couple of steps leading down to floor level. All around the inside of the tomb there were a bunch of bas-relief artwork. Angels, flowers, pearly gates, the risen Lord, all that. The sarcophagi were similarly adorned. In my day I’d had to hide out in worse.
I turned to look at Luke. He wasn’t in great shape, and probably would die from blood loss if we didn’t do something about it. I broke out my med kit and got to work with the needle and thread.
Meanwhile Old Man Althaus was searching around to the side of the steps. He came back with an old time tire iron and moved to the left sarcophagus, where he inserted the end into what looked like a rose facade. After a couple of cranks the whole thing began to rise up.
It took a few minutes for John and I to get the worst of Luke’s mauling stitched up. Once it looked like we had the bleeding stopped, John and I moved Luke out of the way. Then Mr. Althaus managed to slide the coffin holder back a couple feet. Underneath there was a trap door cast from steel: a secret entrance.
Without further ado, we scrabbled down that ladder, eager to be away before any ogres happened by to knock our hiding place down. John lowered Luke into my arms and then came down last. Mr. Althaus went back up a couple of rungs on the ladder and sealed the trapdoor after pulling the sarcophagus back into place.