by Jack Hunt
“If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”
Bryan went over to the window and looked out.
“Oh, I’m not going to kill you, Frost. You’re my way out of this.”
“What?”
Bryan glanced back and smiled.
Ally could hear them moving around above the floorboards. They looked up fully expecting them to make their way down but they hadn’t figured out where they were.
“Why do you like him?”
“What?” Ally said looking at the door nervously. She moved over to it and pressed her ear against it.
“Frost, I mean.”
“What the hell has that got to do with you?”
“I’m curious. And being as we are probably going to die soon, humor me.”
Ally looked back at him with a look of disdain. “This is not the time or place to discuss it.”
“No?” Luke fired a round through the ceiling. There was a scream.
“What the hell are you doing? You want us to die?”
He snorted. “We should have been dead a year ago.”
She shook her head. “My father was right. You really are nuts. You should be out there with them.”
“Maybe I should. Perhaps we will.”
He began browsing around the shelves in the cellar. He pulled out a bottle of wine and brushed a thick layer of dust from it.
“1939. Now that is old.” He looked around for a second and then went over to a concrete pillar and cracked the neck off the bottle with a quick knock. Red wine poured all over the floor. He let it trickle for a while then held it above his mouth.
“You idiot. There are probably shards of glass in that.”
“Why do you care?”
“Whatever.”
“That’s right. Turn away. That’s what all of society does when things get uncomfortable. When they can’t handle people. It’s easier, isn’t it? Just to notch up another person as having mental problems. Instead of admitting that possibly, just maybe they have contributed to the way they are.” He sucked air in between his teeth as Ally looked at him. “I’m right, aren’t I?”
“You make your own choices. No one pushes you.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Ally.” He raised the bottle and let more wine cover his face. Most of it didn’t even go in his mouth. He then tossed it at the wall and it smashed. That only riled them even more. Ally got close to the door again. She could hear them outside walking around, looking for them.
“We are a product of our environment. Surely your father has taught you that. We are who we are because of the country we are born into, the parents we get or don’t get, the people who surround us and then, only then do we make choices.”
“Bullshit!” she replied.
Luke grabbed another bottle of wine. This time he unscrewed the top. It looked new. He gulped a mouthful down and then wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve.
“Bullshit? Tell me, princess. Did you choose your parents?” She never replied. “Did you want them to divorce? Are you unaffected by their divorce?”
“Just shut up, Luke.”
“Oh, hit a sore spot, did I?” He came close to Ally and leaned against the wall. “Drink?”
She shook her head; her mind was too preoccupied with wondering if they could hear them. Any second now she knew they would clue in and burst through the door. She checked the magazine on her Glock. There were six bullets left.
“I know you think you are better than me. Better than those who attended your father’s Camp Zero program but let me tell you something, princess. You are just as fucked up in the head as the rest of us.” Ally shot him a glance. “Oh yeah, you know it too. You see, deep down you wish your parents were together. Deep down you wish your father hadn’t been away for months and months on end. And deep down, you hate the fact that you couldn’t stop your mother’s death.”
Ally spun around and smacked him across the face. “Shut the hell up or I swear I will put a bullet in your head.”
“Go on! Go on!” Luke grabbed the barrel end of the gun and placed it in his mouth. “Shoot!” he screamed. “Shoot!”
She stared at him, her hand shaking. Slowly she pulled the gun from his mouth.
Tears streaked his face. “I wish you had shot me.” He staggered away into the shadows of the cellar.
The glass shattered as Billy fired a round at a skylight and then launched himself through it without even looking to see how far the drop was. He landed hard on a table causing it to break beneath him. He’d always been fond of parkour but this shit was taking things to the extreme. He rolled off the table just as one of those ugly bastards came soaring through the open frame above. He fired a round and sprinted, partly hobbled and dragged his ass towards the door, all the while praying to God that he wouldn’t die. He’d never been religious, but right now he was prepared to accept every religion on the planet if it meant getting out of there.
“Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Creepy Pasta Dude, I promise, I will dedicate my life to the service of your good works if you just…” He paused to fire two more rounds into a heavily bearded freak that was catching up with him. “Where was I?” He burst into the stairwell and slid down the side, then entered the next floor. He looked both ways. In all the rush, he had no idea where the hell he was but it looked like a bed and breakfast going by all the rooms. He could hear them coming. His pulse was beating hard and he could hear blood rushing in his ears. He bolted down the hallway to the next stairwell, entered there and kept moving not even stopping to look back. Once he reached the lobby, he kicked a pair of double doors open and his eyes widened.
“Oh, you have got to be shitting me!”
Inside the lobby were five more. They caught sight of him and twisted around.
“Fuck this.”
He raised his gun and fired rapidly all the while running at them. He managed to take three of them down, before he skidded across the waxed floor on his side and slipped into an office. He slammed the door behind him and locked it. Not wasting a second, he got behind a heavy mahogany table and jammed it against the door. He then shot into the adjourning bathroom and locked the door. He stepped back and stood on top of the toilet. He could hear them slamming against the door and wood being broken. Billy fumbled with the magazine on the gun. He loaded another magazine from his pocket. It was the last one he had. Fifteen rounds and it would all be over.
His short life replayed in his mind as he squatted on top of the toilet, checking once, then checking a second time that the Glock was loaded. He heard another crack, and their screams became even louder. They were inside; at least he was convinced they were if the noise was any indication. That table couldn’t have held them for long. He contemplated putting the gun to his own head and taking his life but he was too much of a coward to do it.
Shit. Shit! He repeated the words and scanned the room. There was no window in there. There was no way out. Except back out the way he had come.
This was it. Any minute now, one of those fuckers was going to pop its head through the door and scream… Here’s Johnny!
20
Murphy and Shaw raced upstairs. Outside ten people were trying to force their way into the home. They knew it was only a matter of time before they shifted the fridge and table. They were using their bodies like a battering ram, and making progress by the sounds of it.
Frantically Murphy considered their options. The chances of being able to escape via the window were highly unlikely as there were too many of them on either side of the home.
“Here, help me with this,” Shaw said pulling on the cord to the attic door. Murphy grabbed the steel ladder and yanked it down. As they were climbing up, they heard a huge crash in the kitchen, then the sounds of bodies piling over each other. Shaw went up first, Murphy followed and then pulled up the steps.
Inside the attic the only light came from an eyebrow attic vent at the far end. It was unfinished, and so all that was below them were wooden beams and ins
ulation. Almost immediately they heard the insane coming up to the second floor.
Shaw pulled on Murphy’s arm and they made their way along the narrow beam towards the vent. It was made of wood. Murphy tugged on it but it wouldn’t shift.
“Stand back.”
He dropped to a seated position, reared back his legs and slammed them hard into the slats of the vent. Once, twice, three times. On the fourth they gave way and burst outwards. That’s when they heard one of the insane grasp the ladder. How they had managed to reach it was unknown but if they didn’t get out now it was over. Murphy helped Shaw crawl out and told her to go up onto the roof. She eased out on to a ledge.
“I don’t think I can do it. There’s not enough room.”
“We have no choice.”
Murphy turned at the sight of the first one who poked his head up. He unloaded a round. The bullet hit the bastard square in the face, sending him hurtling back on the others below.
“Go,” he hollered.
Shaw did her best to shimmy along a weathered ledge. She had done some amateur climbing in her time and it reminded her of being below an overhang, searching for any crevice to place her fingers into. There was hardly any room for her toes. Murphy hauled himself out and fired another round as two of them came up. He didn’t need to hit the second one as the male stepped on an area of insulation and went straight through. He disappeared out of sight in an instant.
Shaw swung her leg over onto the roof and clambered over the lip. She was almost certain that she was going to fall. Her heart was beating a mile a second, she was sweating profusely and fear was trying to override her ability to think straight.
Once both of them were on the roof, they wanted to catch their breath but they knew they couldn’t. Murphy peered over to see one of the insane climb out the window only to fall to the ground. Multiple times this happened and then he noticed the next few eased themselves out. They were learning from the mistakes of the others. Adapting to the new challenge. These weren’t mindless individuals, void of intelligence. Their brains were still operating in a way similar to their own, except they were full of uncontrollable rage.
“Kate, look for a way off, I’ll hold them at bay.”
Murphy had the advantage; he didn’t have to use one bullet. The very second they placed their fingers on the ridge of the roof he stomped them and kicked them off. After three of them dropped to their deaths, the others, if there were any more, didn’t come out. They were showing signs of self-preservation or looking for an alternative means of getting at them. Murphy placed his ear to the roof to see if he could hear them.
There was a small amount of shuffling, and then no more.
“Murphy, there is telephone pole a few feet away, and wire that runs over to the next building. We might be able to—”
Shaw was cut off by a pitchfork coming up through the roof. The insane screamed and pounded the roof multiple times. Splinters of wood flew in the air, shingles slid out of the way. The fuckers were trying to break their way through the plywood. Murphy double-timed it over and fired two rounds down through the small holes they had created.
“Let’s go.”
Shaw gave herself enough running distance and then raced towards the edge before launching off. Her landing was less than perfect. She slipped down before grabbing one of the thick wires. Slowly but surely she worked her way across in a hanging position, all the while the insane below were screaming. Murphy followed suit and within a matter of minutes they were on the roof of some local business.
Aaron Rivers hadn’t been able to shake the thought of what might have happened to Sam and the others. He’d gone back and forth in his mind as to whether to go out with a few of the men and search for them. Though he wasn’t responsible for their decisions, he couldn’t help feel that Brett would have wanted him to keep an eye on Sam.
Thomas was playing a game of cards with three others. They were sitting around a large round table, drinking tequila and trash talking when he approached.
“Thomas. Can I speak with you?”
A cigar stuck out the corner of his mouth, his one eye squinting as he placed his cards flush against the table.
“Now, don’t you fuckers look. I mean it.”
They laughed and made a wisecrack about how he didn’t stand a chance anyway.
“What can I do for you?”
Aaron walked over to the bar and Thomas followed.
“I want to take a group out and see if we can find them.”
“Out of the question,” Thomas replied while turning to head back to the table. Aaron grabbed a hold of his arm and Thomas looked at his hand then glared. Aaron released his grip.
“Just give me three men.”
“It’s not happening.”
“You’re not in charge, Thomas.”
Thomas took the cigar out of his mouth and turned around. He was a heavyset man, with an attitude that seemed as if it could change at the drop of hat.
“Remember, I’m the one that saved your asses. I lost men in the process, so while we are inside here, I call the shots, get it? Now if you want to go out, by all means but I am not jeopardizing the lives of good men who are needed here.”
“I’m not asking for a lot.”
He got close up to Aaron. “The only reason those fuckers out there haven’t busted their way inside here is because we have more than enough men to hold back the tide. So what? I give you three and you return with one, or zero. What then? A week from now, a month, you decide to go out again with another three. Before you know it, we have no one left to protect us. Look around you, Aaron. This isn’t about you or me. It’s about women, children and all these men surviving.”
“And how long do you suppose we are going to last here? Our resources are already running low. There are too many mouths to feed. What then? You can’t hide in here forever.”
Thomas took a puff on his cigar. “And what do you propose?”
“Sam mentioned there are military here. They are leaving probably within a day or two. If we can get everyone over to the lumberyard, we can use one of the Hayes trucks and go with the others to Hayden.”
He chuckled. “Hayden. You really believe there is one town left that hasn’t fallen prey to this shit storm?”
“I think there are a lot. We were surviving before this kicked off.”
“Were,” Thomas shot back. “Our best chance of surviving this is to wait it out. If the military is beginning to help, they’ll return.”
“And if they don’t?”
He got real close to Aaron. “Then we’ll deal with that when the time comes.”
With that said he turned and went back to the table. He plopped himself down and picked his cards up. He shot Aaron another look and then went back to playing a game. That’s all he was doing. Playing games. Wasting time. Getting drunk. Not me, Aaron thought.
He exited the dining area and went down the corridor to the west side of the building. There were five men positioned in various locations. He motioned to three of them to come with him. They didn’t think twice. Since they had arrived, Aaron had taken on a role of ensuring that shifts were rotating and men were being utilized as and where needed.
“You. You. You. Come with me.”
Bryan Catz peered nervously out of a window. This hadn’t gone entirely as he’d planned. Sam Frost was meant to be dead and he and his pals were meant to be long gone by now. What a fuck-up. He cast a glance back at Sam who was groaning like a little bitch.
“Here,” Bryan went over to him and told him to take his shirt off. “Wrap it around your leg and stop whining. We can’t have you bleeding out.”
“Why are you keeping me alive?”
“I told you. You’re my way out of here.”
“And how do you figure that?”
“Well, you couldn’t have walked here. Where’s the car, truck, whatever you used?”
Sam was leaning back on a chair using the shirt as a tourniquet. The bullet wound itself
wasn’t as bad as Sam thought. It hurt like shit but when he pulled up his pant leg, he could see that the bullet had taken a small chunk out of his lower calf. No artery had been hit. He wouldn’t die, but he had to slow the blood flow at least until he could get it treated.
“Outside of the town on the east side. You’ll never get to it.”
“Maybe not but you must have thought you were getting out of here, so tell me, how were you going to do it?”
Sam glanced up at him. “Fuck you.”
Bryan stormed over and shoved his gun in his face. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Go ahead, you’d be doing me a favor.”
Bryan stared at him before beginning to laugh. “You really are fucked up, aren’t you, Frost?” He pulled back and sat in a chair across from him, all the while keeping the Glock pointed at him. Sam finished tying off his leg. He winced in pain.
“You really shouldn’t run from a man with a gun. What did you think would happen? You can’t outrun a bullet.” He stared at Sam. “So why did you do it?”
“What?”
“Why did you decide to turn against us?”
“By us, you mean when I was a skinhead?”
“You aren’t too bright, are you, Frost?”
“Bright enough to know that you aren’t getting out of here alive.”
Bryan leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees. He shook the gun a little. “Come on, tell me.”
“I was wrong to think that there isn’t good in people. There is, and that includes those who are different. Different skin color, different culture, different outlook on life.”
Bryan laughed. “It was that guy, wasn’t it? What’s his name? Scot Murphy, that’s it. He brainwashed you, didn’t he? Fuck, I feel sorry for you.”
“Don’t. Maybe he can help you.”