Rick leaned forward and cupped his hands around his eyes, to see better in the fading daylight. “Oh, fuck, get your gear, now!”
Plaintive voices asked what was wrong. Rick turned to face his friends. “It’s a horde, coming straight for the house. We have to go!”
“Go where Rick? We can’t make it to the cars,” Dean said, his voice much calmer than he was feeling at that very moment.
Rick looked around at his companions, sparing a flick of his eyes to the two men on their knees and the one passed out on the floor. “Get him up, now, take their weapons.” Rick glanced out the window once more. “We’re going to the armory.”
Chapter 12
“What the hell do you mean “We’re going to the armory”? The jackass running things over there wants us all dead, or have you forgotten that?”
“No, Jimmy, I haven’t forgotten it. But we also have no choices here. Hopefully that “jackass” will see that we can help each other. Either way, we’re going.”
“Fine, can we at least shove these three out the front door while we make our way out the back? They might slow that damn horde down a little.”
Rick glared at Jimmy for several seconds before moving to grab his pack and weapon.
“I thought the same thing, Jimmy, but you know we can’t,” Mike said. “Let’s just get the hell out of here. Besides, having these goons might keep that Greer from shooting us on sight.”
Jimmy nodded curtly, snatching up his bag and heading for the back door.
The men all stacked up on the back door, with the three goons in the middle of the bunch. Jimmy stood in the lead position; hand on the doorknob, waiting for the word to go.
“Let’s do this,” Alex said, voice tight with dread.
Jimmy twisted the knob, yanked the door in, and stepped up, shotgun at the ready. He stood there, still and silent, listening for the slowly advancing horde. A low rumble, like distant thunder came from the direction of the front of the house. Jimmy shivered, a chill running across his skin. “It’s clear, but we need to move.”
“Straight across to the armory, go quick.”
Rick’s words were all the encouragement the group needed to get moving. As they passed the back of the house several of the men, including the goons from the armory, glanced over at the still bodies lying in the tall grass.
Dean wondered if it had been necessary to kill them, but quickly gave up pondering the question. He wasn’t sure he could have done it, though he was fully aware that they would have killed everyone in the house if Jimmy had not taken them out first.
Calvin ran just in front of Rick, dividing his attention between the three hostages in front of him and the ground passing under his feet. He couldn’t stop thinking that he would trip, twist his ankle, or even run head first into a tree. His friends would have to keep going and he would be devoured, most likely by some middle-age housewife in pink slippers and housecoat.
“How many were there?” Cal huffed, stepping around a dead stump as the group made their way into a small copse of trees that bordered the highway.
Rick did not answer immediately, kept moving forward, cautiously watching where he placed his feet. “Hundred or more, hard to tell.”
Calvin was just as confused as the rest of his companions, and he gave voice to everyone’s thoughts as they moved through the trees. “How did they know we were there? Why would they come out of nowhere like that, heading straight for the house we were in? No way were we making any noise. Hell nearly everyone had been asleep, just before these pricks showed up.”
“I don’t know, Cal. Maybe they smelled the blood after Jimmy…”
“I thought they couldn’t smell. Dean, you and Dad said they had no sense of smell.”
“That’s what we thought, from that one kid we found at that house in New London. I don’t know Cal, maybe we were wrong. Maybe that kid was a fluke, I just don’t know.” Dean was breathing heavily, not just from exertion. A colossal heaving fear welled up in him, that somehow he and his father had assumed incorrectly and it was now going to get them all killed.
Having passed through the trees, the men spread out a couple of feet from each other as they stepped onto the highway. The large armory building loomed in front of them, sitting on a low hill.
“Renny, get your ass up here,” Mike said, “start telling your guys there’s a fucking horde coming this way. They start shooting I’m putting a bullet in your guts,” he growled.
Renny moved quickly up beside Jimmy, who still held the point position. Only one guard stood outside, on the north end of the building and Renny started shouting as soon as he spotted them. “Go, horde coming, giant horde coming!” He shouted, flapping his arms forward and back, as if pushing the guard to run away.
The guard dropped the cigarette he was puffing on and shouldered his rifle, pointing it not at the unknown men, but at Renny. “Renny, that you?”
“Yes, it’s me, damn it! Run, get inside, there’s a friggin’ massive horde of shufflers comin’ this way!”
Renny stumbled as he tried to run up the steep slope of the hill, instead of angling for the lower area near the turnoff from the highway. He caught himself, and pushed on up the hill, all the while calling “Go, damn it, just go!” between heaving draughts of air.
The guard began to backpedal, stumbling as his foot hit a dip in the ground. “Who the hell are these guys, Renny?”
“Don’t worry about it, let Greer handle them,” Renny said as he ran by the guard.
Everyone made it around to the main entrance of the building, which faced away from the highway, and the impending horde of undead.
Everyone gathered in the main parking lot, moving toward the building as the door pushed open and a man in battle fatigues stepped out, rifle up and aimed at the group.
“Stop right there, people.” The man’s eyes searched the bunch, seeing three of the men he had sent to ambush the attackers waiting in the house. His gaze settled on Renny. “What the hell Renny, you were supposed to take these assholes out; instead you bring them right back here.”
“Listen Greer, shit went sideways, Johnny and Dan, are…uh, they’re dead.” Renny began to stumble over his words, more terrified of the immediate threat of Greer’s rage, than the zombies. “Th-there’s n-nothing we could do man! Uh, we have bigger problems. There’s a big ass bunch of the shufflers coming!”
Greer cocked his head, looking closely at Renny, the barrel of his rifle drifting downward and inch. “What do you mean, “big ass bunch” Renny? How big?”
“At least a hundred, most likely much more.”
“I didn’t ask you shitface! I was talking to my man here. Who the fuck’re you?” The rifle jumped back up, sighting on Rick.
Rick took a step forward, looking Greer directly in the eyes. “There’s a sizable herd of zombies heading this way. We don’t have time for your bravado bullshit. We need to work together to survive, and that’s all there is to it.”
Greer took several steps forward, now only a couple of feet from Rick. “You don’t tell me what the fuck I need to do! This is my fucking house, and I make the rules!” Greer’s face began change colors, his instant rage flowing up from his collar into face, flushing it a bright red.
Several men had followed Greer outside, and more were now coming through the door, every one of them armed.
“You can shut the hell up or I can hang your asses on my little cage out there,” Greer flicked his rifle toward the vehicle area, surrounded by a fence hung with still-twitching zombies.
The heavy smell of decomposition flowed on the air from the fenced vehicle area, thick and cloying even at a distance.
Rick glared at the man holding him and his people at gun point. Renny and the two goons walked slowly out of the crowd, rejoining their people. The Oko Tipi group stood there, unsure of what to do with this crazy-ass nutjob that was going to either kill them or get them killed.
“Me and my boys are going back inside that building where we can wait this
shit out. As for you, when this is done, you don’t need to worry, I’ll make sure the rest of the people at your camp are well taken care of.”
Mike Phillips stood there silently, watching this man who was obviously psycho telling them he was going to not only let them die, but that he would also kill or capture everyone left at Camp Oko Tipi once there was no one left to defend it.
Mike saw the man clearly for what he was. The bad guy, that one person that everyone knows is evil right from the start, but does nothing about until it is too late. He was not going to let this crazy prick govern his life or the lives of his friends and family.
Greer and his men had begun to back away slowly, retreating toward the safety of the armory when a bright red hole suddenly appeared above his right eye. His head snapped back, throwing blood and brain tissue on the man standing just behind him. The loud crack of Mike’s .45 and the sight of their leader crumpling to the ground disoriented the men for a moment.
Rick and his men brought up their weapons, taking advantage of the confusion. “Not one single man raises a weapon or you’re all going down, is that fucking clear!” Rick shouted. “We don’t have time to play games with you people, we have to get inside where…”
Rick’s words were cut off by the sight of the first zombies rounding the corner of the building, heading straight for Greer’s men. They saw the look on his face, turning to see the hungry mouths and grasping hands coming for them. They were too far away from the entrance to get back before at least a few of them were brought down.
“We’re cut off!” Calvin said, his voice rising.
The others looked around, knowing there was nowhere to go that they would be safe. Alex slapped Mike on the arm and jerked his head at the vehicle lot. “Inside there, no place else to go.”
The others heard, began to run for the lot. “Shit, it’s padlocked!” Alex jerked on the lock, as if desire and desperation alone could snap the cold metal.
The bodies hanging closest to them began to thrash and twist, causing the fence to sway violently. Jimmy stepped forward, placing the end of his shotgun barrel inches away from the padlock and pulled the trigger. The thick padlock jumped, tearing away from the chain wrapped through the fence and around the posts of the gate.
“A warning would be nice, next time,” Dean said, his ears ringing from the report of the shotgun.
“I think you got their attention, Jimbo,” Mike said, looking over his shoulder. “Everybody in, now!”
Behind them, a large chunk of the horde peeled away from the main group that was now descending on the men from the armory, heading for the fenced vehicle enclosure.
Shots were being fired in a futile attempt to slow the mass of writhing, grasping, rotting bodies that easily overran the soldiers from the armory without pause. Few of the zombies stopped to join in the feast, following the last man as he went for the door, leading the horde toward the smorgasbord that waited inside the building.
The man made it through the door, fighting against the spring loaded door closer to shut it as fast as possible. Snapping the lock into place he stood behind the door, watching as the undead piled up outside, pressing against the glass. The zombies in front were slowly being crushed against the windows. His stomach turning at the gore being smeared and spattered over the glass, the man turned and ran down a wide hallway, locking another door behind him.
Jimmy yanked the gate open, climbing over a car that sat sideways behind it. The other five men followed closely, with Rick bringing up the rear, pulling the chain link gate closed behind him. “I need zip ties!” he called.
Every one of the men carried a few of the heavy-duty plastic zip ties. They were great to use as restraints if needed, but had so many useful applications during a survival situation that it became standard for everyone to have some on hand at all times.
Reaching behind him, Rick took the small handful of zip ties he was given, and pulled several from a cargo pocket on his camo pants. He threaded the chain through the fence, around the aluminum tubes of the gate and began to secure that with the plastic ties. In and out, through each other he cinched down tie after tie, hoping that the seven ties he used would hold the chain tight, keeping the fence closed.
Once the gate was as secure as he could make it, Rick dropped down behind the cars that circled the inner perimeter of the fence, leaving a wide open space in the middle of the lot.
The men hunkered low, watching through windows and between gaps in the vehicles. Heavy breaths were exhaled, hammering hearts began to slow. A couple of the men sat with their backs to the cars, leaning against the cold metal, muttering to themselves.
“What now,” Dean whispered, “we’re trapped in here, with Zoms hanging on the fence, and Zoms surrounding the fence, and Zoms about to break into the damned armory.”
“We wait, we watch and we figure some way out of this shit.” Mike spoke softly, watching as the pack that had separated from the main horde bunched up around the gate, rattling the fence, shaking the zombies that hung there like diseased piñatas. All eyes turned toward Jimmy when they heard him softly humming the tune to the old rock and roll song Shake Rattle and Roll.
“What the hell, Jimmy?” Rick asked, as several gave him a stern look. Mike chuckled when Jimmy just shrugged. He stopped humming but grinned at his friend with a knowing glimmer in his eye.
The milling crowd of gut-suckers pressed against the fence, teeth gnashing at the links, gray-skinned faces pressing against the wire mesh, cutting lines and angles into the flesh. Though the creatures pawed and moaned at the gate, grasping and groaning their hungry needs, they were not as fervent in their action as normal.
“What’s the deal, why aren’t they tearing the gate down?”
“No idea Calvin. They don’t seem as animated as usual,” Rick replied.
Even as they watched, several zombies in the back of the bunch began to move away, turning toward the armory building. Minutes passed, the men watching silently as zombie after zombie peeled away, moving back to the armory to rejoin the massive horde that was still pressing the front of the building.
They could hear glass shatter, and the low groan of the crowd increased, thrumming in their eardrums, making them feel like their heads were vibrating from the noise.
Soon there were just a few stragglers left right at the fence, all others had rejoined the group that was now pushing into the lobby of the armory, turning down the wide hallway.
“It has to be the smell,” Dean said. “Dad and I were wrong. I don’t know why, but we were. The smell of these things is masking our scent,” he said, pointing to the hanging zombies on the fence.
“If that’s the case, then we can just smear zombie guts all over us and walk the fuck out of here,” Calvin offered.
“Great idea, lets hack one of those things open and just dive right in,” the sarcasm in Jimmy’s voice unmistakable.
“You have a better idea, dickhead? Or you just going to sit over there and let everyone else figure it out?”
Jimmy smiled at Calvin, a slow and dark lifting at the corners of his mouth that gave Calvin a chill. Cal looked away, watching the last few undead on the fence.
“It’s a great idea, sure,” Mike said, “except, well, fuck that!” His voice low but forceful. “Even if that crap would work there’s too much risk of getting sick. One tiny ass cut and you’re done. You really want to go smearing that shit on you, Cal?”
“Was just a thought man, throwing stuff out there is all.”
Gunfire popped from inside the armory, followed by a chorus of screams, rising, rising, then silenced with more gunfire. The men crouching beside the ring of cars inside the fence peered over, around and through the vehicles, though they were unable to see anything other than the last few zombies at their gate.
Dusk had come and gone, leaving the men to wait in nearly fully dark. The moon was high, providing just enough light to watch the horde of undead in and around the building.
“We have to
do something to draw these fuckers away. Get them moving so we can get back to our vehicles.”
“Dean’s right,” Mike said, “but we also came for whatever’s in that armory. We still need to get in there, see if there’s anything left worth salvaging.”
“I don’t know about you guys,” Alex said, “but I really don’t feel like spending the night here in our little cage.”
Rick cast his eyes around the line of cars, thinking, but before he could say anything, Jimmy spoke up. “Alex, can you make a car blow up?”
All eyes went to Jimmy, then Alex. “Uh, yeah, pretty easy really. We can’t blow one up in here though.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jimmy sighed, “I’m thinking we send a car down the hill, right at the pond. If we tie the wheel off then we can cut a hole in the wire to send the car through, zip tie the hole closed when we send it down the hill. It hits the water, or just explodes down there, hopefully drawing the gut-suckers down after it.”
The others were quiet for a moment, thinking about Jimmy’s suggestion. “Shit, anything’s worth a try at this point,” Mike said.
“I agree, Mike. We have to try something.”
“First we need to get rid of our three stooges that don’t seem to want to rejoin their party,” Jimmy said indicating the three zombies still standing at the gate.
“I’ll handle those,” Dean offered, Rick saying he would help.
“I need a smaller car, one with a gas tank that isn’t completely full.” A couple of the men eyed him quizzically.
“Wouldn’t you want a full tank, for a bigger explosion?”
“Actually, Dean, no. A partial tank has buildup of fumes, a full tank doesn’t. Those fumes are what will give us that nice, big POP,” Alex said with a grin.
Dean shrugged and went to join Rick in their task, while Mike and Jimmy went to work opening a hole a car could fit through, but they could close up easily. Alex and Calvin focused on finding the right car for the job.
Crouching low, Dean and Rick drew knives from their sheaths and took several deep breaths. “We do this fast, so they can’t start moaning, drawing in more.” Dean nodded his understanding, and both men pushed up on the car hoods in front of them, diving forward to bury their blades deep in the faces of two of the zombies. Steel sang against chain link as they withdrew their blades, careful to avoid splattering blood over themselves. As soon as their knives were free both men lunged at the final zombie, Dean’s blade going low in the face, Rick’s high, just above the left eye.
American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man Page 6