by S. Ganley
The ominous sound of splintering wood from the second door at the far end of the room told her that she was just about out of time. The entire door frame was knocked loose with the lock still firmly engaged into the door itself. As the zombies on the outside pushed their weight against the door, the frame moved forward and caught on the edge of a table situated only inches from the door. If they had managed to break through the lock the door would have swung open and given them free access to come pouring into the room. As it was, the extra several inches of door frame that broke free along with the door was wedged tightly against the corner of the table. She watched as four zombies filled the gap between the broken door and wall. The collective force of their weight against the door frame was already starting to buckle the only remaining obstacle keeping them from rushing towards her.
Another piece of wood from the middle of the first door shot halfway across the room increasing the opening enough to allow a set of shoulders to fit through. Huntress watched as the first zombie wiggled its way through the opening as wooden slivers sticking out into the gap tore through cloth and flesh but didn't slow the creature’s progress in the least. Tumbling onto the floor inside the room, the creature jumped to its feet and began rushing wildly towards her. She recognized it for what it once was in its previous life, a young girl no more than ten or eleven years old. The girl was heavily overweight for her age and height but even the extra baggage she was carrying didn't slow her advance. With an animal like growl and exposed teeth ready to sink into the first piece of flesh she could reach, she charged across the room. Huntress blocked her age from her mind, she told herself that it was nothing more than a wild animal intent on doing her harm and not a prepubescent child who should be on a playground outside of an elementary school somewhere. Centering her sights on the zombie’s nose, she squeezed the trigger repeatedly in rapid succession. Out of five shots that she sent down range, three connected with the girls face, two of those punctured the brain in just the right place and sent the fat little monster tumbling to the ground where she rolled head over heels twice before finally coming to rest underneath a table several feet away. Huntress calculated the distance that single zombie had covered across the room and compared it to her reaction time and how much room remained between its final resting place and her own position. She realized that under those exact same conditions she might be able to stop two zombies if she sped up the time it took her to aim and fire by at least several seconds. Any more than two at once and she would not stand a chance. Looking from one door to the next all she could see was a solid mass of decomposing bodies pressing forward into the room. The sound of straining and cracking wood from both doors told her that her next encounter was going to include many more than two at once.
#
Sneaking through the halls of the office building had proved more challenging than Garrett had anticipated. The three zombies in the lobby had only been the tip of the iceberg once they got inside. Despite the general rectangular appearance of the building on the outside, the inside proved to be a labyrinth of short of long hallways running off in a different directions. Many of the hallways were outside the reach of the little light that was coming in from windows scattered here and there throughout the building and they had found themselves feeling their way cautiously in the dark on several occasions. The central part of the building had one long wide hallway that they had found labeled as Broadway. Tracks running along the floor and ceiling seemed to indicate that large pieces of equipment were routinely transported from one end of the hall to the other with a miniature crane system. That main hallway also appeared too been a very attractive location for fifty or more zombies who they found packed shoulder to shoulder from one end to the other. Backing cautiously away from the central part of the building they started following one corridor after another trying to find one that ultimately led towards the loading dock. It was Shellie who solved part of their problem by ripping a fire escape plan from the wall and making use of it as a crude map to guide them through the confusing maze of halls, offices and open work areas. Garrett had been forced to use his knife to dispatch zombies on two different occasions when they stumbled on them in dark hallways. They had been lucky both times that more of the undead had not been lurking nearby.
"Look." Shellie whispered as she grasped Garrett by the arm and directed his attention towards the end of an L-shaped hallway they were about to walk past. At the end of the hallway four zombies were just disappearing from sight into the connecting corridor. They had only seen zombies moving fast like that when they were on the trail of some form or prey and there was only one type of prey that they would be so interested in.
Looking at the fire escape plan Garrett shook his head when he compared what was on paper to their actual surroundings. "Damn. I should have realized this. This plan is twelve years old, the building must have been renovated since then. That hallway should be an outside wall. No wonder we haven't found the loading dock yet. The path that led there when these plans were drawn up has been cut up into smaller sections to support an open office design."
As the last zombie disappeared around the corner and out of sight, Garrett led the way to that same corner where he stopped and cautiously peeked around. The hallway the zombie had disappeared into led to an exterior door with an exit sign directly overhead. Doors lined the hallway on both sides but it was quickly evident exactly where the pilot must have been hiding. Garrett counted nine zombies stacked up against two different doors spread apart by about forty feet. They were crowding into the doorways and pounding incessantly against the closed doors. He could only guess that those doors must open into the same room and that the pilot was inside.
"Shit." He exclaimed as he ducked back out of sight next to Shellie, "there are about nine of them trying to get into a room from two different doors. It’s a good bet our pilot is behind those doors right now."
As he was giving Shellie an overview of the situation his eyes fell on a glassed in fire kit built into the wall at the junction of the hallways. Inside the glass enclosure were two fire extinguishers, one water and the other chemical based, and more importantly a long handled fire axe. Taking another glance around the corner at the layout of the hallway and getting a feel for the overall distance, Garrett thought he had a plan that just might work. Taking a firm grasp on the handle of the glass case he was pleased to note that it was not locked and swung open without much difficulty. Examining the contents he saw that the extinguisher filled with water was just about empty. He figured that some prankster on the staff had probably used it during an office party to dose his coworkers. The meter on the chemical extinguisher still read completely full. Since it was an eye irritant and would not be as much fun as a party trick they had left it alone until it was needed for its intended purpose. Grabbing the chemical extinguisher and axe, Garrett pulled the safety pin free from the extinguisher and handed it to Shellie.
"Keep the nozzle pointed down the hall. When they spot me pull back on the handle and don't let go until its empty." Garrett directed as he showed her how to fire the extinguisher. "Anything that gets past me you are going to have to take out on your own. Do you think you can handle that?"
Before she could answer they both heard a bone chilling splinter of wood from down the hall as the zombies managed to break through portions of the door. Garrett peeked back around the corner and saw that the door closest to him had been knocked inward several inches. Something on the inside of the room was preventing the door and its frame from falling over completely. Even with that impediment the zombies crowding up on that one door were now able to press forward a couple more feet and would soon be able to knock that door completely free and spill into the room beyond. Just a few seconds after that door was partially broken down, a large chunk of wood from the center of the other door disappeared into the room and a single small zombie worked its way through the opening. The sound of rapid fire gunshots from inside the room told them that the pilot was standing hi
s ground. Garrett knew that once the rest of the zombies in the hall broke through the door that pilot wouldn't have a chance in hell in holding them back on his own.
"It’s now or never. Are you ready?" Garrett asked as he hefted the axe over his shoulder and prepared to step around the corner.
Shellie lifted the extinguisher and pointed the nozzle around the corner while nodding her head in reply, "Send them all back to hell."
As soon as Garret took his first step into the hallway, Shellie pulled back on the handle and began unleashing a thick spray of chemical fog that just about reached the zombies piled up against the first door. The chemical dispersed into a dense white cloud that filled the hall in seconds. Charging through the spreading cloud of smoke, Garrett reached to the first group of zombies and began swinging the axe with all his strength. With that door leaning into the room and barely hanging on by two remaining hinges the undead pilled against it were off balance and could not react quickly enough to Garrett's sudden emergence from the blinding cloud of chemical fog. The axe cut smoothly and effortlessly through skin and skulls and in seconds Garrett had successfully chopped through all four brains leaving behind a scene from a slasher movie. Three zombies had their heads cut completely in half across either their face or the side of their head. The fourth had been dealt a decisive blow down into its skull by the pointed back end of the axe blade, resulting in a cavern dug down into his head that allowed the remnants of its liquefied brain to slowly ooze out in a spreading pool on the floor around its lifeless body.
From further down the hall Garrett spotted a dark shadow lurching towards him from inside the cloud of chemical smoke. Pressing himself flat against the wall he waited until the figure stepped into range and then he swung the axe hard at what he judged would be shoulder height. The minimal visibility inside the cloud of smoke caused him to misjudge his aim by almost a full foot and instead of hitting the zombie square in the head the axe dug deeply into its chest and buried itself all the way to the base of the wood handle. Before Garrett could start to pull back on the handle for a follow up strike two more shadows loomed in front of him coming fast. Pushing against the handle of the axe he sent the zombie spinning off into the hallway behind him as he snatched his pistol from its holster and fired off four rapid fire shots towards the shapes of each head just barely visible inside the blanket of smoke. Two satisfying sounding thumps told him that both creatures were down and out of the fight. That now left him with at least one more in front of him and the one behind him with the axe buried in its chest. Turning back the way he had come would put him at risk of being mistaken by Shellie as a zombie coming towards her out of the smoke. Pressing himself up against the wall he minimized his exposure to the corridor behind him for the enviable fusillade of bullets Shellie would be sending his way as soon as she spotted the zombie with an axe buried in its chest materializing before her.
"Shellie. One coming your way, keep your fire to the right of the hallway." Garrett called back over his shoulder.
Sliding down the hall with his back against the wall he moved his pistol left and then right as different shadows appeared and disappeared in front of him mixed in with the choking smoke cloud. He was finding it harder to breath with the entire hallway now completely filled with the fire extinguishing vapor. He wasn't sure what kind of chemical had been in the extinguisher but he recalled some information in the military where he had been reassured that the types of chemicals in those containers were not generally harmful to humans. He now remembered that it had been recommended that after their use, windows were supposed to be opened to vent the gas and prevent respiratory problems in an enclosed space. He rationalized that the discomfort he was starting to feel in his lungs was worth the advantage in concealment and confusion created by the gas. The zombie he was now stalking probably was aware of his presence but would be having as much trouble finding him in the cloud of smoke as he was in finding it. He was gambling that without being able to pick him out of the darkness the zombie would just dismiss him all together and continue trying to break through the door to get to the pilot. As dangerous as they were, without the ability to reason and think like a living human being it was not all together difficult to trick zombies and take advantage of their inability to think rationally.
Garrett flinched as a round of rapid fire shots rang out behind him. He was sure that he actually felt one bullet pass within inches of his outstretched hands and he heard the impact as it struck the heavy metal exit door at the far end of the hallway. He paused for a moment to catch his breath and listen for any further signs of a struggle behind him telling him that Shellie had missed. When he was reasonably sure that Shellie must have succeeded in stopping the zombie, he continued moving forward one cautious step at a time. He could hear the zombie in front of him pounding relentlessly against the door and detected the familiar sound of splintering wood as even more of the door broke free. He estimated that he was only ten or twelve feet away from his target and he slipped across the hallway to the far wall to allow himself to come up behind the creature. If Shellie opened fire again there was a good chance she would hit him but he wouldn't allow himself to call out to her and alert this last zombie to how close he was to it. After taking three more steps he started to see a moving figure diagonally across the hall from him. The zombie already had half its body through the middle of the broken door and was just lifting its foot to step the rest of the way through. Garrett raised his pistol to a position where he estimated the things head would be on the other side of the splintered wooden door and was about to squeeze the trigger when another volley of rapid fire shots blasted into the hallway.
Holding his breath for a five count Garrett took inventory of his body and counted himself lucky that he had not been hit. The echo created by gunfire in the hall made it difficult to determine the source of the shots and his first instinct was that Shellie had let loose against another unseen target. When he saw the zombie in front of him suddenly slump to the ground half in and half out of the shattered door he realized he had been wrong. It had to be the pilot in the other room who just fired off those rounds and had been successful in stopping that last zombie from getting the rest of the way inside. He hadn't counted off the number of shots fired but he knew it was probably close to half a clip in a single volley. This told him that whoever was on the other side of that door was either undisciplined in the use of firearms or had already been pushed so far beyond any rational limit of fear that they were on the verge of a meltdown. In either scenario he did not want to just charge blindly into the room until it was clearly established that he wouldn't be walking into another hail of frantic gunfire. To have made it this far only to be mowed down by someone on their own side was not what he had in mind for himself.
"Hold your fire! Friendlies in the hallway." He waited for several seconds with no reply. "It’s all clear for the moment. But we have to move. This place is crawling with them and more will be coming soon after all the gunfire."
A tentative voice softly called back to him, "Who are you? Are you from the Lincoln?"
Garrett was surprised to discover he was talking to a woman. His impression from the start was that it would be a male pilot they would find. He told himself that he shouldn't be that surprised after all, females had been integrating into all branches of the armed services for many years now. Fighter pilot was one position that they had not reached in large numbers, but he had heard of a few. It actually made sense when he thought about it. Whatever remained of the armed forces in the wake of the apocalypse had probably been reduced to a small fraction of their former strength. Every able bodied member would be pressed into service to perform critical tasks. Her reference to the Lincoln must have been the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln. The possibility that her plane had come from an aircraft carrier positioned somewhere offshore had not occurred to him. A naval vessel out at sea when the outbreak started would have had the best chance of remaining infection free.
"No, w
e are civilians. My name is Garrett and I have one other person with me. We saw your chute and came to find you and get you back somewhere safe." Garrett responded.
As he said this it occurred to him that just the fact that they were not zombies might not be enough to sway her that she would be safe with them. It was possible that she could consider anyone who had been exposed to the virus to be a threat of some kind. The extended silence that followed his reply seemed to back up his reasoning. She was considering her options at that point and rushing out to greet the man who had just risked his life saving hers did not appear to be on the top of that list.
The smoke from the fire extinguisher was starting to diminish and settle as a fine while powder to the floor around his feet. Looking back up the hallway he saw Shellie hustling towards him while glancing back over her shoulder every few seconds. He was pretty sure they were running out of time and needed to quickly convince this pilot that unless she wanted to meet a pack of blood thirsty zombies face to face she needed to trust him.