by Mark Tufo
“Okay, baby girl. You’ll be out of here in a minute. We’re going to take you to your mother.”
I stood up again and headed for the door. I carried the woman fifteen feet away from the house, lowered her to the ground and said, “Keep moving. You’re downwind, but there could be more out there. Hide, but keep an eye on us in case we need help.”
We needed a better plan than this.
I turned and saw Gem pulling Cynthia’s daughter out. She had slung the gun over her shoulder and now held the girl in her arms and carried her to where I had just dropped the other woman, who had followed instructions. I could no longer see her from my vantage point.
I had no idea if her scent could be detected by the zombies, but the wind was blowing from the direction of the house, so things still looked good for our little operation at this point.
Kneeling beside the girl Gem said, “Now you see that truck, where I’m pointing over there? You run as fast as you can to that truck and you get inside, okay? The one with windows, not the other one. I’m going to take you to your mama once we’re done here. Tuck down on the floor, throw that blanket over you, and don’t move, okay?”
As the girl nodded and took off running unsteadily toward the Suburban, I admired the child’s uncanny resilience in the face of things that would drive many adults to lunacy. You know, stuff like zombies taking over the streets.
And she was the second brave child I’d encountered since this thing started. It gave me hope.
Ready to go back inside, I scanned the yard in front of the house and saw some movement around the back left corner. Almost imperceptible. And only for a split-second. It was, I believed, a hand. It swung into view and disappeared again.
Gem made her way to my side after watching that the girl made it to the truck. Neither of us knew what happened to the first woman, but we’d told her to find cover and hide and she apparently had. Good advice taken for a change.
“Have you got a new plan yet, or are we sticking to mine?” Gem asked.
“Well, since you overrode mine, I guess we’re just going with yours. Have any revisions?”
“As a matter of fact, I think I do, Flex-man. We’ve got lots of gasoline and not far to drive back to the CDC. Once we get all the live ones out of that death house, I want to torch that sucker.”
I nodded. “Good, but we can’t just have our refugees run to the four winds, we have to have a centralized place they can go to get away from these things. Somewhere air tight where they can’t be detected through scent.”
Gem was quiet a minute. I was thinking, too. Then at the same time, we both said: “7-Eleven!”
“They usually have a walk-in cooler, right?” Gem asked.
“Yep, and we passed one about ¼ mile up the road on the way here. Problem solved.” I stroked her hair. “Like minds,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We hurried to the Hummer and its cache of gasoline. Quickly, we unstrapped two of the Jerry cans and hauled them with us back to the house. I kept my eye on that left corner but saw nothing more. I still wasn’t satisfied.
For now we put the cans to the left side of the front entry. As we brought our guns around to kill position again, I touched Gem on the shoulder. “Baby, you realize we’re probably not going to be able to get them all to safety. Some of them look pretty frail.”
“I know, but as many as we can get,” she said. “And the others . . . the ones who can’t make it. Flex, we can’t let them die at the hands of these things.”
I knew she was right, but I did not want to execute innocent people. We were in a fucked-up position. We both wanted to take them all.
We went back in, our plan to focus on the ones who could hear and respond. It seemed until we touched them that they were in some sort of trance, dazed, or perhaps just too frightened to move – for fear of being dragged away or killed on the spot. Who am I kidding. Eaten on the spot. I couldn’t blame them.
“You keep clearing them out,” I told Gem. “I saw something around the side of the house a few minutes ago. Just fire your weapon if you need me.”
I moved slowly along the side of the house, looking in the windows as I moved along the wall. All the other rooms had been empty of people aside from the two front rooms stacked with them.
But now, peering low through the window of the back bedroom, I saw something my mind wouldn’t comprehend. I did not want to be seeing it at all.
The nine zombies that Gem had originally seen were all here, apparently, and they were feeding. Each was face-deep in a human carcass, except for one. It was no carcass. This human being was alive, and as I stood at the window, the victim’s face turned in my direction, his eyes pleaded, his teeth clenched – his brain intact, for now.
The creature was tearing at the fleshy part of the man’s left calf, ripping long tendrils of arteries and chunks of fat out at each pull of the jaw. Like a nature video of lions or hyenas feeding, only horrifically different.
I dropped down onto the ground, my heart pounding, my breath stutter-stepping in and out of my lungs. Fuck. I couldn’t shoot or I’d get all their attention.
I crouched and ran back to the front of the house. Gem had gotten another six people out, and some of the men who had been atop the pile were now helping her get the others rousted from their terrified slumber. Another fifteen people were stirring. The rooms were not large, and there were perhaps twenty or so people remaining.
Eleven would not be moving. They were already dead. Heart attacks, strokes, whatever. Their fear was over.
“Damn, Gem. Good. Unbelievable.”
She was exhausted. “What did you find?”
“I found the nine you saw earlier. The back room is the feeding room, clearly.”
“Feeding room? What the fuck?”
“I don’t know. All I know is all nine are there, and they’re eating. One guy is still alive, but I couldn’t put him out of his misery. Let’s get the rest of the ones that are going to make it out of here.”
We worked for another fifteen minutes. None of the creatures in the back of the house were apparently willing to leave their meals to investigate.
“Did you leave Hemp a radio?” Gem asked.
“I couldn’t. You have the other package in the Suburban.”
“Shit! Okay. I just don’t want him coming here now. I hope he trusts us to take care of ourselves.”
I nodded. “Nothing we can do, but yeah. I hope so, too. He’s got enough to occupy him there. And he’s armed, so I think he’ll be okay just in case there are some abnormals we didn’t find. That garage was a mess.”
The crowd of near-victims we’d freed were making their way toward the convenience store at a speed I would have liked to triple down on, and they’d picked up the first woman we pulled out. Before they took off, I’d gone to the Suburban, checked on Taylor and pulled two AK-47s we’d acquisitioned from the Tallahassee evidence locker and given them to two of the more qualified survivors. One was a woman, Marion, in her mid-forties, and the other was a young man in his early thirties, Bobby. Both were ex-military. They brought up the front and rear. I knew with hustle, they could be at the 7-Eleven in ten minutes, but hustle was in short supply within the group of refugees.
Then we heard it. The low moan.
It sounded like a low, deep hum. I looked at Gem.
“What is it?” she asked. We both stared out into the now bright day.
And then we saw them. They were coming from both sides of the neighboring houses. Pouring from around the corners, some turning toward the departing group, and some toward us.
“There are too many of them,” Gem said. “If they get to that group they’ll slaughter them!”
I watched helplessly. We were now upwind from the zombies and the group of people heading out. One or two of the group had now noticed the creatures behind them and had screamed. Those screams now turned into a cacophony of screams as the entire group started to run with all they had. Several of them fell, and were being trampled by the ot
hers in a desperate attempt not to be taken back to that house under any circumstances.
“Gem!” I shouted. “Here!” I pulled out my pocket knife. I flipped the blade open and ran a long cut down my forearm. Then another. The blood flowed immediately. I then switched hands and cut my other arm in the same way. “Now you, Gem. Hurry.”
Gem took the knife, pulled up her sheer long sleeves and ran two long, quick cuts, deeper than I would have done it, down both arms. “We’ll draw them to us with the smell of fresh blood,” she said. “Good idea.”
And it didn’t take long. With the warm blood running from our arms in rivulets, dropping onto the worn porch’s wood slats, the wind carried the scent to the creatures, and now they had all turned toward us.
The hum intensified. Low moans of hunger and the anticipation of ecstasy.
“You wanted to torch it,” I said. “Let’s draw them in.”
The creatures were moving faster as a single unit now, their motions erratic and unsteady, but unwavering. There must have been at least a hundred of them. Men, women, children. All now the same. No political differences, no religious differences. No races. Finally, Rodney King’s ancient comment “Why can’t we all just get along?” had come true. They all agreed on one thing.
Human flesh was tasty and they wanted it. No argument.
Chapter 224
Gem and I grabbed the Jerry cans and untwisted the caps. We doused each side of the porch and moved inside the house. We’d gotten all the living out. Some did not make it beyond the front yard before succumbing, but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about burning anyone alive.
Together we moved through the front two rooms, one eye always on the front of the house. We splashed the pungent gasoline on the remaining bodies, the walls, and the floor. Plenty left. Our plan might work.
They were only fifty yards away now. Coming fast. Well, fast for them.
And then we saw it. The bodies of the dead were beginning to move. Almost imperceptible at first. A twitch of a finger. Head. A foot.
“Shit! Do you see this, Gem?”
Her face was aghast. “I checked those three for a pulse, Flex. All dead. All of them.”
“And I checked the others.”
The one on the far side of the room, almost in the hallway, started to get to his feet. His face turned, and the skin was pallid, the lips drawn, the eyes white and unseeing.
The nostrils flared.
I walked fast toward it and fired one shot into its brain. It fell in a heap.
I hurried back to the porch and with the blade, drew another long cut down my forearm. I wanted to keep them coming at all costs. That one hurt. I ran back inside.
“They’re here, babe. Put some coffee on,” I said. “Oh, did you get that pastry pack at Costco we talked about?”
“Very fucking funny, sweetheart. Focus,” Gem said, the humor in her voice imperceptible.
We walked cautiously through the front rooms, cognizant of the twitching, awakening things on the floor, but believing we had the time advantage. They’d already been soaked in gasoline, so should torch easily when we started the fire.
We moved down the hallway. I splashed the gas on the left wall, and Gem on the right. We came to an open door and Gem involuntarily jumped back.
I whispered, “The other side rooms were empty. This is the feeding room, apparently.”
“Jesus Christ,” said Gem.
The man I’d seen earlier had died now. I could tell because half his brain, accessed through the gaping hole in the back of his neck, was in the creature’s mouth that lay atop him.
Behind us the zombies had entered the house and were now crowding into the hallway.
“Let’s clear a path,” I said.
We put the gas cans, now 2/3 empty, on the ground, swung our machine guns around, and began to blow the brains out of the feeders. That took all of eight seconds.
Twelve feet behind us the thrum of zombie moans was loud, vibrating our eardrums. We grabbed our gas cans and continued the dousing of the house, as we stepped over zombie and human bodies on our way to the rear windows.
I reached the back wall, and with the last of my gas, splashed it as far as I could in all directions, then threw the can. Gem followed suit. She tossed her can then smashed out the lower half of the window with the butt of her gun and jumped out into the back yard.
I shattered the window behind me and waited. I wanted to see them come into the room. I wanted to know they were in here, because I wanted all hundred or so of these fuckers to fit inside this house for the big show.
When they were three feet from me, I turned and leapt out the window.
“I like it when a plan comes together,” Gem said. Her face was tired, and her eyes never left the windows. She’d moved about eight feet away from the house, her gun leveled at the window she’d jumped out of.
“Let’s light that sucker,” I said. We fired our guns simultaneously through both windows.
Nothing.
We looked at each other. We fired again.
Still no fire.
“Fuck!” I shouted. “This always works in the movies!”
“I’ll run to the suburban and get matches or a lighter or something,” Gem shouted over the incessant hum-moaning. Some of them had reached the windows and were starting to come through. I used a quick burst on them, blowing their heads apart in a spray of gore. “Go!” I shouted.
I crouched down and kept moving my gun between both windows. Gem was running hard when she disappeared around the corner.
I picked off three more. My radio squealed. I pulled it off my belt and said, “Gem?”
Her voice came back on, low, but calm. “Flex, they’re almost all inside now. Can you hold them in back there?”
I pushed the button. “Yeah, for a bit. I’ve got two magazines with me. How long?”
“Any second. There are about a dozen . . . there they go . . . okay. Okay. Get ready to get back, babe.”
I shot five more as they fell from the window and attempted to get to their feet. I was getting very good at the cranial shots.
As I fired at another, a woman this time, that had tried to step out and fell on its face, I heard Gem’s voice on the radio. “Okay, Flexy, jump back NOW!”
I fired once more, then turned and charged away from the building. An eruption went off behind me as the fume-filled house went up in an instant fireball with a phfwooomph! The sudden heat blasted my body and I smelled singed hair even as I put more distance between the house and myself.
I landed in the grass, and still gripping my gun, rolled onto my stomach. The last one I’d fired on had not been hit, but she did catch fire with the ignition of the house. She came toward me, her hair on fire, and I raised my weapon again. I shot her square in the nose and the back of her head blew apart, like a biological firework packed with flesh, bone and hair.
Two more fell out of the window, scrambled – as much as they could scramble – to their feet, and staggered toward me. I cut them off at the legs, then walked easily up to them and fired a single round into each of their brains. I was fucking sick of the theatrics.
I just wanted the assholes to stay down and die already.
I heard gunfire from the front of the house as two more zombies dropped from the window.
“Give me a goddamned break, would you?” I shouted, getting irritated now. Gem might be in trouble, and I did not have the time for this shit, two-by-two.
I turned at looked at them. They weren’t making much progress toward me – they were already in flames – but I provided final head shots to both of them just the same.
I turned, then stopped. Glanced at the windows again. Waited.
I reached for my radio to tell Gem I’d be coming and not to shoot me. But it wasn’t there.
I scanned the ground. It must have fallen off my belt. I ran back toward the house and the four zombies I’d just taken out, and didn’t see it.
More gunfire from the front.
As long as I heard that I knew Gem was still okay.
I walked up to the prone zombie closest to the window. It was the most likely spot. I leaned back and kicked the squishy body over with my boot.
And there it was. A tad bloody, but still intact. I ripped a piece of the nearest zombie’s shirt and used it as a insulator. Fucking wished I had latex gloves. That would be on my next shopping list at Walgreens.
I brought the radio close to my mouth, but not too close. I hit the button. “Gem, what’s happening?”
I waited only a split-second before she answered. My heart immediately slowed when I heard her calm voice.
“Baby, I’m fine. Just some stragglers.”
“Same here. I think I’ve got ‘em all now,” I said.
“Bastards stink,” she said.
“Smell better when they’re on fire,” I answered, walking back around the house. “I’m coming around now. Don’t shoot me.”
I clipped the radio back on my belt. When I reached her she swung around with her rifle pointed at me.
“Whoa, Nelly.”
“Need to announce yourself,” she said. “I almost blew your head off.”
“I thought I just did, on the radio.”
“Sorry. Must have missed that part.”
We stood together and looked out at the street leading to the 7-Eleven. There were no bodies in the road. Apparently, the group of escapees had helped the fallen and continued to their destination.
“Let’s go see what we can do to get them set up and get back to the CDC,” I said. “Hemp’s got to be worried by now.”
“Do we know if one of that group is Cynthia’s mother?”
I shook my head. “We’ll let Taylor tell us when we get there. I sure hope so.”
When we got back to the vehicles, Taylor was still under the blanket. She was fine. Gem drove her to the store, following behind me in my armed Hummer.
They had made it.
The cheers were subdued, but cheers nonetheless when we opened the door to the walk-in cooler and saw the tired, frightened eyes of our new friends.
It was a good feeling to see so many of us all at once.