Zombie Apocalypse: The Chad Halverson Series

by Bryan Cassiday

  A twentyish male ghoul with a puffy face and frizzy brown hair was hunkered down over Reno’s torso and chewing on Reno’s face trying to eat through Reno’s skull to get to the brain.

  Reno sprawled motionless in a pool of his own blood, both of his arms missing as well as one of his calves that had been ripped off at the knee. A geezer ghoul sat Indian-legged near Reno and gobbled Reno’s calf like it was an ear of corn, blood pouring out of the corners of the ghoul’s mouth.

  Halverson grimaced in nausea at the sight. He figured Reno had to be dead and there was nothing Halverson could do for him. Halverson felt his throat tightening with grief at the sight of his friend.

  Nonplussed, Halverson could only stand and watch, unable to pull himself together. The more he watched the angrier he got.

  He became obsessed with hunting down Bascomb and wasting him. And then he thought about Victoria. Bascomb still held Victoria captive somewhere. He had to free her after he cut Bascomb to pieces.

  Meanwhile, ghouls by the carload were closing in on Halverson, scrabbling out of the dense fog and bomb smoke and making their way toward the main entrance.

  Halverson shook himself out of his funk, ejected the spent clip from his MP7, jammed a fresh one in its place, and racked a cartridge into the submachine gun’s chamber.

  Point-blank, he blasted the brains out of every creature within ten feet of him, including the ghouls feasting on Reno and Erskine. Unconcerned now about hitting the already-deceased two men, Halverson went through his clip in seconds taking out every last one of the nearby fiends with less than thirty rounds.

  Halverson froze at the sight that confronted him on the steps to the landing. He didn’t know how many more shocks to his system he could take.

  Hair drenched with seawater and tangled with seaweed, bluish green face bloated from his recent drowning, Parnell was trudging up the stairs toward Halverson.

  Halverson had difficulty bringing himself to shoot Parnell, but shoot him he must. Parnell was dead and had turned into a ghoul and was now heading for Halverson to take a bite out of him.

  With Parnell but a yard away from him, Halverson contrived to get ahold of himself and fire a burst into Parnell’s grisly travesty of a face.

  Parnell slumped to the landing.

  Overwhelmed by rage and grief, Halverson wheeled around and kicked the ajar steel door behind him to vent his emotions. The shock of his foot’s impact with the steel door vibrated through his foot and up his leg and returned him to his senses.

  He bounded over a ghoul that was crawling between him and the doorway. Then he stomped on a prostrate ghoul’s back on the threshold and shot through the doorway into the prison.

  He could not close the door behind him. Too many of the ghouls’ bodies were wedged between the door and its jamb. He had no time to spare trying to remove the dead weight of the ghouls off the threshold. At that very moment, a raft of the creatures was maundering across the landing toward the door.

  Halverson dashed through the sally port into B Block, searching for Bascomb and his men. Halverson bucketed onto Broadway and stopped in his tracks.

  Where once there had been residents and Molotov cocktails lining the floor, there was now nothing.

  No sign of Bascomb and his men.

  Chapter 75

  Cutting his eyes around the prison, Halverson caught sight of movement on Times Square at the end of Broadway. He saw Bascomb and Jones running full-tilt toward the rear door.

  Halverson gnashed his teeth and brought his MP7 to bear on the fleeing duo. As they made the door, Halverson pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  There was no discharge. He squeezed the trigger again and again. All he got in return were the infuriating and depressing sounds of more clicks.

  He realized with frustration that he had not reloaded. He cursed.

  He ejected the spent clip, rammed home a new one, and chambered the first round, his MP7 at the ready.

  Except by that time, Bascomb and Jones had shut the rear door behind them as they hightailed it from the prison.

  Halverson barreled toward the rear door. He grabbed the doorknob and tried to wrench it open. To no avail.

  Bascomb and Jones had locked the steel door.

  Halverson hastily scrutinized the door. It not only had a doorknob, which was locked, but a deadbolt lock a foot above the doorknob. Halverson could not tell if the deadbolt was thrown, but he figured it was.

  He might be able to shoot apart the lock in the doorknob, but not the deadbolt. That only worked in Hollywood movies.

  Peeved, he stepped back from the door and blasted the doorknob and deadbolt anyway with a brief burst of bullets, more out of frustration than anything else.

  He advanced toward the door and tried the knob.

  As he had expected, the door would not open.

  He backed away from the door, thinking about firing additional rounds into the deadbolt, when he heard a clanging above him. He looked up at the west gun gallery above him and discovered where the residents had gone.

  They were lined up on the gallery, their Molotov cocktails with them.

  Halverson scoped out the other end of the prison and spotted more residents arrayed on the east gun gallery overlooking the prison’s interior.

  It was a subterfuge, Halverson realized. Bascomb was luring the ghouls into the prison. Then his men would toss bombs at them and blow the creatures to smithereens. And at the same time, Bascomb and Jones would beat a hasty retreat, ditching everyone behind.

  Like Halverson, the residents no doubt hadn’t realized they were being set up by Bascomb to stage a diversion for his retreat.

  Halverson picked up on a dozen-odd walking dead shambling under the east gun gallery onto Broadway.

  As soon as the ghouls entered the residents’ line of vision under the east gun gallery, the residents ignited their Molotov cocktails and slung them down at the encroaching zombies. The ghouls went up in flames, morphing into torches of burning decomposed flesh.

  Halverson bounded up the narrow stairs to the west guards’ catwalk directly above him to lend a helping hand to the residents.

  From the catwalk at the west end, Halverson pelted the creatures with bullets as they scrabbled down Broadway, even as the residents beside him hurled Molotov cocktails at the intruders.

  Smoke from the bombs billowed upward and suffused the prison.

  “How are we gonna get out of here?”

  Halverson turned and realized it was Selena at his side talking to him.

  Beside her stood Tattoo Head, who said, “The back door is locked.”

  “I found that out,” said Halverson.

  “The boss fed us to the wolves.”

  “He never cared about anyone here but himself.”

  “This is turning into a deathtrap,” said Tattoo Head, surveying the fires burning out of control below them as the ghouls wended their way through the flames.

  “The front door’s still open.”

  “We’ll never make it over there. The infected would tear us apart before we got within fifty feet of the door.”

  “I hate to tell you guys, but we wouldn’t even make it down the stairs,” said Selena, gazing toward the narrow stairwell that led from the main floor of the prison to the catwalk they were standing on.

  In the mouth of the stairwell, Halverson could make out the top of a ghoul’s head as the ghoul climbed the steps toward the catwalk.

  “The same thing for the east end,” said Tattoo Head, watching in consternation as ghouls stumbled along the east gun gallery assaulting the residents who were trying to fend them off with guns rattling.

  Eyes burning, Halverson coughed on the smoke that permeated the cell block. He blasted the first ghoul that was climbing toward the landing on their catwalk.

  The ghoul toppled back down the treads into a crowd of other ghouls that were ascending the staircase.

  Halverson reconnoitered the prison, casting around for a means of escap
e. He glanced upward.

  “What about the roof?” he asked.

  “We can reach it from here using the stairs over there,” answered Selena. Coughing, her burning eyes watering in the smoke, she pointed toward the north end of the catwalk. “But then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no way down from the roof.”

  “No fire escape?”

  “No. Only maintenance crews go up there.”

  Halverson cursed. “At least the air would be breathable up there,” he said between coughs.

  The heads of two more ghouls popped up in the stairwell.

  Halverson drew a bead on the two heads and let them have it with his MP7. The ghouls tumbled backwards down the stairs.

  “We can’t stay here,” said Tattoo Head, rubbing his stinging eyes with his fists. “Fuck, we can’t even see what we’re doing.”

  “If the infected don’t kill us, the fire or the smoke will,” said Selena.

  “Let’s go to the roof,” said Halverson and hustled toward the north end of the catwalk, Tattoo Head and Selena in tow.

  “The boss really screwed us,” said Tattoo Head.

  “He wants us to die,” said Selena.

  “He could care less.”

  “He’s sacrificing the rest of us to the ghouls, so he can make good his escape,” said Halverson. “We’re his diversion.”

  They reached the narrow stairwell to the roof and clambered up it, Halverson at point.

  Halverson burst onto the roof, gasping for fresh air as he lunged out into the open. Doubled over with coughing fits, Selena and Tattoo Head followed close on his heels, clouds of black smoke wafting in their wake.

  Halverson scampered across the roof, his shoes crunching on the gravel that covered it. He hastened to the perimeter searching for any kind of fire escape. As he gazed over the parapet he noticed the roof must have been at least seven stories high. There was no way they could jump down and survive the fall. Even if by some miracle they managed to survive, they would be in no condition to walk.

  He heard the rattle of automatic weapons’ fire behind him as Tattoo Head and Selena fired on ghouls that were lurching out of the stairwell onto the roof.

  Halverson completed his circuit of the roof. As Selena had told him earlier, there was no way down. For the most part, the ground below was chockfull of milling zombies. However, the west end of the building, for the nonce, looked deserted.

  He pivoted away from the parapet and faced Selena, who stood twenty-odd feet behind him, AK in her hands.

  “Is there any rope up here?” he asked. “Or a supply shed or something like that?”

  Selena smoked two ghouls that stumbled out of the stairwell onto the roof. “Not that I know of.”

  Halverson’s eyes quartered the roof. He didn’t pick up on anything that remotely resembled a supply shed.

  He leveled his MP7 at marauding ghouls that were plowing onto the roof. He plastered them with two bursts then heard his weapon click empty. He ejected the spent clip, snagged a fresh one from his bandoleer, and slammed the clip home. He racked a cartridge.

  A knot of ghouls poured out of the stairwell onto the roof.

  Aided by Tattoo Head and Selena and their weapons’ fire, he cut the creatures down with a burst from his MP7.

  “I don’t know how much longer we can hold them here,” said Halverson.

  “There’s no end to them,” said Selena, face twisted with anguish as she hosed down the creatures.

  “Is there some way we can lock the door to the stairwell?” asked Tattoo Head, reloading his AK.

  Halverson scoped out the congeries of dead ghouls stacked in the stairwell’s doorway. “We won’t be able to shut the door with those bodies piled there.”

  “We could move them.”

  “How could we move them with all those infected attacking us?” said Selena.

  “I have a feeling that door wouldn’t hold very long, anyway, not with all their weight pressing against it,” said Halverson.

  Already, the better part of a dozen creatures had breached the doorway and were shambling relentlessly across the roof toward Halverson, Selena, and Tattoo Head.

  Firing their weapons, the trio backed away in retreat toward the west end of the building, blowing away ghouls.

  “Got any bright ideas?” asked Tattoo Head, his sooty face smeared with sweat.

  “If we have to jump, the west end is free of ghouls,” answered Halverson.

  Tattoo Head erupted with laughter. “Jump? You gotta be kidding? You jump, you’re dead.”

  “We stay here, we’re dead.”

  Chapter 76

  “I guess it depends on how you want to die,” said Tattoo Head.

  He glanced at the parapet then back at the ghouls closing in on him, Selena, and Halverson.

  Tattoo Head made up his mind. He was going down swinging.

  “I know how I’m going out,” he said and charged the ghouls, his AK clattering in his hands.

  Halverson and Selena opened fire in backup as Tattoo Head burst into a mob of creatures.

  Initially taken aback by his onslaught, the ghouls rallied and converged on Tattoo Head, even as he continued to fire at them, cursing and screaming.

  Soon, they were tearing him limb from limb. Blood geysered into the air, raining down on the ghouls, who lapped it up like they were dying of thirst.

  Gagging, Selena shut her eyes and looked away in consternation.

  The ghouls slowed their inevitable advance as they feasted on Tattoo Head, ripping his head off his neck and chewing his face off. It wasn’t long before they were tearing his chest apart and wrenching out his lungs. A creature with a moldy face hauled one of Tattoo Head’s blood-soaked lungs above its head like it was a trophy.

  In an access of rage, Halverson shot the boasting creature dead with two brief bursts to its moth-eaten face.

  Continuing to rake the walking dead with fire, Halverson and Selena backed toward the parapet, their weapons white-hot.

  “We’re running out of space,” said Selena, face dripping sweat.

  “We’re not dead yet,” said Halverson, knowing their time was running out.

  “It’s been nice knowing you.”

  “It’s been a blast.”

  Soaked with sweat, Halverson ejected another empty clip from his MP7. He felt along his bandoleer for a fresh clip and realized he was running low. He latched onto a full clip, hammered it into his MP7, and jacked a cartridge into the chamber.

  He thought about what Tattoo Head had said about dying.

  Halverson wondered how he wanted to die. Regardless of how he wanted to die, it looked like he was going to die violently willy-nilly at the hands of the walking dead. Of course, he still had the option of hurling himself over the parapet to all but certain death. Even if he opted for it, he would still die violently by slamming into the earth and crushing himself to death.

  There was something to be said for going out like Tattoo Head had, in a blaze of glory, so to speak, fighting to the bitter end. Yet the idea of being torn apart and eaten alive didn’t hold much appeal for Halverson. Maybe he should just put a bullet through his head when the ghouls closed in on him. No, he wouldn’t do that.

  It wasn’t over yet. Maybe he could still figure a way out of this debacle. Sure. And maybe he would sprout wings and fly, too.

  “I can’t stand the idea of those things eating me,” said Selena, her body and clothes drenched in sweat.

  Her olive drab tank top was so damp it had changed color to forest green bordered with white salt stains. Her muscular bronze arms glistened with sweat as she pumped more lead into the oncoming shuffling living dead.

  “I prefer eating lunch to being lunch,” said Halverson.

  She suddenly whirled and stared into his eyes, her brown eyes beseeching him. “Can you take me out?”

  He knew she wasn’t asking him out for a date.

  He didn’t know if he could waste her. He
weighed the idea. If he blew her away, it would spare her the agony of being torn apart while she was conscious. She would not suffer as much from a bullet to the head as she would from having zombies consume her.

  Halverson heard a rumble overhead. From its sound, he could tell it was a drone passing over them, but he could not see it for the smoke and fog encompassing the prison.

  He had to decide what to do about Selena.

  She didn’t wait for his answer. She crossed herself then trained her AK-47 on her temple and blew her brains out.

  Mouth dry, throat tense, Halverson watched her crumple to the roof. He was having trouble coming to grips with her death. He stood and stared at her corpse, his mind void of anything else. Then rage overcame him.

  Spurred to anger by her suicide, gritting his teeth, Halverson pelted the nearest ghouls with a hail of rounds from his MP7. Sweat poured off his brow into his eyes, stinging them. How many more of his companions did he have to watch die at the hands of the monsters? Not many he suspected, since his companions were all dead at this point, save for Victoria.

  Furiously, he squeezed his MP7’s trigger.

  The gun jammed.

  Cursing, he flung it at the head of the nearest ghoul.

  He reached for the hunting knife in his waistband. He brandished the long blade before him, daring the advancing ghouls to finish him off.

  Several of the ghouls that had made it through the fires below had smoldering, smoking clothes and burning hair that emitted a noxious odor as they plodded ever closer to him.

  So this was how it ended, he decided. Drawn and quartered at the hands of a mob of flesh-eating walking dead.

  Except—

  Except, maybe it didn’t have to end that way.

  A wild idea struck him. It was insane! Did it have any chance at all of working?

  He decided to go for it. After all, his time was running out. He had to act now or never.

  He lunged at the fattest, nearest ghoul he could find. He thrust his knife deep into the ghoul’s belly, ripped a gaping hole in it, released his knife, thrust his hand into the belly, snatched the ghoul’s slimy intestines, yanked them out, stormed to the parapet, gut in hand, mounted the parapet, and leapt off into the air below, clinging to the gut.