by Raymond Lee
Her shouts only drew the notice of those closest to her, the slower zombies bringing up the rear of the crowd moving toward the front. The ones heading into the woods bore her no attention.
In desperation, she grabbed the shotgun propped against a rack of dead flowers and aimed for the zombies disappearing within the trees. She placed the barrel of the gun between two bars of the fence, lined up the shot and pulled the trigger. She missed. Taking a calming breath, she tried again, and this time the bullet found purchase in the back of one of the zombies’ heads, dropping it.
She let out a cry of victory before pulling the gun back and placing the barrel between another pair of bars. She lined up another shot and placed her finger over the trigger.
“Stop!” Damian ran into the gardening section, waving his bloody arms. “Stop shooting. You don’t know where they are. You could kill them.”
Ice invaded Janjai’s blood as she realized the magnitude of her mistake. Turning back toward the woods, she silently prayed her missing shot hadn’t hit anyone. If she had shot her own sister …
“This ain’t over, Niggerella!”
She turned to see Kurt limping outside into the garden section, blood spilling into his eyes from a gash along his brow. Alarmed by his appearance, she looked toward Damian and noticed his own injuries, much more obvious now that he stood before her. Streaks of blood covered his arms. She could not tell whether the blood came from his busted knuckles or from the wounds Kurt wore, but the bruised lump on his cheek was certainly a gift from his enemy.
“Man, don’t you know how to stay down when somebody beats your ass?”
Instead of responding with words, Kurt raised his arm, pointing a gun at Damian’s face.
Janjai moved without thought, barreling into Damian’s side. They hit the ground as the gunshot cracked. Beneath them, Damian absorbed the impact of the fall.
“Sorry,” Janjai whispered.
“Never gotta apologize for saving my ass,” Damian croaked out as they heard Kurt’s footsteps approaching. “Let’s move.”
They’d fallen behind a wooden rack of plants, obscuring them from Kurt’s view, but it wouldn’t take long for the man to reach them, even with his limp. They crawled around the rack, taking refuge behind a mountain of fertilizer bags.
Damian cursed, his voice low but no less fierce, as he looked over at her. “Where’s the shotgun?”
“I dropped it,” she whispered back. “Where’s your weapons?”
He groaned. “Lost them before I ran out here. We’re in deep shit.”
“No, we are behind it.”
Damian looked at her, blinked, and snorted laughter, quickly clapping a hand over his mouth.
The sound alerted Kurt to their location and his footsteps quickly approached.
“Go for the gun as soon as he’s down,” Damian ordered, his hands tightly gripped around the edges of a fertilizer bag.
Before Janjai could say another word, Damian jumped up.
“Take this, shit-face!” He hurled the fertilizer bag in Kurt’s direction and grabbed another while Janjai left the cover of the bags to retrieve the dropped gun.
Kurt’s arm snaked out as he recovered from getting hit in the face with the fertilizer bag and grabbed a handful of Janjai’s long hair, painfully jerking her against him.
The stench of the manure covering Kurt from head to torso hit her harder than the pain of having her hair wrapped around the jerk’s fist, but nothing topped her fear as Kurt shoved the barrel of his handgun into the side of her neck.
Damian froze in front of them, another fertilizer bag ready to swing.
“Drop it,” Kurt ordered, “or I’ll blow this bitch’s head right off her neck.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Damian tightened his grip on the bag. “You’ll kill an innocent woman just for the hell of it?”
“What can I say?” Kurt shrugged, causing clumps of manure to fall from him. “Any friend of my enemies is an enemy of mine.”
“Well then maybe you should have kept your eye out for more of my friends.”
“What?”
Damian smiled. “You just lost this round too.”
“No, I think you did. Screw the bitch, I’ll shoot you first.” Kurt pulled the gun away from Janjai’s neck to shoot Damian.
Before she could think of what to do to help her friend, Kurt hit the ground, shards of a broken pot around him and a bit of her hair in his hand.
“Thanks, man.” Damian said.
“He wasn’t wrong about you people being trouble,” Carlos responded, tossing aside the piece of terra cotta left in his hand. “It smells like shit out here.”
“That’s probably coming from Janjai’s pants.”
She glared at Damian until his laughing eyes sobered.
“We have bigger problems. When I ran out here, I saw zombies going into the woods, where our people are.”
“How many?”
“Not sure.” He looked toward Janjai and she quickly averted her gaze. She didn’t yet trust Carlos enough to let him know she spoke English.
“Well, they knew it was a risk going out there. They have weapons.”
“They’re in danger.”
“As we would be if we went out there. As we will be when Kurt wakes up. We need to deal with the eminent threat here.”
They all looked down at Kurt’s battered, unconscious body. “We could shoot him.”
“Not an option,” Carlos said, fire in his eyes. “The world may have made a villain out of Kurt, but it will not make a villain out of me or my son.”
“So you would rather keep the villain alive and well under the same roof as your son?”
“If it meant saving our souls, yes.”
Another round of fireworks blasted at the front of the store.
“Your son is on the right side. He believes in fighting the good fight. He must have got that from his mother.” Damian grabbed a sharp-pointed spade off a nearby table of plants and walked over to the small group of zombies that had been drawn by the gunfire.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m clearing a path,” he said as he reached through the bars to grab a zombie by its hair and shove the spade through its head. “While I do that I suggest you bind shit-face there really tight. I’m going to get my people, and if for any reason we can’t get back in here, or anything happens to Janjai, you’ll find out which direction your soul is gonna end up in sooner than you want to.”
Everyone ducked as the gunshot rang out.
“What was that?” Pimjai asked.
“It came from the store,” Raven answered.
“They’re in trouble!”
“We don’t know that.”
“Why else would they shoot?” Pimjai’s hands shook again.
Before Raven could formulate an answer, a dark shadow moved from the trees. A dead man with milky white eyes and rotting skin shuffled farther, groaning as he raised his arms toward them.
“Incoming,” Raven warned the others as she pulled the katana free of its sheath and stepped forward. She chopped the top of the man’s head off in one swing, effectively removing its brain and putting it out of commission.
Three more zombies appeared at the crest of the hill they were atop, and beyond them she saw more steadily climbing up.
“Big incoming!” She took a step back as the trio in front approached, giving herself room to maneuver. “You guys done?”
“Almost,” Hal answered. “Just hold them off another minute or two.”
“Sure. No problem.” Raven barely got the sarcastic words out before the next zombie lunged for her.
Her katana arced through the air reflexively, decapitating her attacker before she drew her arm back for another swing. She swung quickly, not allowing herself time to think. Thinking led to fear. She quickly cut down the first trio of zombies, and found herself facing a wall of their rotten friends. Alone.
A quick glance to her left showed Pimjai holding
a shaking blade before her, the rest of her body frozen.
“Start swinging that blade, Pimjai, or we’ll never get back to help your sister if she was the one being shot at.”
Pimjai’s chilling fear seemed to instantly thaw as she gripped the blade tight and stepped forward to help Raven cut down the hedge of walking dead before them. They worked in tandem, slicing away chunks from the herd. Pimjai’s blade required her to get closer to their enemy so Raven kept a watchful eye out on her while simultaneously trying to go for any zombies clumped together, leaving the stragglers for Pimjai.
She’d just swung her katana at a pair before her when a growling monster came out of the trees to her right. Its hands gripped her upper arm before she could pull it back to swing.
“Raven, duck!”
She followed Cruz’s instruction seconds before his shovel sailed over her head to land in the zombie’s clavicle.
“About time you guys joined the party.”
“Sorry,” he quickly apologized as he finished off the zombie and replaced the shovel with a machete. “In all fairness, you girls were kicking ass.”
The men now fighting with them, they were able to cut through the rest of the crowd, slicing at everything dead they saw until they were the only four bodies left standing. They were sweaty and splashed with fluids they didn’t even want to think about, but they were alive.
“Did anyone get bit?” Hal asked, wiping his sleeve along his blood-doused brow.
“No,” they all answered.
“Good. Give me a moment.” He turned back to the grave and kneeled before it, resting his hand over the soil. “Rest in peace, little soldier. You didn’t fail. Your family just needed you with them.”
Raven’s heart went out to the man as he subtly wiped his eyes on his sleeve and stood.
Fireworks exploded in the distance.
“Shit.” Cruz yanked his shovel out of a zombie carcass. “I hope Elijah is just playing it safe. Keep an eye out, just in case he’s not and more of those things are out here with us.”
They waited for Hal to pick up his shovel then slowly made their way down the hill toward the parking lot, keeping their eyes and ears open.
“You did good back there,” Raven said as they neared the tree line.
“I froze,” Pimjai replied.
“Only for a moment.”
“A moment could have been too long if you were not so good with your weapon. I could have gotten us killed.”
“Any of us can die at any time. That’s just the way the world is now. You do your best to keep it from happening, but when it does, it’s no one’s fault.”
“It’s somebody’s fault,” Cruz interrupted. “It’s those Russian bastards’ fault. Only the people who created the virus are to blame.”
They rounded a cluster of trees and came face to face with a man covered in blood, standing among a mass of dead bodies.
Pimjai pointed her gun, acting on reflex.
“Stop!” Raven grabbed the gun and pushed it down. “Damian?”
“Thought you guys could use some help.” He checked them over. “Everybody all right?”
“Where is Janjai?” Pimjai rushed forward, but Damian sidestepped to block her before she could run to the parking lot.
“She’s safe. We had a run-in with Kurt after you left but he’s tied up now. Elijah is up top watching us while Carlos and Janjai keep Kurt contained. Let’s go.”
“You took these out by yourself?” Raven asked, counting six bodies.
“Janjai shot one. I swung like hell on the others.”
They emerged from the tree line and waved to the shadowed figure standing on the roof of Wally’s Club.
The rear parking lot was mostly empty but they still waited for the fireworks to be set off at the front of the store before they set one foot on the pavement. Once the popping noises began, they ran for the high gate surrounding the outdoor gardening center.
Janjai let them in, enveloping Pimjai in a hug as the sisters wept with joy while checking each other over for injuries.
Their celebration was short-lived as the rest of the group entered the gardening section and found themselves at gunpoint.
“Anyone bitten?” Carlos asked, holding the rifle steady.
“I’ll kill you all!” Kurt threatened. “I’ll slice you open while you sleep, and let you slowly die as you watch me take the women and—”
Damian shoved a wadded up ball of duct tape into the man’s mouth before covering his lips with another strip of the silver tape.
They’d pulled his unconscious body inside the store after completing the body checks Carlos insisted upon, and tied him to a column in the baby supplies section of the store, figuring it was the best place to keep him away from everyone.
“We can’t leave him like this,” Carlos insisted. “It’s inhumane.”
“He’s going to try to kill us the second we untie him.” Damian glared at the man, wishing he’d killed him when he had the chance. “The man is a killer.”
“You call him that yet you want to kill him too?”
“Damian doesn’t want to kill him,” Cruz defended him. “He wants to keep us safe.”
“By killing him.”
“If your wife was here and this piece of shit made comments implying he’d like to rape her, what would you do to stop that from happening?”
Damian watched a mix of emotions ranging from sorrow to rage wash over the Hispanic man’s face. Cruz’s question had definitely hit a nerve.
“These people are my family now,” he said before Carlos could respond. “I’ll do anything to keep them safe and right now, the zombies aren’t the only monsters we have to worry about. There’s a bigger threat right here with us.”
“Kurt talks a lot of crap,” Carlos said, “but until he actually does more than throw a few punches we can’t treat him like this.”
“He shot at me and shoved the barrel of a gun into Janjai’s neck,” Damian shouted, unable to keep his temper under control. “He wants us dead and seeing as how you busted a pot over his head when he had the chance to kill us, I’m betting he wants you dead too.”
“I can’t justify killing him as proper punishment. We can not play God!”
“We could pack him a bag and let him make a go of it out there,” Cruz suggested.
Kurt started thrashing around violently, tugging on his restraints as growling noises escaped the duct tape.
“How is that any different than putting a gun to his head?”
“We’ve been out there and we’ve made it.”
“If it’s so livable out there, why did you seek shelter here?”
“Because at the time it was more dangerous out there than in here,” Damian cut in, realizing Carlos was going to be one hard man to sway. He didn’t want the man as an enemy. He wasn’t a bad guy, even if his need to avoid punishing anyone was going to be problematic for them all. “We understand you think you’ve been safe in here all this time, but you haven’t been. When the food gets low, and it will, who do you think is going to insist on getting what’s left? You’ve seen with your own eyes and heard with your own ears what this man is capable of, and how he thinks. He’s a racist son of a bitch who’ll kill anyone who gets in his way. We let him go and he’ll attack us before doing unspeakable things to the women. We either kill him, let him go on his own out there, or we keep him tied up. We can’t let him walk around here free.”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“Fine. We’ll pack some supplies and leave ourselves. You can cut him loose once we’ve left.” Damian gestured for Cruz to follow him and they walked away.
“So we’re leaving?” the actor asked, voice low.
“Wait for it.” Damian grinned, having thoroughly impressed himself with his genius.
“Wait!” Carlos jogged toward them.
“Told ya.”
Cruz frowned as they turned toward the older man approaching them.
“You can’t go
back out there.”
“Oh really? I guess you don’t want to be left alone with that psycho now that he’s pissed at you, huh?”
Carlos’s face reddened as he looked away. “I still can’t justify killing him or tossing him out there to the zombies. You all may have made it out there, but you lost people. Throwing him out there into that mess will be the same as killing him. My conscience won’t allow me to do such a thing.”
“Then we keep him tied up.”
“We keep him tied up,” Carlos agreed, defeated.
Hal opened the door and stepped out onto the roof. The cool air washed over him as he made his way to the edge, but was no match for the chill already clinging to his bones. He’d broken his promise to Paul. His best friend had always been there for him, helping him to hunt and destroy evil, but the one time Paul had asked him for help, he’d let him down. Angela was his responsibility and he’d allowed her to die on his watch. He’d allowed her to be bitten while standing within shooting distance of the monster that attacked her.
Worse, he’d ignored the darkness inside her, refusing to acknowledge what was so clear that Janjai saw it a mile away. He’d thought Angela worthy of being a soldier of good. He’d found a way to justify every kill. Instead of protecting her, he’d done everything wrong from the start.
“Thinking about jumping?”
He turned to see the blue-haired young woman step out onto the roof. She wore jeans, heavy work boots, and a flannel shirt. It was the third outfit change she’d had to make since they arrived the night before.
“Suicide is a sin. I try my best not to sin.” He turned back to look out over the parking lot. “We’re going to run out of clothes if we keep getting bloody every time we change.”
“We need to stop getting bloody then.”
“Yeah. Did they decide what to do with Kurt?”
“They’re leaving him tied up.”
Hal nodded. “You should still stay alert. That man has a sick desire for you.”