Zomb-Pocalypse 2

by Megan Berry

  “I saw a locker room just over here,” Silas tells us, leading the way to another set of doors. We bust the door open, prepared for a fight, but it appears to be one of the few places that are zombie free in this whole police station.

  “You will probably be able to find something in here,” Silas says, pulling open a couple of the lockers and throwing a shaving kit at Hank. Hank tries the faucet, but nothing comes out. So I give him another bottle of water, and he takes a sip before setting the plug in the sink and dumping the rest inside the porcelain bowl.

  I watch him with blatant curiosity as he finds a cordless beard trimmer in the bag and quickly runs the blade over his face. A lot of his matted, dirty beard hair falls to the floor in a heap. He quickly washes the rest of his face before running a regular razor over the rest. He cuts himself in several places because his hands are shaking so badly, but Silas doesn’t step in to help him, and I certainly am not going to offer.

  He wipes away the blood and splashes water over his face and head before standing up and using the spare pair of coveralls to dry himself off.

  “What now?” he asks, and I’m surprised at how different he looks with a clean shaven face.

  “We connect with the rest of our group and get the hell outta here,” Silas says, and I pray that it will really be as easy as he says.

  Silas takes the lead, with Hank in the middle and me taking up the rear, and we make our way back over to the large wooden counter. We’d just jumped over it before, but now we have Hank, and he seems pretty weak, so Silas walks around to the far side where we can see a small swing door built right into the counter.

  Silas stops suddenly and aims his flashlight down on the ground, and Hank lets out a hoarse yell. I peek around his shoulder, wondering if I need to start shooting, and see a zombie down on the ground. It was a female police officer once, but now she is a deadhead who’s somehow managed to get herself trapped underneath the gate. Her snapping teeth and top half of her torso are on our side, and the rest of her is invisible on the other side of the gate. I’m not sure if she pulled herself under there herself, or some poor bugger slammed the gate shut on her, trapping her there.

  Silas doesn’t mess around. He brings his large steel-toed boots down with a resounding crunch on the crown of her head. He grinds his heel into her head again and again, until her rotting flesh gives way and her skull caves in under the pressure.

  Hank grips my shoulder with bony fingers that feel like they are a pair of vise grips, and I have to bite my lip to keep from letting out a squeak of pain. Hell, Silas would probably shoot him dead where he stands.

  “How do you two do this?” Hank asks, and Silas shrugs as he swings the gate open to reveal that the other half of her body is actually not on the other end of the gate. All this zombie has left is a ragged stump where her legs were chewed off all the way up to her pelvis.

  Hank stops to vomit, and I feel bad for him, remembering the first day when all this stuff started happening and everything seemed so gross. Though the guy did just eat his cellmate, so I’m not really sure where this falls on the grossness scale for Hank.

  The waiting area is still empty, and I count my lucky stars. Silas sees Hank leaning heavily on me, and he walks over and yanks him off without so much as a please. I half expect him to toss the other man to the ground, but Silas helps support his weight instead, and I’m proud of how far Silas has come.

  I stare at the heavy steel door that leads back out into the hallway of doom, and I feel my guts quiver at the reminder of what we had to do to get here. I think about warning Hank about the bodies we left on the other end of the door, but Silas is already pushing the door open, and I bring my gun up in case we find any more unwanted guests.

  The hallway is black and just as terrifying as before, and Hank balks, but Silas brings his flashlight up and forces the smaller man to step through with him. I bite my lip until I taste the tangy, metallic taste of blood on my tongue and follow them through, shutting the door quietly behind us and immersing us back into the stifling black.

  Hank whimpers, and I hear Silas shush him angrily. “Buck up,” Silas whispers.

  Even though I know he isn’t talking to me, I pretend he is and try to strengthen my resolve.

  Since we’ve already cleared this area, we make much better time and reach the heavy duffel bag we left in front of the break room much faster than we first found it.

  I try to heft the bag up since Silas is helping Hank, and I do get it up, but the weight makes my knees want to buckle. I take three staggering steps and then set it down. I’m as useless as Hank with the weight of this bag.

  “We are not gonna be able to bring all this stuff, and Hank,” I tell Silas. By the look in his eye, I know he’s seriously debating leaving Hank behind.

  “Okay…” Silas says, his eyes scanning the hall, and I’m kind of not following.

  “Okay, what?” I prompt, and his gaze finally settles on me.

  “We don’t need to go all the way back through the building. We came in through a window, we can go out through any window.” Silas pokes his head into the break room, and Hank winces at the gory scene before us. “This window will do fine,” Silas says, pulling the shade up and revealing a window that isn’t covered over with heavy metal bars. Silas raises his axe to smash out the window.

  “Wait!” I call over to him, and he turns to me with a frown.

  “I’m all for getting the hell out of here, but what’s the plan?” I demand, and Silas frowns more deeply.

  “We’ll have to leave Hank and the guns here and go get the truck—they’re both too heavy for us to support,” he decides.

  “You and I are going to find the others?” I ask, wanting clarification, and Silas shakes his head.

  “You should probably stay here with Hank,” he tells me.

  “Why don’t you stay here with Hank, and I’ll go find the truck?” I question, but Silas is shaking his head before I even finish my sentence.

  “You’re not going out there alone, it’s too dangerous,” he tells me, frowning when he sees the grin on my face.

  “Exactly, Silas. I’m coming with you,” I tell him.

  “Jane, I’m a much better shot than you,” he reminds me, but I just shrug it off.

  “There’s a lot of zombies out there, we’ll be safer in pairs,” I tell him. Silas shrugs, and then nods towards Hank.

  “What about him then, wouldn’t he be safer in a pair?” he asks, and I know he doesn’t actually care, he’s just looking for a way to keep me in here. I let out a very Silas-like snort.

  “Nice try. Hank will be the safest one of us all.” I remind him as I walk over to the only other door in the room, knowing it’s most likely either a bathroom or a closet. I pause to listen for any sounds and hear a faint scuffling. I force myself to pull the door open anyway, with my gun at the ready. A lone zombie turns slowly and opens its mouth to growl at me, and I put a neat bullet hole right in its forehead.

  I quickly scan the closet and relax a bit when it’s clear. I grab the zombie by its boots—which seems like the safest choice, germ wise—and drag the biter’s corpse from the closet, leaving behind a trail of black goop. “Zombies can’t open doors,” I say, turning around and motioning for Hank to come forward. “You’ll be safe in here until we get back,” Hank hesitates in the threshold of the closet.

  “I just spent two weeks locked in a cell, I’m a little claustrophobic,” he admits to me, and I hesitate. It does seem cruel to make him endure this.

  “Do you want to live or not?” Silas snaps, obviously sick of wasting time.

  Hank nods, “Of course.”

  “Then get in the damn closet,” Silas snaps.

  Faced with the dark scowl on Silas’s face, Hank steps inside. I hand him my flashlight and another granola bar, hoping it will help reassure him.

  “What about a weapon?” Hank asks, his voice going all high and squeaky when Silas is about to shut the door.

  Sila
s mutters something illegible, pulls one of his many knives off his belt, and hands it to Hank. “Not a gun?” Hank asks, clearly disappointed, and Silas rolls his eyes.

  “Do you know how to shoot a gun?” Silas asks, and Hank thinks for a minute before shaking his head.

  “Try not to stab yourself,” Silas tells him as he slams the door shut and walks back over to the window with a shake of his head. I glance at the closet one more time, feeling a small twinge of guilt at leaving Hank, even though he does have the easy part, and then I join Silas by the window.

  Silas wraps the head of his axe with a dishtowel that he finds on the counter next to the moldy donuts, and he smashes the glass out. It’s a bit quieter this time, though the glass still tinkles as it hits the window frame and the ground.

  Silas carefully pokes his head outside to make sure the coast is clear and then jumps out, which I take to mean it is. I climb up onto the sill, and Silas turns around and grabs my waist, lifting me down. I stand in the grass, blinking in the bright sunshine, my eyes instantly locking on a group of six zombies that aren’t all that far away from us.

  “I thought it was clear,” I demand of Silas, making sure to keep my voice low. Silas shakes his head.

  “We’d be waiting a long time for that, Blondie,” he says, grabbing my hand and taking off at a jog. The zombies are slower than us, so we race right by them, not bothering to take them out. I worry for a minute that they might get in through the broken window and get Hank, but the windows are a good ways off the ground, coming up to my waist, and I’ve yet to see a zombie that is limber enough to make that climb.

  Silas is practically dragging me along, and my legs are starting to burn from the fast pace as we reach the end of the building. We peek around the corner and come face to face with a zombie. He was just standing there, but as soon as he sees us, his horrible dark eyes light up, and he takes a swing at Silas. Silas, not wanting to risk the pop of his gun, uses his axe to split his skull and then peeks around the corner again, this time with a bit more caution.

  “How is it?” I whisper, and Silas shrugs.

  “As good as it’s going to get,” he admits, and I don’t like the sound of that at all. I feel his hand tighten around mine, and I know that he’s preparing to make a mad dash again.

  We round the corner at a breakneck run, and I almost dig my heels in when I see all the corpses dotting the lawn. As if he can read my mind, Silas gives my arm a rough yank like he’s warning me not to screw around. Like I have so many times already, I put blind faith, and my life, into Silas’s hands and keep pace as we sidestep zombies and narrowly avoid groping hands and jagged, germ-infested fingernails.

  Silas lets go of my hand, raises his gun, and shoots some of the zombies that are blocking our path. I might not be connected to Silas anymore by touch, but I stick to his side like glue. I no longer have a problem with how fast he’s running.

  The landscaped grass turns into the paved parking lot out front, and my heart sinks as we stop for a moment, both of us breathing hard and looking around.

  “Where’s the truck?” I ask with trepidation, and Silas shrugs. I didn’t really expect him to know. We’ve both been inside this past hour—I taste stomach bile when I think about what could have happened to the others in that timeframe.

  Zombies are converging on us from all sides, and Silas raises his gun and starts shooting a path. He pauses just long enough to shout at me. “We can’t stay here, we’ve got to keep moving,” he says, his accent becoming thicker with his fear, and I don’t have a lot of hope for us if Silas is scared.

  Silas takes off for the small opening he has just cleared, and I force my shaking legs to keep up, my mind warring with twin fears: We are going to die out here. And, what happened to the others?

  My fear for the others is temporarily pushed to the back of my mind when a zombie manages to grab onto my backpack. I let out a hoarse cry as his teeth sink into the canvas material, and Silas swings his axe. It goes whistling by my ear and lodges in my attacker’s neck. Black goop leaks out—it no longer sprays like our blood—and little droplets hit the back of my neck when Silas pulls the axe out.

  Zombies are starting to close in on us again, getting closer and closer, and then I feel the zombie wrap his arms around me, his fetid breath on the back of my neck, and I know my end is near… “Just run Silas!” I scream at him, knowing that if he doesn’t go like right now, he won’t be able to. Silas swings his axe again, and this time he hits his mark. The zombie goes down, his teeth still clamped on my bag, and Silas’s arms, gripping me around the waist, are the only thing that keeps me from following him down.

  I hear a piece of my backpack rip, and then the dead weight is off of me, and Silas is urging me back into a run, shooting into the crowd like a mad man. I’m not a very good shot yet, especially under all of this pressure, but I bring my gun up anyway and start firing into the crowd at random. Who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky and take some of these fuckers out with me.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Silas and I make a push against the zombies, madly shooting our way towards our rapidly closing escape route. My stomach hurts; I’m so afraid of a ripping, tearing death. I try not to think about it and just focus on trying to survive and not get bit, but it isn’t an easy task. There must be fifty zombies gathered here, all of their attention riveted on us, and more zombies wander in with each passing minute.

  The zombies in front of us close rank quickly, more popping up to fill the empty spaces made by those we take down. There is nothing left to do but retreat, which would be a great plan if there weren’t zombies behind us too. They form a tight circle around us, and that circle keeps getting smaller as they stagger closer.

  “I have two bullets left!” Silas yells to be heard above the raucous of the dead, and I nod grimly. His meaning is crystal clear. Even though we’ve never talked about this outcome before, I don’t want to be ripped apart, and I don’t want to come back as one of those things either.

  “Do it!” I yell back as tears fall freely down my cheeks.

  Silas pulls me into his arms and holds me tightly against his body for a second before leaning down and pressing a kiss to my tear-soaked lips. He lingers there, much longer than a simple goodbye kiss might warrant, and I’m thoroughly shocked. I don’t kiss him back at first, but then after a couple of seconds I find my lips moving against his. He pulls away from me, his dark eyes burning with something I can’t even begin to name.

  “I always liked you, Blondie,” he murmurs in my ear as he presses his pistol to my temple. I try to give him a half smile to make this easier on him, and completely fail. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you.”

  His words hurt my heart, and I wish that I was strong enough to do this so Silas doesn’t have to. “It wasn’t your fault,” I tell him, and it’s true. I would have been dead long before today if it hadn’t been for Silas.

  The zombies blocking our path suddenly go flying to the side like pins at the bowling alley as the nose of the Ford forces its way into our midst.

  “Holy shit!” Silas shouts as he snatches his pistol away from my head, looking sick about what almost happened. “Get in the back!” he yells as he pushes me hard, urging me towards the truck. He picks me up and manually throws me into the back of the truck just as he’s tackled to the ground from behind by a zombie.

  “No!” The scream is torn from my throat as I watch the zombie latch onto Silas’s arm and begin to gnaw.

  “Just go, Jane!” Silas yells at me, his eyes pleading with me to listen. His words are almost the exact same thing I’d said to him a few minutes ago, and he hadn’t left me for dead.

  I jump out of the back of the truck, stumbling when I hit the ground hard, and slam my gun into the back of the zombie’s head point blank, pulling the trigger. Silas is showered with little bits of blood, bone, and brain matter as the zombie slumps down on top of him. The other zombies are so close that it won’t be more than another couple steps before
they reach us. I start firing into the crowd as Silas jumps to his feet and joins me, firing until his magazine runs dry and we’ve knocked the zombies back enough to allow us to climb into the back of the truck.

  I climb up on my own this time to be sure Silas will have enough time to get in. I can hear Ryan firing out his window too, but my whole world is focused on surviving right now. As soon as we are in the back, Ryan jams the truck in drive and takes off like a shot, mowing down zombies left and right.

  “Hold on to the tie down straps!” Silas yells out, showing me where to grab the rope and wind my wrist through so I won’t get thrown from the truck. I shift uncomfortably on the top of the boxes and bags we have loaded in here, and I pray that we will be alright, but I know for certain that one of us won’t be.

  I can’t even see because I’m crying so hard. I only know we are out of the thick of things when I no longer feel the thud of zombie bodies bouncing off the truck. Ryan speeds up as he aims the truck out of town and cranks it to a stop once we’ve passed the Welcome to Watseka sign. I lift my head when we come to a stop, and we are once again out on the open road where we can see for miles in all directions. There are a few zombies off in the distance, but it will take them a long time to reach us.

  As soon as the truck has stopped, I’m at Silas’s side, trying to take a look at his bite as gingerly as I can. “Are you guys okay?” Ryan demands, jumping out of the truck and running up to us.

  “Silas got bit,” I sniffle, tears still streaming down my face.

  “Blondie…” Silas starts to say, but I break down. I don’t think I can handle another goodbye. “Jane!” Silas yells at me, giving me a rough little shake, and I look up at him.

  “I’m okay,” he tells me, and I blink.

  “What do you mean? I saw you get bit,” I argue with him, my heart starting to swell with hope, but I brutally tamp it down. This could just be Silas playing it tough.

  Silas pulls off his gore-soaked vest and strips his shirt off to reveal that he’s wearing some sort of black arm guards going from his wrist to just above his elbow. “What in the hell is that?” I ask, not sure what I’m seeing.