“What are you trying to say?” Oscar asked. “That they can’t swim?”
“No, I’m just saying they are avoiding the water.”
“Maybe it’s because there are no humans in the water,” Travis said.
“That could be,” I said.
“Where’s this leading?” Oscar asked.
“Those waterways lead out of here.”
“And?” Oscar asked again.
“We need to get into that waterway and use it to get away.”
“If you hadn’t noticed, those things are out there.”
I felt like I had to be overly confident because my slow developing plan was bordering on preposterousness. “I’ve got that.” Again, I pointed out the window. “You see those awnings leading out the second floor?”
“What about them?”
“Grant.” Travis tried to get my attention.
“Hold on a second, Travis. We bust out the windows and we slide down the awnings, drop into the water, and we use the waterway to escape.”
Oscar looked at me like I was from another planet. “You make it sound so easy. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly James Bond. Hell, a fall from there’d probably break my hip or throw my back out.”
“Mr. Grant,” Travis insisted. This time with more pitch and volume.
“Hold your horses. I’m talking with Oscar. It’s not that far and there’s water to break your fall. Besides, once those things are inside, all bets are off.”
Travis leaned between Oscar and me. “They’re inside.”
I quickly turned my attention back to our makeshift barricade and saw two zombies in the food court and two more wriggling their way in. Gigantor had his head and shoulder through and once his wide girth gut made it through, a river of zombies would flow inside.
“Times up,” I said. “Unless you have a better idea in the next fifteen seconds or less.”
“Won’t they just come over to where we are jumping, water or not?” Joni asked.
“That’s where our diversion comes in,” I said.
“What’s our diversion?” Joni asked.
“Me.”
Nobody liked my plan, least of all me, but we were out of time and out of options. Joni and Travis took the others down the corridor that led them to the windows over top the waterway. First, they would get the windows open however they could. The next step was the biggest one. Sliding down the awnings. For that part of the plan, Joni and Travis would take one of the younger kids on the plunge into the waterway. Oscar and Minnie would have to risk the fall or find their own way out of the mall on their own. Jenkins still wanted teleportation capabilities, but settled on my plan.
I, on the other hand, was bait for the zombies.
“Wooooooooo-hoooooo, you ugly sons of bitches,” I yelled at the top of my lungs as I stood at an intersecting corridor a hundred feet from the food court. All sixty of the zombies shambling around in the food court took immediate notice. It would have been so much easier if they had decided to get a slice of pizza or a couple tacos, but I was on their menu and nothing else would do.
My yell was all it took, and they were off and running. Well, really shambling.
There was little doubt I could outrun them, but sooner or later I was going to run out of real estate or be forced to exit out a door on the other side of the mall into unknown territory. Who knew how many deaders were outside any door I might open? Not I, and that’s why I was planning to draw them deep into the mall, away from Joni and the others. Then I would find a way upstairs where I would sprint across the second floor, out the window, and into the waterway, joining the others.
It was a bad plan with many holes in it, but it only got worse when a wild card got played by an unexpected hand.
I couldn’t go too far or too fast or else the zombies might forget I was there. Then they might turn around and head back toward the others. So, I ran fifty feet, then turned around and taunted them. (If zombies could really be taunted.)
“Hey you,” I yelled at one of the lead zombies wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt. “You call that a shirt? Did your momma buy it for you?”
I didn’t say that I was good at taunting, now did I?
In reality, I didn’t have to be good at it. My voice was the siren song drawing them deeper into the mall. Stumble, shamble, or wobble, they followed my voice.
That part of the plan was working as intended until it stopped working.
Just as I was getting closer to the end of the corridor and the stairway door I had planned to take upstairs, a shot rang out. The report echoed loudly inside the empty mall with the only competition for noise being the moans and grunts of the zombies.
My first ridiculous thought was that zombies had learned how to shoot guns. If that were true, we were done for.
The second shot discouraged me of that idea as a bullet whizzed by my head. When I wheeled around to find the source, I saw Carl slipping his arm around a corner, gun in hand, pointed in my direction. It wasn’t much of a gun being a snub-nosed .38. Accuracy was terrible with something like that, but still, he could get lucky.
“You son of a bitch,” he screamed. “You ruined everything. Those things are in my home now.”
He fired off two quick shots and one whizzed by me, the second chipped some faux marble off the wall behind me.
“Carl, I don’t have time for this,” I yelled.
“I had a perfect place here,” he said. “I let you people in and look what you did. The zombies are inside and it’s all gone to shit.”
“Carl, how long could you have really stayed here?” I asked.
“Forever,” he wailed.
“Forever until the electricity ran out,” I replied, looking back over my shoulder. The distance between me and the zombies was diminishing rapidly. There was no time for a debate about what had happened.
He was silent for a few moments. “I would have figured something out. Me and that little filly you brought in with you. We could have been king and queen here.”
“Joni?” I asked. “She’s already married. Besides, what would you have done with the kids.”
“No room for kids here.” He fired off another shot. This bullet pinged off the floor in front of me, then chipped back into the mall.
It was more than obvious that he was off his nut, but that made me question my intuition. He had seemed all right when we came to the mall. Then again, maybe I was a little distracted by the impending zombie apocalypse.
“Carl, that’s not going to happen.”
“All because of you,” he stuck his head around the corner to take another shot at me and I had had enough of that. I yanked up my pistol and fired off a shot forcing him to pull away.
“Two can play at that game, Carl,” I shouted. “And I think you’re a shitty shot.”
He stayed behind the corner and shouted back, “I don’t have to be good. The zombies will do my work for me.”
I glanced over my shoulder. The pack of zombies was just seconds away from overrunning my position.
I guessed that Carl thought I wasn’t willing to approach his hiding spot because he could shoot me down. In reality, if it came down to being mauled to death by zombies or being shot, I’d take being shot any day.
I pulled up my gun arm and aimed at the corner he was hiding behind and started toward it at a light jog. Maybe he suspected I was too scared to do that, but he was about to find out that I had taken the lesser of two evils. I wondered if he could hear my footfalls over the moans and groans behind me.
Well, my wondering ended when he popped around the corner. He had hoped to get the drop on me, but instead, I had him. It only took me three quick trigger pulls. A spray of blood filled the air, then he spun around and out of view.
I hadn’t wanted to kill him, but then again, that’s what he was trying to do with me. Turnabout is fair play, right? Still, I felt shitty about shooting him.
As it turned out, I hadn’t killed him. As I edged around the corne
r, I saw him lying on the ground, his face locked in a grimace, and his hand clutched onto his shoulder. Blood seeped between his fingers. His little .38 sat on the ground about ten feet away from him.
“You shot me,” he gasped between ragged breaths.
“To be fair, you shot at me first.”
“You screwed up everything. My plans. My home. Everything.” I could swear it sounded like he might cry.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll help you up. The zombies are coming.”
His eyes snapped open wide. “I don’t want your damn help and I don’t need it.”
“Suit yourself. I’m not waiting around and I’m not asking twice.”
I ducked out of the little side corridor he had been shooting from and saw that we had thirty seconds before the point of no return. They’d have us trapped with no place to go. I only had so many bullets. My choice would come down to whether I saved one for myself.
“Come on, Carl,” I said.
“You do what you have to do,” he said.
“Have it your way.” I shrugged and sprinted for the stairwell to the second floor. This stairwell had a door and that was good because I didn’t think the zombies were smart enough to open it. But a minute ago, I thought they might be able to shoot guns, so all bets were off.
I looked back at the corridor where Carl was and didn’t see any movement. A part of me was telling myself to go back and help him, but the deep down part of my brain that was all about survival shouted down any other voices. That’s when I heard the shot echo out of the corridor.
Carl had taken away any of my options to save him.
A moment later, I shut the door behind me and bounded up the stairs to the second floor. When I made it there, I peeked over the balcony. I saw the zombies in a huge scrum, pushing and shoving to get into the corridor to get a piece of Carl. A peek was more than enough, and I was off and running across the second floor to get to Joni, Travis, and the others.
The wonderful thing about this mall was the openness. The windows gave a panoramic view of the courtyard and this allowed me to see Joni sliding out onto one of the awnings that hung over the waterway below. She had her back to me and was reaching up for a reluctant Martin who looked like he wanted no part of my plan to jump off the awning into the water.
Travis followed his mom’s lead and climbed onto an adjoining awning. He reached back for Jessica who was less reluctant than Martin. Maybe Jessica goaded Martin into making his way out, but it was only a couple seconds after she moved out onto the awning with Travis that Martin slowly climbed out. It was then that I became really concerned about how much weight those awnings would hold, but in the end, we were way past worrying about things like that.
I continued running the length of the mall to get to them. I caught glimpses of their progress through the different windows and obstructions on my way. I was about halfway there when I saw a show stopper.
Drifting into the waterway beneath Joni, Travis, and the kids was one of the riverboats meant for carrying tourists on relaxing tours of San Antonio’s picturesque Riverwalk. What took my breath away about this little tour was that the boat was filled with zombies. They were stumbling about in the boat, bumping into each other, fortunately not noticing the tasty humans above them.
Somehow this brought forth into my mind the Disney theme park ride the Pirates of the Caribbean -- only it was more like a dine-in booze cruise where people were on the menu. Don’t ask me why I thought this. My thinking is sometimes warped.
I put myself into high gear and was on an approach path to Oscar and Minnie, who stood at the windows, looking out over the awnings. Minnie’s eyes were wide and Oscar wore a scowl on his face when faced with the prospect of taking the plunge. Nope. This little plan to jump off into the waters below wasn’t looking all that peachy.
They turned at the sound of my approach, their brows furrowed and lips pressed into a thin line.
Oscar whispered to me, “Grant, I don’t know about this.”
“I hear you, Oscar, but we don’t have a lot of choices,” I whispered back. “Those zombies down on one are going to venture up here sooner or later.”
“Grant,” Joni said in a hushed tone as she looked down below. “What do we do?”
I leaned past Oscar. “Be quiet and wait for them to drift by. Then we jump.”
“We?” She asked.
“Well, you.”
“Thanks,” she responded, then added, “a lot.”
It was too late for me to take her place with Martin. The combined weight of two adults and a child looked to be too much for the already straining awning.
Seconds ticked by and the boat packed with zombies slowly drifted fully into view. It took what seemed like an eternity for it to slowly float along to the other side of the waterway where it bumped into the walkway and stopped.
They hadn’t noticed us yet. “It’s go time. Martin, hang tight onto your mom. Joni, slide off but grab the awning, then hang drop off into the water. I’m guessing you’re falling no more than ten feet and water will soften the impact.”
I had to sell this crazy idea somehow.
She looked up to me with doubt in her eyes, but she was smart enough to know that this was the best way to go. I watched as she built up the courage.
Then she looked to Travis, who was on the next awning with Jessica.
“You ready?” Joni asked him.
“But my phone will get wet,” he said with a real look of concern on his face.
Joni leaned over to him, snatched the phone from his hand, then tossed it down into the waterway below.
“Mom!” Travis said in shock.
“Shhhhhhh,” I said, but it was too late. His voice carried back to the boat of the damned and the zombies took notice. “Time to go!”
Joni saw the zombies, too. She took a deep breath, let it out, and I saw the expression on her face shift from worry to determination. She was a fighter.
She slowly slid down the awning with Martin holding onto her like a little spider monkey. The two of them slid over the edge and the only thing I could see were her hands straining to hold onto the metal bar hidden under the fabric of the awning. I could also see the awning stressed to the max by the motion.
A moment later, her hands let go and then we all heard the splash below.
There wasn’t time to make sure the landing was safe. Some of the zombies were abandoning ship and falling over the side of the riverboat into the waterway, while others climbed onto the walkway. The ones on the walkway would have a long path around the courtyard to get to us. The ones in the water looked quite graceless as they floundered around looking more like they were drowning than anything else.
This brought forth the question on whether a zombie could really drown? I quickly put that aside for the task at hand.
Travis followed his mom’s lead and went over the side of the awning.
“Minnie, let me help you out,” I offered.
She didn’t need any coaxing and neither did Oscar. Just as they slid to the edge of their respective awnings they reached out to each other and squeezed each other’s hands. In any other circumstance, it would have been endearing. Actually, it was, but there was no time for a Hallmark moment. They went over the side with a splash.
The zombies weren’t making good progress in the water, but it wouldn’t be long before they made it to us. So, I climbed onto the awning and slid off it without trying to hang drop.
A moment later, I splashed down and went under the water.
As it turned out, the waterway was only four feet deep, so when I stood, the water was only up to my chest.
I sputtered water out of my mouth and wiped my eyes in time to see all of our group looking at me, their expression looking like a question mark -- what next?
“Go out the way the zombies drifted in,” I said. “The zombies don’t move well in water, so we’ll use that to our advantage. We’ll find a new safe harbor somewhere outside the mall.”
About R.J. Spears
R.J. Spears splits his writing time between mystery/crime and horror. His stories have appeared on A Twist of Noir, Shotgun Honey, Flashes in the Dark, and the Horror Zine along with other sites. His zombie series Forget the Zombies and Books of the Dead can be found on Amazon. You can learn more about his writing at: rj-spears.com
9
First Job (The Zee Brothers)
by Grivante
I. Zombie Exterminators?
“So… you want us to pretend to be exterminators?” Jonah scrunched up his face, locking eyes with Dr. Natasha Nitsau, who sat with her legs crossed behind her desk.
She leaned forward smiling, placing her hands over her nylon covered knees and staring right into him. She wore her white lab coat, black business skirt and a white blouse which was open at the top. “Not pretend, no. They’ll all die in the end but I want you to collect them for me first. There’s lots you two can do for me. If you’re willing.” Her gaze turned to Judas, and she mashed her red-coated lips together, slowly spreading them into a smile.
Judas shot his brother a quick look and let out an audible gulp.
“And what do you want with these zombies we’ll be collecting?” Jonah asked.
“They’re needed for my research.”
“And what kind of research is that?”
The doctor’s gaze narrowed, looking him over as he stood there in his black Nitsau Corporation security uniform. “Anti-aging.” She removed her hands from her legs and uncrossed them, looking Jonah directly in the eyes. “So that you understand, what I’ll be paying you for is to do as you’re told. Asking questions is not in the job description.”
“I, uh,” Jonah stammered. “I’m just trying to understand what you want of us.” He wiped a hand across his brow as she continued to stare him down. “I just want to make sure we get it right.”
Undead Worlds 2: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Anthology Page 13