I reloaded my gun and stuffed it in my waistband, then paced the lobby, gripping my Louisville Slugger in my hand.
Steven walked into the lobby, dressed in a long trench coat and black boots, with his rifle flung over his shoulder and an equally menacing aluminum bat in his hands.
“Nice coat,” I said.
“I brought you one too.”
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t wanna overdress for the occasion,” I said.
He handed the coat to me anyway. “It’s not for looks, Dean. It has a dozens of large pockets inside, filled with ammo. Call it fashion with a bang.”
I opened it up and examined it. There were many pockets tucked inside the lining, and every single one of them was filled with ammo.
“Another thing,” he said. “Use your gun as a last resort. In the drains, the sound is confined and will kill your ears, not to mention draw lots of zombies from any direction. We should stick to our bats and only use the guns if things get too sticky down there.”
I nodded as I switched coats.
Suddenly, another voice came from down the hall. “Let’s get this show on the road,” said a teenager with shaggy, frizzy blond hair and brown eyes. He was carrying a black crowbar, a flashlight, and box full of stuff.
“Ed, Dean. Dean, meet Ed,” Steven said.
“He’s a little young,” I whispered in Steven’s ear.
“Young? I’m thirteen, man. In zombie years, that’s like…twenty-seven,” Ed retorted.
I laughed and shook his hand. “Sorry, I said. It’s nice to meet you, Ed.” I glanced back at Steven. “Are you sure he oughtta be running the streets with us?”
“I’m not sure you should be running the streets with me,” Ed snapped, handing us strap-on headlamps from the box.
“You were asking about rats earlier, and Ed’s practically a sewer rat himself. Nobody knows the underground world like him. He’s our urban mole, and he’ll guarantee we don’t get lost.”
“Right,” the boy said. “All you gotta do is follow the leader, buddy,” he said to me in a much cockier voice than any pre-teen should ever use.
I blew out a breath as I strapped my headlamp onto my head. “Just stay close to me, okay?”
“Sure, Dad,” he retorted. “You wanna check my diaper before we go?”
Déjà vu, I thought. The kid reminded me of myself, and I wondered if I was inadvertently treating him the way Nick often treated me. I didn’t want to endanger the kid’s life, but it was clear that he wanted to go with us, and the thought that I might not let him made him livid. For that one quick second, I knew what Nick felt like to have a stubborn younger brother, and it almost made me laugh.
“You need a crash course on Zombie 101?” he asked, turning the tables on me.
This time, I had to laugh out loud. “Heh. Kid, I’ve already taken the course and passed with flying colors. Practically earned my bachelor’s in it.”
“Oh yeah? Prove it.”
“Well, let’s see. I came all the way here from Ohio. I’ve lived through a zombie battle in a modern-day coliseum, a zombie-infested nursing home, and survived a bridge that would have made Indiana Jones pee his pants. I’ve holed up in a BMV, a church, a gym, and an airport, and my sister and girlfriend are half-zombie. If that doesn’t earn me some zombie street cred’, I don’t know what will.”
He smiled and gave me a fist-bump. “You’re cool. I like you, Dean.” He held up the boom box and motioned for us to follow him. “Got the tunes, got the weapons, and got the guts. Let’s go, fellas.”
I’d always admired courageous, daring people who were willing to fight for what they believed in, so I couldn’t help liking the kid.
We headed down the desolate street, none of us saying a word for a while. Steven had been particularly quiet, and I couldn’t blame him; his girlfriend was stuck on top of a statue, surrounded by zombies, and if that had been Jackie up there, I would have been freaked out myself.
“You ready to reconnect with nature?” Ed asked excitedly, like a kid on a fieldtrip. “We’re liable to run into some wildlife out here.”
“I’m used to dealing with these animals,” I said as I walked briskly.
“Yeah, man. Zombies have killer teeth and claws built for flesh-ripping.”
“I’m well aware,” I said, thinking back to all my own close calls. I aimed my gun and scanned the street ahead of us as we rounded a corner. “Clear,” I said.
“Five of them attacked me at once one time,” Ed said. “What about you, Dean?”
The kid loved to talk, and I wished he’d be quiet, but I decided to humor him. “I’ve been surrounded by hundreds of them one time or another.”
“Hundreds? Whoa! That’d be so cool.”
“It wasn’t,” I said. “I was scared senseless.”
“But you’re alive to tell the tale.”
“Right, but not everyone is that lucky. Speaking of that, it’s probably best that we keep quiet,” I warned.
“Right,” he whispered. “Silence is golden. Remaining undetected is key to survival.”
“So zip it, Ed,” Steven said, gripping his bat tightly. Around the next winding curve, he came to an abrupt halt. “This is it,” he said.
I stared down at our entrance point, a manhole in the middle of the street.
“It’s funny,” Ed said. “If we’d been standing here a year ago, a car woulda creamed us by now. We’d be pancakes instead of zombie bait.”
“Yeah, real freaking hilarious, Ed,” Steven said grimly. “Come on.”
Ed skillfully popped the lid off with a crowbar, as if he’d done it a thousand times. “Here we go.” He smiled, turning on his flashlight. “This ain’t no Super 8. They never leave the light on for ya.”
“You popped that thing right off of there,” I said in surprise. “You the Incredible Hulk or something?”
He laughed and pushed his hair from his sweaty cheeks. “Most of these manholes are already loose. Think of it like our new subway system, only you don’t need any tickets. It’s the best way to get through the city undetected, and a lot of survivors use it.”
“You can’t tell me zombies can’t get down here,” I said, climbing down the rusted ladder into the dark underworld. “It’s dark, slimy, full of rats, and smells like death. Sounds like zombie paradise to me. They’d be right at home here.”
“There are a few, but there are way more on the streets,” Ed said.
My eyes adjusted to the dim light as we walked down the rounded, ten-foot high tunnel. “I dunno. It still feels risky being down here.”
Ed shot me a look over his shoulder and smiled. “No adventure is without risk. Let the games begin!”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I didn’t like his tone when he said it, as if he knew more than he was telling me. “This is not an adventure,” I stated, gripping my bat tightly. “This is a rescue mission—a dangerous one at that—and we should treat is as such,” I scolded, sounding more fatherly and bossy than I intended to.
As we moved forward, I observed my surroundings uneasily. It was chilly; the temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees, so I was even more thankful for the trench coat. The slick, fading walls were comprised of dark concrete, and the floor was scummy, slippery, and treacherous. I ducked under drooling algae and sticky cobwebs that fluttered above my head. I was shocked to find impressive graffiti in such a gloomy place, colorful inscriptions, initials, symbols, and murals painted in various different styles. The paintings seemed to scream and fight for space, crying for attention in an underground world few would ever see. Cockroaches scurried past my head, and as I walked, I could hear the echo of my footsteps. My headlamp picked up my reflection in the puddle of water. I felt like I’d been swallowed up by another world as I breathed in damp, stale air.
We made our way into a second tunnel and walked upstream. Ankle-deep water rushed past my feet. Many passages forked off at tangents and disappeared into the unknown. I glanced down the dar
k, endless tunnels and wondered what lurked in those shadows. The sound of running water was all I could hear. I kept alert and focused, though, as I didn’t want any zombified surprises coming at me from any direction.
Our feet sloshed in the brown, murky water as we headed to the next junction, where the path branched off to the left. In bright red spray paint, somebody had painted “HELL” above us on the concrete, along with a thick arrow pointing down. It was the creepiest place I’d been so far, so the name seemed fitting. We walked single file as we entered the new stretch of tunnel and walked upstream. Sunlight streamed in through holes spaced every sixty feet, and water dripped and plopped all around us. I was terrified of getting lost in the sewer, and my tour guide into Hell was a thirteen-year-old boy.
Ed diligently trudged forward, then shined the light ahead of us. “We make a great special ops team, guys.”
“Just keep your eyes focused on the mission,” I said. I couldn’t help but notice the deep ruts high on the walls. “Is it safe down here?” I asked again. “It looks like the walls are crumbling.”
“Nah,” Ed said. “Those long holes were put there for a reason. If we see a zombie, we just crawl into one and hope for the best.”
“Yeah,” Steven said. “They were strategically placed on the main paths with power saws. We’ve tried to think of everything to survive out here. It’s all about outsmarting the enemy. Our brains are the one advantage we have over the zombies.”
“I’d rather just fight a zombie rather than hide from it.”
As if on cue, I saw one stumbling toward us. It was uncoordinated and suddenly stopped. When I peered closer, I saw that it’s forward progress was blocked by a horizontal metal bar. The zombie didn’t have the intelligence or enough deductive reasoning to know that all it had to do was duck underneath it, like a game of limbo.
I shot Ed a confused look.
“It’s a zombie trap,” he explained. “They’re all over the place down here. It really slows ‘em down.”
The zombie kept walking, even though the bar held him back, and he suddenly stumbled sideways, crashing into the puddle with a splash. With a moan, he started crawling toward us.
“Looks like your trap didn’t work,” I said.
“Yes it did,” Ed said. “It gave you an extra minute, just enough time to hurry out a nearby manhole.”
“Nothing is foolproof down here,” Steven chimed in. “All we can really do is delay them.”
I walked up to the zombie, knowing it’d be too dangerous to pass without getting attacked. I whacked him, and his eyes fluttered shut as he released one last groan.
“Whoa,” Ed said, impressed. “You took that thing out like it was nothing!”
“One quick blow to the skull gets the job done. My brother taught me that.”
I coughed, gagged, and coughed again. The stench was unbearable, and I tried to take in shallow breaths. As we walked my feet started to sink in what I thought was mushy mud. When I looked down, I about gagged. The tunnel floor was piled with so much feces that I was sinking in it like quicksand. I stared up the path and was mortified at the sight before me. Straight ahead was an impassable mountain of pure waste, and nausea flooded through me at the sight of it.
“This way isn’t gonna work, Ed!” Steven said.
“Ya think?” I said in a sarcastic tone as I backed up and sloshed my feet in a nearby puddle.
“Let’s try this way,” Ed said, taking a tunnel to the right.
Footsteps echoed in front of me, and I prepared myself for another fight. When I saw a wavering flashlight beam approaching, I knew it wasn’t a zombie.
“It’s Crazy Jim!” Ed said. “He’s harmless, but he’s a little loony since he lost his wife and entire family.”
Steven shook his head. “We don’t have time for him.”
Squinting, I could make out a tall man with a big, bushy beard, dressed in only red swimming trunks, tube socks, and black rubber boots. He held a machete in his hands.
“Going for a dip, Jim?” Ed asked casually.
His eyes bulged. “Making fun of a guy with a machete in his hand isn’t a good idea, kid.”
“Sorry,” Ed said.
“I’m wearing this because…well, the missus don’t want me to get zombie guts on my good clothes. She’s making Sunday dinner, the best pot roast around.”
I started to take my coat off to offer it to him, realizing he had to be freezing down there. “Here, take my jacket.”
“No thanks, son. I don’t have a washing machine to wash all the guts off it when I’m done.”
The man must have been through a lot. He was losing touch with reality, and my heart went out for the guy. He knew we lived in a world without the luxury of modern appliances, yet he imagined he was having dinner with his dead wife. It was heartbreaking that he was giving up, that his spirit was slowly being sucked away by the grim reality of what the world had become.
“What are you kids doin’ down here anyway?” he said in a gruff. “You oughtn’t play your hide-n-seek down here, boys. They’re too many of them hungry critters creepin’ around.”
“We’re trying to get to the town square to rescue Rachel,” Steven said urgently. “We’ve gotta go now!”
“What about it, Jim? Seen any zombies on the way to the town square?” Ed asked.
“At the moment, it’s all clear, but you know the tide can shift in a heartbeat.”
“Thanks, Jim. See ya later,” Ed said. “Enjoy that pot-roast.”
“Wait!” Crazy Jim said, looking me up and down. “Can this new kid fight? Killin’ zombies ain’t for the skittish.”
I met his gaze. “We fight or we die,” I said sternly.
He let out a loud chuckle. “That’s the spirit, kid! You’ll fit right in down here.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Crazy Jim looked at Steven and shook his head. “I admire your courage, young fella, but why bother riskin’ your own butt to save hers? There ain’t no such thing as happily ever after anymore. You try to snatch up your princess and ride off into the sunset, you’re gonna have zombies right on white stallion’s tail anyway.”
“I love her,” Steven said.
“Heh. Like a knight in shining armor?” He snickered.
“I have to save her, Jim!” Steven shouted.
“I don’t doubt you will, and she’ll give you a big fat kiss, and just as your fairytale comes to an end, fifty of those bone-crunchers will spring out of nowhere and rip you to shreds.”
“That’s enough,” I said. “We’re leaving.”
“Love will get you killed these days!” Crazy Jim shouted at the top of his lungs. “If you don’t believe me, ask my wife!” He then turned and splashed back through the tunnel.
Ed pulled my arm. “Let’s go.”
“He’s wrong,” Steven said sadly. “Tell me he’s wrong, Dean. You have a girlfriend. Tell me love can still exist in this world. I need to know that.”
I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I had met the most beautiful person in the world, inside and out, but the circumstances around us had literally ripped her out of my life, claiming yet another victim. My sister’s fiancé had been taken from her, and my brother’s childhood girlfriend was now dead. The awful truth was that we’d all lost the loves of our lives in one way or another, and I was sure it was highly unlikely that even love could survive the zombie apocalypse. Still, I’d never stop trying, stop hoping.
Suddenly we came to a big slab of concrete that almost completely blocked the tunnel, but there was a big enough gap at the top that we could easily crawl over it. “What’s up with this?” I asked.
“It’s a smart blockade,” Ed said. “They’re strategically placed throughout the tunnels. Zombies are too dumb to climb over ‘em, but we’re not. C’mon.”
As we made our way over the slab, I said, “Yeah, zombies would have a very hard time maneuvering past this thing, but it musta been hard to put these down here.”
&n
bsp; “It was, but we worked together. Everybody wants to make these tunnels safer, to give us a better chance of getting around town when we need to. Just yesterday, my dad got the blueprints to the sewer system, and next week, we’re gonna seal off all the openings so zombies can’t get in.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I kept moving forward, my voice ringing from the walls.
Ed grabbed my arm and pointed down. “Watch out. Another zombie trap.”
I stepped over a wooden railroad beam on the ground, careful not to catch my feet on any of the spikes pointing out of it.
“Those things are sharp. Be careful,” Steven said. “Last week, a rat got impaled on one.”
“Speaking of rats, why aren’t there any down here?” I asked, the thought suddenly occurring to me as we walked through the slimy tunnels. I was really quite freaked out by it, afraid that zombies were somewhere down there, feasting on a rat buffet and looking for bigger entrées to go with their ratpetizers.
“They’re down here,” Ed assured me. “Trust me.”
Another piece of graffiti artwork caught my attention. There, in green, blue, and red 3D letters, someone had painted “HOPE” on the walls, reminding me of the driving factor that helped me stay on course in that new life I was faced with. There’s always hope, I thought as Jackie’s gleaming smile flashed across my mind.
As I walked, I noticed a giant, brilliant butterfly spray-painted in layers. Underneath it read: “Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp. Nathaniel Hawthorne.” I contemplated those words, which seemed like the story of my life.
Ed grabbed my arm. “Four zombies, straight ahead. No gunfire if you can help it, guys. We don’t wanna make the natives more restless.”
Steven nodded, holding his bat tightly. “I’ll take the ones to the left.”
I charged at the zombie on the right and swung at its rotting knees with a fierce blow. It fell sideways into the puddle of water, where I finished it off in one swift blow. I spun around to face the next one that was coming right at me. I stared into its white eyes as I hammer-kicked it in the chest. It staggered back and dropped, and Steven stomped its head over and over again. I yanked Steven’s arm. “C’mon! It’s dead. Let’s go.”
The Zombie Chronicles - Book 5 - Undead Nightmare (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) Page 15