“Summer!” Danny shouted and kicked open the doors.
Bruce’s arm smashed through the top left panel, and he saw the girls (food) inside the room. He was encouraged by their screams and smashed the section out completely. Now, he could fit through the hole in the door and allowed his body to fall forward into the room. His legs followed him through, and he entered the harem with an ungainly somersault, landing flat on his back. He looked up at three wide-eyed girls (food) staring down at him. He had made it. It was time to feed.
Moses untied Summer with one hand while pointing a gun at her face with the other. She was staring straight down the barrel; it looked as wide and black as the tunnel to Hell. “Get up, Summer. Do it quickly and silently, one wrong mo—”
“Daddy” she yelled. “Daddy, I’m in he—.”
Moses slapped her across the face. “Shut up, you stupid bitch; you’ll bring the fucking twitchers in here.”
A pair of zombies left the kitchen area and staggered over to Moses’ bedroom to investigate the new sound.
The double doors disintegrated when they bounced off the wall behind them, and Danny stepped into the Preacher’s apartment, guns raised. He heard young girls screaming behind a shattered door across the room. Five zombies were trying to pull apart what remained of it. Before they could turn to face him, Danny shot them all. The last one standing was still holding the door handle when its brains blew out of its forehead, and both it and the remnants of the door crumpled into the room. “Summer,” Danny shouted, running forward. “Summer, I’m here. Dad’s come to get you.”
He ran into the room and saw three girls jumping from bed to bed, like little kangaroos, as a blood-caked ghoul, dressed in rags, stumbled back and forwards trying to catch them. The smallest of the girls bounced up and down on the bed nearest the wall, and as the creature approached, she sprang off, landed on the adjacent bed and then bounced over to the next one. The zombie roared, waving its arms about and staggered around the end of the bed after her, only for another girl to taunt it by leaping across its path onto the bed the other girl had just left. Pip and Simon joined Danny in the room and watched the strange sight with mild amusement. The girls had stopped crying and were laughing at the confused monster.
Bruce ran for the nearest girl (food), but she sprang away from him. He tried to grab her but she was too fast, so he went to the next girl in line (food). She also bounced away, and when he went after the third (food), she did the same. He roared in frustration and went after them again, only to be repeatedly outdone by his elusive prey. He sensed movement behind him and turned to face three more people (food) in the room. They all held those things that could hurt him. He would have to disarm them quickly. He headed for the smallest of the three, a little boy (food).
Simon’s eyes widened in horror as the creature headed straight towards him, salivating and groaning with outstretched arms. Danny fired both pistols into its eyes from a meter away, obliterating its head and when the zombie hit the floor, Pip shot it just for good measure.
The girls jumped off the beds and made a beeline for Pip, throwing their arms around her waist. She bobbed down and returned the affection, reassuring the girls they were safe. Simon stepped forward and reached up to put a consoling hand on one of the girl’s shoulders. She turned around and hugged him hard enough to make him blush. Danny scoured the room. “Where’s Summer?” he said. “I heard her call. Where is she?”
“She’s in the room over there,” the girl hugging Simon said, pointing through the remnants of the door. “The Preacher took her to his bedroom. He’s a bad man.”
Danny ran out of the room and at the same time, two zombies staggered out of the Preacher’s bedroom. He shot them both in the head, and before they hit the floor, he was past them. “Summer,” he yelled. Pip was on her way to join him when she heard him cry out, “No!” She burst into the room, guns held in front of her. “She’s gone,” Danny said. Tears of rage filled his eyes, and he shook with anger. “That bastard’s taken her. I’ll fucking kill him.”
Pip looked around the room as if she needed to see for herself, and sure enough, it was empty. In the corner, a door emblazoned with a ‘FIRE EXIT’ sticker was ajar, and she assumed this had been their way out. A scream echoing from the stairway beyond was all the confirmation she needed.
25: Escape
Moses shoved Summer between the shoulder blades, almost causing her to stumble down the concrete stairs of the fire escape. “Move it, Summer,” he said. “And if you make another sound, I’ll shoot you in the kneecaps and leave you for the zombies. Would you like that, lady? See what your daddy can do for you then.”
Summer shook her head, not daring to speak. She touched her swollen lip where the Preacher had hit her after she’d called out to her dad and she knew from the tone of his voice, if she tried it again, he would kill her. She thought of making a run for it when she reached the door ahead, but if zombies had invaded, she would die without a protector. Something bad had happened, judging by what she had heard while tied to the bed, but she didn’t know what.
They reached the door, and Summer stepped to one side of it. The Preacher paused with his hand on the horizontal push bar. “This is it, Summer, this will determine whether you live or die. Once we’re through this door, there is no going back. You go first, and I’ll shoot those freaks as they come for us, and come they will.” Summer shook her head, frantically. “This is not open to debate, Summer, I can just as easily shoot you now and get away on my own. Do you want that?” She shook her head again. “Good, now when you step outside, turn left and run down the side of the building. I suspect your papa has come by car; we’ll be taking that.”
He pressed the bar down and pushed the door open. An army of zombies staggered across the lawn, and hundreds of undead faces turned to look at them. Moses pushed Summer outside, and without looking back, she screamed and ran for her life.
“Pip, take Simon and the girls back to the car and get out of here.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’m going after my daughter.”
“And then what? How will you escape?”
“I don’t know, but if we stay much longer we’re all going to die and where’s the sense in that? You need to save them kiddies.”
“I’m not leaving you, Danny. Not a chance.”
“Ok, wait for me at the car, but no longer than fifteen minutes. If I’m not back by then, I won’t be coming.”
“You will be.”
“Here’s hoping,” Danny said and ran through the door onto the fire escape.
Pip listened to his footsteps clip-clopping down the stairs and went back through the door into the living room where she met Simon and the three girls, all looking at her expectantly. “Right kids,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”
She led the party across the room to the obliterated front doors and stepped out onto the corpse-strewn landing. Immediately, she jumped back inside. The staircase was half-filled with zombies, three or four to a step, too many to shoot with the bullets she had left. She poked her head out to assess the situation better and saw the first of the new arrivals stumble onto the landing. She had to make her move, and she had to do it now.
She turned to face the children, all looking earnestly back at her. “Simon, I need you to lead these girls back to our car. Do you think you can do that for me?” The boy nodded, even though she could see the fear in his eyes. “Twitchers are on the stairs and coming our way, so we can’t stay here, can we?” Simon shook his head, and so did the girls behind him. “Did you ever play dodgeball at school?” There were nods from the children. “Well, we’re going to play that now, against the world’s slowest opponents. Think of them as the worst team in the league, the real losers and show them who the champs are.”
She went back out onto the landing and shot the nearest zombie in the forehead. It was dangerously close to the room, so close that when it toppled forward, its outstretched arms almost
touched Pip’s toes. The next in line wasn’t far behind it, so she shot that one too. She beckoned the children onto the landing, and they gingerly came forward, all holding hands in a line. They saw the twitchers hobbling towards them and huddled closer to Pip. Simon looked over the handrail at the stairs and went bug-eyed.
“Okay kids, I need you to run as fast as you can. Unlink hands, that’ll make you harder to catch, and run like you’ve never run before. Race down this corridor and sprint down those stairs, straight to the car. It’s just outside the doors, and it’s unlocked. I’ll be shooting anything that tries to grab you, and when you reach the car, I’ll be right behind you.”
“I’m scared,” Roberta said.
“So am I, sweetie,” Pip said, “but we’re all going to make it, I promise you. Now, on a count of three, run like the wind and don’t look back. No matter what you hear, or think you hear, do not look back.” She said the last sentence while looking directly at Simon, but she meant it for them all. “One.” The children unlinked hands. “Two.” They turned to face the zombies. “Three.”
Simon shot away like he’d been fired out of a canon and reached the stairs before the last of the girls had left Pip’s side. A ghoul in a business suit made a grab for him as he swung on the newel post and Pip put a bullet through its brain. The thing fell over sideways, and Colette jumped over the corpse, as it landed, joining Simon on the stairs. Roberta appeared next and then Kirsty who stumbled on the top step and would have fallen if Roberta hadn’t caught her. Pip’s breath caught in her throat, as she watched the girls dallying. A naked and badly burned creature hobbled towards them. She shot it through the right temple before it got too close.
A loud snarl caught her attention, and she looked to the landing in front of her. A pair of zombies tottered forwards, side by side and almost upon her. She shot the one on the right in the head and had to take a step back to give herself room to shoot the other. Behind them, the zombie of a teenage boy, with a hole punched through its left earlobe, gnashed its blackened teeth. Pip’s bullet put a similarly sized hole in its brow.
On the stairs, one of the girls screamed, and Pip saw Kirsty in the grip of a bloated yellow creature with a gaping wound where an ear once was. The beast had hold of the back of her white gown and was turning to put itself in a better position to bite her. Pip fired a shot at it, but it went wide. “Shit,” she said.
She was frightened of shooting the girl instead of her attacker, but if she didn’t, Kirsty would be dead anyway and given a choice, Pip would rather die by a bullet than having her throat ripped out by a twitcher. Something grabbed hold of Pip’s arm, she gasped and snatched it away. A Zombie in hospital fatigues and broken glasses tried to grab her again. Pip shot it in the face from point-blank range, and the left-hand side of its head disappeared.
It dropped to the floor to reveal another ghoul directly behind it, a hunched-backed woman, almost bent double. It lunged at her, but Pip side-stepped around it and shot it in the back of the head. The third monster that came for her was legless, dragging itself along by clawed fingers and Pip wondered how it had ever gotten upstairs. She shot it in the forehead when it reached a skeletal hand up to her. She shot the next two zombies in line and looked back down at Kirsty. The thing pulled Kirsty’s forearm towards its mouth. Kirsty screamed, trying to yank her hand away, but the creature held on tight. She looked at Pip. “Shoot it,” she yelled. “For God’s sake, shoot it.”
Pip gripped her gun with both hands, steadied her aim and lined the barrel sight up with the ghoul’s head. It made a sudden lurch forward, and Kirsty jerked her head backwards, the ghoul’s jaws gnashed shut millimetres in front of her face. They were too close together to take a shot; Pip had neither courage nor confidence to pull the trigger. Kirsty tried to take a step down, but her attacker was determined and pulled her arm towards its open mouth. “Shoot it,” she pleaded again.
At the edge of her vision, Pip saw Simon leading the other two girls out of the door. “Help,” Kirsty cried. “Don’t leave me. Help me.”
Snarling to her left drew Pip’s eyes away from the life or death struggle, and she had to fire three rapid shots into the heads of her next three attackers. As another zombie reeled towards her, she pulled the trigger, but the clip was empty. She changed clips so quickly that her hands were a blur and shot the creature as it came within touching distance. She turned her attention to the stairs again; more zombies were heading towards the captured girl.
Simon reappeared through the doorway and bounded back up the stairs, gun in hand. Pip watched from the landing, awestruck. “By heavens,” she said, unaware she was speaking aloud, “that is some courage.”
He darted around the zombies on the lower steps like a whirlwind, dodging their clumsy swipes and lunges and stopped on the tread behind Kirsty. “Cover your ear for me, lady,” he said, and the girl put her free hand to the side of her head. Simon leant over Kirsty’s shoulder, and as the zombie bared its teeth to bite her forearm, he thrust the barrel of the gun into its mouth and pulled the trigger.
The back of its head exploded in crimson mist, and Kirsty screamed. The zombie released her arm and fell sideways. Simon took another step up and pulled Kirsty along with him. “We’re going the wrong way,” she said.
“No, we’re not. We’re getting out of here, lady. Just watch.” He put his foot on the dead ghoul’s shoulder and pushed with all his might. The creature half-rolled before flopping back to where it was. “Give me a hand, lady,” he said and the girl, now aware of his intentions, joined him by his side and took his hand.
The pair of them put a foot each on the ghoul’s back and pushed. For a moment, the creature tottered on the nosing of the tread, and then gravity took over, and it rolled down the stairs, skittling the ascending zombies like a bowling ball. Kirsty clapped her hands, and the pair of them ran down the cleared path to the bottom of the stairs. Kirsty fled outside, but Simon stopped and looked up at Pip. “Don’t you dare, young man,” she said. “You’ve done your bit, and I’m restricting it to one heroic deed per day. Get out of here. I’ll see you at the car in two shakes.”
Reluctantly, Simon turned his back on her and joined the girls outside.
Pip was faced by a wall of zombies, filling the landing before her. The way was impassable, so she retreated into the Preacher’s living quarters. Her intention was to escape via the fire exit, but as she entered the bedroom, the first of the zombies lurched through the door from the fire stairs, immediately followed by another and another. They headed straight for Pip, hissing and snatching at the air before them like they were catching flies. “Shit,” she said, under her breath.
She backed out of the bedroom and was startled by the number of zombies already inside the apartment. She spotted another fire escape door in the kitchen and ran through it, only to arrive on a shared landing overlooking the concrete stairs. A continuous line of ghouls filed upwards towards her, two per step. Previously heading for the open door which led to the bedroom, they changed direction upon seeing Pip. The grey-skinned creature on the top step held a javelin upright before it, like the standard-bearer of an ungodly army.
She stepped back into the apartment and pulled the door shut. She should never have come in here. What would she have done if she had reached the bottom of the fire escape? She would have come out nowhere near the car. There was only one way out of here, and that was through the front doors. With a newfound steely resolve, Pip ran forward with both guns blazing.
The zombies had spread out as they had entered the apartment and Pip took advantage of the gaps between them, shooting the ghouls directly in front of her and stepping into the spaces they created as they fell. She soon found herself back on the landing, facing an impenetrable crowd and was struck with a sudden idea. She jumped onto the handrail and ran along it, jumping over reaching hands and shooting into the mob. She glanced up ahead and estimated twelve strides to safety. For a moment, she worried about losing her balance, but told herself
, if a four-inch wide rail was on the ground, she’d be able to cartwheel along it. Reassured, she sprinted down the banister.
Six steps from the stairs, the handrail snapped.
The sheer weight of numbers leaning against it caused the balustrade to break, and over fifty zombies toppled off the landing onto the floor below. Pip tried to sprint the last few steps to safety, but the supports toppled out from underneath the handrail, and she fell with them. She slammed down onto the marble tiles, five meters below, landing on her left-hand side. One of the guns she held discharged and bounced out of her hand when her humerus fractured in three places. She tried to stand up, but a searing pain in both legs prevented her from moving. She tried again, doing her best to ignore the pain, but the shattered limbs would not move. It was as if her legs and brain had lost contact.
She saw the zombies going upstairs change direction and those who had accompanied her on the fall slithering across the floor towards her, their legs broken and twisted like hers. She tried to crawl away, but she couldn’t coordinate her pulverised left limbs. Something cold and clammy grabbed her left ankle and dragged her backwards. She rolled onto her back and shot the creature in the face, but another ghoul instantly took its place. The new attacker pulled up her trouser leg and latched its teeth onto her shin. She screamed in agony, and a second zombie joined it, biting into her kneecap. She was about to shoot them when she had a sudden change of plan and put the gun to her temple.
A third zombie dragged itself over to Pip’s side and bit into her waist, shaking its head until a chunk of her midriff tore away. Her traumatised body started going into shock, and she no longer felt the pain of her wounds and injuries. A faceless ghoul, with worms hanging from an empty eye socket, yanked her useless broken arm towards its dirt-covered mouth and bit into her wrist, severing her radial artery. Blood sprayed upwards in a wide arc that somehow reminded her of a rainbow. She closed her eyes against the horror of her predicament and contented with having a rainbow as a final thought, Pip pulled the trigger.
Searching For Summer: A Zombie Novel Page 17