by Nick Cole
“Right,” agreed Dante, back on track. “And once he’s got the mob in the parking lot headed toward the sound of his horn, he circles the building away from us and comes back up the side road on the other side of the complex. Drive fast, but don’t wipe out. Then two beeps on the horn once you’re right outside the emergency exit.”
“I’m your man, brother. I’m like Steve McQueen in Bullit,” said Ritter, knowing Dante has to, and wants to, act now. He doesn’t need to challenge him anymore.
“Good. Then you pick us up and we outta Dodge.”
That night, they found their own places along the halls and conference rooms of Green Front Technology. Places they could wait out the last hours of another night. Maybe the last night, if any part of the plan didn’t go exactly as planned.
They couldn’t help thinking that way.
Every hour or so, Ritter could hear Dante getting up from the leather couch in Dave’s private office. The leather creaked. Then, thumping footsteps along the halls meant the big man was going to check the windows once more. As if all the undead, the zombies, the crazy people, might have just decided to go away and not come up the stairs after him tomorrow morning.
But they hadn’t.
Ritter knew it each time Dante grunted and returned to the couch with a sigh that seemed more an exasperated groan.
Later, when Ritter was sure everyone was asleep, at least for a little while, he moved the briefcase from the private conference room where he’d left it, and placed it behind a desk near the stairwell door.
Chapter Twenty Seven
“Everybody be real cool.”
Then.
“No sudden moves,” said Ritter. “Or I’ll bust a cap in ya head, as they say, back on the block.”
Holiday listened to the dry and sarcastic voice as he stood in front of the cooler inside the 7-11 still holding the cold bottle of water he’d been drinking from.
“Turn around nice and slow.”
Holiday did.
“You got some nice rifles there, Pancho Villa. Where’d ya get ‘em?” Ritter already had a pretty good idea where the stranger in the 7-11 had gotten the rifles.
Ritter had been in the back room. Using the restroom. He’d already poured himself an ice-cold cherry Slurpee from the machine. He’d set it on a rack of snacks he was planning to get into, before going in back to find the restroom. Then he’d heard the “ding” as the electric eye trigged the sliding door. He’d waited, then eased out into the store, below sight line, and spotted the newcomer.
Actin’ the chump, thought Ritter. Quenching his thirst before he checked his environment. Like some o’ Gideon’s men. The ones God had made ol’ Gideon get rid of.
Ritter drew a small nickel-plated pistol from his belt, on his back behind his coat. Then, cool as ice, he grabbed his Slurpee and slipped up behind the thirsty newcomer.
Now, facing Holiday, Ritter saw a thirsty everyman who tended toward athletic good looks. But thirsty man was dirty and sweaty. Large sweat stains soaked the front of a dirt-covered shirt.
“So why dontcha’ ease them rifles off ya back one at a time, and then I’ll let you finish ya drink.”
Holiday lowered his head.
“No. I can’t do that,” he said almost to himself.
Ritter smirked. “I don’t think you appreciate the nuances of the situation, thirsty man. See,” Ritter thumbed back the hammer on the pistol, a nickel-plated, snub-nosed .357. “I have a gun pointed at your face.” Ritter leaned forward. “Even the slightest bit of pressure on this trigger, homes, at this very moment, and it will, I repeat will, go off in that face of yours.”
Holiday shook his head.
“Can’t.”
“This is a snub-nosed .357. I use cop-killers. Hollow points, my man. It can go through three large-city sized telephone books. There won’t be much of your head left when I pull the trigger. Are we clear about that?”
“We are,” agreed Holiday.
“Then tell me why you can’t give up them guns right here and now?”
“Me and some others need them. We’ve got a safe place… but no guns. They… we’re, gonna need these guns.”
Ritter cocked his head off toward the large circular mirror that showed the entire store. He watched the front door. It would be bad if one of the infected showed up right now.
That’s how it happened in the movies, thought Ritter. Then me and Mr. Thirsty Man, we’d have to be buddies and fight ‘em off.
But the coast was clear, and what he could see of the parking lot in front of the store seemed clear too. Clear of shadows that might be the lumbering undead.
“How safe?” asked Ritter, keeping an eye on Holiday.
The Slurpee machine continued to whirl and whir.
“Seems safe enough so far,” said Holiday finally. “These… whatever they are, they seem not to go out that way. From what we can see of the whole valley, it seems the safest place so far.”
“You got room for more?”
Holiday looked at the gun Ritter was pointing at him. Then up at Ritter’s eyes.
“We ain’t there yet, thirsty man. You got to give me a reason to trust you. A reason why I’m not s’posed to think you’re just a menace to society.”
“I can’t think of one right now that would mean anything to you,” said Holiday after a moment. “I don’t even know you,”
Ritter took a step back, his gun still on Holiday, and took a long pull from his cherry Slurpee.
“Nah, I guess you don’t,” said Ritter as he watched Holiday.
Holiday saw a white guy who thought he was street. A guy who listened to rap, maybe even thought he was a major league drug dealer, when at best he smoked weed too much and dealt on the side to pay for his habit, often at the expense of his friends. Holiday saw a guy who was probably raised by a single mother in a bad neighborhood. In short, he saw the President of the White Guys chapter for the Snoop Dogg fan club.
“I got three others,” said Ritter, taking another long pull from his Slurpee. “They’re probably in a real bad situation right about now. Ain’t no way to get ‘em out on my own. But we work together… we might save ‘em.”
“And…” said Holiday.
“Well, you help me and I guess that tells me you’re not a menace to society, in general. We rescue those people, and a cursory use of logic tells you I’m a decent guy despite appearances. Afterward, we drive off in my new ride back to the safest place on earth, that we know of at this present time. Strength in numbers. Agreed?”
Holiday nodded toward the nickel plated pistol pointed at his throat. “It’s hard to trust someone who’s pointing a gun at you.”
The Slurpee machine continued to whirl.
“Then I guess that’s my buy in,” said Ritter.
Holiday remained silent.
“Ah-aight.” Ritter thumbed the hammer down gently, then let the gun fall to his side. “Git ya’self some more cold water, thirsty man.”
A few minutes later, Holiday returned to the front counter. Ritter stood behind it, eating from a bag of chili cheese Fritos. The nickel-plated pistol was tucked in his waistband, clearly visible, clearly ready.
“So, what do we do next?” asked Holiday.
“We ride down there and figure out a way to get them outta there.”
“Where are they at?” asked Holiday.
“About a mile away inside a corporate park. More precisely, in the stairwell of a building within said corporate park. Most likely surrounded by the zombies that broke through the barricade on the second floor, and the ones that stayed out in the parking lot.”
“How’d you manage to get out?”
“Well, that was the part of the plan that worked. I got out and made it to my ride. I was s’posed to circle the corporate park, honking the horn, and lead ‘em away from th
e back door stair well.”
“So what happened?”
“Plan didn’t work as planned,” lied Ritter. “When I got to the other side of the lot I ran into a whole bunch more in a back alley I was planning to use to cut back to the stairwell exit where my friends were s’posed to be waiting, or at least, they were waiting there as of an hour ago.”
“And how do you know they’re still there?”
“I don’t. But the fire doors at both ends of the stairwell are strong enough to keep the zombies out. They stay in there, they should be fine for a while.”
“So you decided to come get a Slurpee while they waited it out?”
“Nothin’ I could do. I barely got turned around and outta that alley before the zekes were throwin’ themselves on top of the hood of my car. Had to hit a few who came up from behind. The main entrance back into the parking lot was clogged with the ones that followed me.”
“So how are we going to get them out of there, if the entrance is blocked and the back way is overrun?”
“I have no idea,” said Ritter. “But there’s a hill nearby and we can drive up there and take a look. Maybe things have changed. With your guns, we might blast our way in and get ‘em out before too many can surround us.”
A few minutes later, they drove out of the empty sun-baked parking lot in the blood covered butterscotch Olds Cutlass Sierra, after Ritter had moved a briefcase from the passenger seat to the trunk.
They drove west on Forest Lake Drive, then turned right at a still-working red light and headed toward the business park. Shortly, Ritter pulled over to the left side of the street beneath a hill covered in tall dry brown grass.
“It’s on the other side of that hill,” said Ritter as he popped out of the driver’s seat. Holiday stepped outside, shouldering the sniper rifle and holding the assault rifle cradled in his arms. A dense quiet lay across the road and the silent uniformly box-like gray buildings along the street. Warehouses with small front offices. Holiday didn’t see anyone else. No zombies either.
“C’mon,” said Ritter, and stepped off the clean white sidewalk into the sea of still dead grass and weeds that lay beneath and along the hill. At the top of the hill, Holiday looked back and saw how their passage had disturbed the dying, brown grass. He crouched down and crossed the top of the small hill, lying alongside Ritter who was already looking down on their target. The office park.
Holiday could see six large box-like pastel-brown buildings. Each had a subtle sign, off-white with bronze lettering, denoting the name of the company doing business within. There were cars in the parking lot. All of them were dust and ash covered. Some were even covered in dried blood. Most of the zombies were gone from the central parking area that lay in front of all six buildings. Along the backside of the buildings, in two distinct clusters, enough zombies lingered to fill a small concert venue. One group seemed to be pushing their way in toward a door in the side of a building. Their forest of fists hammered at the top of the door. They could hear the thumping sound repeated over and over, discordant even at this distance. The other cluster of undead was farther down the back road that ran along the rear of the buildings. That mob was blocking one end of the alley completely. They seemed intent on something inside that building.
“That’s the group that cut me off,” said Ritter pointing toward the farther group, the one that filled the alley. All of them, once different in life, you could tell by what remained of their clothing, now made the same in death. Gray, bloody, gore-crusted.
“That bunch huffin’ and puffin’ on that door…” said Ritter, pointing toward the sea of fists. “That’s where my friends are.
Holiday watched the two groups. He scanned the surrounding buildings. He could see dark shapes moving behind the tinted glass on the second floor.
“Yeah, I see ‘em too. Means they must’ve gotten through the barricade we put up on the second floor. That was the plan anyway. Lure ‘em up there, then barricade the doors. We thought they’d all try to get in that way, and then we could slip out the back door. I didn’t count on that group in the alley.”
“So what do you want to do?” asked Holiday.
Ritter was silent.
Then, “Frankly, I got nuthin’ better than to pull a drive by and take out the ones at the door. Then hope those three are still in there. If they can get to the car before that other bunch comes up the alley, then we can get outta there in time. Noise attracts ‘em, you know that right, thirsty man?”
Taking a deep breath, Holiday studied the field. He saw everything.
“Or we could jack ourselves another car,” Ritter continued. “A big truck and like, ram through the group at the door. Crush ‘em against the building. Then back up, and I’ll roll on up in the Cutlass and we beat feet in my car. Take your pick, either has about as much chance as the other.”
Holiday was silent. Thinking.
That water back at the 7-11 had been good. Like the first drink of water he’d had in years. It was cold and clean. After an entire night of running in terror with nothing but liquor in his stomach, he’d been close to the end of himself. Closer than he’d realized, now that he thought about it. But the ice cold water from the cold case in the 7-11 had cleared his head. Woken him up.
“This is what we’re gonna do,” said Holiday. He didn’t notice Ritter raise his eyes. “You get back down to your car. I’ll start shooting from here. Like you said, noise attracts them. Once I’ve gotten their attention, once they start heading up this hill after me, you drive back in there. But don’t go in until I signal you. I’ll give you the signal when most of ‘em are down near the bottom of this hill and trying to climb up. I don’t think they can climb very well, but you never know. Once I give you the signal, then you hit it hard and get in there.”
“Alright,” said Ritter. “What about you?”
“See that road down there?” said Holiday, pointing off toward a small back road that ran alongside Forest Lake Drive in front of a few apartment complexes off in the distance. “I’ll meet you along that road near that curve down there.”
“And what makes you think I’ll come back for you, thirsty man?” asked Ritter.
Holiday watched the buildings and zombies below.
“Because you don’t know where it’s safe. I do.”
Ritter nodded, pushed off from the ground, and called over his shoulder. “Alright, waitin’ on your signal.” He made his way back down the hill, kicking up small puffs of dust in the afternoon breeze that had come up. Once he got back in the car, Holiday could see him light a cigarette, lean back in his seat, and watch the side and rearview mirrors. Waiting for the signal.
“Alright,” Holiday muttered to himself, setting the rifles down. He picked up the sniper rifle. I should use this one. I can pick off any strays that try to cut them off, he told himself. He’d seen a lot of movies, and he knew that sniper rifles were invariably fired from buildings or construction sites by trained assassins from far away. All one did, in the movies, was look through the scope, land the crosshairs on the upper chest and pull the trigger.
But if I want to get their attention, he thought, as he picked up the compact assault rifle with all kinds of high tech attachments including a small scope, this’ll make a lot of noise.
He shouldered the rifle, aimed as he’d seen in the movies, and pulled the trigger. A burst of rounds spat from the barrel as the gun jerked upward. The sound of each individual report echoed across the concrete buildings and alleyway below.
How many rounds did I just fire, wondered a bewildered, almost stunned Holiday. He’d intended just to fire one at a time until he’d obtained their collective attention. He knew the only bullets he had were those still in the rifles. He knew rifles required clips or magazines to reload. He’d seen that happen in many, many action movies. Usually a break in the non-stop violence, as witty and defiant dialog was exchanged betw
een hero and villain. He turned the rifle on its side and found a selector switch near the trigger guard on the left side. OFF, SEMI and FULL were stamped into the metal. The selector switch was set to FULL. He moved it to SEMI. He shouldered the rifle and looked through the scope. Below, the zombies were crossing the small field between the buildings and the hill. The other cluster, the one the man who’d introduced himself as Ritter claimed he was cutoff by, swarmed slowly up the alley toward him. But they didn’t seem as intent as the crowd at the fire door.
Maybe the sound echoed down in between the buildings and it’s confusing them, thought Holiday. Holiday landed the crosshairs inside the scope of the assault rifle on a front runner, a man in running shorts with a terribly torn and gaping flesh wound in his pale chest, and fired. An instant later, Holiday saw nothing happen. He had no idea where the bullet had gone. He moved his eye off the scope and fired again, this time seeing the bullet ricochet in front of the jogger and smash into one of the man’s knees. The jogger dropped and continued to crawl awkwardly forward without pause, laboring and clearly intent on Holiday now.
The group from the fire door had reached the base of the hill and were beginning to struggle up slope. The door where Ritter’s friends were was clear. Holiday waited a moment longer, waiting until the alley group had cleared the buildings and were headed toward the base of the hill. He fired again, and was again unsure of what his bullets were actually hitting. He didn’t see any more of them go down, much less take a hit.
For a brief, fearful moment, he knew the zombies were unstoppable. He shook off the sudden fear that tried to close about him and fired a few more times, his ears ringing with each blast. Then he felt, more than heard, a dry “click”. The assault rifle was out of bullets. He slung the empty, useless rifle across his back, after squeezing the trigger a few more times and hearing nothing but that underwhelming dry “click”. He picked up the sniper rifle. He was preparing to fire it when he remembered Ritter. He loped across the small hilltop and pumped his arm at Ritter, waving his knife-edged hand toward the business park. Ritter peeled away from the curb.