“This is what I’m going to do,” Sergio said as he accelerated away from the gate. But before he could finish his thought, the back door opened and Matthew tumbled out onto the sidewalk.
9
Matthew could hear the blood pounding in his ears as he leapt from the Jeep onto the concrete. They had been moving far too fast for him to exit gracefully, so he tucked his limbs into his body and tumbled out. He rolled a few times, his body pounding across the pavement. It would have hurt if his bloodstream weren’t pumping his body full of adrenaline.
He had been out of the car for just seconds when he found himself being pursued by three angry zombies. He sprang to his feet and bolted toward the gate, his mind focused on nothing but opening the latch and sliding the door across the tracks. Whatever came next was not important yet.
With the zombies hot on his feet, he sprinted away, outrunning them. But they were picking up speed as they realized that they had a moving target outside the car. Soon, there were two more after him and he couldn’t keep up.
Because he couldn’t possibly draw more zombies to his location, he turned and aimed the borrowed handgun at a zombie, shooting it high on the forehead. He shot another in the leg, slowing it down but definitely not killing it. It drug itself along the ground, groaning as it crept.
The gunshots alerted the other zombies in the area that there was something going on near the front. Matthew could hear the Jeep’s engine revving as Sergio drove over bodies. It produced a sickening crunch, then a splat, as the head popped off a body like a doll. Then, there were more gunshots. Carl had Matthew’s back, firing at anything that came too close to his fellow soldier.
Finding himself ahead of the pack, Matthew continued running to the gate and grasped the gate’s latch. When it was originally closed, he didn’t remember Carl mentioning how hard it was to open and close the mechanism. He pulled the latch, but it appeared to be rusted shut. He pulled as hard as he could, but he only managed to raise blisters on his fingers in the process.
Matthew swore under his breath. The zombies were gaining on him again and he was no closer to opening the gate than he had been half a minute ago. He tried every combination of things he could do to open a door. He jiggled the mechanism, he kicked it, he pulled it with all of his might, and it was never able to completely open. Panic struck him like an oncoming train. He was running out of time.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity of struggle, he managed to open the latch. At the same time, he was tackled from behind by a zombie. The handgun flew out of his back pocket and skittered a few feet away from him. The monster pinned him to the ground as he struggled to break free. Matthew closed his eyes and heard a few gunshots, then silence.
Was he too far gone that the other two had given up on him? Or was the shot too difficult to take, even for an expert marksman like Carl? Matthew felt like he was being held underwater. He couldn’t think rationally when there was a creature grasping at him, trying to rip him apart.
The zombie oozed some kind of viscous liquid onto his chest, soaking his shirt. Bits of flesh came off in his hands as he grasped at the monster, just trying to get it off him. No amount of struggling seemed to do any good. For as decayed as it was, it was strong. It pinned Matthew to the ground and made him feel like a child in comparison. He no longer had the strength of an ex-soldier compared to this thing. He felt weak.
Matthew gasped for breath as the zombie crushed his diaphragm. Its rotting teeth clashed together as it fought for leverage. If it could move its mouth just a few inches lower, it had a good chance of catching a little human flesh between its jaws.
The smell was so bad that Matthew didn’t mind that he couldn’t breathe. It penetrated his sinuses and burned his eyes. He could taste the rotting flesh in his mouth with every inhale.
At last, Matthew knew that his time had come. He could feel his knife on his belt every time the zombie laid into him, but he couldn’t move his hands because they were pinned underneath him. Fighting this thing with his bare hands would be an impossible feat. Now, with more zombies crawling to the scene, he wouldn’t be able to take them all on. He was screwed.
Then, he felt another hand grab him. He was finally outnumbered.
Another gunshot, then about a hundred more pounds of pressure were applied to his body. Carl must have had a clean shot on the newest zombie, causing it to collapse on top of the growing pile. The zombie directly over Matthew shrugged it off, giving Matthew a split second to readjust. He still wasn’t able to grab his weapon, but he had a little more leverage over the zombie. Perhaps the fight wasn’t over, after all.
What happened next perplexed Matthew so much that he wasn’t sure if he was disassociating or not. While he knew that it couldn’t be possible, it appeared that the zombie that was so eager to feast on his flesh looked him in the eye. Its eye was like a cloudy marble, not capable of portraying emotion. In fact, it was so occluded that Matthew wasn’t sure it could see anything. Yet, it peered into his eyes, as if it were searching for information.
He felt its heavy body soften to the point that Matthew could breathe easily again. It still hovered over him, but its demeanor had completely changed. It treated Matthew not as a human, but more like an inanimate object. It didn’t growl with the same ferocity as before. It had gone silent.
Everything Matthew thought he knew about these zombies had gone out the window. As far as he was concerned, these blood-feasting creatures would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. He had yet to see a zombie act anything that could be perceived as remotely human. They had no rational thoughts and no souls. So, why did Matthew feel as if he was being examined by this monster?
Matthew took a sharp inhale and the zombie tilted its head in confusion, like a dog that has heard a strange noise. In its confusion, Matthew was able to grasp the zombie by the shoulders and shove it off him. He drew his knife to slash its throat, but he found that it wasn’t necessary. The zombie stood motionless, not chasing after Matthew like he assumed it would.
Normally, Matthew would kill any zombie that was a threat to him. But as far as he could tell, this one didn’t want to hurt him. In fact, none of them seemed too interested in killing him. Perhaps they were so weak that they could not fight anymore. They continued to mill around and come toward Matthew, but not with the same intensity he was used to. Now, with his knife handy, he could make as many kills as he could, but it wasn’t worth his time and energy. He had one job to do—open the gate and get back in the car—and he was going to do it.
As he got to his feet and began to push the gate open, Carl leaned out of the car window and shot the closest zombie as it watched Matthew at the gate. Matthew jumped, not expecting the car to be so close.
“Get in,” Carl shouted. He leaned back in his seat to open the door for Matthew.
“Go ahead,” Matthew called as he pushed the heavy gate down the rusty track. “I’ll catch up.”
Carl looked at him as if he had lost his mind. But when Sergio noticed that he wasn’t budging, he continued to drive through the entrance to the parking lot, hoping that Matthew would come to his senses and just get in the damn car.
Once the Jeep had cleared the gate, Matthew pushed it shut, locking all the weakened zombies in the parking lot. It probably wouldn’t make a ton of difference in the big picture, but as long as no other foolish humans decided to encroach their territory, they would die off.
Then, Matthew secured himself in the back seat of the Jeep. He slammed the door behind him and fastened his seatbelt. Then, he leaned his head back and closed his eyes. It was finished. Somehow, they had made it out alive.
“You okay?” Carl asked, eyeing Matthew suspiciously.
“Fine,” Matthew panted. “Just tired.”
Carl let out a whoop. Sergio revved the engine, then tore off down the street, his apprehension finally lifting. Matthew gave them a weak smile. Their lab equipment was tucked safely in the back seat. They could go home.
Matt
hew looked out of the rear window and was surprised to find the zombies that had gathered on the street chasing after the vehicle. While they were driving too fast for any to reasonably catch up with them, he still found it surprising. Suddenly, the zombies were back in full fighting spirit. Nothing made sense.
“That was pretty crazy,” Carl said as he passed a water bottle to Matthew. “I wasn’t sure we were going to make it out of there.”
“Same,” Sergio said. “Sorry about the gate.”
“It’s fine,” Matthew said. “We couldn’t have predicted any of that.”
“I still can’t believe you fought that thing without weapons,” Carl said.
Matthew opened his mouth to express his confusion on how the last fight went down, but he didn’t have the words to convey what he’d experienced. Obviously, they must have seen how strange it had been.
The more he thought about it, the less he wanted to bring it up. He couldn’t explain why the zombie didn’t kill him when he had the chance, and it would just make him seem crazy if he tried to come up with a reason. After what had happened when they arrived at the hospital, he didn’t need his companions to question his sanity. After all, it felt as though his freak-out had already been forgotten.
Besides, there was no explaining what he had seen. It made him wonder if perhaps his sanity was an issue. He was afraid of what the implications of the day were. First, he completely lost his mind and killed zombies, not unlike a zombie. Afterward, he couldn’t even remember brutally killing the things. Then, when a zombie had the chance to eat him alive, it backed off.
So instead of calling attention to himself, he decided to drop the subject altogether and save himself some trouble.
“I guess I got lucky,” Matthew replied, looking down at his filthy shirt. He smelled absolutely horrible and he didn’t think he would ever get the zombie stink off him.
“We all did,” Sergio said. “There were a few times that I didn’t think we’d get out of there.”
“Me too,” Carl chimed in. “Honestly, the smell alone was enough to cause me to keel over.”
Matthew suppressed a gag at the thought of the hot air that blew in their faces when they arrived. It reminded him of the way heavily decomposed bodies were described in true crime stories. But instead of a body exploding from the expansion of rank gasses, the entire hospital was the body, just waiting to burst. He was surprised that the combustion from the gun didn’t light the whole place up.
He knew he should feel relieved at the completion of such a big task, but he felt more troubled than ever. The office felt like a lifetime away and he just wanted to return to some kind of normalcy. But at the same time, he feared that there was something inside him that threatened everything he worked so hard to keep together.
As Matthew sat stiffly in the back seat, he listened to Carl and Sergio talk about something that happened to them in the military. Matthew zoned out and watched the streets, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. At least, that was what he told himself as his mind drifted back to the hospital and everything that went wrong in an otherwise successful mission. Matthew felt like a walking disaster, but at least they had the lab equipment that the scientists needed to do their research. For him, a group victory was more important than a personal defeat.
10
Darkness came quickly, much sooner than anyone could have anticipated. So many hours had been lost driving around the endless city that the end of the day came to the soldiers as a surprise. Between fighting hoards of zombies and collecting a small laboratory’s worth of equipment, no one had managed to check their watches.
Navigating in the dark was a challenge for anyone without excellent knowledge of their surroundings. In the dark, a dangerous neighborhood could appear perfectly quaint and peaceful. Empty stores could suddenly be filled to the brim with nefarious beings just waiting for the right subjects to rouse them. Long, winding streets quickly turned into dead ends.
Darkness also made it easier for the brain to power down, no matter how many energy drinks the body consumed. After a long and mentally taxing day, the last thing anyone wanted to do was figure out what to do next. Plus, after having a difficult time filling the Jeep with gas, they decided that driving around aimlessly wasn’t in their best interest.
“Where to?” Sergio asked once they managed to find a main road that was not inhabited by zombies.
Matthew frowned. He was under the impression that they would just head straight back to the office and let the girls get to work. He wasn’t necessarily opposed to other plans, just surprised that they weren’t all on the same page.
“I only ask because it’s late and we’re all exhausted,” Sergio added, seeing Matthew’s consternation.
“We can stop to rest,” Carl said. “It’s probably best if we’re all rested. We can wait until the sun comes up. It’s damned near impossible to tell where we are with all the streetlights that have gone out.”
“I wouldn’t mind a little sleep,” Sergio said. “I can find a good place to pull over. Then, in the morning, we can head back to the office.”
Now it was Carl’s turn to furrow his brow. “So we were just planning on getting the lab stuff and going straight back? Why not stay out a little longer and get more accomplished? That way, we can have a little downtime when we get back. I know we told the others to ration carefully while we’re gone, but can we really trust them to do so? What if we picked up some more supplies? We have a car now, so we can carry more stuff. Also, we might have a better selection of goods if we look outside our little one-block radius.”
Sergio shrugged. “Only if it means we’ll have more downtime back at the office. It’s going to take me at least a week to clean myself off. We should try to find some kind of wet wipes if we stop at a store. Or a big bucket of bleach.”
Matthew nodded. “We might even be able to find other survivors to bring back with us,” he said hopefully. “I mean, we’re already heading back toward the office building anyway. We might as well see what we can pick up along the way.”
Sergio pursed his lips. “There’s a difference between picking up groceries and picking up strangers. The groceries won’t rob us blind and steal the car if things go bad.”
Matthew blinked. He didn’t realize that rescuing survivors was still such a controversial topic. He had allowed Carl and Sergio and the others to join their ranks in the office and they had only thrived since. He had no reason to suspect that others would be a threat. Besides, between the three of them, he figured they were pretty good judges of character. Also, they were powerful fighters. It would take a lot to be robbed. Matthew was sympathetic but not naïve.
“I think Matthew is right,” Carl interjected. “We have plenty of room in the truck. We can just head toward home base and if a situation arises where we can help someone, then I’m all for it. We can be on the lookout for any survivors, as well as any opportunity to get more food and water.”
Sergio sighed loudly and gripped the steering wheel. “I know I come across as cold and heartless, but I really don’t know if it’s a good idea. We should be cautious in whom we associate with and especially cautious as to whom we let ride in our vehicle and sleep on our couches.”
Carl frowned. “You mean we should only pick up, like, women and children?”
Sergio shook his head. “Honestly, it’s naïve to think that women and children can’t be dangerous too. You should know just as well as anyone that there are a lot of tough women out there who could kick our asses.”
“Just your type,” Carl said under his breath. “So, who is so vulnerable that we won’t have to worry about them screwing us over, if children make you nervous?”
Sergio bit his lip. “Now, you know where I’m coming from.”
“You just don’t trust anyone you don’t know,” Carl replied. “I admit, I’m not the most welcoming person either, but I think there’s some merit to the idea that we can build our own little army at the office. We already h
ave three trained soldiers, a handful of rogue fighters, and two scientists. We could have a self-sustaining community.”
“And we can maintain a reasonable population if we ever get past this disease transmission,” Matthew pointed out. “The more people we can keep safe, the fewer zombies there are to terrorize us. Part of being a soldier is protecting people we’ve never met. I think we need to do our part.”
“I think we’ve done our part,” Sergio grumbled. “How many hundreds of zombies have we cleared off the face of this Earth? I don’t know if we’re responsible for saving all the strays, too.”
“I’ve been there before,” Matthew said. “I’m not saying that we have to scour the city for the most worthy survivor, but if we see someone standing on the side of the road, looking for help, I’d like to stop and see if they’d like to come back to the office.”
Carl nodded. “I think that’s perfectly reasonable.”
“I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree,” Sergio muttered. “I just have a bad feeling about it. I don’t doubt that there are good people out there, but we can’t forget about the bad ones. I don’t want to create conflict. It’s easiest to stick to ourselves.”
Carl opened his mouth to argue his point, but Matthew interjected before they had a conflict of their own.
“We’re all tired and hungry,” Matthew said quickly. “Maybe we should just table this discussion until we’re well-rested. Let’s just find a nice, inconspicuous place to park the car for a few hours, and we can literally sleep on this topic.”
“Fine by me,” Sergio said, tired of making his point to the others. He drove a few more blocks in silence before pulling into a strip mall parking lot. He parked the Jeep between two abandoned cars and turned the motor off.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Matthew volunteered immediately. He felt like he was already on bad terms with the others, so he wanted to do something to improve their mood. Carl and Sergio were so exhausted that they didn’t refuse.
Last Man Standing (Book 2): Zombie Annihilation Page 7