“Let’s load up the car and do it quietly.” Michelle stressed, “And wear your backpacks. If we have to ditch the car, we can’t afford to lose the supplies.” Lucia was closest to the door to the attached garage, so she went first. Michelle disarmed the SUV and opened up the back. The case of water and extra duffel bag went back there. Joey, wearing his oversized and heavily loaded backpack, carried the heavy bag of guns and loaded them on the front passenger side. He put the seat back as far as it would go, then he grabbed the backpack full of ammo and put it on top. The passenger side floor covered, he climbed onto the seat and awkwardly maneuvered his legs on top of the bags.
Lucia sat in the back seat on the driver’s side, her backpack pressing between her back and the seat, her purse on her lap and her knees pressing against the driver’s seat in front of her. She was uncomfortable but felt secure in her seating, like she was packed in tightly and safely.
Michelle took a quick look around the garage to see if there was anything else they could use. As she reached for some tools hanging on a peg board, she heard a long, loud, pain filled scream that ended abruptly.
She peered through the lone window on the side of the garage. From her vantage point, she could see her next door neighbor’s house and two houses across the street. Across the street an oversized blue pickup truck was partially surrounded by the dead. Both the passenger and drivers side doors were hidden from view by several zombies on each side. The twenty-something man who lived in the house suddenly burst through the front door firing his shotgun. He aimed first at the zombies who stood between him and his truck. The shotgun blasts seemed amplified to Michelle, probably because he was shooting shell after shell in quick succession. With the first group of the dead splattered on the ground, he quickly reloaded. He shot two more in the head then pulled a handgun from his pocket. He took careful aim with each shot taking care to make sure no stray bullets hit his truck.
“Oh my god,” Michelle gasped as she saw at least a dozen of the dead pour from behind the man’s house. With the noise of his gunfire, there was no way he could hear them shuffling toward him. More of the dead began to appear from somewhere to the right, from somewhere outside of Michelle’s field of vision. She silently rooted for her neighbor and tried to will him to turn his head. One quick look and he’d be able to refocus his efforts on the zombies behind him before they overcame him. He must have caught movement from the corner of his eye because his aim shifted to the dead coming from the right. But he remained completely unaware of the zombies approaching from behind who were just steps away now. His face registered an expression of utter surprise and fear as hands grabbed his shoulder and one of the dead pulled a long sinewy piece of bloody flesh from the back of his neck. He flailed his arms widely, the gun in his right hand firing in all directions as another zombie grabbed his left arm. It bit down and slowly pulled away with a golf ball sized piece of flesh. The sound of gunfire stopped as he was completely surrounded, and he dropped from sight. Michelle watched as many of the dead dropped to their knees to feast on his body.
Seemingly from every direction more of the dead homed in on her dead neighbor’s property. The truck rocked on its axels as zombies pushed around it. They poured through the front door into his house while others pushed against the large picture window, shattering it. The dead seemed to have been drawn out by the loud gunfire. She watched as the house and yard were quickly surrounded by a hundred of the shuffling zombies.
“Fuck,” She said quietly. They were out of time. She knew that once she opened the garage door and backed her SUV out, the dead would be upon them. So she waited until it seemed all of the zombies in the area were either on or were approaching her neighbor’s property. She thought she would be able to back out and speed down the street before any of them had time to turn in her direction.
Michelle got into the driver’s seat of her SUV and looked at her kids. “There are at least a hundred of them across the street. Noise draws them. Do not fire your guns unless it’s your only option.” She quickly told them what happened to their neighbor across the street. This was no time for sugarcoating things. Her kids needed to understand exactly what they were dealing with.
“How the hell are we going to get through them, Mom?” asked Lucia, terror evident in her voice.
“I’m going to drive like hell once we’re clear of the driveway. Detroit is probably gridlocked, so I’m going to circle around the back way to Anna and Max’s,” Michelle replied. “We’re going to make it,” she promised them.
“If we have to ditch the car, keep your backpacks. Joey, you help me with the guns and ammo. We’ll each take one. Leave everything else. You understand me?” Michelle asked her children. If they had to ditch the car, there wouldn’t be any time for discussion, so she wanted to make sure everyone was clear now.
“Here we go,” Michelle muttered to herself as she pressed the button on the remote for the garage door opener.
Chapter 7
Day 1
Max and Jesse took a moment to catch their breaths. They had killed four of their buddies so far. Both were wondering how many more they would find before they made it to the other side of the hotel. As exhausting as it was to clear the floor on their way out, they knew it had to be done. From now on, they would kill every zombie they found so that none would follow after them again. They had to pass one more suite and the corner stairwell then they would be at the halfway point.
“Ready Bro?” Max asked Jesse.
“Let’s get this done,” Jesse replied as he stood up. He took one last glance down at George then cleared his mind to focus on the task at hand.
They quietly made their way to the open doorway of the suite and took a quick look in each direction. They didn’t see or hear anyone in the hallway, so they stepped out to clear the final suite before they would pass the emergency stairwell. Max approached the suite first, listened for the telltale sound of shuffling feet but heard nothing. He risked a glimpse into the suite and saw nothing. He motioned Jesse forward and they passed by heading toward the stairs. There was no window in the thick fire door that opened to the emergency stairwell, so they couldn’t see anything. They paused to listen at the door but couldn’t hear anything.
“Let’s keep going,” Jesse said and stepped around Max in his approach toward the next suite. All was quiet. They continued clearing suites as they made their way toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. With only two suites left, they heard a loud commotion from somewhere ahead of them.
“Shit,” Max cursed quietly, “that sounds like a lot.” They inched their way forward but to their surprise found the suite empty. With only one more to go, there was a sudden bang to the left just ahead of them. Two seconds later, another loud bang. Followed by another and another.
“It’s the stairwell,” Jesse said. “Fuck! It sounds like there’s a crowd in there.”
“Damn it,” Max hissed. “We’re going to have to backtrack to the other stairwell.” It had taken them a couple hours to clear the floor. Backtracking halfway to the other set of stairs might not be so bad since the suites had already been cleared, but who knew what might be in any given suite now.
They turned around and quietly started back down the hallway, stopping to check each suite before passing. The first half dozen or so had been quiet. Then they heard a noise from a suite coming up on their right. It was one of the few suites that encompassed two floors and had its own private staircase winding to the floor above. Max slowly moved his head just far enough to get a quick look through the doorway. In the corner he saw one of the dead entangled in the railing near the bottom on the staircase. The zombie didn’t see him and didn’t seem aware that it was stuck in the railing. Its arms were moving mindlessly causing noise when they hit the railing.
“What do you think? Leave it? We only have one more suite to go,” Jesse said, but held out his hammer ready to go in and kill the dead thing.
“Let’s kill it. We don’t want another Geo
rge situation,” Max replied. Jesse led the way, hammer raised as Max covered him from behind. Neither of them recognized the dead guy on the stairs. It wasn’t anyone from their construction crew. Jesse took him out with one heavy hit of his hammer.
“Wonder where this guy came from?” Jesse wondered out loud. Generally there was no one on the upper floors of the hotel other than the construction workers. Seeing someone else made them a bit nervous. There could be more coming from the elevators for all they knew. “Let’s go.”
The stairwell door they had passed earlier stood in front of them. It was closed, windowless, hiding the unknown behind it. There was no noise coming from behind it but that didn’t mean anything.
Max slowly and cautiously opened the door as Jesse stood ready with his hammer. There was no one waiting for them on the landing, but they could hear the sounds of the dead eating somewhere below them. They looked but could only see down half a flight of stairs and saw nothing blocking their path there. They quietly made their way down the first half flight of stairs. Once they reached the landing they peered around the corner and saw four zombies on the stairs between them and the next landing. The dead were struggling to climb upward and all of them emitted eerie rasps at the sight of Jesse and Max.
As with all of the zombies they had seen so far, these moved slowly and clumsily. Max and Jesse charged down the steps toward them, knocking all four down to the landing with the sound of crunching bones. One of the dead had broken both legs in the fall and was stuck on his stomach using his hands to try to propel himself forward. The other three had fallen but were making their way back to their feet. Max and Jesse both swung their hammers scoring solid hits on the first two zombies who upon impact unceremoniously dropped for the final time. As Max drew his hammer back to crush the third one, he felt strong hands wrap themselves around his calf. Before he could say a word, Jesse stomped on the dead thing’s head as hard as he could with his steel toed boot. The skull broke with a loud crack as the brain squished out through the cracks. Max exhaled the breath he’d briefly held then brought his hammer down hard on the last of the zombies.
They had made a lot of noise killing the four that lay on the floor before them. Max looked down around the corner and saw several zombies looking up toward him from the next landing. He looked at Jesse and Jesse nodded, so they started down.
This time Max shoved one of the dead away while he crushed the skull of another with his hammer. It gave him the time he needed to raise his hammer again as the zombie pushed back toward him. He glanced to his left to see Jesse doing the same thing. On the far corner of the landing they saw one of the dead shoveling ropes of intestines into its mouth from a prone body that lay before it. The smell was so gruesomely foul that Max was barely able to keep himself from vomiting. He looked at Jesse and could read the same look on his face. Max stepped forward and swung his hammer down on the back of its head. The landing was clear. Only four more to go.
They could hear the noises of the dead below them, but there were none on the stairs or the next landing. It sounded like the zombies were several floors down. They quietly made their way down the next three flights of stairs without incident.
As they made their way down one last flight of stairs to the fourth floor, they heard noises down on the landing. Looking around the corner, they saw three zombies feeding on a lone body.
“We could shove them out of the way while we go through the door,” Jesse started. “Once we close it, they won’t be able to open it.”
“I think we should take them out. What if we open the door and find the hallway full of them? We won’t have anywhere to go. Let’s just take these last three out to be safe,” Max said.
Jesse nodded and started down the stairs. The dead were so focused on their meal that Jesse was able to kill the first one before the other two even realized he was there. Max kicked one of them in the head, knocking it flat on its back making it an easy kill when he brought his hammer down. Jesse took out the third with a screwdriver to its eye.
They stopped to catch their breath before opening the stairway door to the fourth floor. Below them were the sounds of a lot of zombies. Jesse peeked around the corner and saw a dozen on the stairs and the next landing.
“There’s at least a dozen on the third floor and it sounds like a lot more beneath them,” Jesse said.
“Let’s leave them,” Max said, “Who knows how many are down there.”
“You ready for this?” asked Jesse. The fourth floor had been in use when this started. Most if not every room had been occupied by hotel guests. They had no idea how many of those guests had been in the hotel or in their rooms when things went sideways.
“At least these rooms have doors. They close automatically,” Max replied. “Hopefully, there aren’t too many of these fuckers in the hall.”
“Alright, let’s go,” Jesse said. He gently pulled the door open as Max stood against the wall, ready to rush into the hallway.
It was chaos. From what they could see, the doors were closed. But a lot of zombies wandered the hallway in either direction from the corner stairwell, most likely having exited their rooms to see what the commotion had been or trying to return to their rooms after having been bitten. They didn’t see any living but did see some unfortunate people on the floor who were at that very moment being feasted upon. Nearest to them was a woman wearing a housekeeping uniform. Her head was nearly severed from her body as one of the dead ate nearly every last bit of her throat and neck. Another zombie was chewing on her calf, her lower leg having been ripped cleanly from her body.
Jesse closed the door so they could come up with a plan. There were at least a dozen of the dead stumbling around the hallways. Another half dozen were eating people sprawled around the floor. The only thing they saw that benefited them was that the zombies were spread out all over the hallways rather than gathered close together. They would have to take out all of them if they didn’t want to be followed when they broke through the window to make their escape.
“Let’s stay together, move fast, and use the hammers. Keep the screwdrivers handy just in case,” Max said. “We’ll go right first. Take out all of them, then backtrack and take out the rest between us and the window at the end of the hall.”
“We’ve gotta move now before any of those fuckers downstairs make their way up here,” Jesse replied.
Max slowly opened the door, then he and Jesse both darted straight ahead to clear all of the dead in the hallway to the right. Max swung his hammer over the head of a dead teenage girl which made him cringe, thinking of his own daughter. He shook his head as if to clear it then plowed ahead to the next one. On his left, Jesse had quickly taken out two of the undead who had been feasting on a prone body. With just three kills, they had made enough noise to attract the attention of some of the zombies further down the hallway. They rasped and started their clumsy shuffle toward Max and Jesse.
“Shit,” Jesse said as he sped toward the first of them. He swung his hammer at one while he used his other arm to shove another backward. Max smashed the skull of a feeble little old lady who dropped instantly then he swung at the one Jesse had just shoved. It had recovered quickly and one of its hands reached for Max’s sleeve just as he shoved a screwdriver threw its eye. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the sound an eye makes when it pops, and fluids burst from it. The putrid smell was like nothing he’d ever smelled before.
Just ahead of him, Jesse tried to take out a beast of a man who was at least a head taller than him. His hammer glanced off the dead man’s nose, shattering it and sending blackish blood flying, but the dead man wasn’t fazed. Jesse tried again but merely tore the man’s cheek off. Max had his hands full with two slight females trying to hold off both while he swung his hammer at one of them. It connected solidly and the first female fell. The other was wrapping her jaw around Max’s arm. His heavy uniform and work gloves kept her teeth from reaching his skin but the pain of her jaw clenching down on his arm was su
rprising. He pulled her toward him and thrust a screwdriver through her eye. He looked over at Jesse still struggling with the tall man. Fear flitted across Jesse’s face as the strength of the dead man nearly overcame his own. Max reached high and swung his hammer as hard as he could at the man’s temple. There was a soft crack, then Max swung again as Jesse plunged a screwdriver through the dead man’s eye.
“Holy fuck,” exclaimed Jesse, slightly winded from the fight.
There was no time to rest, not even for a moment. They continued hammering the dead one after another. More kept coming.
“Shit! The elevators,” Max yelled. They hadn’t accounted for the elevator bank down the hall. “We’ve got to get to the elevators and pull the emergency button. That’s got to be where they’re all coming from.”
They killed three more before they reached the elevator lobby. They carefully tried to get a quick look at the lobby before entering it. One of the elevators was stopped with the door opening and closing on the head of one of the zombies lying on the floor. Another elevator was open, and the dead were slowly shuffling out of it. Two more elevators sat with their doors closed. Jesse and Max could only hope that they wouldn’t stop on their floor.
Their hammers and screwdrivers were proving to be excellent weapons for killing the zombies. The greatest danger lay in having too many of the dead clustered together. If they stayed spread out, it was much easier to kill them. They made quick work of four shamblers in the lobby. Then they backed up and away from each other to kill the dead stumbling out from the elevator. The zombies spread out as some approached Jesse while others headed toward Max. They swung their hammers and thrusted with their screwdrivers until the very last zombie lay on the floor.
Max reached into the elevator and pressed the emergency stop button to keep it from bringing more of the dead to them.
“We’re going to have to clear this whole floor man,” said Jesse. “If we don’t, they’re going to follow us when we go out.”
Chronicles of the Undead | Book 1 | Urban Gridlock Page 6