by Mark Clodi
When everyone had sorted themselves out they had nine people, including Max who wanted to make a break for the cars and eleven people including officer Stewart and Steve, who were electing to wait for the military to move in, or at least wait for a few hours and see if something better came up. The people who were going to make a break for it discussed whose cars were where, the idea had been to make for the closest two cars and then ferry everyone else to their cars out in the parking lot before everyone left to get back to their families. Those who were staying would create a distraction on the other side of the building for a few minutes before the others left.
Of course it has not worked out that well. Max found himself in the group being led by Norm, whose car was parked closest of anyone to the building, which was why he had to take five people in his group. Everything had gone smoothly until they got nine steps out of the door when a zombie came running at the speed of a racehorse seemingly from nowhere, knocking Norm to the ground and sending the police flashlight Stewart had given him spinning through the air. After that all thoughts of staying in their own groups was forgotten and everyone herded together, a few more steps and a wild combat later and Max’s group got separated from three others, leaving a group of five and a group of three. The threesome actually made it to their car, and spun through the lot, running down quite a few of the zombies after Max and his group. Then Ann got grabbed from under the car. While they were fighting to get her out, the other guy dropped off the first lady, unfortunately for her as soon as the car sped away, leaving her next to her car door, she got mobbed and brought down, however the other passenger made it into her car and both of them tried to pick up Max’s group before they became trapped in between the van and the vw. The lady just drove away at that point, the guy, Jason, had rammed his car into one end of the vw and then the Astro, smashing a few zombies, but not killing them however this distraction allowed Max and Alan to make a break over the bug towards Max’s car.
Max looked around the parking lot for a weapon of some kind, a stick, a rock anything, but the zombies had him pretty well hemmed in, all of them seemed to be holding back, none of them were moving as slow as Fred had been this morning, maybe the sunlight made them quicker or something, they all seemed to be following the lead of the guy in the green jogging suit, and Max swore that fat bastard was smiling, smiling, like he knew what he was doing!
“Alright lard ass, what do you think is so funny? Got me cornered, broke my bat, is that it? Well funny ha-ha, but I know karate you lame, foul smelling fuck, so bring it on!”
The zombie darted forward in a feint and Max could swear he heard him say, “Karate. Fuck.” Before a loud crack sounded and the zombie to one side of jogging suit staggered and fell to the ground. Another crack and green jogging suit zombie fell over, his shoulder a mess of spraying blood and bone. Max ran through the opening the two downed zombies made in the circle surrounding him, throwing his bat shard at one of the other three zombies as a distraction. As he ran back towards the office building Max heard Stewart yelling to him and several other shots went off, most of what Max would regard as suppressing fire as they did not seem as well aimed as some of Stewart’s earlier shots. He saw that she was making her way towards the parking lot, angling for her squad car while giving him some covering fire. She was yelling for him to get her flashlight. Everything again seemed to slow down for Max, as if his body had finally had enough punishment, his vision tunneled his hearing dimmed and he dumbly followed Stewart’s finger pointing to see the flashlight Norm had dropped laying about two feet away from his right foot. He bent down to get it at the same time that something flung itself over his bent back. Suddenly time sped up again with a vengeance, Max whipped the flashlight up and into the rib cage of the very fast and agile zombie that had just tried to jump him, it looked like the same zombie that had gotten Norm. Only now it seemed almost healthy, if that were possible. The flashlight caved in a rib and probably would have been stuck if Max had not kept a firm grip on it, the zombie's velocity separated it from the flashlight in one quick motion and Max was ready to pounce. He was going for a killing blow when Stewart screamed at him, “Get your fucking dumbass over here! Run asshole! Run, they are coming!”
Max looked around and saw that sure enough a mob of zombies were coming around the building running towards him, and in fact it looked like they could cut him off from the door, which Steve was holding open with one hand while gesturing with the other for Max to hurry up. Stewart had given up her movement towards her car and was hot footing back to the doorway. Max followed suit and while he swore that he could feel the zombies breathing down his neck, in reality he had enough time to get in the door, stop and then brace the door with Steve and Stewart. After holding it long enough for the lock to re-engage they all three cautiously backed off to see if it would hold.
It did.
“Fuck that was...” Max collapsed onto his knees between Steve and Stewart, “...close.”
“Hey Max, you okay, not bitten are you? Max? Maaaxxx?” was the last thing that Max heard as he passed out.
Chapter 15
They had a light lunch; an elderly couple and a teenage boy they found stranded in a mobile home on Orchard Street. Then for dinner Nancy spotted a middle aged man and two younger women, all dressed in business attire, creeping along a side street. The plan had remained pretty much the same, Nancy would pretend to be one of the living and lure their prey into a trap and then the chomping began. Nancy made the decision to completely destroy the grandparents and the teenage boy, she needed to repair the damage from Paul’s blade and while Veronica was in decent shape Jim was a wreck. Nancy couldn’t justify taking on two old people and a boy that they would have to share food with and likewise she didn’t want them out there eating food they could take later themselves, so she had Veronica finish them off with her blade.
Nancy now faced a similar decision. As normal, she had been the first to feed on the man and two women. When she had had her fill she then let Veronica and Jim take what was left. She stood there watching the two of them feed and the energy bleed out of their victims when she noticed something. Veronica was nearly back to one hundred percent but Jim was no where near that mark. He was close to twice Veronica’s size. Did that mean he needed to consume twice the energy that Veronica needed? It appeared so. Was Jim twice as valuable as Veronica? Already Veronica was showing signs of increased speed and agility while Jim continued to lumber along. Nancy still had use for Jim though. She had already invested too much into him to simply have Veronica destroy him. She decided he would do the grunt work, be the first line of defense and act as a sacrificial lamb should the need arise.
Veronica pulled away from the woman she had been feeding on and sat back on her heels like a major league catcher.
“Destroy him.” Nancy instructed.
“What about those two? Destroy them too?”
“Naaa, they’re too cute to hack into pieces. But from now on, try not to be so vicious when you feed.” Switching over to her most annoying mommy tone, “Just remember, if you tear an arm off it just takes that much longer for it to grow back. Alright dear?” Veronica was her child in a sick sort of way, she had birthed her into a new life after all. The whole stupid comparison made Nancy giggle.
Veronica grabbed her blade and strode over to the man. She wiped her face on the sleeve of his business jacket and then went to work on him with the blade. By the time she was done his two companions had reanimated and were standing next to Jim awaiting Nancy’s next move.
“A midnight snack anyone?” Nancy asked with an evil grin.
Jim led the way through the darkness with Nancy and Veronica a few steps behind and their two newest recruits bringing up the rear. Veronica destroyed any ghouls they encountered, male or female, young or old. She was becoming increasingly proficient with her blade.
Nancy stopped Jim when they passed in front of a GAP clothing store. Through the display windows Nancy could see that the fall fash
ions had arrived. It had always bothered her how the department stores rushed from one season to the next, holiday to holiday. She didn’t fret about it for long, Nancy decided it was time to do a little shopping.
Jim tried to push open the glass door but it was locked. The women watched as he beat his fists on the glass until they had left bloody streaks. For all of his work, the doors still showed no signs of giving.
“Um, Jimbo, how about you try using that” Nancy said pointing to a parking meter. Jim did as he was told and tried to pull it from it's concrete confinements.
“Uh, no Jimbo. How about that one there. It might be a little easier.” The owner of an abandoned Ford F150 had apparently tried to use the sidewalk to maneuver around the traffic nightmare that lay in front of him. In doing so he had taken out two parking meters, a trash can, one news paper stand and gained a total of five car lengths before he was forced to leave his truck.
Jim used one of the broken off meters like a battering ram and smashed it into the glass. The coins inside jingled with each blow. Eventually the tempered glass broke into a spider web of cracks. With his final blow the entire pane of glass fell into the store, hundreds of pieces scattering on the floor like crystal cockroaches.
“Shall we?” Nancy led the group into the store.
“V, pick out something nice for your sisters.” She then started shopping for herself. The electricity was not yet out, but the store was only dimly lit by a single fixture. After going from rack to rack Nancy finally found a colorful pink flowered summer dress on the sale rack. 'Sale rack? Shit, I could have anything in the store and I have to choose something from the sale rack?' she thought. Nancy went up to a full length mirror on the dressing room door and held the dress up to get a preview of how it might look. Nancy started at the bottom and worked her way up. 'Too long? Too tight? No, it looked like a good fit.' She then stopped and gazed at the reflection of her face. Other than some dirt and a few remaining patches of dried blood she looked good, damn good. She had spent hours in the gym fighting a losing battle against time and now the same body in the mirror was firmer and stronger than she could remember. The only thing that bothered Nancy was the way her brown hair still contrasted against her pale white complexion. 'A small price to pay.' she thought.
Out of habit Nancy casually opened the door to walk into the fitting room. Had her heart not been dead it would have skipped a beat. When she opened the door Nancy found a teenage girl sitting on the changing bench with her legs pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them tightly. She was crying softly and let out a little squeak when Nancy opened the door to her hiding place.
Nancy held out her hands, “Whoa, whoa, there girl. Nothing to be scared of. Are you alright?” The girl slowly shook her head “no”.
“No. Of course not. What a stupid question. After the last few hours who in their right mind would be alright?” she said forcing her voice into a slight giggle to try and ease the girl’s fears.
“I’m just going to gather a few clothes and then I’m heading to safety, the mountains or maybe some secure house somewhere. If you want you can come with me.”
The girl wanted to believe, Nancy could see it in her eyes. Her eyes cautiously studied Nancy. After a few moments she reluctantly placed one foot and then the other on the dressing room floor revealing a GAP name tag pinned to her shirt that read “Julie”.
“There you go Julie!” Nancy encouraged, “Is there anyone else hiding in here that might want to come along too?” she cooed. Julie nodded “yes” and pointed towards the back of the store.
“Come now, you can’t hide in there the rest of your life can you?” Had Julie known that her life was about to end she might have decided to do just that. Nancy spread her arms in a welcoming hug and Julie walked into death’s embrace. Like a vampire Nancy sunk her teeth into Julie’s artery and began feeding on her precious energy. Nancy thought she heard Julie let out a scream but couldn’t be sure. She had the strange feeling that girl almost welcomed the end to her terror.
It had not been long since Nancy’s last meal and she forced herself to break the connection with Julie. The teen dropped to the floor and a pool of blood started to form around Nancy’s feet.
“Great. Just great” Nancy said looking down at the blood that stained her newly acquired dress. She dragged Julie by her sandy blond hair into the main show room and called for Veronica.
“Get your two sisters over here pronto, they need this more than we do. There is someone else in the back of the store. Find them and bring em to me, alive.” Nancy then headed back to the sale rack hoping to find a replacement dress.
In the end, Nancy added Julie and another eighteen year old GAP girl to her undead gang. She instructed the girls and Jim to meet her on the sidewalk. Nancy reveled in the fact that she had control over their every move. A fact that reminded her she still had unfinished business to take care of. She wondered if five women and a stupid brute would be enough. 'Probably.' she thought after giving it some consideration.
The girls met Nancy outside the store. Veronica had dressed herself in saggy green military chic cargo pants and a tight white tank top, otherwise known to punk kids as a ‘wife beater’. Her black bra showing through the thin material. She had wanted to separate herself from the other girls so Veronica outfitted them in matching mini skirts and white school girl blouses.
“Nice. Very practical V. Those shirts will hold up well to the blood splatter.” Nancy said sarcastically.
“What’d you do with Jim?” On cue, Jim exited the store, arms loaded like a pack mule with numerous blue and white plastic GAP sacks. Nancy raised one eyebrow towards Veronica.
“Blood stains.” she answered smugly.
“You little bitch! You had me going there!” Nancy giggled, “Come on, we’ve got a date with Fred.”
Chapter 16
When Max finally woke up it was past noon and he was again in Kirkpatrick’s office, “What happened?” he groaned, attracting everyone’s attention. Officer Stewart turned toward him, a brief look of concern on her face, that was almost instantly replaced with her trade mark mask of steel.
“Smile at least you’re alive.” she said, “You passed out right when we got into the building, helped us hold the door and then just collapsed. Steve and I carried you to the elevator and lugged you up here. We’re not sure if the zombies broke into the ground floor, but we don’t think so. We’re thinking of going on a little exploring mission, but wanted you along. I tried to wake you up but couldn’t. Thanks for getting my flashlight back.”
Max just looked at her and found a mix of emotions spinning through his head, guilt at urging his co-workers out the door to their deaths, happiness at being alive, he couldn’t reconcile the feelings, at least not yet, he squished them down and replied, “Man I made a mess of things huh?”
To his surprise, Steve answered him, “No, no you didn’t, I saw most of what happened from here, some of the fucking zombies were hidden around the cars, most of the slow ones ambled around to the other side of the building when the others started making noise, but a lot of those you ran into just squatted down and hid themselves before you went out. I tried to yell down the stairway for you not to go, but you didn’t hear me. If I could have gotten to you in time, maybe you could have seen what I saw. It isn’t your fault Max, everybody wanted to go, their choice, not yours.”
Max was genuinely moved by Steve’s obvious concern, and some of his guilt eased. Not all of it was gone, that would take time and the screams of “Mommy!” were still too fresh in his head. “Did I…did I get bitten?”
“No you checked out clean buddy, one thing to be thankful for, uh better to have it now than later, no one else made it back. Alan was close, but he just kinda ran out of steam and got mobbed. I am not sure how much you remember, it got pretty wild there for a few minutes.” Stewart looked down at the carpet and shrugged her shoulders, “You know if the national guard does not come we are going to have to try again. I made a
n effort to get to my car, I have a shotgun in the front and more ammo for my nine millimeter pistol, I just could not get through the mob, there were too many of them and some of them were fast.”
“Ah, how is your ammo holding up Jane?” asked Max.
Stewart shook her head side to side and replied, “Not good, ‘bad’ is a better word for it, I shot off both clips when I tried to make my way to the car. I did have a box of loose rounds that I had grabbed and had in my jacket and I have a backup pistol with eight rounds, but it is only a twenty five caliber, probably would not do much unless you got a real lucky head shot and it is simply not very accurate further out than about ten feet. I have nineteen shots left for my main pistol and eight for the backup gun. I shot off twenty three shots out there in a matter of seconds, if we have to go out again we will need a better plan.”
“How long was I out?” asked Max.
“Well you slept through the morning.” Replied Steve as he offered him a hand up.
Getting to his feet Max looked at them and said, “Thanks. I mean it, thanks. Ooh I feel bad, like I just got into a fight with a bunch of flesh eating zombies.” Max raised his right hand to his left shoulder and winched with pain, looking at his shirt he saw it was spattered with blood and dirt, grimacing he said, “Well, time to find a new shirt, I won’t miss this one, much. Did you see that zombie, the guy in the blue shirt, he clocked me good, look at this.”Max pulled his shirt up and showed them the black and blue welt he had along the top of his shoulder.
“Shit yeah we saw it! We pretty much stripped you looking for bites.” said Stewart, “That is a doozy of a bruise now, does it feel broken?”
“No, not broken, I had a broken arm once in high school and this doesn’t feel anything like that. I am pretty sure it is just bruised, but what about the zombie? He was swinging at me with a metal pipe, not all mindless and unthinking. Doesn’t that mean they could break in here? Doesn’t that mean they are smart on some level?”