White Flag Of The Dead (Book 8): The Zombie Wars (The Enemy Within)

by Joseph Talluto

  We walked down 6th street, passing by shops and offices. Most of the buildings weren’t too tall, likely because of the tornados that this city saw on a regular basis. There was a small park that was overgrown with grass and weeds to our right, but we still weren’t seeing the enemy.

  Tommy held up a hand. Duncan and I immediately stopped and brought up our weapons.

  “Did you hear that?” Tommy asked.

  “Hear what?” I asked back.

  “Sounded like a zombie groan,” he said.

  I shook my head and looked over at Duncan. He shrugged and shook his head.

  We kept working our way down the street and turned left down South Boston Avenue. The buildings got a little taller, and the view was much more narrow, but the tallest building was only about thirty stories high. There were a lot more dead people lying around and a lot more damage to buildings and storefronts. Several cars had been driven into stores, and their drivers were still in them.

  Tommy stepped on a manhole cover and immediately there was some sort of noise. He looked over at me as if to say he told me so, when Duncan jumped in.

  “Sounded like an echo to me,” he said.

  “What would you know about anything?” Tommy asked. “You’re wrong ten times a day before breakfast, everyone knows that.

  “You wish you were only that successful,” Duncan retorted.

  I raised a hand. “Question.”

  “Yes?” The two of them looked at me like innocent babes at Christmas.

  “Do you think the zombies are in the buildings?”

  “No, we’d have seen something by now,” Duncan said, taking a quick look over his shoulder into the store.

  “What about the countryside?” I asked.

  “Same answer,” said Tommy.

  “Tell me what’s left,” I asked.

  They thought for a minute. In the silence there was another groan, faint, like it was far away, but it seemed right next to us.

  Tommy looked down. “You don’t think…”

  Duncan looked at me and I shrugged. “I’ve never been to Tulsa before. Do

  they have a subway system?”

  “Not that I know of. Sewers?” Duncan asked.

  “Could be. Might be an opportunity here,” I said. “If we could get to where the entrance is, bottle it up, we could just stand by and let them walk out single file to get killed,” I said.

  The groan underneath us was suddenly amplified by several more groans. We walked a little further on, stepping around a lot of debris, broken glass, and scattered bones. Some of the bones weren’t human, and several were the bones of loyal dogs that tried to defend their masters.

  “Where do you think the entrance is?” Tommy asked, tapping on a manhole cover as he passed it by.

  Duncan shrugged. “Offhand, I’d say somewhere under that building up there,” he said, pointing to a tall building about two blocks away.

  The building looked like it had been built in the nineteen thirties, with a lot of decorative masonry and stonework. It was a good-sized building, about twenty-five stories tall, with a rich green roof. On the ground floor, there looked to have been a bank and a restaurant of some sort. There was also about a thousand zombies literally pouring out of the front entrance. They were moving slowly, thanks to the cold air of December, but they were moving with the same level of determination as a nice warm zombie in the middle of Georgia in August.

  “Holy…” Tommy started, but never finished.

  “This way!” I yelled, glancing over my shoulder to make sure the two men were behind me. We turned a corner and ran away from the sudden avalanche of dead people, wanting to make sure we put as much distance between us as we could. Four blocks later, we all put on the brakes as another building vomited ghouls in our direction.

  “Dammit! We’re running out of directions,” Tommy said.

  “Come on, this way!” Duncan said. He ran towards the horde, with us on his heels, and then quickly turned down an alleyway. Tommy and I followed, chased by the groans and moans of the hordes spilling out of the ground like Hell had spat them back.

  We turned left, then right, then another right, and finally skidded to a stop out into another street.

  We had a second to turn around since the first horde had reached our first point of contact, and Duncan had unerringly led us right back to them.

  “Nice orienteering, knucklehead,” Tommy said as he ran past Duncan.

  “How was I supposed to know they were going to be there already?” Duncan protested.

  “We can argue later, let’s just get the hell out of here,” I said.

  “How about up?” Tommy said. “We can lose them that way.”

  “For how long? They’re out of their lair and know we’re around here somewhere. They’ll drift for weeks,” Duncan said.

  “Let’s get inside and see if we can avoid them on the ground floor and then try to slip past. There has to be an end to them and we can get around them. If they’re chasing us then it won’t matter too much, “I said. I went to the nearest door and shrugged off my backpack. Pulling out my little crowbar, I went to work on the door.

  The stupid thing was rusty and took a lot longer than it should have. Duncan was practically dancing, and Tommy was nervously glancing up and down the alley. I could hear the ghouls moaning somewhere behind me, and in the confines of downtown Tulsa, the tall buildings created an echoing effect that was somewhat distracting.

  “Come on, John. How long are you going to play with that door?” Duncan asked.

  “Any help would be nice,” I replied, forgoing the quiet protocol and jamming my crowbar into the space between the door and the frame.

  “How hard can it be?” Duncan asked, pulling out his own crowbar. He jammed the flat end into the same space and gave a huge pull that achieved exactly nothing.

  I gave him a look. “Pretty dammed hard, I’d say, wouldn’t you?”

  “Hang on, pull your end again. Okay, I see what the problem is.” Duncan placed his crowbar a little more strategically. “Pull your end a little more, and hold it…here!”

  The door finally cracked open, and since Tommy was the one holding his rifle he ducked in first, leading with his weapon light. We closed the door behind us and tried to find something to block it with, but there wasn’t anything nearby. We weren’t going to be sticking around long, so we just kept moving.

  “Where are we?” Duncan asked.

  “No idea,” I said. “It just seemed like a good place to get out of the street.”

  “I think I see a way to the main area,” Tommy said. “Follow me.”

  Tommy wound his way through several offices and storerooms, staying on a path through the small maze. We passed a kitchen, a Laundromat, and a custodian closet. Finally, we stepped through an access door to a large, decorated foyer. It looked like a huge hotel but without the front desk. There was a café across the way, a men’s clothing shop, a newsstand, and two very large escalators going up to the second and possibly third floors. Along the back wall was a large bank of elevators. Above each one was a listing of the floors that particular elevator once reached.

  I looked over at the revolving doors and saw a familiar shape stumble by.

  “We need to get out of here. If they think we’re in here, that door isn’t going to hold them,” I said.

  “Let’s get upstairs,” Duncan said.

  Right as he said that there was a large crash, and a huge zombie fell through the doors. He struggled with the revolving door, and Duncan quickly stepped up and killed the beast. When he looked back, he shook his head.

  “We’re idiots. The skylight from up above may as well have been a sign to come and eat us. They can totally see us,” Duncan said.

  Another zombie crashed into the door, then another, and another. Behind those, there was a sea of monsters waiting to come in and devour us.

  “You were saying something, Duncan?” Tommy asked.

  “Just get moving.”
r />   We bolted for the escalators, taking two at a time. At the top we wedged a nearby table into one opening and put two chairs onto the other. It wouldn’t hold for long, but if we could get a few tumbling down, it might buy us a few minutes.

  Tommy broke through a door, and we found ourselves in the offices of some sort of legal agency. There were file cabinets as far as the eye could see, half a dozen conference rooms, and a large legal library on the far side. Behind us was a large bank of windows, but a quick look showed us that getting out that way would be less than helpful, since it was an atrium in the center of the building. It was then that we realized the entire building was built in a square, so anything that chased us around one floor, would just run us into their friends that were a little slower getting up the stairs.

  “Street side windows, “I said, running around a bunch of desks and cabinets. Tommy and Duncan followed after they jammed the door to the office closed.

  We reached the windows and looked down. There were about two or three thousand zombies down there on the street, most of them following the crowd as they stormed the building. Chances were pretty good there were a few hundred milling about in the lobby area, and in a few minutes, they would be upstairs trying to kill us.

  “Thoughts?” Duncan asked.

  “Have you got anything in your backpack that might help us?” Tommy asked.

  “Nothing that wouldn’t kill us as well,” Duncan said thoughtfully.

  “And you carry these things around with you,” Tommy said. “Remind me not to get too close in the future.”

  “I have an idea,” I said. “But it’s going to take timing.”

  “Lay it out,” Tommy said. “Anything besides blowing up.”

  A large crash at the door answered for me, and we looked at each other.

  “Looks like time’s up,” Duncan said.

  “Help me with the glass,” I said. I took my pick out and cracked a small hole in the glass. I stuck the pick through and pulled back, cracking off a large piece that Duncan cleared away. I use the pick again and Tommy was able to pull out a substantial piece. Pretty soon we had the window cleared and were able to look down onto the street. The height was deceptive. It looked like the ground was closer than it was, and we would easily break an ankle or leg if we thought to jump now.

  The zombies were still working their way inside, and fortunately none of them had seen us.

  “Now what?” Duncan asked. Another crash on the door, and this time there was the sound of something breaking.

  “Each of us need to push three desks to the center and get ready to get them out the window. I’ll go first. You two come right behind me. We need to get these out as fast as possible. When the first one hits the street, the next two need to be right behind it,” I said.

  The two men instantly understood what I was talking about and hurried off to get the desks. I lined up my first one, then two more. Tommy put three out, and Duncan did the same. The desks slid pretty easily on the tile floor, my only concern was stopping myself from following it out the window.

  There was another crash at the entrance and the distinctive sound of a door flying open and slamming into the wall. There was a general groan as the zombies caught our scent, and it was only a matter of time before we were out of room.

  I got behind the first desk and raced towards the window. I shoved it out as far as I could, and dove to the side to keep from going out with it. I ran back as Tommy flew past me, launching another desk out onto the street. Duncan was next, and his went out with as much grace as the other two. I didn’t waste time admiring the handiwork, I just ran for the next desk in line and shoved it out the window, with Tommy and Duncan right behind me. The last desk went out, and we didn’t have time to admire our creation.

  “Jump!” I said, pushing over several file cabinets to try and slow down the zombies who were looking for either legal advice or a tasty human treat. I wasn’t in the mood to provide either.

  I went over to the window to see Duncan and Tommy clamber down the small mountain of desks we had thrown out the window. The zombies who hadn’t entered the building were making their way over to the mess, and I had better land correctly, or I was going to be on the receiving end of some very hungry ghouls.

  I jumped down, sliding a bit on the surface of the top desk, but getting over to the correct side. I stepped down onto the next one, and my foot got caught in a drawer sending me headlong into the bottom desk. An intense pain flared in my leg as something sharp dug into my thigh.

  “Dammit!” I yelled, falling to the ground. I held my leg and rocked back and forth, cursing the entire time. Duncan and Tommy raced over and tried to help me up.

  “What happened? You okay?” Tommy asked as I jumped on one leg.

  “Did you get bit?” Duncan asked, worried.

  I grimaced and tried to walk, but my leg was not cooperating. Every time I tried to put weight on it I stumbled.

  “No, I’m not bit. I think a corner of a desk jabbed me in my leg when I fell,” I said, jumping forward.

  “Well, that’s good, but we’ll all be a little bitten if we stick around here,” Tommy said. To emphasize his point, several zombies were starting to fall out of the window, flop around the desks, and land messily on the ground behind us. Two of them were able to get up and started our way.

  “Are you kidding me?” Duncan asked. He pulled his pistol and shot them both, the sounds echoing loudly in the confines of the high rises. The noise caused another round of groans, and this time the groans came from all around us.

  “I guess not,” Tommy said. “Come on, we have to get out of here while we can. Can you make it?”

  I nodded, stumbling forward. My leg was feeling better, although I figured I was going to have a hell of a bruise in the morning.

  We moved slowly away, keeping ahead of the zombies that were getting colder the more time they spent out of their tunnel. That was a good thing, because I could still only move at a slow walk, and it was a limping one at that.

  We moved up a street and around another, trying to put as much distance as we could between us and the horde. The cars in the street were good for slowing them down, and I made use of them by leaning the hoods and trunks as I passed by.

  “Do we have any idea at all where we are?” I asked, stumbling a bit when my hand slipped. I looked at Duncan. “And before you say Tulsa, I’d suggest you think about it first.”

  Duncan grinned, and as he turned away he shook his head. I knew him better than he hoped I did.

  Tommy looked at the skyline, then checked a small map he pulled out of his coat. Two minutes later he gave us the bad news.

  “We actually ran in exactly the opposite direction that we needed to go, and we’ve got about two hours of daylight left,” he said.

  “Shit.” I had nothing else to say. I didn’t want to spend the night in a city with thousands of zombies roaming the streets only to have to run for it again in the morning.

  “Well, things could be worse,” Tommy said.

  “How?” I asked.

  “I dunno. Just something people say. How’s the leg?”

  “Slightly better. Where’s Duncan?” I asked, looking around.

  “Not sure. Wait, there he is. What’s he doing?”

  “I’ll be damned. He’s riding a bike,” I said. I shook my head as Duncan rode up on what was clearly a kid’s bike. It had a large rear tire, a long banana seat, and a long front fork for the little tire on the front. It was a pedal-powered chopper. If I had had a bike like this when I was a kid, Michelle Braxton in the fourth grade would surely have wanted to be my girlfriend.

  Duncan hopped off the bike with a smile and ran back to the bike shop he had found tucked in between a bagel shop and a locksmith. He came out leading a small mountain bike and another kid bike. This one had large front and rear tires with a tall set of handlebars. It was probably one of the strangest bikes I had ever seen.

  “Ready?” Tommy asked, as I settled ont
o the mountain bike. Duncan was not about to give up the chopper.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said. “We have to get the containment crews in here fast before these guys spread all over the place.”

  “Oh, right! Wait a minute!” Duncan said. He turned his bike around and fiddled with his pack. He came out holding a handful of small boxes, and started putting them on top of random cars we had already passed. Behind him, a lone zombie turned the corner and groaned like there was no tomorrow. Duncan put a finishing touch on a box, left it on top of a car, and ran back to us, plopping himself down on his seat.

  “That should work,” he said pedaling away. Tommy and I had to work a little hard to catch up, and I needed to keep my leg from cramping.

  “Don’t you ever worry about one of those things blowing up in your pack?” Tommy asked.

  “No, not really,” Duncan replied.

  “Color me unsurprised.”

  We rode through the city, circling wide to avoid the zombies that had come out to play. It took us an hour, but we finally reached the outskirts were the containment crews had been waiting for us. We got more than a few odd looks regarding our transportation, but that didn’t matter a bit. I got off my bike and limped painfully over to the captain of the containment crew.

  “There’s several thousand zombies wandering around the downtown area,” I said. As I spoke, there was the sound of several explosions, and the ground trembled slightly underneath our feet.

  I looked at the captain again. “Maybe a few less, I’m not really sure,” I said as if nothing had happened.

  The captain, a former road crew foreman, grinned and pounded on his earthmover three times. The men climbed aboard their machines and fired them up. The ground trembled again, this time as the machines rolled past.

  I limped my way into camp, following Duncan and Tommy as we made our way back to the trailers. I practically fell through the doorway and clawed my way into the bench seat by in the kitchen.

  Charlie was sitting in a captain’s chair reading a small book. He looked up as we sat at the table.

  “How was the walk?” he asked.

  “Busy,” I said. “What are you reading?”