by J. R. Rain
Soon, all six of them fired with their backs to the SUV. When the guns were emptied, they used their knives. And the zombies kept coming, drawn by the smell of fresh blood and driven by the blasting music, which looped over and over. The living humans were at the end of their ropes, exhausted, fighting, and killing one mindless fiend after another.
“Look!” Jared hollered, and pointed.
Tearing into the field came the Escalade, with Julie behind the wheel. She hauled ass to reach them. Mike smiled, perhaps at the thought she had decided she couldn’t carry all the weapons Mike ordered her to and she had made the executive—and smart—decision to bring everything to them.
But Julie looked terrified. She wouldn’t open her door until the rest rallied to the back and opened the trunk. Mike jumped in and threw out weapons, whatever he came upon first. The group caught them and renewed their attack.
* * *
Of course, Jared spotted Anna first.
She was wielding a baseball bat at any crazy that dared to approach. Anna was strong now, Jared could tell. She battled with fury and strength he’d never seen in her before. She fought off the closest enemies and arched her body into the battle, eager for more. Jared saw that she had some ammunition of her own laid out; where she had obtained it didn’t matter. He was sorely impressed.
But Jared also detected the redness within her eyes, and in an instant understood everything going on with her. She was changing, fighting both emotionally and physically. Surely she was at war within, having the zombie urges and yet fighting for the human side of things. How strong his girlfriend was to fight off the physical and mental illness that pervaded her body and changed her to a super-strength zombie. He admired and loved her all the more.
“Anna!” he roared, and pointed to her so the others would also notice her.
Anna managed to create a space for them to run to near one of the dugouts. She cleared the way, swinging left and right, lopping off zombie heads as she swung. Everyone moved toward her and toward the dugout. Julie jumped out of the car and found Mike, and from then on remained by his side.
Once inside the dugout, they fled deeper through an underground hallway. Anna tore some lockers free, and with help moved them to the entrance, blocking off their enemies.
* * *
Cole heaved a shoulder into the locked closet door for at least the fifteenth time. Finally, it crashed open.
He limped to the window, the pain in his kneecap excruciating. As his fingers dug unsuccessfully at the broken-off pen embedded in the back of his knee, he groaned and watched them come together as a unified and organized force. His rage at the sight of Julie coming to their aid added to his growing insanity. I should have killed that bitch!
The girl had taken most of his ammunition. But not all. His gaze fell onto his bag of tricks, and his face transformed into something evil. Hell, he felt evil. Enraged. Bloodthirsty.
The motherfuckers are gonna pay!
Cole turned his back on the view and dragged himself to a nearby desk. He opened the drawers. Nothing. He moved from that desk to another, finding a pair of scissors. You can do this, he told himself. He grabbed a stack of paper from one of the printers, rolled it up. He would need to clench down on something. The Press Room had a bar; he moved slowly to it and reached for a bottle of whiskey, opened it and drank deeply. Then he reached around to the wound at the back of his knee, found the open gouge. He dug the scissors around the broken pen and waited for the nausea to pass. Clenching the paper in his mouth as hard as he could, he caught the pen with the scissors’ tip and pulled.
* * *
When Cole came back to consciousness, he wasn’t sure how long he had been out. Yes, the pain was still there, but lessened a great deal with that pen fragment out. Still, he couldn’t bear weight on his leg. And blood continued to pour from the wound. He shoved a wad of tissues in the hole, crying out as he did so.
He fashioned a makeshift crutch out of a mop from the closet. He envisioned snapping Julie’s neck, and would’ve gladly done so if she’d been there with him. He never dreamed she had it in her to betray him, and come to their aid.
But for Cole there was always a Plan B. He drew his backpack close, and checked the contents inside. He eased himself carefully into the chair and waited patiently for the smoke to clear and dust to settle outside.
Chapter Twenty-four
Jack smiled broader than he thought he could, proud of the damage the group had done. They had killed literally hundreds of the undead. If only the music would stop, they might wander off. Who knew that hard rock and roll could raise the undead like this?
“Never thought I’d get sick of that song.” said Brice. “I’ll never think of Eric Gagné the same way again.”
Everyone stood together in the shadows of the dugout, watching the vile creatures roam above them, insane with anger and a hunger that would never be satiated. Jack wondered how far along his daughter was in the zombie transformation process. But she hadn’t turned completely, not yet. There was time, and he could almost feel her fighting the rabid rage within.
Try as he might, he couldn’t help thinking about the water cure, or more accurately, the drowning cure.
“I’d say let’s just get the hell out of here,” he told Joe and Mike, as they stepped together toward the dugout entrance. “But we still have something to take care of.”
His brother nodded. “Someone, you mean.” He stepped forward a little more and pointed up to the Press Room. “Bet your ass he’s up there, planning something more.”
“We don’t know if he’s still in there.”
“Oh, he’s not going anywhere.” Anna’s voice was dark. “I don’t think he can walk.”
“Jesus... what did you do?”
“I stabbed him in the back of the knee, with a pen.”
“I think I underestimated your grit, kid.”
Anna didn’t grin. Instead her red eyes flared. “Well, don’t. Not ever again.”
Jack shuddered at the sight of his daughter literally turning before him, then gritted his teeth. “Okay. Let’s get this done.”
“What’s the plan?” Joe asked.
“I’m going up to the Press Box. Alone.”
* * *
Anna wasn’t thinking straight. Her mind was clouded, muddled. Her mouth was on fire. She was so thirsty and so hungry. So damned hungry!
As she watched her father leave the dugout and begin crossing the field, it suddenly occurred to her—too late—that there was a side stairway, through the dugout, up to the Press Box. It was how she had reached the field and ambushed the infected.
“Daddy, wait!” she yelled.
But too late. The first explosion rocked the stadium.
* * *
The weapon was no bigger than a machine gun. In fact, it kind of looked like an AK-47. In reality, it was a grenade launcher, and Cole had removed it from his bag of tricks.
He had already shot out the Press Room windows and was now perched there, with the grenade launcher on his shoulder, when he sighted one of the Carter boys exiting the dugout. He didn’t care which one.
He took careful aim and pulled the trigger.
The explosion was deafening. Beautifully deafening. He watched the Carter boy fly off his feet, hurled back in a rain of grass and dirty and zombie parts.
Now there was the little girl running, the girl who would soon be a crazy.
Cole grinned and pulled the trigger.
* * *
“Daddy!” screamed Anna.
The explosion had knocked all of them off their feet. Worst off was Jack, who had been blown back a dozen or so feet. Anna, perhaps due to her enhanced strength and speed, was already on her feet and moving.
She didn’t see the third one land just twenty feet to her right, but heard it. Then she saw her Uncle Joe running after her. He was closing in on Anna. She would think later that maybe he knew he only had a few seconds to stop her... to live. Anna halted momentarily, terrifi
ed by her father’s inert form, when Joe leaped on top of her from behind, knocking her to the ground.
He turned her face away and covered her protectively with his body. The look of fierce love in his eyes told her one last time how he felt about her... his beloved niece.
Chapter Twenty-five
Carla rolled Jack over.
“Jack!” she shouted.
At first, he didn’t respond, and when he saw her in a daze, he couldn’t respond. Her lips were moving, but he couldn’t hear anything as his eardrums were still vibrating from the grenade’s explosion. She was desperately trying to get him up. He was disoriented.
“Anna...” Jack couldn’t hear his own words, but Carla pointed. His eyes followed. Jared was there, helping his hysterical daughter to stand up. He was trying to drag her back to the dugout. They were both crying.
Carla didn’t give him any more time to look. He hadn’t yet recognized his brother’s body, nobody would have.
Jack forced himself to stand up. Carla threw his arm around her shoulder and hurriedly carried him back to cover.
* * *
During all the turmoil, nobody noticed Brice slipping away. Fully armed, he made his way up the aisle stairs, crouching low, concentrating on being invisible. In the hallway, he found the main stairs to the next level up... to where the asshole was hiding. Anger fueled him, and Brice took out his wrath on the mindless Zombies foolish enough to get in his way.
The constant song blasting drove him nuts. This ends now. Brice had thought his fighting days were over a long time ago, but the act of killing was like riding a bicycle. He turned on the war rage in his brain like a light-switch.
He heard the second and third explosions, but didn’t stop or falter. He couldn’t change whatever had just happened down below. All he could do was put an end to it.
He reached the second level, the Press Room right in front of him, and the door on the right not far away. He headed for it but suddenly stopped. From the far side, to his left, drifted the smoke of a cigarette.
* * *
Cole was actually savoring the pandemonium and the cigarette, his ego as high as it had ever been in his life. He had created this entertaining scenario, and despite the pain in his leg, was bound and determined to enjoy this orchestrated pandemonium, complete with loud music, mindless crazies, killing, and things blowing up.
He checked the time. He had about an hour to get as far away from here as possible. Before the real explosion occurred.
He would, of course, need another vehicle. After all, the SUV he arrived in had a little surprise in it.
As he took another puff, he felt a series of sharp stabs in the back of his head. Something had gone terribly wrong, and the sudden change of plans became clear as he glimpsed blood and brain matter dousing his cigarette. Then everything went black... forever.
* * *
Only Carla saw him fall. She hadn’t noticed him up near the Press Box window, as all her attention had been on getting everyone to safety. She glanced up in time to see Cole’s head blow apart and then his taking a swan dive into the seats below.
By the time she had aided Jack in sitting down, with Anna cuddled next to him, the insufferable Jungle song abruptly stopped. The silence that followed surprised them all. The confused mass of zombies grew docile, as if not knowing what to do. Sweet silence was the trump card the group needed.
Always the cop keeping track, Carla quickly counted persons present. Including Julie, there should have been eight. Joe was gone, and she pushed that incident from her mind. There were only six. Who was missing...
“Where’s Brice?” she asked.
Everyone looked around, shaking their heads.
“He was here, right here...,” the rest of the group murmured.
Meanwhile, Carla put two and two together. “He’s the one,” she said out loud.
“What?” Jared asked. “He’s the one who what?”
Carla didn’t answer, as Jack was sitting up.
“Where’s Joe?” he asked, worriedly.
The man she had come to love was a mess, bleeding from several significant wounds and covered in the blood of others... the blood of the infected.
“Jack... I’m sorry,” she said, compassionately.
He looked at her wearing a look of disbelief, and a tense, quiet moment passed between them. She didn’t have to say anything, at least not right then. He knew.
“My daughter?” Jack asked, laying back in the grass.
“Anna’s alive.”
“And Cole?”
“Dead,” said Carla. “Brice killed him. I saw Cole’s headless corpse fall from the Press Room’s window.”
Jack nodded painfully. Then he tried to stand, but she wouldn’t let him.
“You must rest, Jack.”
“We’re surrounded by zombies,” Jack said. “There is no rest. Besides....”
“Besides what?”
“We have a nuclear bomb to find.”
“You think he hid it here?” she asked, alarm seeping through her calm tone.
“Yeah... yeah, I do. I know he hid it here. It’s why he led as many infected L.A. victims as he could to this place. It’s why he led us here, too.”
“Where in the hell do you think he put it, Jack? The stadium is huge.”
They both turned to look out into the baseball field. The SUV, parked in the center of the stadium. Hell, parked on second base.
“Mike and Jared,” Jack said. “Cover us.”
* * *
Jack and Carla found it.
A shiny suitcase covered in blankets. They had the back hatch open as zombie after zombie fell nearby. Their friends would keep them safe, as long as the flow of bullets picking off the enemy held up.
“Please tell me you know how to dismantle a nuclear bomb,” she said, worriedly.
“No, I don’t,” he confessed. “But I know how to dismantle a standard detonator.”
It was obvious that what they were looking at was the equivalent of a “dirty bomb.” And this dirty bomb, he saw, was detonated with C-4. It also had a countdown on it.
A countdown that was activated.
They weren’t down to their last few seconds, not like in the movies. Except he knew the boys and Julie only had so many bullets and the undead were swarming. Not to mention, a stray bullet could heat the bridge wire just enough to set it off.
Normally, a device like this would be armed with numerous safeguards and would also require and sustainable energy source to carry through the activation. Wiring it like Cole had done, which seemed far too amateurish than what he had anticipated, made the situation so much more volatile.
“As you can see, Cole hooked up a motorcycle battery that’s hotwired to the bridge wire—totally insane to do this,” Jack advised. “But, knowing who we’re dealing with explains a lot. Bottom line? It’s gonna be a guessing game as to which wire is bringing the heat to the bridge wire, and if we run out of ammo from the dugout, our zombie pals could inadvertently trip the sensors and it could bypass the timer.”
“And we would all go Kaboom?” she surmised.
“Yes, Kaboom for us and the whole damned metropolitan area,” advised Jack, glumly. “So, it’s gonna be eenie-meenie-miney-mo. Okay?”
Carla hesitated before answering, and Jack waited patiently. After all, the fate of possibly millions hung in the balance.
“Okay.” She released a low sigh while nodding for him to pick the right wire to cut.
Jack turned his eyes heavenward and offered a prayer for guidance. Then he picked the one wire he figured a brilliant nutcase like Cole would go for, and snipped it.
Click.
Chapter Twenty-six
Hi, Jack Carter here.
It’s been a couple of months since we left Dodger Stadium for the last time. Things are different now. I smile when I see an elephant in the hills, clearing out underbrush and bringing up a mouthful of vegetation with her trunk. I think of elephants as our fire mars
hals. Before the next dry season comes, we’ll need to sink a water tank and keep it filled for the zoo animals that have made the hills in L.A. their home.
Aside from the occasional Sumatran tiger sighting, things have settled down a little, although we are still adapting to a new life of self-preservation and protection.
When it came down to it, I didn’t have the courage to cure my daughter. Sorrow filled my heart from losing my brother, and I laid in bed while Carla and Mike did what was necessary for the water cure. Brice and Jared had stayed with me during the process.
It had to have been horrible for my daughter. She showed more courage than anyone I’d ever seen, fighting for both her own life and sanity. She made it through the ordeal—the water cure as she called it—and today, I can see that she is full of joy, eager to face the new world we are all becoming accustomed to. My Anna shines now. She shines at the clear days, and the rain, and the stars, and especially, at Jared. He returns her gaze with an easy smile, a protectiveness that I’m coming to trust.
There is still hope, too. We have used the observatory computers and labs sparingly, and the place is generator powered, for now. And we’ve come in contact with others who are beating this, just as we are. Perhaps in time, and maybe with Mike’s skills as a trained pilot, we can connect with them.
Maybe we should have let the nuke go off. Maybe it would have slowed the spread of the infection. Or not. But we made a judgment call. A call to live. A call to fight.