Dead Outside (Book 1)

by Oliver, Nick

  I looked back at the obese corpse on the floor in front of me. “Fuck it.” I didn’t want to deal with another close call like that. I went back to the front door and saw the rain had picked up pretty heavily. I pulled out a poncho I had packed in my bag and threw it on. I was just about to dash into the storm when I heard a moan from behind me.

  My heart sank. I looked behind me and saw three kids. Well, they used to be kids. Their pale grey skin, blank stares, and blood dripping from their little jaws assured me that they were no longer innocent children. Huge chunks of flesh were missing from each of them.

  One boy who couldn't have been more than seven or eight had part of his forearm missing, leaving a torn set of onesie pajamas and a limp hand dangling from his outstretched arm. The second boy who was even younger had intestines falling from under his brown stained cowboy t-shirt. The girl was the smallest of all. Half of her face was gone, exposing bone and tendons that made me sick to my stomach. Even though I only saw it for a second, her jaw line had no teeth, just discolored gums smacking together with a wet pop.

  I thought about killing them, but decided against it. I told myself it was because I didn’t need to waste the bullets, and that I’d be able to outrun them, but deep down I probably just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  The rain was coming down heavy. I didn’t want to stay out there for much longer, but I didn’t want those Infected kids to follow me. I turned a corner and saw a house as good as any to hole up in for the night. I went to the door and tried to open it. It was unlocked. It was a toss up as to whether this would be a good thing or not. This time I wasn’t taking any chances. My shotgun was up and at the ready.

  The living room was empty, as was the kitchen. I kicked the bathroom door open and saw it was empty as well, though it was a mess. Someone had punched the mirror, shattering it.

  The bedroom doors were boarded shut, which at first I thought was odd, but given the circumstances it made sense. I knocked on each of the doors and asked, “Hello, is anybody there?”

  Nobody responded, Infected or otherwise. I went back to the kitchen and unplugged the refrigerator. It was pretty heavy, but I managed to slide it over to the front door. I lifted it from the bottom and it fell into the front door, bracing it shut.

  I took off my backpack and leaned it against the couch, set my bat and shotgun within reaching distance, and laid down.

  The storm was raging pretty hard, but I could still make out faint moans coming from outside, as well as wind howling in the boarded up bedrooms. I closed my eyes and tried to fall asleep, but all I could think about was Sarah, where she was, whether she was safe, and if I’d ever see her again.

  Just as my eyes were about to close for the night, I heard a slight thud coming from the front door, a slow repetitive banging, filling my mind. Every once in a while a moan or growl would be echo in-between the howling wind and deep thunder, shaking me to my bones. I listened to the ruckus for about an hour, eventually blocking it out from sheer exhaustion and finally getting some sleep, even if it was just an hour or two.

  Chapter Six: Warehouse

  5:00 PM, June 30

  The rain blew in sideways. My plastic poncho was blowing all over the place. I was kneeling next to a building to shield myself, giving me a short break from the pounding rainstorm that had been going on all morning since I left the house I’d spent the last night in.

  I thought about how close my journey was to ending the day before. Sitting outside that supermarket, I didn’t think that truck was going to start. By some stroke of luck it managed to finally fire up, and I got the hell out of there.

  After the truck ran out of gas I parked it up on a hill and slept in the cab. I woke up to rain pouring in through the window that I’d smashed, and it’d been raining ever since.

  I glanced all around me and saw four Infected all shifting toward me in the horrible weather. I could barely make any details out, but the way they shuffled around was unmistakable. One of them fell over and impaled himself on a broken street sign. They were all more than thirty yards away giving me at least a few seconds, so I took the moment to take off my backpack and pull out a roll of duct tape.

  My poncho had been blowing up and over my face, blocking my vision. I could hear the familiar ripping sound of the tape coming off the roll even over the howling winds. I bit the tape to rip it and taped the bottom of the poncho to my pants to help keep it from flying up and blinding me again.

  I glanced again and saw that the other three Infected were closing in, now about twenty yards away. Even the fourth one, who was completely impaled on the pole, was trying to crawl toward me, to no avail. He was just dragging his hands along the sidewalk in front of him, trying to pull himself off the pole it was obviously stuck on.

  Traveling in a storm was both a curse and a blessing. The sound of the wind and rain covered any sounds I could make, thus providing the perfect cover for the many thousands of Infected that could be right around the corner and not even know I was there. But of course the door swung both ways, and I could walk right into a mob of over a hundred and not know they were there. So I tried to stay in the middle of the streets, always looking twice before I went around a corner. I also liked the idea of collecting water on my poncho and filling my canteen every hour or so. Dehydration had been sneaking up on me for the last few days, and this provided a nice relief from that.

  An Infected was about two yards in front of me. He was only about five feet tall. He was still wearing these giant black rimmed glasses, and a button up shirt. The poor geek never stood a chance. I gripped my bat and swung down hard on top of his head, shattering his skull and dropping him for good. The rain rinsed the blood and brain matter off my bat almost instantly, saving me the trouble of having to wipe it clean myself. I snapped my backpack back on as the other two Infected got close. I just jogged around them instead of wasting my energy taking them out.

  After a few blocks I slowed to a walk. I reached a fallen chain link fence all mangled and bent out of shape. If I had to guess I would say that a few hundred Infected had brought it down. There were several towering warehouses in front of me. I walked around the first warehouse and rounded the corner a little too fast, looking for one that hadn’t had its doors smashed in. My heart skipped a beat as I saw several thousand Infected all surrounding a factory trying to get in. I wasn’t ten feet away from the closest one.

  I know a lot of people claim to see their lives flash before their eyes when they experience a near death experience. Apparently they see their happiest memories, the highlights of their lives. I didn’t see any of those things, in fact, I didn’t even fear for my own safety. I felt a gut wrenching fear for someone else, Sarah. Her face was the only thing I saw, and it was enough.

  I dove back around the corner and crawled into a sitting position with my back against the wall. I clicked off my shotgun’s safety and realized my eyes were squeezed shut. I slowly opened one, expecting to see at least five or six Infected about to maul me. But none were there. I felt like somebody had just taken a dump truck off of my chest. I let out a huge sigh of relief, and wiped the rain and cold sweat off my face, only for it to be replaced a moment later.

  There were about a dozen warehouses around me. It took me an hour just to get to the warehouse that was farthest from the massive horde surrounding the other building. I got closer to the one I thought would be safest. It was a relic of the industrial age, red bricks stacked up on top of each other up to at least eighty feet high. I pulled on the handle of the door. Of course it was locked, but it didn’t even shift on its hinges, which was odd.

  I walked around looking for a window. The lowest one was at least ten feet high. I couldn’t quite reach it, so I pushed a dumpster under it. I climbed up and looked through the window. It was dark inside, so I couldn’t make out much other than the outlines of several large shelves filled with pallets of boxes. I punched the window shattering the glass, took out my rope, tied it to the cast iron frame of the w
indow, and climbed down to the floor. When I tried to open the locked door from the inside, I noticed it was welded shut.

  “What the hell?” I said out loud. Maybe it was somebody’s attempt at safety, but it seemed like overkill considering the door was already reinforced.

  The rain was pounding outside, and the enormous emptiness warehouse made it echo everywhere.

  I pulled out my shotgun and began to move toward the end of the warehouse where it looked like there were a bunch of offices. I flicked on the flashlight I had previously duct taped to the bottom of my shotgun. The red light made everything seem evil and demented. I reached the end of the main floor and saw a balcony with a set of office doors and a large window next to it

  “Where in the hell did you come from?” I heard someone yell. The voice echoed through the warehouse floor.

  I turned back to the balcony and saw three figures standing there. Two of them were holding some kind of rifles, and the one in the middle was just standing there with his arms crossed.

  I lowered my shotgun to show them I wasn’t a threat, but also clicked off the safety, hoping they couldn’t hear it over the storm.

  “I just need a place to stay for the night,” I said. “It’s pouring out there.”

  “Why should we give you shelter after you broke in one of our windows?” he asked angrily.

  I cursed under my breath. “I’m sorry I broke your window. I didn’t know there were any people here I can give you something I have to repay you.”

  I could barely make him out in the low lighting. He was tall, at least in comparison to the two guys flanking him. “Now there’s an idea. Drop all of your belongings, and we’ll let you leave with your life.”

  I gulped. This wasn’t good. My thoughts were racing, searching for some way to get out of here. I saw movement to my left from the corner of my eye, then more to the right. The one to my left was tall, lanky, and kind of a twitchy looking guy. The one to my right on the other hand was a monster. He had to be six and a half feet tall, and three hundred pounds easy.

  “Lock him up against one of the shelves, and bring his things up to the office,” the man upstairs ordered, and then went back into his office.

  The man to my right frisked me. He found my pistol and tucked it into the backpack, then tied my hands behind my back. He pointed to a large line of shelving against the wall, “Go over there.” The gruff man had a thick black beard and his voice was deep. He sort of reminded me of a lumberjack. I began walking. I had only taken about five or six steps before he kicked me in the back.

  I hit the ground hard, banging my shoulder on the hard concrete. He kicked me in the ribs several times. I didn’t yell or scream, I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. I just winced and grunted. I looked up to the balcony and saw that there was nobody there. I looked over and saw the other guy carrying all my stuff through a door that led to a flight of stairs. I waited for the door to close behind him.

  “Come on Paul Bunyan, is that all you got?” I taunted the large burly man. He stopped for a second and swung his leg back for another kick. I spun around and tripped him with my legs. He was huge, so it took all my strength to bring him down. He hit the ground hard with a dull thud, throwing concrete dust all around. I rolled over and kicked him hard in the head, knocking him out. I stopped and looked up at the balcony and the door leading to the stairs. I didn’t see anybody.

  I coughed a few times, and then got my knife back from the man to cut the rope that tied me up. I slid the knife into my pocket and noticed he had a lighter and an Uzi, so I grabbed the small machine gun. I’d never used one before, but it couldn’t be too difficult if this guy could use it.

  I ran up to the door that the twitchy guy had carried all my stuff in. I took a quick peek through a little window on the door. There were two guys just sitting at a table playing poker or something. Both of them had Uzis.

  I tried to think of some way to pull them out of there and remembered that there were several gas drums near the door. I grabbed the lighter that I’d seen on Paul, and ran back to the other side of the warehouse. It was at least a hundred yards away. I got over there and found that all the drums empty but one. It was about half full. I pushed the drum over and the gas began to pour out. When I was about twenty yards away I flicked the lighter open, making a small flame puff out of the wick. I threw it and ran as fast as I could back to the office side of the warehouse.

  As I ran, the gas exploded blowing the rolling door off the wall, and taking a chunk of the wall with it. The whole warehouse shook, and the force of the explosion almost knocked me off my feet. I sprinted as fast as I could back to the office area, but I heard people yelling ahead of me, so I hid behind a tall stack of wooden pallets.

  Five or six guys ran past me toward the source of the explosion. One of them hopped on a fork lift and picked up a stack of pallets next to the stack I was hiding behind, probably to try to block the hole I made in the door. I leaned around the pallets and aimed the Uzi at the driver. He glanced toward me. His green eyes were staring directly into mine. I pulled the trigger and fired four shots into his chest, killing him.

  The shots were loud, echoing through the warehouse. I ran back to the front where the stairwell was, hiding behind anything big enough to shield me from view. My heart was racing. I’d never killed a person before, at least one who wasn’t attempting to eat me, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Sure that guy who tried to steal my gas, but I didn’t shoot him, he was alive when I left him.

  Voices snapped me back into the moment. They came from near the stack of pallets I’d been hiding behind a second ago. They didn’t sound very pleased. I reached the door and looked through the window above the handle. The goons that were previously in there were now gone.

  “There he is!” I heard someone yell from behind me. I turned and saw two guys running in my direction. I flung the door open and dove in. They fired a few bursts at me, but the door closed just in time to catch the bullets, leaving little dents on the inside of the door.

  I scrambled behind something to cover me when they reached the door, but I was too late. A gun barrel broke through the window and sprayed bullets all around the room. Several of the bullets hit the concrete around me. One of the bullets flew close enough to my ear that I could have sworn it shaved off some hair.

  I returned fire at the door trying to concentrate the bullets at the little window, hoping to distract them long enough to get behind some cover, but the recoil on the gun made the bullets land everywhere but. The noise the shots made was enough for them to stop firing long enough for me to get behind some cover before another spray of bullets flew across the room. Debris was everywhere, chunks of drywall and broken glass coated the floor.

  The stairs were on the other side of the room, but just far enough for it to be a fool’s errand to try to run across the hail of gunfire spraying randomly all over the place.

  I fired at the door again, giving myself some covering fire. A few of the shots must have gone through the window because I heard a yelp of pain. I shook my head trying to get the image of those green eyes out of my vision and ran to the stairs while I could. When I reached them I ran up as fast as I could, hearing the gunfire still being fired downstairs. They must not have noticed I wasn’t in the room anymore.

  At the top of the stairs there was a hallway with several doors on either side. I walked slowly, trying not to make too much noise as I listened to each door, trying to hear if anyone was inside, my ears were still ringing from all the gunfire, so there could have been an opera in one of these rooms for all I knew. The first few were locked anyhow. About three doors down on the right I saw a bathroom, and then I saw what must have been the door that lead to the balcony, judging by the distance from the stairs. I pressed my ear up to it and heard what must have been the leader shouting.

  “How in the hell did he get out?” he asked in a rage.

  “He knocked out Fred when Jeremy brought his stuff up to you,” someone
else’s voice squawked out of a radio.

  “I should have just shot him and tossed his body out to those fuckers outside,” the Leader complained.

  "Well, what are you going to do Wade?” the radio squawked again

  So, the leader’s name was Wade. I checked the clip in the Uzi. It was empty, which did me absolutely no good as he was almost definitely armed.

  “All we can do now is put out the fires, seal the door again, and kill that son of a bitch,” he ordered. “And none of that, ‘bring him to me alive’ bullshit. Just shoot him on sight.”

  “Yes, Mr. Tab. He’ll be dead before you know it.” The radio squawked.

  I opened the door slowly with the Uzi raised, hoping the sight of it would be enough to keep him at bay. I saw my shotgun leaning against the wall directly to my left, and that I was in some type of secretary’s office, not yet in the main office. I glanced through a small window and saw Wade was still talking into the radio looking out his window at the carnage unfolding below, so he didn’t notice that I was now inside as I set the Uzi down and grabbed my shotgun, pulling the pump back to find that it was still loaded.

  The door was only inches from my face. I closed my eyes for a second, taking a deep breath, still seeing those green eyes, filled with surprise and fear. My nerves were racing, but I had to get my backpack, and I wasn’t going to die here, not today. I kicked in the door and fired my shotgun at him. The shot grazed his left shoulder, causing him to drop his radio. He roared out in pain and turned, brandishing his own sawn off shotgun.

  I dove behind a bookshelf as the shot blew a hole in the wall behind where I was standing. Wade fired another shot blowing a hole through the bookshelf, inches to the left of my head. I returned fire with two shots in quick succession, missing with both, but causing him to kick over his computer desk for cover.

  After a few more close calls from both of us, I realized I was out of ammo, and since he wasn’t firing anymore, I figured he must be as well.