AniZombie 3

by Ricky Sides

  Dana took the rifle and ammunition with her up the stairs to the second floor of the house and entered a bedroom with a window overlooking the front yard. She locked the door to prevent anyone from entering the room. Then she opened the curtains, and backed away from the window. She sat on the bed so that she could observe the yard without the risk of being spotted.

  Dana checked the rifle and saw that it was loaded. Next, she opened the boxes of ammunition and dumped the contents onto the bedspread beside her. She experimented with unloading and loading the rifle a couple of times to ensure she knew the proper procedure. She had watched John working with his often enough during her brief stay with the marauder that she was sure she could handle the task. Then Dana settled down to wait.

  As she waited, she rummaged through her pack and pulled out a couple of generic cans of spaghetti and meatballs, as well as a canteen that was filled with water. She was so hungry that she didn’t mind eating the food cold.

  As Dana consumed a meal that she would have disdained as unfit for human consumption prior to the zombie outbreak, she kept her eyes on the road in front of the house. She finished the first can, but had only eaten a small portion of the food in the second when she saw Shaunna and the zombies following her come jogging into view.

  She set the unfinished can of food aside and removed the scope covers from the rifle. She toggled off the safety and continued to observe as the zombies ran down the road. Soon, they passed beyond her range of vision and Dana breathed a sigh of relief. However, that feeling of liberation from fear was short-lived. Less than a minute later, Shaunna reappeared, leading her zombie minions back toward the house.

  Dana voiced a very unladylike curse as she sighted in on the first zombie she saw in her scope and fired the rifle. She had the pleasure of seeing the male zombie’s head snap back, and then it fell to the ground. “Not bad. It must be sighted in then,” she muttered to herself as she worked the bolt and chambered another round.

  Out in the yard, the zombies had all stopped when Dana fired the first round. They were looking for the source of the gunfire. Only Shaunna was looking up toward the second floor when Dana fired her second round. This time, she aimed at her arch nemesis, but Shaunna had spotted her at the last moment and rushed forward, causing Dana’s shot to miss her.

  Dana cursed again as she worked the bolt. Shaunna was out of her range of vision, but numerous other zombies were out there that she could still target, which is what she did. One by one, she killed another three zombies, and then she reloaded her rifle.

  She had to move closer to the window in order to continue firing at the zombies that were still coming into the yard. She managed to kill another three before the rest of them made it under the porch roof of the house. Dana couldn’t fire at them from her current position. She reloaded her rifle and went to the door of the bedroom.

  Dana’s options had now become limited. She had acquitted herself well against Shaunna’s minions to this point, but now everything had changed. She had locked the doors that gave entry into the home, but some of the zombies could have broken in while she was firing at the ones in the yard. She had to make a decision quickly. If some zombies were in the house, then her best plan of action would be to wait where she was with her rifle aimed at the door. However, if none were inside the house yet, it would be better to get to the staircase where their approach would be more restricted. Between her pistol and the rifle, she stood a good chance of holding the stairs because they would have to approach one at a time.

  Dana’s heart was beating hard as she pressed her ear to the door and listened. She thought she heard glass breaking downstairs and imagined that some of the zombies were coming through one of the windows.

  There was no more time to waste. Dana unlocked the door and took a step back, bringing the muzzle of her rifle up to cover the entryway. Only then, did she reach out with her free hand and open the door. She took another step back in case a zombie was waiting out in the hallway, but nothing approached her.

  Now that the door was open, she heard crashing sounds coming from the ground floor. Dana moved out into the hallway and headed for the staircase. When she reached the head of the stairs, she aimed the rifle at the closed door at the bottom of the stairs and waited.

  She had only been in position for a few seconds when Dana heard Shaunna scream in rage. It sounded to her as if the female zombie was near the door at the bottom of the stairs. She waited tensely for the door to be thrown open, but nothing happened. Silence reigned in the house. As Dana waited, her rifle seemed to get heavier. She wasn’t accustomed to handling firearms for long periods at a stretch. Standing poised and ready to fire the rifle put an uncomfortable strain on her body. Her arms began to tremble, and despite the direness of her situation, the muzzle of her weapon began to droop.

  Dana pointed the muzzle of her rifle up and let the butt of the stock sit on her thigh in order to give her arms a brief break as she waited. As the zombies moved past the house earlier, she had counted at least fifteen. That count seemed down from her earlier encounter with them, but zombies were prone to getting distracted and wandering off in pursuit of other prey. She had killed seven so far, which left at least eight unaccounted for at the moment. “I’m about halfway there,” she muttered to herself, which prompted another scream from down below.

  There was a bang on the door leading to the staircase and Dana realized that her habit of talking to herself had just given her away. She didn’t know it, but the zombies had been confused as to her location because her scent permeated the tight confines of the house. Therefore, they hadn’t known how to reach her. However, when she spoke, her voice gave her away.

  The pounding on the door increased. Dana brought her rifle to bear on it and waited. She was tempted to fire through the door blindly, but unless she hit them in the head, she would only wound the zombies. She had sufficient ammunition to deal with the crisis, but not if she wasted it by wounding the undead instead of killing them. She needed to make every shot count.

  The pounding on the door grew more intense. The sounds wore on Dana’s frayed nerves, but she waited and held her fire. She was determined to survive this encounter and make good her escape from the area. The center of the door panel split from the force of the blows being rained upon it. Then a bloody fist burst through the wood and waved about, the fingers opening and closing as the zombie that was reaching through the broken portal tried in vain to grasp her.

  Despite her determination to wait for precise head shots, Dana fired blindly at that point. Her shot succeeded in causing the arm to be withdrawn, and then she heard the sound of a body tumbling to the floor. Almost at once, another zombie began beating at the broken door, and it succeeded in enlarging the hole. That one bent down and placed its face in the hole in its efforts to locate her, and Dana shot it in the forehead for its trouble. Its body collapsed and the head slipped from view.

  “Six to go!” Dana shouted gleefully as she worked the bolt of her rifle. Almost as if in response to her victorious tone of voice, Shaunna answered with another scream.

  A hard impact struck the door, shattering it down the weakened center and widening the hole substantially. “Come on, you bitch! Show yourself!” Dana taunted. Another blow struck the door, knocking out a loose section. Dana frowned in consternation because no zombie had presented itself as a target, and the hole in the door was increasing in size with every blow. From the appearance of the strikes and the damage that followed, it was apparent to her that the zombie had to be standing to the left of the door. She decided to reload the rifle, even though it wasn’t empty, because she knew that the zombies would soon render the door useless as an obstacle. When that happened, she wanted to have a full load of ammunition in the rifle.

  She was still loading the rifle when a zombie darted through the destroyed door and started up the stairs moaning in anticipation. Dana had been forced to open the bolt to load the top feed internal magazine. When the zombie started up the stai
rs, she closed the bolt, chambering a round. She brought the rifle to her shoulder and fired, but her shot was rushed and she hit the small female zombie in the chest, knocking her back against the remains of the door. The impact was enough to complete its destruction. Pieces of the wood fell back out onto the floor along with the undead creature.

  Dana chambered another round in the rifle in satisfaction. That feeling of victory vanished when the zombie raised her head and moaned as she struggled to crawl back onto the staircase. “Die, bitch!” Dana shouted as she squeezed the trigger sending a .270 Winchester hollow point bullet through her forehead.

  “Five to go! How’d you like that, freak! I’m killing all your friends!” Dana taunted angrily as she worked the bolt to chamber another round.

  Silence greeted Dana’s outburst. It stretched out and lasted for a good two minutes. Her rifle was beginning to weigh on her arms again when another scream sounded. Dana thought it came from out in the yard this time. She heard zombies below moaning as they moved through the house. It sounded as if they were walking away from the area near the door she had been defending.

  Dana waited a few moments, but then she followed a hunch and went back to the bedroom she had used earlier. She entered the room and locked the door behind her. If she was wrong about what was happening, the zombies would still have to get through a doorway to get to her, and at this point, she wouldn’t be much worse off than she had been before coming back to the bedroom.

  She made her way to the window in time to see Shaunna leading the remaining zombies away from the house. Dana felt a giddy sense of victory because she had never seen zombies break off an attack. She brought the rifle stock to her shoulder and fired at the retreating zombies. One of the males at the rear of the group went down and started dragging itself after the others. Dana fired another round, which struck the downed creature in the back. Her third shot hit it in the back of the head. She shifted her rifle and trained it on Shaunna. She was surprised to see that the female zombie had stopped and was staring at her with anger evident on her face. She opened her mouth and screamed in defiance.

  Dana pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. She remembered that she hadn’t chambered another round after her last shot, but when she worked the bolt, she discovered that she had run out of ammunition. She struggled to reload her rifle. She was still inexperienced with the process with the weapon she was using, so it took her several seconds. When she brought the scope back up to continue her fight with the zombies, she saw the last of the group disappearing behind some roadside vegetation.

  Dana felt elated. She had survived against at least fifteen zombies, and she had managed to kill eleven of them. That was a significant achievement. “You’d better run, you bitch!” she yelled at the retreating forms that vanished before she could target them.

  The woman was riding high on her sense of victory over an archenemy. The female zombie had stalked her for days, and in the final confrontation, she had turned tail and run. Dana laughed in relief. “And to think I was afraid of her!” she remarked.

  She spotted the remains of her dinner in the can she had set aside only minutes earlier to take on the zombies. She eyed it dubiously, but then she shrugged and sat down to eat.

  As she ate the remains of her meal, Dana watched the road to see if the zombies would return. She was pleased to see that they did not.

  Now Dana had some decisions to make. She had defeated the zombies, and driven them away. However, she was well aware that her rifle fire would attract others that she had not intimidated. That meant it was dangerous to stay where she was. It was also getting late. Only a couple of hours remained before dark, and she did not want to be out in the open after dark.

  Dana threw the empty can in the corner. She placed her rifle beside her pack, and then she walked over to the corner of the room to relieve herself before she left the home. She gave no thought to soiling the house. After all, it wasn’t her place, and the owners weren’t likely to voice any complaints.

  She adjusted her clothing and shouldered her pack. With her rifle in her hand, Dana unlocked and opened the door to the bedroom, and then she stepped out into the hall.

  Shaunna lunged toward Dana as she stepped out of the bedroom. Her right hand darted out and brushed the woman’s rifle aside. A look of fury was on her face as she snarled at Dana who stood frozen in fear. The Alpha female had made it back to the house while Dana had been reloading earlier. Shaunna had spent days tracking down the human who had taken her anizombie from her. Now she intended to destroy the woman who had hurt Lily.

  Dana shrank away from Shaunna. She tried to turn and get back into the bedroom, but Shaunna grabbed her arm and spun her back to face her. She then snapped her head toward her intended victim and bit the side of her face.

  Dana screamed in pain and fear as the Alpha zombie bit a bite-sized chunk of flesh out of her face. She tried to bring her rifle to bear again, but Shaunna batted it aside so forcefully that she knocked it out of Dana’s hands. Dana tried to draw her pistol from her waistband, but once again, Shaunna seemed to be a step ahead of her. She hit her with her fist so hard that she propelled Dana into a wall.

  Dana slid down the wall, dazed by the powerful blow of the Alpha female. Shaunna screamed her rage once more, and then she pounced on the dazed woman and began to tear into her body in earnest with her teeth and nails.

  Dana’s screams lasted for several minutes before she grew silent and Shaunna broke off her attack, leaving her barely alive. The Alpha female held Lily’s head up and showed her Dana’s broken and bloody body. She crooned encouragement a final time, and then she screamed a call to her minions. Soon they appeared by her side. She stepped out of the way and pointed at Dana.

  The lesser zombies that remained with Shaunna were hungry. They stared down at Dana and moaned.

  “No, no more, please,” a barely conscious Dana pleaded.

  The zombies ignored her pleas and reached out to grab various limbs. Dana whimpered at first as she felt their teeth sink into her flesh, but then she became more alert and began to scream in earnest.

  Shaunna stroked Lily’s head and crooned as she rocked back and forth and held Lily close to the feeding zombies. She was content now. Her vengeance was complete.

  Epilogue.

  “How’s Ox?” Herb asked as he struggled to be alert despite being under the influence of the strongest pain medications the doctor had available. He had been through several hours of surgery.

  “How’s Ox?” Erma said as her eyes filled with tears. “You almost died and the first question you ask is how your dog is doing?” She shook her head in wonder. She wasn’t annoyed at her husband. She was just surprised at his priorities. She had anticipated his first question would be about his own condition. Such as, did I lose my leg, or will I live. She sniffed and blew her nose on a rag she took from her pocket. “He’ll live, dear. Amy and Randy worked with him. It took almost as many stitches to patch him up as it did you. Both of you will have a long recovery.”

  “I’m glad he made it,” Herb said. “I was worried about him.” He closed his eyes as sleep threatened to overtake him, but then he forced them open again and said, “What about my leg? Will I lose it?”

  “Oh, so now you think to ask me that question,” Erma said. She shook her head in amazement. “Ezra says you’ll keep your leg, but you’ll probably walk with a limp for the rest of your life. Just how much mobility you regain depends on several factors, not the least of which is your own willpower.”

  “Then I’ll walk again,” Herb said with a contented expression on his face.

  “Of course, you will, buddy,” Randy said. He had just walked into the room.

  “I think this can wait, Randy,” Erma said protectively.

  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” Randy replied in a hushed tone of voice. “I just wanted to see how he’s doing. I’ve been so worried about him.”

  “You weren’t going to say anything about what?” Herb asked
.

  Randy looked to Erma to take the lead. She sighed and said, “Me and my big mouth. I guess you may as well tell him. He’ll have to find out sooner or later.”

  Randy nodded in agreement and said, “We were burying the dead marauders that were left behind by their buddies. I had the men check their possessions for anything of intelligence value. Jason found some photographs. Apparently, one of John’s men was interested in his woman. He made a couple of pictures of her with John, kissing and hugging, but several more of her standing alone.”

  “So?” Herb asked in the silence that followed.

  “The woman was Dana Rainey,” Randy said.

  Herb cursed and tried to sit up, but a wave of pain hit him hard, causing him to collapse on the bed, sweating.

  “Don’t do that,” Erma said as she went to his side with concern evident on her face.

  “This explains things,” Herb said bitterly. “I should have voted for death for that woman. I screwed up.”

  “We defeated them,” Randy countered. “Badly. They lost dozens of men. Sure, we had several people wounded, but we kicked their asses.”

  “Yeah, but how many other outfits will she bring to our gates?” Herb queried.

  “You think she’ll try again?” Randy asked, paling at the thought.

  “Don’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I suppose she…”

  “Randy, you’re needed at the gate,” one of the guards said as he stuck his head in the room.

  “Okay, I’ll be along in a minute,” Randy replied.

  “I’m sorry, but this can’t wait. You’d better come now,” the guard said insistently.