by R. J. Spears
Using different approaches would make their numbers seem larger and give the soldiers more targets to cover. Of course, they knew their ruse was thin because they were outnumbered almost three to one and their adversaries were well trained and pissed off soldiers.
They made their final approach, sliding along quietly, in and out of shadows with Jones in the lead. Del took note that Jones moved well for a big man. Scarily well. He wasn’t a jungle cat but was more like a wolf. No, Del thought, more like a werewolf.
Jones made a gesture telling Del to take it slow as they came to an intersection. Bright light spilled in around the corner, feeling frightening and not comforting. Light meant enemies.
Jones peeked around the corner and stared down a thirty-foot hallway into the dining room. Two soldiers stood sentry, but they were failing at their jobs of guarding this approach. All of their attention was to their right as something was in that direction.
Jones strained to listen and heard the moan filter their way. He knew what the soldiers were transfixed by and, for once, he was glad that a zombie was working in their favor. He wished they had more than one undead ally, but controlling more would have been a real bitch since Maggie’s electronic wizardry had vanished.
Now, the show was all in Maggie’s hands. Or so they thought.
Chapter 41
No Exit
We moved ponderously slow, taking baby steps with me practically carrying Kara along as her energy was depleted. I positioned us so that my right foot brushed against the right wall with each step. In the darkness, I felt I needed something to help me keep my bearings. After what Kara had been through, the last thing I wanted was to have her tumble down the hall if I lost my footing. Since I couldn’t carry a flashlight or one of the gas lanterns, we were flying blind. If I had been smarter, I’d have placed one of the lanterns in the hallway to give us some light before we started on our journey. Too bad, all my genius had gotten up and left in the face of being killed and having to see the woman I loved brutalized.
What had happened to Kara ate at me, but it was something I placed in the back of my mind, not wanting to face what Marlow had done to her. I only knew it had been bad. Very bad.
The mind is a tricky little thing. I’m excellent at compartmentalizing, having boxes for fighting, surviving, and one for the people I loved. At that moment, I shut the lid and put a padlock on the people I loved box. I could look in that box again when we survived. Or if we survived.
As we shuffled along, I could still hear gunfire filtering through the walls, muffled pops from smaller guns broken by rips from something bigger. Like before, I suspected that Kilgore had the bigger guns.
We made it to the first turn when I remembered that the next part of the hallway was littered with debris from a partial ceiling collapse.
“We’re coming up on a rough patch,” I said to Kara. “Parts of the ceiling came down from one of the cannon blasts.”
The only thing Kara could do was to grunt out, “Okay.”
I could tell that each step was grueling, but she knew each one was necessary. We continued on. We made it five feet when my foot got caught up on something. I lost my balance and I stumbled forward for two steps, wrenching Kara along as I tightened my grip around her waist involuntarily. It was a small miracle that we didn’t go down, but I managed to keep us upright. She cried out in pain, though, a pitiful sound that caused my soul to ache.
“Sorry,” I said, cursing myself for my clumsiness.
Her breathing was ragged and hard as she sucked in deep breaths against the pain.
“Okay,” she said again because that’s all she could muster.
“Ready to go on?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. Each word cost her something.
I slowed us down to a crawl, kicking at any debris in front of us, hoping to knock it out of the way. Bits and pieces scuttled along the floor with each little kick as I tried to angle it away. We moved agonizingly slow in those moments, but I couldn’t let Kara get hurt anymore. If we went down, I’m not sure she would get back up.
If my memory served me correctly, we were about to come upon another bad stretch. I didn’t know what it was on the floor because of the lack of light, but I could only guess that a part of the grid that held up the drop ceiling had come down. Again, I slowed down, sliding my feet forward slowly until I found whatever it was on the floor and then used my foot to discover its size and shape. This was excruciatingly slow, but it kept us from stumbling again. Inch by inch, I cleared the path or found a way to navigate over it.
In what seemed like an hour later, we made it past the worst part of the debris and I could see the dim light from the fires outside dancing on the walls. Yes, we were moving slow, but the exit was within reach, only twenty-five feet ahead.
“Only a few more feet until we are outside,” I said. What I was going to do when we made it out was beyond me, but it was the small victories, right?
She said nothing, so I kept us moving along at a slightly faster pace because there was less debris and I had some light to see. We cut the distance to the exit down by half and I was feeling quite good about our progress. That’s when a gargantuan form showed up in the doorway, nearly blotting out all the light. And this giant was holding a gun.
Marlow was back.
Chapter 42
Maneuvers
Russell unwound the last few lengths of extension cord off the zombie, freeing its arms. This felt like a very dangerous thing to do, but it was all a part of Maggie’s plan -- as crazy as it was. As was predicted, the zombie immediately tried to turn on him and attack, but Russell already had his right foot firmly planted at the base of the zombie’s spine. As soon as it started to swivel, he shoved as hard as he could, launching the zombie stumbling ahead in the darkness. After three steps it finally lost its balance and fell face first, sliding several more feet on the floor, leaving it in a dim area just fifteen feet from the entrance to the dining hall.
All during this stumble and slide, Russell retreated back to where Maggie hid behind a support beam in deep shadows. He remained completely still, not wanting to attract the zombie’s attention. It was like a small child’s game. If the zombie couldn’t see them, then they weren’t there.
Zombies didn’t come with a lot of smarts and it worked.
Maggie looked like warmed over hell. Blisters had formed around the places where the vest had short-circuited and burnt her skin. Black circles rimmed her eyes, and she it seemed like a stiff breeze would knock her over. Despite feeling like this, Russell saw a mischievous gleam in her eyes. She might not have her electronic sorcery, but she could still control them with cunning and guile.
They both watched as the zombie struggled to get up in the dim light filtering in from the dining hall. It snarled in frustration, but it finally made it back on its feet, swaying back and forth unsteadily. Its head turned back and looked into the darkness where Russell and Maggie hid but saw nothing but blackness. Still, its animal brain, shriveled from the ravages of the zombie virus, knew there was something there. It had just been there and so was the walking meal that kicked it down the hall, but the dissonance of nothing visible confused its depreciated mental capacities.
“Who’s out there?” A loud voice asked from inside the dining hall. This immediately caught the zombie's attention.
Like a dog distracted by a squirrel, it turned toward the voice and the light streaming down the hallway from the dining hall. That voice might means something. Bright lights also attract attention and that’s what happened with this poor zombie as it took a tentative step towards the light. It hesitated for a moment, looked back into the darkness, then turned around and started towards the dining hall, moaning a sad pitiful and discordant song.
“Who the hell’s out there?” Lodwick shouted again, staring along with everyone else into the dark hallway and the moaning sound, accompanied by heavy, sloppy footsteps getting closer.
“Sir, what should we do?” Priv
ate Kepler, one of the soldiers on the outer ring of the room, asked. He and another soldier were charged with guarding the dark hallway where the sound was coming from.
“If it’s a zombie, shoot the shit out of it,” Lodwick responded.
“What if it’s that lady who controls the zombies?” Ferguson asked as he jittered back and forth.
“Then we’ll shoot her, too,” Lodwick said, taking a step forward to get a better look at what was coming down the dark hallway.
“What if she has a whole zombie army?” Ferguson asked, the pitch of his voice raising.
“Get a grip, you pussy,” Lodwick growled and Ferguson looked away. Not for long, though, as he locked his attention onto the darkness and the moaning coming their way.
Kepler and his fellow soldier split up and took opposite sides of the hallway, kneeling and aiming into the darkness as the moaning and footsteps got closer. With their vantage point, they were the first to see the dark outline of the zombie shuffling towards the light. They had faced down hundreds of zombies before, but there was something about this one that unnerved Kepler. Maybe it was the closed space? Maybe it was the way the zombie’s moan echoed off the walls, but he was ready to start blasting no matter what, be it human, dead, or anything else.
“Do you think this will work?” Russell asked in a soft voice.
“It doesn’t have to work completely,” Maggie said in a hushed and raspy tone. “It just has to scare the shit out of them. Now, hush, I have to play my part.” She put a hand on his arm and pushed away from him, but used him as a human crutch.
“You in the dining hall,” she shouted but her voice was ragged and hoarse. She coughed twice and added, “this is the first of my zombie army, come to take you down, unless you release our people.”
The zombie halted its forward progress at the sound of her voice, confused whether it should continue into the light. Maybe it should turn around and find the source of the voice? Voices meant humans, and humans meant food. But lights sometimes meant humans, too.
Its shriveled little brain didn’t know what to do. The earlier voice had come out of the light, but the zombie only saw partial silhouettes by the entryway. But the new voice had come from behind. For several seconds, the zombie shifted back and forth, caught in indecision.
Maggie decided to exploit the zombie’s confusion.
“As you can see, I have complete control of the zombies and that is only one of my undead army. You need to release my people or I will let my zombies lose,” she said, but at the end of the sentence, her words lost definition as she started to cough.
Russell reached out and pulled her from of the center of the hallway. He feared the soldiers might decide to fire blindly into the dark, hoping to zero in on whoever was coughing.
“You don’t sound too good for some kind of zombie overlord,” Lodwick replied.
Maggie took a moment to catch her breath and then said, “Oh, I’m good enough, asshole. Just ask your men on the second floor.” Maggie let that sink in and then added, “Oh wait, they’re dead. Release our people or I release mine.”
“That sounds like a load of shit to me,” Lodwick said, but a wave of fear passed through the soldiers. Ferguson looked like he didn’t know whether he should shit or go blind.
Lodwick nodded at two soldiers guarding another entryway and motioned for them to backup Kepler and the other soldier. They quickly, but quietly started across the dining room towards Kepler. Lodwick shouted, “When it comes to bullets versus zombies, bullets have always won. Bring it on, honey.”
Jones watched the two soldiers guarding their approach leave their stations, and waited to a ten count then motioned for Del to move forward. Together, they moved up the hallway, guns up and ready to fire at anything that moved into the entryway.
Del felt a trickle of sweat stream down his back and he wondered what the hell he was doing, but he knew that his son was in there among the hostages. There was no telling what Lodwick’s intentions were. He was a mean son of a bitch and Del wouldn’t put it past him to massacre everyone in the room. He was surprised that Lodwick hadn’t done it already, but he guessed that Lodwick kept them alive as leverage against any attack.
He felt his mind slip around the fear of his son being killed but shook it off. He and the others would do what they had to. There was no other choice, but going forward.
“It’s working,” Jo whispered to Henry as they watched through a narrow slit at the bottom of the pulled down metal accordion door. This door was mostly closed down onto a stainless steel counter that sat between the kitchen and the dining room. Two soldiers on the other side of the room were on the move toward the hallway where Russell and Maggie were.
Two other soldiers stood outside the accordion door, prohibiting a direct assault, but these two soldiers had their attention in the entryway where the zombie was supposed to enter. Jo tried to take a count of all the soldiers in the room, but she couldn’t see through the circle of Manor people near the center of the room. From the sound of Lodwick’s voice, she could tell that he was inside that circle.
Lodwick may have been a sadistic asshole, but he wasn’t stupid. His arrangement of the hostages was a perfect strategy to neutralize any direct attack. Any aggressors would have to shoot through the people they cared about to get to him. Attacking was a hard calculation because it meant you had to kill your people and while you attacked, he and his men inside the circle could start shooting their hostages at will.
Anxiety gnawed at her. She didn’t see any good way to ensure no one was killed, whatever direction this situation took.
The only hope to reduce casualties was to draw some or most of Lodwick’s men out of the room. The only way to do that was to risk one of their or all of their teams. It as a cold, nasty equation. People were going to die, but she knew they had no other choice.
The only way out was if Maggie’s gambit worked and Jo had little faith in it, other than as a diversionary tactic. At some point, there would have to be some shooting.
For about twenty seconds, other than the soldiers shifting to back-up Kepler and his teammate, nothing happened in the room. A cloud of tension fell upon everyone as the Manor people bunched up together, as if the closer they got, the safer they would be. There were no safe places in the room, except for maybe where Lodwick had positioned himself, inside a ring of hostages, and that was marginal.
There was no safe place in the Manor.
From inside one of the scrums of Manor folks, a young child started to cry, a few broken sobs at first, but then it increased into a wail. A parent or adult tried to shush the child, but somehow that only made it worse and the child’s keening increased in intensity.
That’s all the zombie needed. If it had been confused before on whether to seek out human morsels, then this was the deciding factor. This high pitched noise told it to proceed into the dining room. Hunger always won, and food was inside the room. Full steam ahead was the directive as the zombie shambled toward the dining room and the source of the crying. The zombie felt no pity or empathy for the crying child, only hunger.
It broke out of the dim shadows in ten seconds and was in full view of the four soldiers waiting at the entryway, expectant, yet nervous.
Kepler glanced back at Lodwick, looking for some direction. Lodwick nodded through the crowd of hostages. Kepler returned his attention to the approaching zombie as it shambled toward them, moaning that sad way they do when they were expecting to eat. He brought his rifle up and took aim. The other soldiers took his cue and did the same, but they waited for Kepler to take the first shot.
They had all shot zombies before, but something was different about this one. Something that made him hesitate. Kepler didn’t give a shit about the zombie. A dead zombie was always a good thing. The more of them dead the better, but something deep down inside him told him that this first shot would be different. It would be like it would open a dam on something bad. Something dark. Once the black water started to flow,
it might never stop.
Despite these misgivings, the zombie tipped his hand. It was coming and there was no stopping it. It was going to be on top of them in ten steps. It was act or the damn thing would bite his face off. And maybe there were more to come after it?
Kepler squeezed the trigger and his rifle roared, spitting out bullets and fire. The other soldiers followed suit, opening up with their weapons, filling the hallway with bullets. The tiny, fierce projectiles shredded the zombie, ripping it apart as if its body was a balloon full of blood and gore, spraying all this down the hallway and into the darkness.
Chapter 43
Face-Off
Marlow filled half the entryway, all six feet six of him. His rifle filled the rest. His back was to us and I guessed he was looking back at whatever or whoever was firing away from the parking lot. That would be a natural reaction in my book. Anyone would make the same mistake.
I could have waited for him to turn around to greet us or say, “Hi,” but instead I whipped up my rifle and pulled the trigger. That’s when I got the surprise of my life -- the rifle clicked loudly, but nothing happened. No bullets sped out of the barrel. No bullets slammed into Marlow’s back killing the rotten son of a bitch.
I can tell you what did happen. Old Marlow, probably hyped up by the battle going on was keyed into any sounds and spun around to look at the two of us standing there. Me, with my impotent rifle, devoid of bullets, and Kara, about to collapse.