by SP Durnin
Allen and Kat were in mild shock, eyes glued to the horrors playing out on his flat-screen, narrated by the local perfectly-groomed talking head. Jake bought the television as a birthday present to himself last year. Al had shown up later that day with a new game system he'd sprung on Jake as well. That, along with enough Guinness to fill a bathtub, allowed them to spend the next fifteen hours blowing away alien scum in high-def. The writer turned his TV off and faced the stunned pair.
"That's what's going on," he said. "Al? You get in touch with your dad?"
"He tried to reach me earlier. I had my phone off. They're already on my dad's plane, headed for Alaska. He waited as long as he could, but the...things...were making their way through the airport. He almost clipped one with his right wing taking off. We have a cabin on the southeastern tip up there. Food, water, short wave. They'll be okay." Allen shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and stood up. He looked at Jake and gave him a halfhearted grin. "Wouldn't leave you on your own anyway. You wouldn't last a day without me."
"Your dad's smart. He'll keep them safe." He looked at Kat who was leaning back on the couch, staring at the ceiling. "You alright?"
"Oh, sure." She blinked a few times and stood up, massaging her temple. "Just trying to wrap my brain around...I'm dealing with it."
"Allen," Jake said, "I won't ask you to come with me, but regardless I'm going for Laurel. I don't know if I can get there by myself, let alone back again, but I won't leave her."
Allen nearly flipped. "You prick. You know you don't have to ask. About time you finally did something crazy. Don't know about your timing, but I'm in."
Kat moved forward and hugged Jake tightly. He looked questioningly at his friend who motioned for Jake to wait. He put his arms around Kat and awkwardly patted her on the back as she stood pressed against him. Her eyes were full when she took his face in her hands and kissed him.
"Thank you. You hardly know either one of us." She smiled. "Yep. White Knight for sure."
"Alright, come on." Jake grabbed his battered leather jacket and tossed it to Kat. "Put it on. It's not Kevlar, but it should give you some protection if one of them gets too close. Leather that thick is tough enough to keep you from getting road-rash, so it should be too tough for them to bite through."
"What about you?" Kat shoved her arms through the sleeves.
"I'll fight better without it," he said. "It'd just slow me down."
They ran into the hall and down the stairwell to find George waiting by the lobby security desk.
"All three of ya goin'?" He puffed at his Cuban.
"Al and I are," Jake said. "Kat's…"
"Fucking going with you too!" She gave him a hard look. "Laurel's my best friend and I can take care of myself! Probably kicked more people's butts than you have. I hit the clubs on the weekend, you know. That's survival of the fittest."
Jake gave her a long look then glanced at Allen, who in turn shrugged. "All right, come on." Jake sighed.
George cocked his SPAZ. "Can't let you do it."
Jake stopped dead and the others froze behind him. He'd seen riot guns used before. They could fire as fast as you could pull the trigger. Foster had been a lifer in the Navy. George could turn him into a Jackson Pollock without much difficulty with that weapon.
"Chief," Jake carefully put his hands up, "I'm going. It may not be safe, but I have to reach her. So if you want to stop me...you'll have to shoot me."
Foster looked at Jake for a moment before lowering his riot gun.
"Had ta be sure you were serious." George reached down, pulled a Halliburton case from behind the reception desk, then popped the locks, "But if yer nuts enough to go, take along some firepower."
Inside were a police issue Remington 870 shotgun and a blue steel Desert Eagle. He tossed Allen the pistol. "You know how to shoot?"
"Hey, I play a lot of video games." Allen sighted the weapon away from the others, ejected the magazine, cleared the chamber, and caught the bullet on the fly. After checking the action, he put the round back in the magazine, reinserted it, and dropped the slide. "Modified. Ten in the mag, one in the pipe. Nice."
George grunted. "How about you there, China doll?" he asked holding out the Remington.
Kat smiled, took the shotgun, and gave it a once over. Then she side cocked the damn thing. "My dad was in the service. Kat knows guns."
George grinned at her and turned back to Jake. "Only had a few handy, but I got something real nice for you."
He opened the bottom desk drawer, pulled out a big thigh holster, complete with gun belt and quick release, then passed it to Jake.
Jake thumbed open the locking strap and drew out the most vicious looking handgun he'd ever seen. It weighed a good five pounds, and its massive barrel had what looked like air holes all along the slide.
"What..." He was stunned.
George smiled. "That there's a high impact, multi-caliber repeater. Hammer fer short. Fires forty-five slugs or any twelve-gauge ammo. The top barrel can take a silencer. You don't want to try to use any shot with it on though, or you'll get hit by some blow-back. Only accurate to fifty yards, but you don't wanna be shootin' any farther than that without a rifle anyway."
Jake checked the slide, put the gun back in the holster, then made sure it was tight to his hip as Foster continued.
"The vents on the slides direct the combustion force of the round up at a forty-five, so the barrel doesn't jump. Double action too, so recoil is almost zero. If it bleeds, the Hammer can kill it. Either that or make it hurt so bad, it'll wish it was dead." George helped Kat don bandoleers full of loads for the shotgun, gave Allen an ammo bag full of magazines for the Eagle, and secured two pouches to Jake's Tac harness. "Ten more mags to go with the one in the gun. Holds nine. Aim for the head, not the center mass, and count your damn shots. Get your girl, then get your butts back here, double-time. We'll figure out what ta do then."
Jake tried to thank him, but Foster waved him off. "You wanna thank me, O'Connor? Fine. Don't get dead. Head for the rear gate when you come back. I'm gonna seal the front up tight."
The writer nodded and they made for the door. Foster checked the left, Jake the right as the small group headed out for the Beast.
"Hey."
Jake turned as Foster came just outside the door and looked towards the center of the city.
"You can't save everyone out there. You know that, right? I've got some stuff that can keep us alive. Hell, even kinda comfortable for a short time. Hopefully it won't come to that. The military could get this thing under control if the politicians keep outta it, but that's pretty unlikely. We could be on our own for a while."
Jake knew where he was going. "Every mouth we have to feed is less time we'll be able to hold on."
Foster nodded and puffed his cigar. "Figure we can have...ten or so total. You three, your girl, and Gertie's still here. Wouldn't leave. So we should be in good shape, but don't try to save anybody you don't want in the door. I'm not saying don't help if you can, just remember: your girl's the important thing
Jake knew, right then, that he was going to burn. George was right and he hated the man for it. But he was going to do everything he could to get Laurel to safety. If that meant damning himself then that was a price he'd gladly pay.
Listen to Foster, his back-brain told him. You need to worry about a certain redhead. How would you feel if she ended up dead because you got soft-hearted at the wrong moment and fucked up?
At that moment, Jake hated himself.
Simply nodding to George, he watched as the man went back inside and secured the entrance. Jake turned to find Kat already in the passenger seat, shotgun ready, and Allen behind the wheel of the Beast.
"What are you doing?" Jake asked.
"I'm a way better driver than you are. We're going to have to take the residential streets. I know them like the back of my hand and you don't," Allen explained. "Besides, and if you ever tell anyone I said this I will deny it, you're a much better shot
than I am. It's a sure bet we're gonna run into trouble, and you've had combat training."
Jake tossed Allen the keys and hopped into the bed behind Kat as the Beast roared to life. Allen accelerated off the curb, took a sharp right, then started west towards Kat and Laurel's apartment. Jake prayed fervently she was still there, alive and waiting.
* * *
"Looks like a war zone..." Allen peered cautiously from the alley.
Jake shook his head. "Trust me, this is worse."
Allen was staring at the carnage, so he missed the chill in his friend's voice. There were bodies. A lot of them. Many in pieces. All of them unmoving. From where they huddled it was hard to tell the zombie corpses from those of their victims. There was blood everywhere. Splashed on walls, pooled in the gutters, smeared on nearly every surface.
And the smell.
Most people didn't know the first thing you did after you died was shit yourself. The human sphincter muscles relaxed almost immediately, and you dropped a load in your drawers. Which to Allen, made the question, are you wearing clean underwear? that his mother always posed to him before he went skydiving for the day almost comical.
He pushed thoughts about his family out of his mind. Allen's father was an excellent pilot, and by now they were over the Canadian Rockies headed for Alaska.
Over the last two hours, the unlikely trio had skirted the heart of the city and come in from the north, avoiding the main roads along with any on ramps leading to the I-71 freeway. There had been traffic jams miles long of people fleeing the urban graveyard, which Allen had bypassed using the Beast's crash bumper and a healthy amount of guts.
"The operative word here is empty," Kat offered in a strained voice. Her butt and legs were just beginning to loosen up from repeatedly clenching to hold herself in place. Allen had blown through yards, intersections, and done a superb job of getting them within about a hundred yards of the apartment she and Laurel shared. But damn, her ass was killing her.
The drive had been bad enough, but the dead had become more numerous the farther they traveled. There had been some close calls. The worst had been when they'd crossed through northern Bexley. Its one way streets were glutted with abandoned BMWs and wrecked Lexus coups. At one point Allen had to put the Jeep into a bootlegger's turn to avoid ramming a crowd of about three dozen zombies when they rounded a blind corner. Some of them had latched onto the Beast's bumper as Allen fought to keep the vehicle under control. Then the things began to pull themselves up into the bed.
It had been a tense few minutes as Jake, cursing like a sailor, used the crowbar he'd taken to knock them off. The creatures tended to skid messily along the asphalt as the Jeep gained speed, which Allen found satisfying to the extreme.
He'd always been a Grand Theft Auto fan.
Kat hadn't been able to use the shotgun for fear of hitting him, so Jake had stood in the bed gripping the roll cage, crowbar ready, waiting for a hungry face to come over the side. When one appeared, he'd smash it.
Just like that old arcade game Whack-a-Mole, she thought, but a terrifying and gory version.
"Yeah," Jake said, "if any of these were coming back, they would've done it by now. It's been almost ten minutes. The one the cops shot in the Quicky-Mart sat his ass back up long before that."
They watched the street for another minute before any of them tested that theory, however.
"Allen, I want you to stay here." Jake cut off his friend's protest before it got past his lips. "We need a safety net. That's you. You see anything moving…I mean anything, dead or not, bring the Jeep up in front. Blast the horn on your way. If we're not at the door when you get there, circle the block once, then pick us up. You don't see us after your first lap we won't be coming out. If that happens, head back and link up with George."
"Fuck that," Allen said. "You're coming out or I'm coming in. I'd miss it if you weren't around to pester."
Jake grinned and scanned the street.
"Be careful." Allen put his back against the wall, weapon in hand.
Kat followed the writer as he moved from the alley towards her building. He held the crowbar across his body, hands white-knuckled with eagerness to go! Only the training he'd received during time spent with Britain's finest kept him from darting across the road. Jake knew if he screwed up now, he'd be dead. Allen and Kat would be too, with Laurel shortly thereafter. If she wasn't already. So he walked slowly, eyes scanning back and forth 180 degrees, watching for movement. With Kat in tow, he made his way to the building's entryway, checking under all the cars they passed in case a stray creature happened to be lurking beneath waiting for a meal. He scanned the street again as Kat moved nimbly past him to the door.
"I've got the key." She grasped the handle firmly. "Once we get upstairs, we can…"
"Wait!" Jake hissed.
A zombie fell through door as she pulled it open and landed face up on the landing. Kat jumped back against the railing with a small cry, doing her best to bring the shotgun to bear, as Jake's foot came down on the things chest. The thing had been a fair-haired man in his mid-thirties with an average build and good looks. It was dressed in loose jeans and a Blue Jackets hockey jersey. Its eyes bulged from sunken sockets; it was missing one ear, and a sizable amount of its left shoulder was gone. Its broken nails clawed at Jake's pants as it bit at the air, trying to move his boot that held it to the concrete.
"Shit, that's Paul!" Kat choked out, while Jake used his heel to keep the struggling corpse prone. "He works at Sounds and Suds Bar and Laundry!"
Jake's face was pale with fear. He swung the crowbar two-handed, bringing it down again and again, smashing the things skull like a cheap vase. Half-congealed blood and brain matter splattered across the steps as he pounded the zombie into oblivion. He knew he was losing it, but he couldn't stop. Kat finally had to pull him away from the body after he'd turned its head into a pasty mess. Jake came to his senses with her shaking him by one arm and begging him to stop.
"You need to keep it together!" She urged.
When he finally answered, his voice was raw. "It was inside…Kat, it was inside!"
Her eyes widened in understanding as Jake switched the crowbar to his left hand. Holding it chisel point out like a rapier, he drew the enormous handgun Foster had given him. Mouth drawn up in a snarl, he motioned for her to get the door. Kat readied her shotgun, and when he nodded she quickly jerked the door open.
The hallway smelled like an abattoir. Blood was still tacky on the walls. The floor was slick with it. Three of the dead were strewn along the stairs, all in various stages of dismemberment. Each showed gaping cuts, along with whatever damage had caused them to turn. Nothing moved, nothing breathed.
With the cry of a wounded animal, Jake bounded up the stairs, taking them four at a time. His vision had gone red, like the wasted life smeared across the hardwood boards beneath his boots. He didn't feel his feet as he flew up the steps. He didn't see the walls around him. There was a roaring in his ears and then the door was right there, only a few yards away.
Jake sprang forward, body going horizontal five feet above the floor, and with every bit of force he could muster, he threw his shoulder into the door. Kat's eyes widened in shock at the slightly mad view he presented as she topped the landing.
He turned her door into kindling. It flew off its hinges after splitting in half. From Kat's vantage point, it all but exploded. Jake went through the door, changing it into a cloud of oaken debris on the fly. He flew on, impacting against the wall inside hard enough to leave the imprint of his shoulder in the plasterboard. Then he dropped, half stunned, to the floor followed by most of the doorjamb. Kat had the Remington slung over her shoulder, and was helping Jake out of the wreckage when he saw Laurel.
She stood wide-eyed with surprise in the living room, gripping a Roman gladius that looked extremely sharp; it was still soaked with blood. The weight of the weapon caused the slim, hard muscles in her arms to stand out in gloriously feminine definition and, jud
ging by the ease with which she held the blade, she could clearly use it. She'd pulled her wavy, red hair back into a single braid that hung down her back, keeping all but one rogue lock out of her eyes. She wore white leather pants with reinforced knees and hips. They hugged her legs, just covering the tops of well-used hiking boots. A large backpack also sat on the couch.
"Jake? Kat?" She lowered her sword as she took in the shotgun and bandoleers crisscrossing her friend's bosom. "You look like Pancho Villa."
"Laurel, I'm so glad you're okay!" Her roommate dashed forward to give her a quick hug, then back again to help the still groggy Jake to his feet. Once he was able to stand on his own, leaning heavily against the wall, Kat was all business. "I'll never harass you about going to all those Ren Fairs again! Alright. Gimme five minutes and we're outta here!"
She dashed to her bedroom.
Once inside, Kat grabbed her own hiking pack, the one Laurel had insisted she have before they went camping one weekend. She stuffed in most of her underwear, including her sports bras, socks, jeans, and few pairs of workout tights. She jammed in some tee shirts, a sweatshirt and a short silken Kimono style robe that she'd never had the chance to wear. Granted, there probably wasn't going to be much time for nookie in the foreseeable future—zombie apocalypse and all that—but it never hurt to plan ahead.
Thinking of which, she grabbed her handcuffs and her massager with variable speed action, considered it for a moment, shrugged, then dropped it back in the drawer and took all six boxes of condoms instead.
She also took her grandfather's sword.
* * *
Out in the living room, Laurel was staring open-mouthed at Jake as he attempted to shake the last few spots from his vision. Her expression was carefully neutral as his eyes cleared and he pushed off the wall towards her. He stopped a couple of feet away, face showing obvious relief.