Keep Your Crowbar Handy

by SP Durnin

  Whatever she was going to say next was lost, because as Kat began to move away Jake yanked her firmly back again. His arm was still wrapped around her from behind and—something neither of them had noticed until that moment—his left hand was fully cupping her right breast. He'd been too worried about the bullets coming their way and she had been too afraid he'd catch one protecting her (hence the frag grenade), to realize how intimately they were entwined.

  "That's not funny," he said quietly, becoming even more infuriated because the woman was taking how she'd almost died far too casually for his liking. Said fact caused Jake's hand to tense slightly and she tried to squirm away.

  "Um, Jake? Your hand?" Kat said half-jokingly, patting his arm, expecting him to snatch it from her boob while stuttering a blushing apology. Like normal.

  Instead, he caught her other wrist with his blood covered right hand, brought it down against the outside of his thigh and didn't release her breast. He gripped it tighter.

  Kat gasped and let her head fall back against his shoulder, her fingers bunching the fabric of his pants as they curled into a fist.

  "You need to be more careful," Jake breathed against her ear. "If you don't, your luck is eventually going to run out. Do you expect me to handle that?"

  "You'd be fine," Kat said unevenly, turning her head away, "Laurel…"

  His arm jerked, yanking her skyward roughly. Kat's back arched, causing her buttocks to tighten against his groin, as a high whine forced its way from her throat. Her hand, previously gripping his pants released and spread its fingers painfully wide, as her other pulled at Jake's arm in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure on her breast.

  "Promise me you'll be more careful," he demanded. His hand squeezed tighter.

  Kat was trying to come off the ground, straining as she rose from one tiptoe to the other. Her eyes skewered shut and her teeth clenched. While Jake couldn't tell through her shirt and bra, her nipple had tightened painfully, causing her breath to come in short gasps as her body quivered.

  "Jake, I… I can't…" Her brain couldn't make her mouth work properly. His hand gripping her breast was absolutely maddening. "Jake…"

  His grip tightened further. "Promise. Me."

  She was almost panting, either with pain or desire or both. The only thing in her world just then, was the feeling of Jake's hand on her, his arm around her, his breath in her ear. Kat could wheedle, threaten, finagle, pout and (in a pinch) kick-ass with the best of them. At that moment however, if he'd asked her for... well, anything. A kiss, to strip, for sex, for oral. Anything. She would've obliged him, willingly.

  "I promise, okay? I promise!" Kat gasped, desperate for him to let her go before it prompted her to take action. Action like ripping his goddamn clothes off, shoving him to the ground, and seeing how many positions they could experiment with before the others came upstairs looking for them.

  The writer slid his hand away and she couldn't decide whether to feel relieved or disappointed. While Kat tried to puzzle that out, Jake passed both arms under her ribs and held her. She reached back over her head and ran her hand through his unruly hair, taking great pleasure at feeling him tense when she bumped her buttocks backwards against him.

  "Damn it, you're complicating my life," he grated out in exasperation. "Why do you do crazy things like that?"

  "Just keeping you on your toes," she replied smiling. "I have to remind you I'm here every so often, so you don't take me for granted."

  Jake snorted. "Yeah, like that could ever happen."

  Kat smiled and ran her hands along the outside of his arms. He didn't react as she accidentally passed over the shallow wound across his forearm, but she felt the moisture and her hand was soaked red when she lifted it for a look.

  "Shit, you're bleeding!" she exclaimed, pushing his arms from her waist and raising his hand. The wound ran diagonally from the outer edge of his wrist up over the meat of his forearm. Her eyes widened as she watched blood drip slowly off and join more on the concrete floor beside his boot. "Aw, man. Laurel's gonna kill me."

  "I'm fine, thanks," Jake said wryly.

  "Don't be such a baby." Kat took a handful of his vest and started for the stairwell. "Let's go see how Al's doing and get Elle to wrap you up. Did you hit your tracker? "

  As they hurried down the stairs, Jake activated the beacon in the left seam of his Tac-vest. Since they'd brought Rae's hand-held Geiger counter sized tracking unit, they'd come up with a way to call for the Foster and the redhead, sans using their radios. Secure or not, there were forty (or more) of the raiders roaming around out there somewhere, and while killing five or ten of them was one thing, eight times that number would present something of a problem. George and Laurel would see his signal activate on Rae's monitor, load into the Hummer, and head for the front gate to pick them all up.

  The two hurried down to where Elle and Maggie helped Allen painfully regain consciousness, and the slim man gave them a swollen-lipped smile.

  Well, at least none of his teeth are missing, Jake mused.

  "Hey," Al said weakly. "How's my hair?"

  Jake laughed. "Good, but you've got something on your face. Oh wait... it's your face."

  "But my hair's good?"

  Allen was sitting with his back to the wall with Maggie on one side, keeping him upright. The blonde EMT had a hand around his slim shoulders supporting him, as Elle applied butterfly bandages to the cuts on his face.

  Jake crouched beside his friend. "You look like shit."

  "Yeah, but at least I don't smell like it." Allen replied. "What did you do? Go for a swim in a Port-a-John?"

  "Close," Jake said ruefully. "I take it from your oh-so-flattering knuckle facial there, you were your normal, charming self?"

  Al gave a dismissive sniff. "No big deal. That bunch were pansies. Every one of them hit like a girl."

  "You should've seen it. They were so pissed off when Allen wouldn't tell them anything. He just kept cracking jokes about their mothers. And their sexual preferences. I thought the one that beat on him was going to have a stroke." Maggie put her other hand lightly to his blood-splattered shirt. "Funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. And the bravest."

  "I'm so jealous," Kat said, trying to take the slim man's mind off Elle closing up yet another gash in his forehead. "I've wanted to slap you around for months."

  "Thanks." Allen chuckled and winced.

  Elle finished smoothing the last bandage on his face. "We can move him to the Hummer once Laurel and Foster get here. I'm pretty sure there's no internal damage."

  "Nurse? Why does it burn when I pee?" Allen quipped.

  Elle rolled her eyes and started packing up her med-kit.

  "They took Karen away." Jake turned to Maggie. The muscular woman's face was filled with worry and self-recrimination.

  "When?"

  "Early yesterday morning," she said, her eyes haunted. "It was just after… just after I killed one of them."

  She was clearly uncomfortable talking about that, so he let the comment pass for the moment. "What about Heather?"

  Both Maggie and Jake's friend went silent.

  Allen was the one who eventually told them the news. "She tried to run. They only tied Maggie and me up when they took us, after their attack at Rae's. When the convoy got here, she just jumped for the door of the armored car before the guards knew what was happening and headed for the tree line to the south. They were yelling for her to stop. Some tried to catch her, but thanks to Foster's boot camp he put us through she was leaving them in the dust. She could run, man. The one in charge, that Skinhead bastard, he's the one who told them to shoot her."

  The slim mechanic's sad eyes were miles away as he relived the moment. "At least, it was quick. Half the convoy opened up on her. Probably hit her a dozen times in the first second. She didn't even have a chance to cry out. They sent a man out to check her, but Heather was already dead. They just left her where she fell. The raiders joked about some of the creatures roami
ng around out there last night. I… I don't think we should try to bury... there won't be much left."

  "Al, I… God-fucking-damnit." Jake stared numbly at the floor.

  "It's not your fault," he croaked, wiping blood away from his mouth. The split on his bottom lip had opened again prior, when Elle applied some topical disinfectant, and was seeping slowly as he spoke. "I know you came as soon as you could. Hell, I can't believe you came in to get us at night. With all those things around? Always said you had big ones, pal o' mine. Now, brains? That's another story."

  "We set up a distraction." Jake closed his eyes and tried to keep his voice from shaking with rage. "There aren't many left nearby now, so…"

  Allen grabbed his friend's arm with a bloody hand. "Exactly. You found a way. The raiders are the ones responsible for Heather's death. Not you."

  Maggie stared coldly at the bodies strewn around the camp-grill in the motor pool. "And they're the ones that paid for it. I hope the bastards have fun in Hell."

  Jake, still feeling like he'd failed completely, helped Allen to his feet and supported his friend as he stood wobbly. Kat took the lead as they moved through the building again and back out into the grounds. Even though they knew all the raiders to be dead, the party moved carefully until they took position beside the entrance and waited for the others to arrive in the Hummer. There were sure to still be creatures in the area. No matter what kind of lure they devised, nothing would be one-hundred percent effective at drawing them away. That had been evident during the wait (and the wet, disgusting crawl), prior to rescuing their friends. Even with the cars running two miles distant at the abandoned dealership, the sound of the Humvee motoring through the empty streets had been enough to draw the odd zombie to their location. The survivors had found it necessary to put almost thirty of the creatures to rest, before engaging in Fosters reckless rescue plan. The things would be a constant danger regardless of location, until Jake and his friends could make it to the hopeful safety of the Rockies.

  "Is that the field where...?" Kat didn't finish the sentence, but stood instead staring out at the overgrown expanse holding her MP5.

  Maggie nodded. "That's it."

  Anger, rage, unreasoning hatred, none of them described what moved through the writer, just then. Jake waved for Maggie to take Al and told the others to stay by the gate. Then he went back into the offices.

  The Humvee was bouncing up the road when he reappeared, carrying the bound raider Kat had neutralized from the second floor. As the others loaded in and helped Allen climb stiffly through the rear passenger door, Jake had Foster drop the vehicle's rear gate and shoved the unconscious man in beside the supplies. He wasn't gentle.

  "What's with that one?" George asked, as he helped him secure the tailgate again.

  "I'm going to find out where they took Karen," Jake said hotly, "and then, we're going to get her back."

  Laurel rounded the corner of the Hummer carrying a pair of fatigues and a black T-shirt (surprising how many of them he seemed to go through), so Jake stripped off his slime-coated, garments and quickly rinsed off what he could of the muck with water from his canteen. Foster and Laurel watched the area while he dressed again, telling them quickly what happened inside the facility, but no zombies made an appearance.

  Jake missed Kat hiding a smile as she watched him change in the passenger side mirror. She could only see his back (half of it anyway), but even that much set her heart racing. Her hand clenched on the pommel of the sword resting across her legs and itched to touch him. If there was ever a time that Kat envied her red-haired friend, it was at that moment.

  She stayed where she was while George slid into the driver's seat and brought the Hummer to life again. Jake and Laurel hastily climbed into the turret to hold onto one another, and the safety rail behind the mini-gun, as Foster set the vehicle in motion. It was a little cramped with seven people inside so, since the two were going to snuggle together at some point over the return trip anyway, they'd opted to enjoy the late-night air above. Besides, Jake still had a bit of an aroma about him, from his crawl through the ditch.

  Laurel couldn't have cared less. She simply breathed through her mouth.

  Between kisses, that is.

  * * *

  Jake's rescue party almost made it back to the safety of their Wilmington airport refuge.

  Even though angry-looking cloud cover had moved in as they'd retrieved Allen and Maggie from their captors, their spirits were high. When the front finally began spitting rain down against the Hummer's windshield, they'd all been understandably upbeat. Jake and Laurel even remained standing in the vehicle's turret, ignoring the warm rain as it quickly soaked their clothing and upper bodies. It seemed that finally, even though they were hip-deep in the apocalypse, their luck was beginning to improve.

  They really should've known better.

  They should have remembered the first rule when it came to dealing with the hungry, mobile dead.

  Nowhere was safe.

  Foster had backtracked their route, eventually winding east around the township and had just crested the Rombach Road overpass when he slammed his foot down on the brake pedal. The old warrior's hands clenched white-knuckled tight around the steering wheel as he fought their ride into a controlled skid along the wet pavement. The vehicle's all-terrain tires slid noticeably as its wheels locked and it skewered sideways, slamming Elle, Maggie, and Kat against their seat-belts. Allen, now blissfully unconscious from his injuries and a liberal application of Morphine, was tossed roughly about on the floor where he lay.

  Jake and Laurel still stood in the Hummer's turret, enjoying the rain and the offsetting warmth each provided the other. When Foster suddenly braked, Jake managed to spin his redhead away from the roof's lip, but his lower back bore the brunt of their impromptu halt as it smashed into the thick steel. There was a moment of impact, followed by a sudden and nauseating amount of pain. Jake managed to retain consciousness, but it was a near thing. He felt as if someone had smacked him across his back with a metal plate, which was basically what had just occurred.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, Jake gently pushed Laurel away a bit and quickly checked her for injuries. While dazed and rattled by the sudden stop, she seemed a darned sight better than he felt. Jake silently wished for some Morphine himself, then decided he'd have a very pointed talk with George about the necessity of Warning Your Damn Passengers Prior To Sudden Stops.

  "Oh, shit," Foster growled, staring out through his door's half-lowered window.

  Elle leaned forward to get a look at the road ahead over his shoulder. "Oh, shit?"

  "Oh, shit!" Kat's eyes bugged from their sockets.

  Jake turned and, gazing over the vehicle's roof saw Zombies.

  Hundreds and hundreds of zombies.

  The stumbling horrors were packed almost shoulder-to-shoulder as they shambled along, moving towards the gawking survivors in what could only be termed a fucking massive pod of hungering evil. Jaws dropped open across the leading rank of creatures and dark, brackish drool fell from their lips as they anticipated feeding on fresh human flesh.

  "Back-back-back-back-back!" Jake pounded his fist on the Hummer's roof, emphasizing haste. Ignoring the sharp throbbing along his spine, he drew the hulking pistol at his hip, took aim, and obliterated the nearest creature. Fetid grey matter splattered the surrounding corpses with stink-infused rot as the zombie's head disappeared, pulverized by a .12 gauge slug hurled from the barrel of Jake's Hammer repeater.

  Others began stumping towards them on uncoordinated feet as George fought with the gearshift. The older man let loose a truly vile string of curses, popped the clutch, spun tires on the wet asphalt before gaining traction, then sent the Hummer roaring into reverse.

  "Christ! Where did they all come from?" Elle already had her rifle in hand and racked the bolt, insuring a ready round waited in its chamber.

  "Who gives a shit?" Foster snapped, driving by the rearview mirror on the Humvee's windshie
ld. He cranked the wheel left, sending them into a tailgate-leading power slide. "No way we can fight through 'em, an' there's no alternate route to the airport's rear gate! We sure as hell can't lead these things back to the hangar and our people, either! A group that size would knock our perimeter fence flat in no time an' we'd be screwed right in the ass! Fuck-fuck-fuck!"

  Jake's thoughts were moving at warp speed. Noting the nervous expression on Laurel's face as they shot back the way they'd come, he wracked his brain for some kind of plan.

  They could call Rae and the rest of their group, tell them to bug-out and join up somewh—

  No, that wouldn't work. They couldn't afford to leave the airport. The creatures would doubtlessly notice the Mimi long before it reached the fence line, making it impossible to secure the gate again. Jenner should have the King-Air prepared by now and getting his friends to Pecos would be impossible without the plane.

  Wait! Rae could use their massive, Pepto-pink transport to mash the crowd flat and…

  That one was a wash too. Even though the Mimi was zombie-proof, the creatures would still undoubtedly enter the airport. They'd lose possession of both their temporary hiding place and the King-Air until they'd eradicated every last straggler of the horde, and who knew how long that could take? Or if they could even attempt to fight the possibly-overwhelming number of left-over maggot-heads that would be wandering around inside the fence line?

  No, they had to lead the enormous herd of mobile dead away from the airport gates to insure their hiding place wouldn't be attacked. For that they needed...

  "Ah, crap. Here we go again," Jake mumbled, shaking his head in resignation. "Maggie, pass me my rifle and hand me up some of those spare magazines from the ammo box under your seat."

  "What are you thinking?" Laurel asked, and sent a few rounds into the mass of bodies from her own M4. One merely blew the arm from one of the creatures in a messy explosion of bodily fluids, but her other two shots entered skulls and dropped a pair of them in their moldy tracks. Kat leaned out from her own window beside the navi-guesser seat, aimed carefully through her Glock's sights, and eradicated another as Foster accelerated away from the slowly perusing crowd.