Rotting to the Core (Keep Your Crowbar Handy Book 2)

by Durnin, S. P.

  “I will spank you. And it will hurt.”

  “Promises, promises.” Cho bumped a hip against his and nodded towards the rear of the building. “Come on. I checked the street out back. Not a maggot-head to be seen. Let's flee.”

  Jake followed her through the dark lobby. “I think the word is retreat.”

  “Are we coming back?”

  “Oh, hell no.” Jake shook his head.

  “Then we're fleeing. Retreating suggests the intention to eventually return and continue fighting.” Kat cracked the back door slightly and double checked the area before hopping down the outer stairs one by one. “Since we're not going to do that, we're most definitely fleeing.”

  He raised an eyebrow and followed Kat down a side alley. “That's a pretty fine distinction. How, exactly, did you come up with it?”

  “Hey, don't let the cool hair fool you.” Kat blew a rogue strand of her blue-dyed pixie-cut away from her eyes and noiselessly pulled her sword. Swiveling it into a Zatochi or reverse grip so the blade sat up against the back of her arm, the pretty Ninja-girl began strolling almost uncaringly down the alley, all the while humming tunelessly to herself.

  O'Connor didn't know what to say to that. Despite what some of the other members of their party believed, he knew Kat was quite intelligent and possessed a frighteningly quick mind. It was just a little difficult for people to realize that, mostly due to her habit of being distracted by nearby discussions. Or articles of clothing. Or even shiny objects. He just rolled his eyes and followed her swaying hips, trying mightily not to stare at the “Hello Kitty” patch stitched to the left buttock of her pants, towards refuge.

  They were trotting past Wilmington's Dairy Freeze when everything went pear-shaped.

  Kat stopped as she came abreast of the dumpster in the alley on the building's southern end, did a double take, then yanked Jake down beside it. He began to demand an explanation, but she quickly clapped a firm hand over the writer's mouth, forestalling any comment. She tilted her head to the left, crossed her eyes, and let her tongue loll out of her mouth, then nodded in the direction they'd been heading. Kat's meaning was clear enough, even if her mode of communicating it was a bit ridiculous. When Jake nodded, she removed her hand from his face.

  “How many?” he breathed.

  Kat glanced around the dumpster quickly. “Enough. Take a look. Carefully.”

  Jake moved into a squatting position and slowly rose just enough so that his eyeballs topped the dumpster's cap.

  “Shit.”

  The front of the Dairy Freeze had seen better days. During the initial outbreak, the ice-cream shop's windows had been broken and what little glass remained was coated with a repugnant film of dust, dead insect caprices, and long-dried bodily fluids. Those disgusting little fang-like shards, along with the shadowy interior of the shop, gave the Dairy Freeze a definitive This Is The Entrance To The Underworld look. Jake thought the clown statue at the door, with what seemed to be part of someone's small intestines hanging from one uncaring, plastic hand, gave it the final soul-chilling touch, too.

  The thirty or so zombies shuffling around in the parking lot out front didn't help either.

  They were awful. That was a given, really. Walking corpses and all that. The things were a kaleidoscope of wasted flesh; missing jaws, missing faces, torn out throats, limbs and even abdominal cavities that had been gnawed away. Yet somehow, despite massive damage, the zombies shambled on oblivious of their wounds like Energizer bunnies. Gore-covered, totally horrific, inconveniently carnivorous Energizer bunnies that seemed to rot at a vastly decreased rate. Once again, Jake wondered how whatever animated the creatures preserved them in some way, and how the living could hope to overcome an enemy that couldn't feel pain or fear.

  Shaking off his momentary reverie, O'Connor again knelt beside Kat. “Well, that way's out.”

  “We can't double back either, that's for sure. Not through the horde back there.” Kat frowned in concentration and chewed at her lip. “Can't zip-line over this group. The roof elevation and angles are way wrong for that. We could skirt the crowd's edge. Take out the eight or ten closest to us and break for the opposite corner—”

  “But that would have the rest close by and on our heels when we bolt.” Jake shook his head. “They'd start moaning or tripping over stuff and attract more—”

  “Then we'd be right back where we started two days ago,” Kat finished. “Running with a crap-ton of maggot-heads on our butts, which we'd have to try to lose again before we could head back to the airport.”

  Jake scanned the area again. “Any ideas?”

  “All this thinking is giving me a headache.” Cho sat and leaned against the dumpster. “Besides, it's your turn to come up a plan. I thought up with the last one.”

  “Thanks ever so much.”

  “Well I did!”

  Jake kept his eyes moving. “It doesn't work like that.”

  “It should,” Kat mumbled.

  He grabbed another quick look over the dumpster. “Really? You're gonna pout? Now?”

  “I'm not pouting.” Kat crossed her arms under her breasts.

  O'Connor continued scanning the area. “You can be so lazy sometimes.”

  “Yeah well... you have weird hair,” Kat said.

  “Huh?” Jake glanced at her, confused.

  “It's all, you know, sticky-out. Like one of those guys from Anime cartoons.” Cho pointed at his head. “And you don't even style it. I mean, when we first met? I thought you just spent tons of time on it or something, but most days you don't even touch a brush. So how—”

  “Can we focus for a minute?” Jake asked firmly, giving her a sharp look.

  “No need to get huffy,” Kat pouted. “Jeez. Try to give someone a little fashion advice and—”

  “Kat!”

  Cho raised one hand in a pacifying wave. “Okay, okay! Focusing now. Zombies in front, even more zombies behind. Too many to fight, and not much room to run. What does that leave us?”

  “Distraction?” Jake replied.

  “Bingo.” Kat grinned. “Ninja 101: use distraction to conceal your movements when faced with a lack of cover.”

  Jake gave the parking lot another once-over. “I have an idea.”

  “You're not using yourself as bait, so get that out of your head right now,” Kat snapped, taking a firm handful of the front of his shirt.

  “The thought never crossed my mind,” he assured her loftily.

  “Oh. Well, that's alright then.” Kat released her hold. “What's the plan?”

  Picking up an empty Jack Daniels bottle that lay beside their dumpster, Jake nodded toward the far side of the Dairy Freeze. “See that Dodge Charger over there?”

  Kat took a look across the lot. “You mean the red one? With the racing stripes?”

  “That's the one.” Jake nodded and waggled the bottle. “I hit it with this. It'd a safe bet whoever used to own that midlife crisis-mobile set the alarm when they got out, so it'll start squawking. Now, even if the battery's dead, the sound of this breaking should focus the creatures away from us, and they'll probably move in that direction. Then we leapfrog behind the cars on this side till we get to the street, cut left into the nearest house, and go through the backyards to the next block.”

  Cho considered that idea for a moment. “I like it. It's all sneaky-sneaky. I'm good with sneaky.”

  Jake shoved his crowbar into its holder on his back as Kat quietly sheathed her sword and pulled one of her knives. Since he wasn't good with a blade, the writer opted for trusting her to take out the odd stray ghoul if they encountered any. While Jake still had his bulky Hammer pistol, firing it would announce their presence to every zombie for blocks and that would put them up Shit Creek.

  Kat nodded that she was ready and Jake counted down from three on his fingers. Keeping low, he guesstimated the distance to the Charger, wound up, and hurled his bottle over the dumpster blind in a long arc hoping for the best.

  He need
n’t have worried. Jake's throw sent his bottle smashing into the Dodge's windshield and, right on cue, its obnoxious alarm began blaring immediately. Three dozen heads turned to face the noise. Three dozen mouths dropped open, allowing thick black fluids to begin rolling over three dozen gray jaws, and three dozen dead sets of necrotic vocal chords vibrated with rancid air pushed through three dozen decomposing throats. The impromptu zombie choir began stumping raggedly towards the source of the noise and, even after all they'd been through, the awful song of the dead chilled O'Connor and Cho to the marrow of their bones.

  When the first creatures reached the Charger, they began beating on the hood and front quarter panels, leaving shallow dents smeared with blood from smashed knuckles and shattered fingers. Vile brown fluids splattered across red paint, creating the visual equivalent of the devil's own rancid candy apple, and the frenzied dead clustered about the squawking vehicle. Some began clawing and beating on its windows, spider-webbing the safety glass in dozens of places before shoving ruined arms inside to clutch at the seats. As Jake and Kat watched, one particularly enthusiastic zombie pressed itself face-first through the remnants of the broken driver's window. The creature ignored the sharp edges that shredded its flesh, shearing much of its face away down to the naked skull, in its maddened attempt to find the nonexistent human inside the car causing all the commotion. Moments later more of the windows shattered inward and the interior of Charger was swarmed by the zombie crowd.

  Cho nudged O'Connor with one elbow and crouched low; the pair bolted from their dumpster to take shelter behind the first vehicle at the opposite end of the parking lot. It was an old 1970's circa Bronco still possessing the original paint job, a color which could only be termed “Doo-doo Brown”. From there the two humans began scurrying across gaps between the cars, skirting months-old refuse, discarded personal items, and the occasional splintered human bone. Jake kept one eye on the crowd still battering the poor Dodge, which now looked decidedly worse for wear with all the zombies scrambling to get inside. Much like a clown car in a circus, now that he thought about it. The ones maybe as big as a Mini Cooper that fifteen or twenty white-faced, clowns, all sporting ridiculously loud costumes and walrus flipper-sized shoes squirmed out in a seemingly endless stream of red-nosed creepiness. He'd never liked clowns much. Not after reading Stephen King's IT. Pennywise was one twisted son of a bitch.

  Kat froze momentarily, then leapt back to encircle him with her arms, took him to the ground, and swiftly rolled them both under the rear of a small box truck. They ended up with Jake on the bottom, back flat to the asphalt, a rather large rock poking him uncomfortably under his right kidney, and Kat straddling his hips. Her hand shot up, cupping over his mouth to stifle any protest, and she leaned down to breathe in his ear.

  “Stragglers...”

  Cursing mentally, Jake froze. Kat didn't move a muscle either, only her eyes. They repeatedly swiveled from left to right as he lay beneath her, and he heard five sets of uneven footsteps move by their hiding place. Now five zombies weren't that big of a problem but dealing with them, or attracting their attention, would most definitely alert the small horde slowly wrecking the still blaring Dodge to the fact that there were living humans in the immediate area. That would once again put Jake and Kat directly up Shit Creek, sans the benefit of anything resembling a paddle.

  “They're close...” It was easier for Jake to hear his own pulse pounding in his veins than Kat's breeze of a voice in his ear. Daring to tilt his head back slightly on the pavement, O'Connor was able to view several raggedly, clothed pairs of legs shuffling woodenly by the tailgate. Despite the noise generated by the Charger's car alarm, the ghouls seemed indecisive about joining the writhing mass tearing the auto apart. One of the creatures actually stopped while the others moved toward the moaning crowd, and stood alone turning slowly round and round in place. It seemed to be searching for something, but why? When the zombie took a step towards the box truck and bumped against the rear door, Jake's free hand gripped reflexively at Cho's leather-clad hip.

  Her voice wafted. “Easy...”

  The thing bumped into the rear door again.

  “Wait...”. Kat's eyes never left the creature. She relaxed against Jake and removed her hand from his mouth.

  While tried not to panic, O'Connor's jaw clenched and ground his teeth together. The zombie was close now. Almost within arm’s reach. Even though it hadn't seen them, the ugly bastard had sensed something. Jake began to swivel his arm up and forward, bringing the Hammer pistol along in his shaking fist, but Kat's left hand intercepted the motion and pressed it back to the ground.

  “Trust me...” she breathed. Kat's hand slid up his arm, over Jake's shoulder and chest, down his tensed stomach, and finally she pushed her fingers just under the waistband of his pants. They couldn't move any lower, again, because unlike all the baggy-crotched morons who walked around with saggy, clown-style pants to show off their underwear prior to the zombie outbreak, O'Connor always wore a belt. Doing so held his pants up so he could beat feet if the situation called for it. Like say, when he was being chased by a shit-ton of drooling, smelly, dead cannibals who wanted to tear into his ass like a fat kid would a value-sized box of Zingers. That being the case, Kat retracted her fingers and slid her palm down over his pants.

  Jake's eyebrows shot up and he wrenched his gaze from the zombie's legs to give her a look that clearly said, What Do You Think You're Doing?, which Cho ignored. She spared him a glance and a quick grin before fixing her eyes on the creature once more.

  Then her hand began roaming.

  Now, impending death aside, any heterosexual male will tell you that when a sexy woman gets it in her mind to distract you, and she puts her mind to it? Nine times out of ten she is going to succeed. That was the epiphany Jake had as he lay there on the grimy asphalt between the legs of said sexy woman, with a zombie not five feet away. The creature bounced off the tailgate again and Jake tensed. In response, Kat began doing something quite distracting with her hand. Jake closed his eyes and engaged in a conscious effort to calm down. He was certain if he didn't, with a hungry corpse almost close enough to spit at and Kat's touch working on him like a Viagra cocktail, his heart was going to explode like the head of that guy in Scanners. He couldn't actually move away either because, again, zombie nearby, and he damn sure didn't want to make any noise. So he kept still and suffered in silence.

  Suffered. Yeah, right. Jake's back-brain laughed, before noting for the thousandth or so time how Kat reminded him of Lzzy Hale, the lead singer and guitarist of Halestorm. But with short, blue hair. And a weakness for all things Hello Kitty. He'd always had a thing for Lzzy Hale.

  He took a good, long look at the woman above him and shivered. Whether in pleasure or fear, he couldn't tell. While yes, on a scale of one to ten Kat was a solid thirteen, Jake honestly thought she was more than a bit insane. The expression on her face was decidedly lustful however, as she slid lower and moved her hand against him, staring all the while at the zombie just beyond the tailgate. Her lips parted and her cheeks flushed in anticipation of... Sex? Violence? Both? Jake wasn't sure. Even more disturbing, while he had been a ghostwriter before the dead began walking, he didn't have words to express how much he wanted her at that moment. Thoughts of puppies, baseball, and apple pie weren't cutting it in the slightest. Even worse, his body had turned traitor on him, betraying his thoughts via a hormone-driven physical reaction.

  Kat knew it too. Her eyes were hooded as she watched the unsuspecting creature just feet away and her hand gripped Jake firmly. There was unquestionably chemistry between them, and chances like this came along once in a blue moon. She focused on the sensation of his upper torso pressed against her breasts, the feel of him in her hand, the smell of his messy hair as they lay barely hidden from the hungry corpse. Focusing on these things, Kat slowly reached back to her right boot where she pulled the long knife she kept sheathed there. If the zombie bent down it would see them, momentarily at least. Th
en she'd have that blade in the thing's brain by way of its nearest eye, if only for interrupting some truly epic heavy petting.

  To Jake's relief, the zombie finally stopped banging itself against their box-truck and staggered towards the Charger. Moments later, the creature was lost in the crowd of its smelly brethren. Kat managed to keep from pouting and, after giving Jake a final squeeze that drew a hissing breath from his lips, nodded towards the opposite side of the box truck. She made darned sure to brush a line of skin down her torso, and the inside of one leather-covered thigh, lightly against Jake's cheek as she did so. After taking a deep breath and getting his pulse under control again, he followed her from under the truck.

  “What the hell, Kat?” Jake demanded quietly, pressing his back against the side of the truck.

  Cho gave him a questioning shrug.

  Exasperated, Jake turned away and adjusted his pants. “It's a good thing we didn't have to run! I wouldn't be able to!”

  “Hey, kept you from freaking about the zombie, right?” Kat asked, making her knife disappear and drawing her sword.

  “There are better ways, dammit!” He hissed as they began moving from car to car again.

  Kat sniffed. “Not as much fun though.”

  Jake attempted to come up with a suitable reply as they scurried across the street and vaulted a privacy fence surrounding the nearest house, but found he was at a loss for words. That seemed to happen to him a lot when Kat was nearby. “Alright, but next time? Just massage my temples or something. Jesus...”

  “Tell me that wasn't fun,” Kat replied, and raised one eyebrow with a naughty grin. “I mean, it was pretty obvious. What with—”

  “We're not having that conversation,” Jake insisted as Cho trotted up to the home’s back door and began working on the lock, which she opened in nine seconds flat. Jake holstered his Hammer automatic, pulled his crowbar, and they skulked inside.

  “You need to learn to live in the moment once in a while.” Kat strolled confidently through the dusty kitchen, stopping briefly to check a wine rack on the counter. She pulled a bottle out and examined the label. “Ooo! Barefoot Moscato! Come here a sec.”