The car park had well over two hundred undead shambling aimlessly around.
I don’t know what happened there on the day the world died, but I’m guessing it went to absolute chaos in a snap. There were still many cars in the lot, but there had clearly been some accidents, maybe a minor bump or three, which devolved into violence. I’m guessing there were a few pedestrians run down as well, judging by how some of the cars are positioned.
Well, we all know what happens as soon as one person dies, don’t we? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; multiply zombies to the power of “oh shit.”
Things must have spun out of control pretty rapidly, because let’s not forget how fast these things twitch and sit up. Within ten seconds of death, the army of darkness begins to rise, and they get murderous even as they’re still lying down. It doesn’t even look like any first responders managed to arrive on the scene. A few fights, a couple of accidents, suddenly there are five zombies, then that five bite and there are ten, then the ten bite and there are twenty, and so forth. Some cars looked abandoned, jammed in as they were, the doors still open from the passengers fleeing in panic.
“Well,” murmured Nate. “This looks like a bust.”
I shook my head. “No, if you carry on to the next left, there’s a smaller car park round the back for about thirty cars, which is also the delivery vehicle entrance to get round the back of the units. We’ll be wanting to go in the back anyway.”
“We’re still going in?” spluttered Isaac. “Through that?” He gestured with a disbelieving flick of his hand towards the scattered crowd of undead.
“Not through it,” I corrected. “Round and behind it.”
“Isn’t there somewhere else we can get the stuff?”
“I don’t know, is there?” I asked. “Remember, we haven’t got a fucking clue what your list even says. If you know somewhere that might have everything you need, then by all means, tell us. Google’s down at the minute though, so you’ll have to show us on a map.”
Isaac moved to respond, then thought better of it, clamping his mouth shut.
“Security is important,” said Nate. “If you can do what you say you can, we can’t turn this opportunity down.” He glanced past Isaac, sat in the middle seat, towards me. “We’ll have to go as quiet as we can for anything in there. Melee only. We’ll take the halligans.”
I nodded. I’d been practicing with the weight and heft of the weird spike tools, confident I could do the job. I still had the pick hammer as backup, but I hate braining undead up close. Crunching through skulls to puncture brains is bloody, filthy work. Gives me the shivers.
Nate followed my direction and we cruised round the bend, then into the smaller rear car park which was blessedly empty. The electronics store was on the nearest end, so we pulled the truck behind the units to the service doors and swung it round so it was facing the right way, should we need to make a quick escape.
There were about five undead milling round the back, employees judging by their coloured polo shirts with logos emblazoned on the chests. They weren’t all from the electronics store, but two were, marked by their bright red shirts. Nate surmised that wasn’t a good sign; both red shirts had chunks of flesh missing from their arms, suggesting they’d been bitten by undead and escaped back through the store and out back, where they had succumbed to blood loss, died, and started their undead patrol of the rear.
Nate and I cleared the back of the units of those five monsters in quick order, so I’d like to take a moment to extol the virtues of the fireman’s halligan. Shit, that spike takes care of undead in a heartbeat. The weight of the tool behind that hardened spike makes it far too easy to punch through a brain. We dropped those monsters faster than a cut can bleed.
It was the first time Isaac had seen me in action. He expected destructive power from Nate; the first time he’d seen the Terminator’s granddad was when he was in full combat gear, face painted black, NVG’s on his head, and loaded for a hot zone. I, however, was a tiny five-six woman in combats and Nikes, swinging a halligan and braining zombies like it was part of my daily routine.
“That was… impressive,” he bumbled, staring at me with a look that was two parts amazement, and one part horror.
“I swear, Isaac, if you add ‘for a girl’ on to the end of that statement, I will pin your dick to the asphalt with this spike, right here, right now.”
His guilty look said he was thinking it, but he at least had the grace to look ashamed. He won’t think it again, or I’ll make good on my promise. That dated thinking really grinds my gears.
Once the dead were dealt with, we stacked up behind Nate, as he quietly levered the tool end of the halligan between door and frame. Once it was deep enough, he gave it a fierce wrench and the door cracked away from the frame, revealing the gloom within.
Nate switched on a flashlight attached to his tactical vest, keeping his hands free to grip the halligan, and nodded at us both before stepping into the darkness of the store.
I followed just behind as backup, Isaac remaining outside until we cleared the building of any errant undead. Thankfully, there were just three. One of them had a different colour shirt to the two employees we’d brained outside, so I figured she was the manager of the store. The other two were either customers, or just people that had sought refuge in the store when the car park apocalypse started. Judging by the bite wounds on them all, the refugees had brought the plague in with them, died, killed the manager and bitten the other two employees, who managed to make their escape outside.
There was a trail of congealed blood, dark and crusted, leading to the employee entrance from the main store. Detective Carter reckons those two we brained out back must have had arteries severed, bleeding out viciously as they tried to escape and getting no further than the store’s rear before collapsing from blood loss.
I’m going to take a minute out here, before I continue with the tale. Everywhere we go, all we see is evidence of horrific, unhappy endings for everyday people, and I can’t help but wonder what started all this.
A biological weapon is out of the question. Nate was monitoring the news and radio in the early days before we met, and this was global, all going off at the same time. I doubt anyone could hit everywhere in the world, in every major town and city, and every little secluded farm or hamlet, with a biological weapon timed to perfection to go off on seven billion people. It’s just not feasible.
The same goes for a pandemic virus. That would start somewhere and roll outwards from ground zero. There would be time for many parts of the world to react with some degree of response, but this took everyone, everywhere, completely off guard.
So, what’s caused it? With all the logical explanations defied by the sheer scale and timing of this, in my mind it leaves only one alternative.
This is not of this world.
Okay, hear me out here. I don’t mean aliens, because if there was a race from beyond the stars that could do this scale of global destruction, why do it in this manner? We’d have seen some sign of any such invaders by now. This is an extinction level event, not a cull, or a conquest.
When I say not of this world, I mean something else. What, I don’t know, but all I can see in my mind’s eye is the soul-burning hate of the living, expressed by the dead in their blood-smeared features, when you’re up close with them. It goes beyond predator and prey, because a predator does what it does to survive. It’s a means to an end.
The undead, however, go almost feral when they’re close to you, baring their teeth in those deathly silent snarls of pure, undiluted hatred. It feels… personal… somehow, like the living have committed the most heinous of crimes against the dead, and this is their vengeful uprising.
I don’t know. It’s strange, but I can’t help but feel like the dead are our judge, jury, and executioner, all packaged into glassy eyed monsters that want to tear us from life as punishment for our sins. And let’s face it, humanity has a spectacular litany of sins to
choose from.
Okay, back to the recounting of our tale.
It was an easy thing to take down the manager and her two undead cronies, baiting them to a ground of our choosing where we could despatch them in short order. I took one, Nate expertly downed the other two, then we dragged the bodies to one corner out of the way before retrieving Isaac.
I’ve never seen anyone look so relieved to see me. When I appeared at the door and beckoned him in, he almost ran inside. Being on his own, looking at five head-trauma zombie bodies, and knowing there were two hundred or more zeds just the other side of the building, clearly had made him a bit edgy.
The next half hour or so was a little nervy. The big glass front of the store gave Nate and I quite a view over the car park, which was at a slightly lower elevation to the store fronts. We had to keep mostly away from the glass as there were undead milling about outside the shop fronts. The last thing we needed was to be noticed.
In the beginning, Isaac was like a kid at Christmas in the store, scooting around the aisles and loading up a trolley like he’d just won the lottery. He even started comparing one brand with another, reading the boxes with a thoughtful expression, until Nate appeared like a phantom at his shoulder. His approach unseen, he spoke quietly right next to Isaac’s ear.
“Get a move on,” was all he said, but poor Isaac almost shat a whole house, never mind a brick, when Nate breathed beside him. He soon got a move on.
That’s when shit started to go sideways.
A bump drew our attention to the glass doors at the shop front. An undead woman had smacked against the glass like a pigeon, leaving a dirty smudge from the mass of filth and dried blood smeared around her face. Within seconds, two more were beside her, walking into the glass. Then three more. Then… oh shit.
Nate started hurrying Isaac up. As I watched, more undead were drawn to the woman at the glass, as though she was tapping out a beacon signal with her face, calling them to battle. Beyond her, I could see the mass of undead in the car park all shifting position, aiming directly at the store as though undead radio had issued a call to arms, and their forces answered the signal.
“Erm, Nate,” I said, watching the scattered mass start to thicken and swell, ambling towards the store. “I think we have a problem.”
“Have you got all you need?” demanded Nate. The urgency in his tone flustered Isaac, who began babbling about needing two of these, and three of those. “I don’t give a fuck, Isaac,” snapped Nate. “Get what you need, double-time, because once we leave, we’re not coming back. Erin, grab your rifle.”
I didn’t need telling twice. I scampered through the back of the store, snatched up my SA80 and the spare magazines from the truck, which I shoved into the large pockets on the side of my combats, and headed back in. I was gone maybe forty seconds, but by the time I arrived back, the glass shop front was darkened by the press of undead.
“Holy fucking shit,” I murmured.
The pressure was increasing as Isaac frantically scooted around the aisles, throwing shit into the trolley, eyes constantly flicking to the building swell of undead at the glass front.
The undead don’t know pain. They have no need to breathe and are single-minded when it comes to their desire for causing death. As more undead pressed against those at the front, a crack appeared in one of the glass panels as their inexorable crush concaved the glass inwards. Lines raced across the glass and we were only seconds from implosion.
“Isaac?” Nate’s voice was calm, but the slight inflection was enough to convey the urgency of the situation.
“Almost done, almost done,” he babbled, panic starting to creep in.
“Breathe, dickhead,” I said. “Calm down and get your shit together, eyes on the prize, we got your back.”
Isaac nodded, sucking in a calming breath as Nate glanced my way, a barely perceptible nod. His signal of approval. Honestly, I live for those moments. Nate’s approval is so damn important to me, as he’s the first person since Dean and Maria that’s ever really had my back.
The toughened glass weakened under the crush of bodies pressing against it, the lines snaking out across the massive panes in the main doors.
“Ten seconds, Isaac,” warned Nate. “No more.”
“I’m done, I’m done!”
As he swung the full trolley round in a one-eighty to head through the back of the store, the glass doors imploded inwards and the first line of rushing undead gave us a little more time. As the glass gave way, all the undead at the front smashed teeth-first into the floor as the pressure behind them flung them forward once the doors gave way. The monsters collapsed forward, creating a tangle of dead limbs that prevented a rush of undeath streaming through the large store towards us.
“Back through the door,” said Nate, his tone still serene. I can’t explain how much that helps in these situations. When that one person is keeping their head while the world around turns to shit, it’s like a siren’s call for calm. Their calm keeps you calm, as you know this guy has the situation entirely under control. All you have to do is listen and keep your own head in the game.
“I can’t!” said Isaac then, panic creeping back into his tone. “The trolley’s too wide for the doorway!”
“For fuck’s sake,” muttered Nate, eyes still on the undead as they awkwardly clambered to their feet.
I glanced over my shoulder, confident Nate had the zombie situation monitored, and saw what had Isaac so panicky. The trolley was indeed too wide for the normal sized doorway and wouldn’t go through. There was just no way any amount of banging and kicking would ram it through, as the cart was narrower at the front, but widened as most shopping carts do towards the rear. Isaac, in his rush and terror to get to the truck, had ran at speed through the doorway and stopped dead as the trolley jammed solid.
He looked up, eyes wild as he glanced past me to the rising force of undead picking themselves from the floor, his mind frozen by terror.
“Erin?” You know it’s serious when Nate goes with my first name. “Situation?”
“Fucked,” I said. “You got this for now?”
“Copy that.”
Slinging the rifle behind me, I did a Dukes of Hazzard through the top of the doorway, gripping the doorframe with my fingertips and swinging through the half-portal above the trolley to the hall beyond. I took a few steps back, then snapped forward with an almighty kick to the front of the cart, ramming it back out of the doorway.
“Run all of this by hand to the truck and throw it in the back,” I said. “Keep doing that as fast as you fucking can and tell us when you’re on the last one.” Isaac looked frazzled by the whole situation. “Isaac!” I snapped, punching him on the arm to shock him awake. He yelped and rubbed his arm, looking at me with accusation. “Did you fucking hear me?”
“Yes, I heard you!”
“Then why the fuck are you still standing here like a village fucking idiot?”
And so began the rapid transfer of trolley to truck, just as Nate’s rifle barked for the first time.
“Need a second shooter, Erin,” he said, still ice-calm.
“Copy that,” I replied, feeling all military. I swear I caught the little flash of a grin from Nate as I replied, but my rifle was at my shoulder, my eyes down the iron sight, the action switched to semi, and off I went.
I don’t know how much time passed, I know it wasn’t a lot, but it felt like an age. Nate was unerring, popping a melon every time. I wasn’t so accurate, sometimes going too low and hitting the upper chest and neck, or too high and missing completely. Once they got closer, instead of right across the big store, my accuracy improved, and I started dropping more of them.
“Reloading,” I heard Nate say, as I kept a steady rhythm of fire downrange, and as Nate’s rifle roared into life again, I clicked on empty.
“Reloading,” I hollered, following his example. Always keep talking to your fire team, Nate says. You’re a team, not a collection of individuals. When one reloads
, the others lay down fire, but you can’t do that effectively if there’s no communication.
We’ve worked in tandem a few times, but this was the first time I felt all of Nate’s teachings mesh together, in a live situation. But more than this, it was the first time I felt we were really a team, working in perfect unison, with constant communication. It was a fucking horrifying situation as the undead oozed into the store and there was no way we could take them all before they closed the gap, but still, it felt like we were really partners for the first time, rather than the hardened soldier and his plucky recruit. It felt damn good.
“Isaac?” I hollered back as I heard him pant behind me as he sprinted back to the trolley for the umpteenth time. “Talk to us! They’re getting closer!”
“Have some patience!” he squealed. “I’m fucking things up as fast as I can!”
Both Nate and I snorted at that. The line itself was funny enough, but somehow the despairing high-pitched shriek it was delivered with made it hilarious. Anyone who subconsciously cracks a joke in the middle of a panicked situation is alright by me.
My ears were ringing by this point. I’m pretty sure I’ll have hearing loss in some form during this apocalypse. Gunfire is fucking loud anyway, but consistent gunfire indoors is like your eardrums being battered by sound. It’s physically painful and I was half-expecting to feel blood run out of my ears. Agonising.
“Last one!” wheezed Isaac. Clearly, not an athlete. A few runs back and forth through the store’s rear from cart to truck had him blowing out his arse. Tut tut. Cardio mother fucker.
“Go,” ordered Nate. “You drive, get the truck running, I’ll follow.”
If that wasn’t a symbol of Nate’s inherent trust in me now, I don’t know what is. He fucking hates my driving because I do it fast, he says. Personally, I think he’s just a control freak who hates having someone else in control of the metal death machine he’s riding in. But giving me the okay to drive when leaving a combat situation? That was real trust, right there. He had enough faith in me to do what was right and get us all out alive.
Lockey vs. the Apocalypse | Book 1 | No More Heroes [Adrian's Undead Diary Novel] Page 27