Zombie Rush 4: Zombie Rush

by Joseph Hansen

  In Web’s mind, Dean was nothing but an under-developed mentality in the body of a giant. The naming of his spear horrified the doctor, forcing him to believe that Dean was some kind of pseudo adolescent and unpredictably dangerous. Web couldn’t help but look at the behemoth with fear.

  Truth be known, Dean was exhausted and badly needed some sleep. As soon as he got the doctor far enough away, he was going to duck out and go to a special spot the three of them had picked out the day before to rest. Every corner Dean took showed that Web was getting farther and farther away, but he always stopped and waited to see where the giant man who pursued him was. Dean knew that he more than likely had weapons and caches of supplies all over the city. He was a wealthy man in the old world, who spent a lot of time and money setting up areas where he could act out on his sick lusts. None of it would matter, not when the time came.

  Over-privileged, elitist, and lacking in compassion for the human plight, Web was the perfect candidate for someone like Dean to take care of. He hurt his friend, Kodiak, and worse yet, he had put his son in a dangerous position.

  Dean acquired a large vantage point after his last view of the good doctor where he could watch the few zombies that were in the area. It was clear that many had already been eliminated by those in the compound, as there were very few away from areas of congestion. The good doctor had drawn them to the building for his show, and the compound itself drew in massive amounts of the dead, leaving the rest of the city with scatterings of the lumbering corpses. On the plus side, it meant that Hot Springs was very close to claiming the entire city as their own. The down side being that it made it more difficult for Dean to track the psychopathic physician. There were some though and those few were enough to show where Web had run and, more importantly, when he had stopped running.

  Dean knew that dealing with a super-intellectual was a difficult thing to do. They could out-think average people and always tried to cover every option. They also had resources that someone like Dean could only dream of. As a rule, however, the one thing they typically neglected was reflection.

  Dean himself had problems with reflecting upon his own actions and how that may have predetermined outcomes in his own past life. He lived in the cab of his semi for quite some time after his wife of sixteen years kicked him out for the arms of another man. Another man who would use his house, lay claim to his kid, and fuck his wife—the only woman he loved. Maybe if he would have spent a little more time reflecting upon himself, as opposed to what she was doing to him, the outcome may have been different.

  It was in the dark recesses of the back of his rig where he realized that he was as much at fault as the woman who demanded more and searched elsewhere for it. Dean provided a good life for her, but was working so much he could never take advantage of that life and be with her. When he did have time off, he was tired, grouchy, and demanding.

  He remembered the good times when they first met and the years that brought them into their marriage. He remembered the false promises of never breaking up because of one stupid reason or another. Oh, they promised to never go to sleep angry and the old I talk, you talk routine trying to give equal time to each other to hear their gripes, but it never worked and was actually counterproductive. She would lay out all of her gripes, and he would be forced to deal with them. When it became his turn, he found himself making up trivial issues because the true issues would surely have ended the marriage right then and there. Dean always had the suspicion that he loved her more than she loved him. She always seemed to be holding back, like she had settled for something less in marrying Dean. He struggled to change her mind on that and for a fleeting moment, right after Charlie was born, he thought that they had broken through that barrier, but it was short lived. Soon she was as she had always been and Dean was slowly, painfully pushed to the side as he provided the income for a lavish lifestyle they could not afford on his measly truck driver income.

  His first night alone in the sleeper cab of his rig, he wondered how he was going to pay off all of the debt her desires had accumulated. The second night, he longed for different women from his past that he had ignored who may have provided the happiness he desired. Not pretty enough or from the wrong ethnicity; some simply being too poor. He realized then how he had, in his own pompous nature, ruined his own life. But it wasn’t until Charlie was stuck on the roof and the house had zombies in it that he realized how far his lack of humility had dragged him down. His own son had a problem trusting him in even the direst of situations. Over the next couple of days, while on the run from the walking dead, reflection hit Dean full on.

  It was Web’s lack of reflection that Dean planned to use as the doctor’s downfall.

  This time there would be no prisoners. Web would die.

  He stood on the intersection of Bridge Street and Central Avenue, relieved to be back in the old part of town again. Just under three miles from the compound, the good doctor had attempted his greatest slaughter to date. It was where Web had tried to put on his big show and, from what Dean could tell, was the area he knew best. Older buildings were cheaper to buy and required less attention, so it was the best place for a psychopath to exploit his lusts on the populace.

  It was also the best place for Dean to find a little shuteye. He crept around, careful to not let any of the scattered zombies see him and ever watchful for those of the living who may have survived. It was close enough to the compound so that most—if not all—of the living had been cleared out.

  He crept across a tree branch and into an open second-story window of the house. The home doubled as a tattoo parlor stuck between two commercial-type buildings from the fifties or sixties era.

  After checking the place out, he sat down on the waiting room couch. So much had happened in the last week that he was having a tough time getting his mind to catch up. He thought back upon his ancestors … not the mother he never knew nor the deadbeat violent drunk who was his father—the guy who would whip him until he bled over a broken window or a trike being left in the yard. The yard that his old man had inherited from his own father, about whom he had nothing good to say.

  Dean, however, did have good things to say about his grandfather though he had died when Dean was very young. His grandfather had been known to raise his only son with a firm hand, which Dean later found out was necessary as his dad was not a good man, even as a child. A firm hand was what his father knew; he had been raised by his own father whose own father served in the British infantry during World War One before being transferred to the states for his job after the war ended. In turn, Dean’s grandfather served in the American Army during World War Two and was an active member of what would be known as the world’s greatest generation. A generation dedicated to ridding the world of tyranny and oppression. It was the worst kind of irony to have his own son be like those he had fought.

  Dean had been taking a slow path down the way of his old man, which was the last thing anybody wanted in life. To die during an alcoholic binge, having only five people—including the priest—show up for your funeral. Dean was there with his wife and newly born son, a pastor, and a strange woman he wasn’t interested in finding out about. If it was inheritance she was after, Dean would have been more than happy to split the bill for the funeral, but she didn’t stick around long enough for him to find out. There was nothing mysterious or grand about his dad’s life or death and Dean was headed down that same path. If things had stayed the same, he doubted his own son would have even gone to his funeral.

  “Ha, ha … nothing cures the taste for alcohol like the zombie apocalypse,” he said to the empty room. For once, however, he wasn’t really alone; he had people that he had to get back to, people he cared about and needed to protect. People who cared about him and actually wanted to see him again … and it made him smile.

  Regardless of what his old man had called him, Dean was going to be like his grandfather—a great man whose legacy consisted of a chest of items that his grandson would have to sne
ak around in order to see. A chest that his asshole son sold at a garage sale in a feeble attempt to save the house from repossession. A house that was inherited and should someday come to Dean, but was washed away in an alcoholic drug-induced haze.

  A home, memories, and a legacy … gone due to the petty needs of a drunk. Dean hated the fact that he held so much resentment toward a dead man even after so many years and all that has gone on, but he couldn’t help it. So with these thoughts once again swirling through his head, he fell into a deep sleep.

  The next morning was a bright and sunny day; the only cloud in the sky was a strange reddish haze off to the east toward Benton. He snuck out the same way he went in and sat on the roof, scanning the city in the dawn’s light as he shrugged off his melancholy from the night before.

  Dean knew how effective he was in this new age. He couldn’t help but think that the creation of Shaaka was some sort of premonition of what was coming. He didn’t usually believe in that shit, but how else could he explain why he designed it as specifically as he had? Multiple people had relied on Dean using it for their survival, and he wondered how many more lives he would save when he took the head from the good doctor’s shoulders.

  Heh, heh, heh. Won’t that be a sight when I stroll into the compound with his head in a sack? he thought, visualizing a white plastic grocery bag with a Food Pride or Super Valu label stretched thin from the weight. His plan may have bordered on butchery, but there was really no way for the people to know for sure that the threat to their safety was gone unless they had his head.

  He crawled down from the roof and made his way over to where he had last seen the doctor. He knew that he was probably within Web’s sights but didn’t care. He had Web psyched out and too afraid to reveal his position. He got to the last point he had seen him and stopped.

  “Is the doctor in?” he shouted to the wind. “I have an appointment, ha ha ha ha!”

  Dean strained his eyes and ears for the clue that he knew would come. A flash in a distant window and the fluttering of a pigeon in flight caught his eye and he chuckled while shaking his head. That fucker’s so smart, he’s an idiot.

  Chapter 4

  Stand Off

  “Okay,” Lisa started after she had pulled everyone over to window of John’s Suburban. She wondered why he appeared loathe to get out of his truck but brushed it off until she looked a little closer. It was customized to provide maximum comfort with an unnatural pathway between the back seat to get to a lift-gate on the back.

  “You don’t have legs?” she said, surprised. “Sorry, it caught me off guard.”

  “Sure I do; I have half here,” he said, indicating his legs cut off at the knees, “and the other halves are in the back. They’re kind of hard to drive with so I stick with the chair in here.”

  “Well, thank you for your service,” she said, assuming he had lost them overseas.

  “Nope, not a soldier, but I wish I would have been. Then I might have been out of the country rather than in Oklahoma City that day. I’ve been preparing for more bullshit ever since, but I had no idea it would include zombies.”

  “I think that took most of us by surprise, John. So here’s the deal,” Lisa continued. “Skit has a couple of kids over there and there seems to be some kind of battle going on between at least two factions. The shot separations tell me that it might be rival gangs still fighting for some kind of turf and have no idea that the whole complex will probably be burning in a few hours.”

  “You don’t think those fires will burn out, huh?” Kibble said.

  “It’s been pretty dry,” John added. “I can see the fire spreading everywhere before long, but I’m guessing we have a couple of days before it gets here.”

  “We have a lot of work to do in those couple of days, so we have to do this quick. The shots are already drawing in the dead, and we have to get in and get out with as many of the living as we can. We don’t know which gang is good or bad so if they turn on you, shoot first. If they look willing to talk then call me. Now, Franc, how big is this place?”

  “I don’t know; I haven’t been through all of it. I would guess that the duplexes and quads take up six to eight city blocks, and the clubhouse being on the back wooded side. The whole complex has kind of sectioned itself off in different groups. Somalians live up here along the Main Twelfth Street drag, the Hispanics are over on Jefferson, and some Arab types on Monroe.”

  “Arab types?”

  “Yeah, Pakistani or Syrians or whatever. Then there are the white people back on Madison Street—mainly surrounding the clubhouse—and the regular blacks in the center,” Franc finished.

  “Regular blacks?” Lisa asked, amazed by his abrupt manner.

  “Yeah, people like him and me or them.” He pointed toward his car. “There are playgrounds all over the place and the whole complex is usually filled with kids.”

  “Kids, huh? And you sold drugs here?”

  “No, too many eyes here. I just knew a lot of people who live here. I doubt any of them are alive now.”

  “We’re moving in on foot from here. Each of you pick someone to man your supplies and the rest are on me. Make sure they know how to drive in case they have to extract us.”

  John threw a lever, and a small hatch by the windshield flapped open on his hood. He then pulled a crank that was similar to a bus door handle. He loosened a star-shaped knob taken from a table saw. When he cranked on it, it released an old spotlight handle and arm for a police cruiser. A stockless carbine rose out of the hood of his Suburban and fanned back and forth, covering a 180-degree arc. He removed his hand from one of the knobs and Lisa smiled at the Craftsman logo still on one of the cranks that he never bothered to remove.

  “Tell me that is not fully automatic,” she said, not knowing how she should react.

  “Nope, it’s a standard AR 15. I worked the mechanism out after reading about it in a steampunk novel. I have a lot of time on my hands and space to work, so I got busy. I have the laser adjustable from fifty to a hundred and fifty yards and it’s pretty accurate. The problem is loading; I have to reach up under the dash and change out the 300-round drum. Sally, pull that lever on the ceiling there and lock it into the notch on the right, please.”

  Sally did as she was asked and a small dish came up onto the roof.

  “This will increase the range of the walkies by several blocks, but everything is relayed through me. I can switch it back, if you like,” John said, trying not to show how impressed with himself he was.

  “No, that’s okay. I have a feeling you are going to be handy to have around, John. Do you have any other secrets in there?”

  “All in due time, Lieutenant, all in due time,” John said with a wink.

  Lisa left Temple in charge of their car. He sat with the windows rolled up and the car running just as she had instructed him to do. Temple was always too distracted to be outside of the car unprotected; in fact, it was amazing that he had survived as long as he had. She worried about leaving him alone, but he had agreed to stay in the car and pay attention, so she had to go with that. Verbal agreements with Temple seemed to have more effect than a simple head nod.

  They came out of the trees low and made their way across the field toward the back of the clubhouse, the once prestigious pool glistening in the sun’s light. Crouching figures with rifles scurried back and forth, taking useless pot shots at another group huddled behind a barrier of cars.

  Between the buildings, they could see that the battle was heated as people hid behind stalled or destroyed vehicles, only rising to take shots at one another. Molotov cocktails were being hurled toward the group with little to no effect.

  They fought against a group that appeared younger and more tattooed. Flashes of leather, faux jewelry, and gang colors struck Lisa as probably the most likely of the instigators. She reminded herself that it was an assumption, and if Lisa learned anything it was that assumptions didn’t mean shit.

  Franc came over and nudged her shou
lder before pointing at a grassy area behind the first group. At first, it looked like rolls of carpeting laid out on the lawn until a couple of them moved.

  “Fucking slavers. What is wrong with people?” Lisa said, exasperated by the depths human beings could go.

  “Hey, you don’t know that yet,” Skit said.

  “You’re right, no assumptions. Only fire if fired upon,” Lisa replied.

  “Well, I’m going to assume that you’re going to want me to talk to the gang-bangers since we all dressed the same,” Franc said.

  “You said it, I didn’t. Take Sally and Neil with you to lighten you up a bit,” Lisa said.

  Franc smiled. “How very PC of you, Lieutenant. Lighten us up a bit, funny girl.”

  “Get them to stop shooting, Franc, and keep your radio on. Your call signal is going to be Franc. Can you remember that?” Lisa said, causing Skit to giggle and Kibble to wince. Lisa saw Skit shake his head and Franc’s face break into a huge grin.

  “Lordy, lordy … I think I’m in love,” Franc replied.

  “Get in line, big boy, and hit it,” Lisa said with a smirk.

  “Oh, I will, but not now … I got some things to take care of first,” he said as he moved out with Sally and Neil in tow.

  She couldn’t help but feel a little heat rush to her face as they crab-walked toward the east. Lisa was also more comfortable knowing that Sally and Neil were trained and practiced shooters. She wanted one in her group too so she had kept Tina with her. She inwardly laughed at the thought that her special forces teams were comprised of the few preppers that joined up.