“We had about the same results with the exception of one that was taken down with a single .45 into her head, but that shot literally blew three-quarters of her brain out the other side.”
“Yeah, thanks for the visual there, Ed. Jesus Christ, don’t you think I have enough stored away?”
“Sorry, I thought it was pertinent considering it’s the only one I know taken down with one shot. When did you find religion?”
“Wha—? Forget it. We had a couple drop from a 12-gauge slug in the face,” Lisa said. She paused as she recalled the ordeal they had just gone through. “They’re just so fast and they don’t move in a … oh, I don’t fucking know ...”
“They are fast, Lisa. We’re probably going to lose a lot of people, but we can’t call off the requisition. We have to follow it through and just make everybody aware of the danger.”
“Ed, we’re going to lose too many; we can’t risk it,” Lisa replied.
“We don’t have a choice; there are too many to take care of without these resources and we’ll never have a field so clear of Zs like this again,” Krupp said, causing Lisa to think about what Temple had said about them dying off. Should she tell him and act off of that information even though it was just speculative?
“This was my command, Lieutenant, until things got out of hand. I think that I should have some final say as to whether we abort or not,” Krupp said, firmly letting Lisa know that the city of survivors was important to him and it was his call, not hers. It was all good and fine when she knew how to protect and fight against the dead, but she wasn’t prepared for this new threat. He also knew that Lisa would come around; it would just take a little longer and they didn’t have the luxury of time.
“You’re right; it’s your call, Ed. I’ll follow your decision.”
“Thank you. Do you still have the manpower and resources to salvage the warehouse district?” Krupp asked.
Lisa looked at the Suburban missing Neil and Tina in the backseat. Kibble was standing by a tipped-over skid loader, helping one of his men escape the tight cab. The other skid loader stood still with the cab still sealed and the engine running. The driver seemed frozen in place, his gaze fixed solid on the air outside of his door window.
“That is a negative; we need some time to regroup. Go ahead and keep the ball rolling the way you want, and I’ll try to put things together down here. I’ll bring what survivors I can find to you to be reassigned.”
“Ten-four. I’ll call you in a half hour. Good luck.”
“Adios, and be ready for those things! At least send out some spotters,” Lisa said and then slowly started to walk over to the running skid steer with Kibble’s man still staring blankly at nothing. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kibble helping the other driver to his feet. He seemed to move fine even though he was shaken up. It was the one who was still in the cab that had her worried. Every single person around her had been exposed to horrors that, just days ago, were beyond comprehension. When was sanity stretched too far?
She reached out and tried the handle on the skid loader door, trusting her gloves to protect her hands from the slime residue left behind by the new infected. It looked like a combination of blood, pus, and other residues. The door was locked and the man inside didn’t seem to notice that she was there.
She pounded on the door and received no reaction. The man kept staring blankly out into space.
“Hey!” She pounded again on the door, and the man finally looked at her. His eyes were wide and pupils dilated as if he had been on an all-night binge of meth or coke. He had seen too much and had been trapped inside his machine, watching as many of his friends were ripped to shreds and eaten before his eyes.
The man’s hand went to his holster as if by reaction, as opposed to rational thought. He had the revolver in his hands, his eyes never leaving Lisa’s, causing a chill to run up her spine. She shook her head as he pulled the hammer back, allowing it to latch in place. His eyes never left hers. Lisa was at odds. A part of her told her to run and hide, this man was going to kill her. Another part of her wanted to get the door open somehow and stop this man from doing what she suspected he might have in mind.
“Stop!” she screamed at him and, for lack of anything better to do, she pulled her Glock and pointed it at him. He paused and cocked his head, confused by her actions—the logic and audacity of her threatening to shoot him. It wasn’t going to stop him from following his present course and he slowly slid the barrel behind his right ear and angled up. He looked as if he wanted to say something, his eyes urgent, pleading. No tears, no regret … the world had become just too much for him.
Lisa put four rounds through the top of the glass on the door, causing the operator to instinctively flinch, moving the revolver from his head. Then the large, steel head of a sledgehammer sent millions of tiny shards of glass right onto the operator’s lap. Kibble kept pressure on the handle, pinning his friend’s hands to his seat while he tried to maneuver into the cab. Lisa was quicker; she jumped up on the bucket while reaching under the handle of the sledgehammer to grab the man’s wrist. She pressed her thumb into the hollow beside his thumb, causing his grip to weaken enough for her to grab the pistol with her other hand. She could see and feel his desire for tears within him, something that would help him release what was building. No tears came, no rage or hate, just pain—deep, heart-rending pain, from which there was no return, hidden behind glazed eyes.
There was no going back; that part of all them was gone, forever.
Chapter 11
Taunt
Dean did his best to predict the doctor’s trail. To follow and create the distractions he wanted would be asking to get caught. The doctor was too smart for that and would lie in wait with his high-powered rifle ready to pick off any pests that may be dogging his trail.
He heard the moaning of infected coming into the area as he vacated, followed by the report of one of the doctor’s guns. Three shots and the patter of running feet caused Dean to dive behind a dumpster and wait as the doctor passed by. He waited for a couple of minutes then held his breath as the moaning of several zombies echoed off the brick walls. He knew they wouldn’t notice him still covered in gore—or at least he hoped they wouldn’t.
Best not to risk moving, he thought. They were passing him in a somewhat latent pursuit of the doctor so Dean froze, hoping he wouldn’t do anything that would alert them.
He stayed on one knee, listening, as the crowd of walkers shuffled by. Occasionally, the dumpster would crush Dean into the wall from the press of bodies on the other side.
Then it dawned on him … this wasn’t him. This wasn’t how he played things or how he dealt with … well, anything. Somehow he had become wrapped in a game that wasn’t his own, sneaking around and trying to taunt a creep for some perverse thrill; what was the point? It wasn’t fun. He should just get to it and get it done so that he could return to the compound for a shower and a meal.
“Fuck this shit,” Dean said as he stood up and shoved the dumpster into the last few zombies that were straggling by. He screamed in rage at the beasts that had destroyed so much. He had been running and hiding for days, literally killing over a hundred of these fuckers and they never left a mark on him, so why did he hide now?
He pulled the buckler off of Shaaka and slammed it into the side of the head of the closest zombie, collapsing the skull and dropping it like a rock. He pulled the sharpened file blade spearhead up and under the chin of the next one, going through the tongue and roof and plunging deep into the brain before laying it on top of its partner. There was one left within the danger zone, but others had turned and started to shuffle back toward him. Hammer-style, he brought Shaaka down on top of its head, letting the weight of the hardwood ash buckler and the strength of his arm destroy the brain, leaving a pile of three for him to walk around.
He looked both ways down the alley and saw that the way he had come was clear and the way that he needed to go had filled with twelve or thirteen
loosely-spaced zombies. Some were still in pursuit of the doctor but most were turning around to find the cause of the disturbance behind them.
“Fuck it! Y’all are dead anyway, might as well make you act like it,” Dean said as he started toward the zombies with nothing but Shaaka.
With bulky, linebacker-like grace, Dean started to jab his spear into the brains of the assembled Zs as he made his way toward the mouth of the alley. He needn’t have been concerned for Web’s trail as a long stream of zombies flowed out behind like tendrils of smoke. He wanted to scream and draw the doctor to him but realized that Web was headed somewhere with a specific purpose. The destination piqued Dean’s curiosity to the point where he felt compelled to follow him to it before he killed him.
Either way, the result would be the same; Web would die.
Rounding a corner showed Dean a residual wake of scattered zombies slowly following the doctor’s path. Once on a trail, they would stay on it unless something crossed their path.
Soon, Dean had enough fresh blood on him again that the Zs didn’t even notice him. He followed through the outskirts of Hot Springs and into Piney, where the infestation appeared to start to complicate things for the doctor.
Dean was pissed and in a mood to take them all out as he walked, but he knew how they operated and that he would be swarmed before he got twenty feet. Getting swarmed was never good, especially when there was nobody there to pull your ass out.
The streets were filling up with the dead, and any sign of Web had disappeared with the masses. Dean quickly slipped back behind a corner before he was spotted. The horde that came around the corner reminded him of the intensity of day one. He could also tell that they weren’t falling for the stink on his clothing. They looked right at him and made a beeline for him.
So many Zs! The clearing teams haven’t made it this far yet and they were too far away from the Sam’s Club to be drawn in.
They were a mixture of early turns that were starting to slow, those who looked as if they were only a day or two old, and some collapsing from being unable to control their muscles.
Thankfully, his work helped him stay somewhat fit or he would have never survived as long as he had. Still, he was not a distance runner. He would have to do whatever he had to because they were bearing down on him.
Dean saw the outside edge of a commercial door standing open in a recessed entry, out of view of the approaching mass. Maybe if he could get there and hide deep enough, the scent trick would work and they would pass on by. He stepped through the doorway and into the foyer. There was a zombie in the corner, but he was blocked by piles of rubbish so Dean ignored him for the moment. The hallway in the building looked to be deliberately blocked off by furniture as if someone had made a stand, but there weren’t any bodies. There could be many explanations for that like they came in from the other way and killed the survivors or they decided to run instead of fight. Or, they were still here with the masses of feeders. He stopped and listened when he thought he heard voices, but it sounded like it had come from outside. To Dean’s surprise, the horde had turned the corner and was coming directly to the recessed door.
Turned a corner? Can they now smell me? He took the open staircase up as the zombie in the corner alerted its brethren to the presence of living flesh in the building. He took the stairs three at a time and dispatched a zombie that milled around at the top of the staircase just as the first of the horde entered the building.
The hallway ended at a T with arrows on the exit sign pointing in both directions. Zombies started pouring out from both ends of the T, instantly seeing Dean, and began converging on their next meal. Dean tried what he assumed was an apartment door closest to him, finding it locked. The one across the hall was the same and he started backpedaling, trying doors as he went until he was back at the stairway that was now a river of zombies coming up. There was one door left that he knew he had to go through even if it was locked. Positioned on the full wall that bordered the top landing, it looked more like a utility closet than an apartment. Being a two-story building, all he needed was a window with clear ground underneath and he would be good to go. If there was no window, he knew enough about construction to get through the wall no matter what it was made of, other than poured-concrete panels. Chances were it was brick and block, as commercial properties were rarely wood, and poured-concrete panels came along after this was constructed.
The door was unlocked; better yet, it was an apartment and had a deadbolt on the inside.
He made his way through the apartment, seeing windows on only one side. The place was vacant long before the zombies showed up and had been cleaned and looked ready for show. He knew this was a corner apartment by the way the hallway was set up. He went to the window, opened it, and hung his head out to look at what he was dealing with. The sound of ricochet and the spray of shattered brick cut into his face. He fell backward onto the floor, dabbed at his face, and cursed himself for getting caught like that. He knew who had shot at him. It was a trap that he had been led to like a bull with a ring in its nose.
The soft sound of laughter came from the rooftop across the alley as Web was once again pleased with his own ingenuity. He was surprised that he had to try so hard to beat a simple trucker. Dean and his career were the lowest on the food chain, according to Web. And now, like food, he would slowly roast. He smiled as he looked at the gasoline cocktails he had prepared just for the occasion.
Chapter 12:
Fuck
The military guys in their Humvee took off, and John in his special rigged suburban had followed. She didn’t blame him; they had lost half their group. Staying with Lisa any longer meant nothing but more death. More horrors that can’t be unseen, more friends and family to never be seen again.
Lisa turned away from the disappearing trucks and looked at the scene surrounding her. Millions of gallons of red paint could never have created the sight in front of her eyes. It was more than just death; it was annihilation. There were no bodies lying around; there were chunks of leg or arm lying here and there and decapitated heads in the distance. The demonic humans—or half dead, or whatever they were—were like piranha and had consumed everything possible as they raged across the park. Even the flowers in the manicured gardens surrounding the park’s pathways had been eaten.
God, how many of those things are there? How many could we survive? Lisa dreaded the day she would have to answer that.
She turned back to Kibble, surprised to see him leading his friend from the skid loader, over to his truck. She could hear him talking softly.
“Hang with me, Jesse. You and Mike are all I got left, okay?”
“Your last employees, huh, boss?”
“My last anything, brother. The last two people I know on this godforsaken planet.” Kibble helped Jesse into the truck then made a quick check to see that there wasn’t anything sharp or dangerous left for him to grab. “You just stay here while I unhook the trailer, all right?”
“What? Don’t we got to load the skiddys up?”
“No, man, we’re going to go on a fishing trip up in the mountains; a nice long quiet trip with lots of fish. Just me and you and Mike, okay?” Kibble said as he struggled to keep his tone strong. He secured his friend and went back to disconnect the trailer, with Lisa and Tonka in tow. Mike wordlessly climbed into the back seat of the extended cab truck.
“Fishing, huh?”
“You heard it right. Nothing against you, Lieutenant, but the end of the world is here. I spent my whole life working and dreamed of so many different trips I could take and things I could do and never had the time. Now there’s no work, and just when you think you might be one of the ones to save the world … well, we see what happens when you get that in your head, now don’t we? Jesse and Mike are all I got other than my daddy’s huntin’ shack up in the hills, and I am going to it.”
The ring pulled away from the pintle hitch and he unhooked the chains and lights. Lisa followed him around to the driver�
�s side just looking at him, unable to come up with anything to say that could stop him. Should she even try? Hadn’t he sacrificed enough already?
Kibble paused with his arm out the window and a set of keys dangling from his finger.
“That Super Duty F650 over there will do a lot more for you than that chincy Humvee with the soft top or your Chrysler. You’re welcome to it. You’re also welcome to come with us, but I know that ain’t going to happen so I didn’t offer,” Kibble said, straight and to the point.
Lisa grabbed his offered key and bowed her head regretfully before saying, “So you just don’t care anymore?”
“I just can’t care anymore. I’m not ready to die, and I have to take care of my last living friends; it’s that simple.” He gave her a smile before he took off with his heavy-duty diesel roaring in the quiet air.
Lisa walked over to the truck and disconnected the trailer before climbing in and working the seat buttons just to get her feet on the floor. Tonka sat in the passenger seat, scanning the surrounding area. Lisa got the impression that he was just as bewildered as everybody else over the last attack.
They drove toward the hospital with the built-in GPS on the F650 guiding her way. They came upon an area where there was an old-fashioned storefront that, according to the sign behind it, featured a medical equipment supply rental business. Two partially loaded tractors and trailers stood with their doors open. Lisa knew it was part of her group and may even include her friend Mitch, the pharmacist who was helping with the medical equipment.
“There’s no one here, Tonka; they’re all gone,” Lisa said sadly to the dog.
Tonka sat next to her with his ears perked and his eyes intent on a white Chevy van across the street. “Unless you know something that I don’t know,” she said when she noticed what he was doing.
Tonka gave a whine and pranced as if he wanted out. Lisa opened her door and Tonka jumped over her and headed to the van. He jumped up on the side and started barking, which was the signal they needed to open the door and climb out. Six men and women crawled out, their rifles ready. One saw Lisa in the truck and headed over.
Zombie Rush 4: Zombie Rush Page 10