by S. Ganley
Garrett considered that for a moment and then said, "Ok, I'll go for the truck, help me stack the bags out back next to the fence. Once I start the truck rolling, you grab the girl and meet me out back. As long as I can get moving I should be able to get enough distance from them as I come around the back of the building to give you time to throw everything in the back, jump in and we are out of here."
"Man, you are nuts! You know what happens if they get to you before you can get that truck moving."
Garrett’s adrenaline was already running high and his response was nothing short of terse and very direct, "Two choices dude, I go, or we all go together. We’ve got about another two minutes before they pick Steve to the bone and start looking for dessert. Now man the hell up, grab this shit with me and let’s get this done."
Garrett had never stood up so firmly against his good friend and called him out like that in the past. Between the two of the them Calvin could always be counted on to be the hot shot and risk taker, even during their time in the service together he would be the one most likely to stick his neck out that extra inch more than Garrett. Now that they faced a situation that no doctrine or training had prepared him for he was out of his element in terms of being able to make the tough decisions on the spot. When he failed to respond to Garrett's challenge, Garrett thrust one of the bags of supplies into his arms and pushed him towards the back door.
With the bags staged along the back privacy fence just at the edge of Garrett's short backyard, they made a quick check to ensure there were no surprises waiting for them anywhere in sight along the back of the building. Calvin pointed out another apartment complex just over a block away behind his own building. There was a thin stretch of what passed for a little park with jogging trails and sitting areas scattered about that separated the two housing areas. Garrett could see that one of the buildings in the neighboring housing area was completely ablaze in flames that leapt high into the sky and was carpeting most of the remaining buildings in the complex in a thick haze of dark smoke and falling ash. The fire was certainly one thing but not of immediate concern, through clearings in the smoke at ground level he could see flashes of shadows from a large crowd of people moving around close to the burning building. He was reasonably certain from the seemingly random movement he was able to see that this was not just a crowd of rubberneckers gathered to watch a building burn to the ground, he was looking at fifty to sixty zombies that must have been flushed from their apartments ahead of the blaze. This told him that even making it clear of his own complex didn't mean they were safe by a long shot, they were going to be fighting their way out of town just about every step of the way. Calvin had followed Garrett's gaze through the park and reached the same conclusion, his confidence in their chances of making it on the run were waning by the second. Garrett recognized the look of frustration on his friends face and pulled him back towards the back door of the house and away from the distant scene, it was best to get the man focused on the task at hand and give him something else to think about. Just like many stressful combat situations they had both suffered their way through in the past, it was often easy to reach the overall goal of a mission by putting all your concentration and effort on one small step at a time without allowing yourself to get overwhelmed with the stress involved in trying to see to many steps down the road.
Back inside the townhouse, Garrett grabbed his truck keys from near the front door and made a quick check that Carlos and his friends were still preoccupied with Steve's remains. Satisfied that they had not yet turned their attention towards the house only a few feet away, he ran back to the kitchen and found Calvin already gathering Kimberly in his arms from the living room couch and carefully carrying her to the back door where he crouched down to wait for Garrett to pull around the building and meet them in the backyard.
Garrett elected to stick with a single hand gun and two extra magazines of ammunition tucked into his back pockets for his run to the truck. While the AK's were accurate and reliable weapons they were also unwieldy at close range. Garrett had little doubt that if it came to gun play during his dash for the truck it was going to be an up close and personal situation and he preferred the one handed flexibility and lighter weight of the pistol over the standoff power of the rifle. Hustling out the kitchen door he skirted around the end of the privacy fence and sprinted past the four houses between him and the edge of his building. Garrett slowed as he reached the corner and stepped wide to come around the edge with plenty of distance from the wall in case any surprises were waiting for him. He spotted movement in the parking lot as more undead from buildings further into the complex began converging on their small end of the housing area. Garrett stopped and crouched close to the ground for several seconds while he watched as three of them passed by almost directly in front of him, they were concentrating on a point out of his line of sight and passed him by without paying any attention to the space between the two buildings. Several more were coming from farther down in the parking lot but were still far enough off that Garrett felt it was worth the risk to make his move before they got any closer. Keeping close to the wall of the building and moving slowly and cautiously he cleared the side of the building and followed the sidewalk to a point right next to the first car in the front row of vehicles. He looked up the sidewalk to the small crowd of zombies bent over the rapidly thinning remains of Steve's corpse, Carlos was closest to the front door in this group and had lifted his head clear of the body and was now studying the porch and doorway, his nose sniffing at the air. Garrett thought they were just about out of time, at any moment his undead neighbor was going to catch the scent of fresh meat in the air and all of them would lose interest in Steve and concentrate on getting into his home. If he didn't reach Calvin before that happened his friend would either have to take a stand on his own as they rushed inside or leave Kimberly behind and make a break for it. Looking back over his shoulder he saw that the next closest crowd of zombies was still moving in his direction but as long as they kept the walking pace they were maintaining at the moment they would not be a problem just yet.
Garrett stood as casually as possible and walked calmly and purposefully to the back of the car he had been hiding behind and continued on towards his own truck. He had learned while still a young Private in the military that sometimes just giving the appearance that you belonged somewhere could go a long way towards being left alone, he hope that as long as he walked at an even pace and didn't appear out of place for the few seconds it would take him to reach the driver’s door, that any casual observation by the undead would not attract attention to himself. His plan worked only long enough for him to walk the distance to the next car in line and two cars short of his target. He wasn't sure if it was the way he moved, his appearance, smell or something else altogether, but a zombie at the opposite end of the parking lot near the location where the black woman had been brutalized noticed him and let loose a long agitated moan that was quickly mimicked by several others as they turned towards him. Carlos and his group were the closest to him and as soon as they detected that moaning from across the lot their heads jerked up exposing blood soaked faces as they scanned the area for the source of the disturbance. They spotted him immediately and the meal they were making out of Steve was forgotten as they shot to their feet and started racing towards him. Garrett didn't need to turn around to know that in addition to Carlos and his group coming from the front of his home, he also had groups of zombies rushing towards him from all different points of the compass around the housing complex. The group coming from his house was the most immediate threat as they would likely get to him just as he reached his truck. Garrett ran for all he was worth around the end of another car and finally past the tailgate of his own truck. Rounding the back side of the pickup he raised his pistol and sent two rounds into the chest of a zombie who was just coming around the hood towards him. The bullets struck home directly center mass of the man but other than a slight waiver in his step did little to stop his
advance. Garrett cursed himself for not remembering the one key element of trying to take down one of these things, he could empty the entire clip into its body and do nothing more than waste his ammo, it had to be a direct head shot just like when he put Steve down with the intent of keeping him down for good. Sliding the sights upwards an inch he centered on the man's face and squeezed the trigger again, the round punched through the left eye and crumpled the beast to the ground in a lifeless heap an instant later. Garrett had now reached the driver’s side door but there were two more zombies coming along right on the heels of the one he had just dropped. Taking a modified shooters stance he plugged the first one in the brow and then put a neat double tap into the area around the mouth of the next one. Before that last zombie finished its fall to the ground he had his hand on the door handle and was yanking it open. He was just about to jump in behind the wheel when he saw that the next zombie to reach the front end of his truck was none other than Carlos himself. Even in life the man had been a thorn in Garrett's side, just the thought that he would now spend his remaining years seeking out other survivors like himself only to tear them to shreds was a little more than Garrett could stomach. He took the extra second to once again steady the pistol and carefully bring his sights up in line with the familiar face staring back at him. Just before he pulled the trigger he was sure that Carlos had turned his mouth upward into something resembling a grin as his eyes bore into and through Garrett's. The 9mm bullet punched a neat hole at a point just above centerline between his eyes and exited the back of the skull with a shower of gristle and gray matter. Garrett could see what life had been left in those eyes starting to wink out, but he also thought that even as the darkness was overcoming him that Carlos was struggling to keep direct eye contact with Garrett as if he wanted to ensure that the last image ever to cross whatever remained of his diseased brain was that of the one neighbor of his who never showed the slightest indication of fear or intimidation from him or his friends. Garrett thought that maybe, somewhere inside that twisted and ruined excuse for a brain there was actually a small spark of respect for someone who did not allow himself to be easily preyed upon. Garrett didn't really care in the end, he had finally punched that assholes ticket once and for all and all he felt was the satisfaction of a well-aimed shot. Sliding in behind the wheel he slammed the door shut behind him and locked it, firing up the engine he dropped it into reverse just as two sets of hands began bounding hard against the glass of the driver’s side window. He didn't need to look back over his left shoulder to know that the remainder of Carlos' crew had reached the outside of his door, instead he mashed his foot down on the gas and the truck shot out into the parking lot behind him as he steered for a wide turn to line the front end up with the distant sidewalk that he would follow around and behind the building.
The female zombie appeared out of nowhere in his rear window, one second there was just a clear stretch of parking lot behind him and then suddenly she stepped into view from one side running towards the back of the truck without the slightest inclination of danger. She was wearing a uniform of some sort as if she had been just on the way out the door to some minimum wage paying job when she was struck down by the virus. He flinched for a second as the natural tendency to avoid the collision almost caused him to mash down on the brake but at the last instant he caught himself and allowed the momentum of the truck to mow her down. The collision against her midsection folded her over and caused her head to smack against the top of the tailgate with a smacking sound like a water balloon striking a hard surface. She dropped out of sight behind the truck and Garrett felt the rear tire rise up as the truck continued backwards and ran over her. He rammed the gear shift into drive and turned the wheel hard to point the nose of the truck into the narrow opening between the car he had first sought cover behind upon reaching the parking lot and a concrete barrier holding a sign for a handicapped parking spot that started the next row of parking. Between the car and sign there was a walkway that led to the sidewalk and as he approached it he realized it was just a hair too narrow for a vehicle as wide as his truck. He decided that of the two choices the car would more than likely yield under the power and weight of his truck than the solidly based concrete barrier holding the handicapped sign. Gritting his teeth and forcing himself to purposely point his beloved truck into the side of the much smaller car, he bounced in his seat as the front bumper of his truck dug in hard against the side of the car starting at the passenger side rear door. Giving it some more gas, he felt the soft metal of the door start to give under the heavy metal reinforced front bumper and then he saw the top of the car begin to slide sideways in the parking spot as his bumper found purchase against a more solid piece of frame between the rear and front doors and used that point of contact to drive the car out of the way just enough for him to slip the truck through the narrow opening and up and onto the sidewalk leading between the buildings. Garrett reached down into the bottom of the center console and switched the drive of the truck into the 4wheel option to give the tires a chance for a better grip on the grass that was still damp from the morning dew. Reaching the corner at the back of the building, Garrett wheeled the truck into a tight left turn without slowing down, a quick glance over his left shoulder as he made the turn revealed at least a dozen zombies only a few steps away from the path between the buildings, they were closing the distance on him faster than he had anticipated and it was going to leave Calvin only seconds to load the supplies and Kimberly into the back of the truck before they were on top of them.
Garrett spotted Calvin peeking out from the side of the length of privacy fence separating his small strip of backyard from the adjoining neighbors, seeing the truck round the side of the building into the back he disappeared out of sight as he grabbed up the bags of supplies and equipment ready to toss them into the truck the second Garrett slid it into position. Garrett lined the front of the truck up on the edge of the privacy fence and skidded to a stop so close to the fence that his rear view mirror smacked against the edge of the wood and swiveled out and over the hood of the truck. He was hoping that by putting the truck actually up against the fence he could form a tight enough seal to force any zombies that reached them before they were ready to have to run around the far side of the truck to come at them from a different angle and hopefully give them those extra few seconds that would make the difference between escape and something else that he was not willing to let himself consider as an actual option. He was gambling that none of them had the common sense to climb up on the back bumper and into the bed of the truck to reach either him or Calvin. He was pretty sure given their lack of ability to perform simple tasks like opening a door that they would continue running around the outside of the truck once they realized it was blocking their path. The truck had not fully come to rest when he felt the weight of the first bag landing in the open bed, a few seconds later this was followed by the second. Calvin had moved the limp form of Kimberly out and into position against the fence where he had propped her up slightly to allow himself a chance to quickly reach his arms back underneath her and grab her in a single scoop. He was lucky that he picked a petite girl this time, Calvin's second ex-wife would have required both of their efforts to get her up off the ground and even then there would have been the risk of damaged back muscles trying to get the entire load into the back of the truck. As Calvin stooped to bend over Kimberly, Garrett saw the leading edge of the crowd of zombies reaching the privacy fence marking the outer boundary for his neighbor’s house. Garrett held his breath as the first of the zombies reached the back bumper of his truck and then let it out in a short sigh of victory that he had been correct in assuming they would continue to run to the front of the truck before cutting back and coming after Calvin on the other side.
"Come on! Move your ass!" Garrett shouted through the open window. Stepping out to provide covering fire for his friend would only slow him down in being able to take off again, it was do or die right now for Calvin to get Kimberly an
d himself into the truck in the next five seconds or they were going to be in trouble.
Calvin shot to his feet with Kimberly cradled in his arms and was already moving towards the truck before fully gaining his balance, he allowed the momentum of the coming stumble to carry him forward in a half dive as he none to gently heaved Kimberly up and over the side of the truck and into the open bed on top of the bags of supplies he had already loaded. Garrett could feel the truck dip slightly to the side in response to Calvin's weight as he clambered up the side of the truck following behind Kimberly.
"Go, Go, Go!" Calvin shouted as soon as his first foot touched down inside the bed. Two zombies had already rounded the front of the truck and were reaching out towards Calvin in the back end.
Garrett hit the gas and spun the wheel hard to the right, he felt Calvin's weight shifting in the back of the truck as the sudden acceleration and slide of the tires in the wet grass sent him sprawling against the metal wheel well towards the back of the open bed. The zombies who had been just rushing past the door on his side were caught off guard by the unexpected movement of the truck and fell head over heels on top of each other as they tried to make a last ditch effort to lunge forward and grab for Calvin. A third zombie had just started passing in front of the truck when Garrett hit the gas and two others had reached the front of the hood along the passenger side, Garrett plowed down the one in front and nailed the other two hard with the front quarter panel sending them flying off into the grass several feet away.
With so many zombies already in the parking lot and surrounding grounds in front of his building, Garrett decided to take the path less traveled and plow through the thin screen of brush leading into the small park between his building and the one burning on the opposite side of the park. The truck bounced and bucked as it crashed through the cover and dipped into a small depression that had been partially hidden in the overgrowth.