by Dana Fredsti
Crap. This is bad.
I didn’t voice the thought out loud because aside from the now ever-present demolition derby automotive aftermath, Sloat was crawling with zombies. Not quite swarm sized, but enough to make traveling the short block to our destination tricky at best, suicidal at worst.
And holy shit, was that really a lion strolling through the cars across the street in one of the auxiliary zoo parking lots?
Griff nudged me and pointed. “Lion,” he whispered.
Yup, it really was a lion. Or lioness, rather.
The zombies seemed to be ignoring her. I wondered if it had eaten enough of their undead comrades that they steered clear out of some survival instinct or if lions just didn’t taste good to zombies. Either way, our odds of being tasty to both zombie and lion were pretty high, which made this trip even more interesting, in that whole “May you live in interesting times” Chinese curse kind of way.
Peering over the Comcast van, which had flipped onto its side, I looked west down Sloat to the next corner, and spotted the yellow and black George’s Zoo sign with a gorilla sipping a cup of coffee. Just like JT had described.
One block away. Just one lousy block. It might as well have been a mile.
We couldn’t scale walls with the greatest of ease like JT, our own Flying Walenda, and even more to the point, where were we supposed to land a helicopter in this mess? And even if there’d been a clear spot to land, we’d be swarmed by opportunistic zombies before we made it to the copter. As if to emphasize the fucked uppedness of the situation, a gust of wind blew through the streets, picking up trash and swirling it into the air before depositing it at my feet.
“How the hell are we gonna get out of here?” I said as much to myself as to Griff.
“They’ll have to hover and let down a ladder,” Griff replied. We both spoke in undertones.
“Can they do that if it’s windy?”
“It’s not that windy.”
Another gust howled down the streets, the sound as eerie as the moans of the zombies.
“It’ll be fine,” Griff assured me.
A low whistle sounded behind us. Griff and I swiveled around to see JT crouching on the roof of the house on the corner of Sloat and 43rd. He waved. I wiggled my fingers in response. Griff didn’t bother.
Eschewing his usual flamboyance, JT climbed quietly down from the house he perched on by way of a trellis covered with bougainvillea, nimbly avoiding the thorny vines. He then ran over to us, body bent over to stay out of sight. I noticed he was favoring his left leg. Not a lot, but it was still worrisome.
“Hey there,” I said as JT squeezed into the space between the three smashed vehicles. I handed him a bottle of water from my backpack.
“Hey there yourself,” he said, taking the water and draining the bottle in one long draught.
“Now what?” I asked.
“I’ll go up top. You and Mister Sexy Pants use the front door.”
“If your people are still in there,” Griff said, rather admirably ignoring JT’s insult, “they’ll have it barricaded. And if we go hammering on it, why the hell would they let us in?”
“Simple,” JT said with a shrug. “I’ll drop down from above and let them know we’re here to save the day.”
“Good plan, Mighty Mouse,” Griff said. “But we need some sort of signal to let us know it’s worth our time to run the risk. If they’re dead, no one’s gonna be letting us in and then we’re dead too.”
“It’s not rocket science,” JT said dismissively. “If they’re dead, I’ll let you in.”
“It may not be rocket science, but it’s not that simple.” I couldn’t believe I was defending Griff, but he was right. “If they’re dead, they might be zombies. If they’re zombies, you’ll have to hightail it out of there before they bite you, because if they bite you, you’ll be dead. And if you have to hightail it out of there, that leaves me and Griff stuck outside attracting all sorts of attention.”
JT thought it over. “Good points. So you two hide out here and I’ll go check inside the store. If they’re alive, I’ll play decoy and use my luscious ass to tempt the crowds away from the front of the store. If they’re dead, we can use the rope I brought to get you two up on the roof to wait for extraction.”
“It’s great plan,” Griff said, “but there’s only one problem.”
He jerked his head to one side.
What looked like an entire platoon of zombies was lurching its way across the street and up 43rd towards us. The time for hunkering down was past. We needed to get inside George’s Zoo or some other shelter, pronto.
I looked at JT. “We’re kinda screwed if we don’t move now.”
Griff pointed towards the door of the second house closest to Sloat. The entryway’s iron gate was ajar. “In there. It’ll buy us some time. We can get out through the backyard if Spiderman can draw this bunch away.”
“How will we know if it’s safe to hit the front of George’s?”
JT tapped his radio. “Just be ready to move fast.”
“You gonna be okay on that knee?”
“Please,” JT said. “Take more than this to slow me down.”
With that he took off again, leaping from the roof of the Humvee to an SUV parked in the driveway, to the second story window box. From there he shimmied the rest of the way up using the rain gutter like a native scaling a coconut tree.
Meanwhile the zombies heading towards us on 43rd were a scant ten feet away, more than close enough to see details I didn’t want to see. Griff grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. The two of us scrambled away from our barricade-soon-to-be-deathtrap and ran for the entryway, slamming the gate behind us just as the frontrunner of the mini-swarm reached the driveway.
* * *
JT stood on top of the roof and smiled.
“I’m on top of the world, ma!” His voice rang out across the rooftops and to the throngs of rotting cannibals below. They looked up at the sound and immediately started shuffling towards the house, arms stretching up towards him. He felt like Bono in a U2 video, doing his messiah imitation.
Now what?
Hmmm.
“How about some music, maestro? Don’t mind if I do.”
JT cleared his throat and burst out into Music of the Night, one of his favorite numbers from Phantom of the Opera. The acoustics weren’t the best, but good enough to attract the attention of even more of adoring crowd below. If it wasn’t his imagination, he believed he saw the gang that had followed him from West Portal shuffling towards him from a block away.
That should give Ash and Mister some breathing space.
And in the meantime, he’d suss out the situation at George’s Zoo.
He hoped they were still okay. The pretty gal with the big eyes still haunted him. He’d made her a promise, and JT was not one to renege on his word.
Inspired, he switched over to Brown Eyed Girl and bounded over the rooftop to his destination.
* * *
If Griff or I had hoped for some downtime waiting for JT’s signal, we were doomed to disappointment.
The stench of rotting flesh was, if anything, worse inside the two-story house, probably because there were a shitload of zombies inside, all trying to jam into a room off the downstairs hallway, moaning hungrily. The ones in the rear pawed at those in front, too distracted by whatever was in that room to notice Griff and me right away.
Giving each other an ‘oh shit’ look, Griff and I raced up a staircase right off the front door. The stairs were tacky with semi-dried blood, the soles of our boots making little ripping sounds with each step.
Upstairs was slightly better in that all of the corpses were in bits and pieces, and none of them were moving.
And how fucked up was it that this was now my definition of ‘better?’
The living room looked like an abattoir, the formerly cream colored walls splashed with reddish-brown. The kitchen wasn’t much better. Someone had gone to town on a zombie with a ca
st iron skillet. The zombie, once a little old Chinese grandma, flopped over in a corner like a zombie Raggedy Ann doll, and bits of brain and bone splinters spattered the black and white tiled floor.
There were three other rooms upstairs: a bathroom and two bedrooms. All three doors were standing wide open and the rooms appeared empty. I pointed to the bedroom further from the stairs with a west view window, and padded in silently, Griff on my heels. He shut the door behind us with a barely audible ‘click.’
The room was filled with bow-bedecked anime felines from the bedspread to the wallpaper and curtains.
“Well, hello kitty.” Griff looked around with a sneer.
“Don’t be an asshole,” I said. “I’m sure this room belonged to a little kid, okay?”
He pointed wordlessly to a glass with dentures in it on the pink and white bedside table.
“I hate you,” I muttered, and went over to the window, pushing the pink and white curtains apart and raising the window to let in some not-so-fresh air.
* * *
“So when we get out of here,” Luke said, “what’s the first thing you’re gonna do?”
He, Jenna and Phil sat on overturned crates near the front of the store eating cold Pop Tarts and dry cereal. Dylan lay next to the front counter sleeping, a pile of airplane sized rum bottles scattered around his prone body.
Phil took a bite of a frosted strawberry Pop Tart, swallowing before answering Luke’s question. “You mean after a hot shower? Go play eighteen holes at Pebble Beach.”
Luke nodded appreciatively. “Nice. I’m gonna take a few weeks and go to Hawaii, do some snorkeling and get shitfaced on Mai Tais.”
“You can totally do that here,” Jenna pointed out between handfuls of Frosted Flakes. “Why go to Hawaii?”
“Dude,” Luke said. “Hawaii.” He took a bite of his own Pop Tart, washing it down with a swallow of warm cream soda. “What about you, J?”
Jenna gave a wistful smile. “Take my new Mustang out for a drive on the freeway. You know the only place I drove it aside from home off the lot is here, right? Everything went to hell that day.”
Luke shook his head in sympathy. “Dude, that totally sucks.”
Dylan gave an unexpected cackle. “Like there’s gonna be anywhere to drive it even if you get out f here,” he said, eyes still shut, that weird-ass smile he now always wore plastered on his face like some sort of a half-assed Joker. “Which you won’t.”
“Shut up, Dylan.” Jenna glared at him.
Dylan kept grinning. “Yeah, just imagine all those rotting pus-bags touching your car, bits of skin sticking to the handles, pus on the paintjob, that black shit all over the windshield--”
“Shut the fuck up! “
Jenna threw her box of cereal across the aisle. It bounced off Dylan’s head, frosted flakes scattering onto his prone body. He gave a little whoop of amusement and stuffed a handful of the cereal into his mouth.
“Yup, that sweet ride of yours is gonna be totally fucked up by the time we get out of here. Ain’t no detail shop in the world gonna get that shit off of it.”
Jenna grabbed a can of soup from the shelf next to her and pitched it with uncanny accuracy. It smacked Dylan square in the chest, wiping the grin off his face.
“Hey,” he said, looking genuinely offended.
“Hey, your fucking self!”
Dylan stumbled to his feet just as Jenna threw another can of soup. This one clipped his elbow and he gave a howl of pain that was cut short when another can smacked him square on the nose.
Luke had to admire her aim.
Blood spouted from Dylan’s nostrils and he lurched to his feet.
“I’m gonna pay you back for that,” he promised, taking a threatening step forward.
Then he took two stumbling steps backwards as Phil stood up, twice as wide and just as tall as Dylan.
“You threatening my niece?” Phil’s tone was deceptively mild as he walked up to his employee.
Luke stayed by Jenna, who already had another can in her hand, ready to hurl.
“She threw a fucking soup can at me,” Dylan protested. “Three of them.”
“I said, are you threatening my niece? Because if you are—“ Phil closed the gap between them with a speed that belied his size. “--I swear I’ll toss you out to those things without thinking twice.” He poked Dylan in the chest. “You dig?” Poke.
Even though they were the same height, Phil towered over Dylan, who had shrunk back against the counter, blood dripping freely from his nose.
“She made me bleed!”
“Yeah well, you deserved it for being an asshole,” Jenna shot back.
“Bitch!”
Phil reached out and grabbed Dylan’s shirtfront. “You wanna take that back or do I toss you out the back door?”
Dylan’s reply, whatever it would have been, was cut off by a voice from the back of the store.
“Hey, what does a guy have to do to get a ham on rye here?”
Jenna whirled round, ready to throw the soup can in her hand when she saw who stood at the entrance to the atrium.
“Spiderman!”
Jenna ran over and threw her arms around the newcomer without hesitation. He gave a pleased grin and gave her a one armed hug.
Phil let go of Dylan’s shirt. Dylan slumped back against the counter.
“Holy shit, you actually came back,” Luke said, staring at ‘Spiderman’ in disbelief.
“I promised, didn’t I?”
“Who the hell are you?” Phil folded his arms. Luke could tell he didn’t like the way Jenna was looking at this young dude, all oozing hero worship and shit.
The kid strode over to Phil and held out one hand. “Name’s JT. But I kinda like Spiderman. I’m here with my team to get you out of here.”
Phil stared down at the kid’s hand as if it was a cockroach. “And why should I trust you?”
The kid shrugged. “Maybe you should ask yourself why you shouldn’t trust me.”
Phil turned to Luke. “This the guy you and Jenna told me about?”
Luke nodded. “Yeah. He promised he’d be back. I thought he was full of shit.”
Jenna frowned. “I told you he’d come back.” She smiled shyly at JT. “I knew you would.”
“Aw,” JT said with an embarrassed grin, “Now you’ve gone and made me blush.”
Jenna giggled, a sound Phil hadn’t heard in the last ten days. He was torn between delight that his niece could still laugh and distrust at this kid walking in and acting like he was the messiah or something.
“So where’s this team of yours?” Phil knew he sounded aggressive. He didn’t give a shit. “And just where is this magical safe place you’re gonna take us?” Phil wasn’t quite ready to trust this cocky little SOB yet. He might be on the level or he might be someone looking to steal supplies or worse, screw with Jenna.
JT seemed unfazed by Phil’s questions. “My team is waiting for me to let ‘em know when it’s safe to come to the front door. We’re holed up with a bunch of secret government agent types at UCSF at an equally secret laboratory facility where they’re working on a cure for this shit. Oh,” he added. “There’s also hot water and showers.”
Luke stepped forward. “Um, as much as I’d personally kill for a hot shower and a shave, the front door is kind of boarded up.” He pointed towards the two-by-fours nailed down across the entrance.
JT eyeballed it. “Okay, yeah, I see your point. Is there another entrance?”
“What about how you got in?” Jenna asked.
JT shrugged modestly. “I have skills beyond those of mortal men.”
Luke snorted. “Okay, Tony Stark.”
JT flashed him a broad smile. “I’m not nearly as much of an asshole.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll be the judge of that,” Phil said.
“As you wish.” JT cast a quick look around. “So you’re saying it’s either the front door or the roof?”
Jenna pointed towards the ba
ck where a few plastic garbage bins were wedged in between the wall and a door. The sound of wet meat slapping against metal was clearly audible. “That door leads into the apartment garage, but those things have been trying to get in for days now.”
JT nodded. “Okay. Can you get the boards off the front door?”
“Sure,” Phil replied. “But if anything happens and we get stuck here, we’ll be pretty much screwed. So tell me why we should take those boards off.”
“If we can take the boards off,” JT said, “my team will be here in minutes. We can help you all climb up to the roof, we’ll have a genuine ‘get to the choppah’ moment and get the hell out of here. Sound good?”
This last was to Jenna, who nodded vehemently.
“How the hell are we gonna get up to the roof?”
“For thems that can’t shimmy up the pipes the way I can, we have this.” JT pulled his knapsack off his back and pulled out a coil of rope. “And we’ll have two very strong people to help haul you up.”
Phil and Luke exchanged a brief look.
“Luke,” Phil said, “Get the crowbar.”
JT smiled broadly. “I’ll radio my peeps.”
* * *
The curtains billowed in the wind as I looked out into the backyard. It was zombie free, but the drop down into the cement backyard was at least ten feet. The risk of a sprained or broken ankle was very real.
“We can’t go out the front door, and there’s no way to get out the back on the ground floor without killing a buttload of zoms.”
Griff smirked. “May I inquire how many zombies constitute a buttload? “
“However many are downstairs.” I chose to ignore his sarcasm. “I wonder what they’re after in that room.”
“Something living, most likely,” Griff said with a shrug. He pulled the sheets off the bed. We can use these to go out the window, just like proper escaped convicts.
“Shit.” I shook my head. “We have to go see if someone’s still alive down there.