Ashley Parker (Novella): Pinky Swear

by Dana Fredsti

  “Are you crazy?” Griff grabbed my shoulders. “We’re immune to infection. We’re not immune to getting ripped to pieces and eaten.”

  I smacked his hands away. “If there’s someone alive down there, how do you expect me to leave them?”

  “Same way you’ve walked past dozens of houses that probably had survivors in them. You just keep walking.”

  Before I could deliver a scathing reply, my radio squawked. Glaring at Griff, I took it off my belt.

  “Ash here. “

  “Hey doll, it’s your hero. You ready to rock and roll?”

  “You got survivors?”

  “Roger that. Four.” JT paused. “Although one of them is kind of loony tunes.”

  Kind of par for the course, I thought sadly. One of the people we’d rescued had been so terrified and crazy that she’d killed one of our team without realizing what she’d done.

  “We’re unboarding the front door of George’s now,” JT continued. “I’m heading up top for a quick jaunt down the block for an ‘everyone look at me’ moment. I love that part. Give it five minutes or so and then head over.”

  “It may take a little longer than that. We might have a survivor here as well.”

  “Actually,” Griff said, “we may not have five minutes.”

  “What’s that?” JT had good hearing for someone who wasn’t a wild card.

  “Hang on a sec.” I turned to Griff, now looking out a partially cracked bedroom door. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  *Whoever may or may not have been alive downstairs?” He shook his head. “They’re definitely dead now.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because all those zombies who were clamoring to get at them are now heading our way.”

  I heard slow but relentless footsteps mounting the stairs.

  Griff slammed the door shut. There was no lock. And it opened inward.

  “Shit.”

  “Deep shit,” Griff agreed.

  “JT,” I said into the radio, “Do your best, but we just ran out of time. We’re headed your way now.”

  I hit the off switch and shoved the radio back on my belt.

  Without saying another word, Griff and I both took a side of a heavy wooden dresser painted an unfortunate Pepto Bismol pink, and muscled it in front of the door. Hands pounding on the door echoed the thump the dresser made when we dropped it on the carpeted floor.

  It didn’t take long for the dresser to start edging towards us as the door slowly opened under the combined weight of lots of determined zombies.

  “Here.”

  I ran over to the heavy wooden-framed twin bed. Griff joined me and we dragged it over as a bulwark against the dresser.

  Griff held up the Hello Kitty sheets.

  I nodded, punching the screen out of the window with my fist while Griff quickly tied the fitted and flat sheets together lengthwise, yanking hard on the knots to make sure they’d hold our weight.

  He looked around for something to use as an anchor.

  “Tie it to the bedpost.” I suggested.

  He raised an eyebrow. “You or the sheets?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t ruin the moment.”

  Griff smirked and tied one end of our sheet rope to the bedpost closest to the window. He gave a hard yank. The bed moved just a little bit. Hopefully it would stay in place long enough to let us hightail it out of there before the zombies broke through the door.

  Griff tossed the sheet rope out of the window. “You first.”

  I didn’t argue. I just grabbed the sheet and rappelled down the side of the house into the backyard. I landed in front of a large window

  As soon as I touched ground, Griff practically leapt out the window, hand over handing it down next to me in record time.

  “They’re in,” he said.

  The downstairs glass window burst outwards.

  “And they’re out.”

  We took off to the other side of the backyard, which dead-ended in a rotting wooden fence, the boards warped and gone green in some places.

  “Mine,” I said. Pivoting on one leg, I slammed a sidekick into a particularly rotted-looking section of old redwood. It shattered most cooperatively so I kicked the slat next to it, making a gap large enough for us to squeeze through.

  “Nice,” Griff said with an appreciative look.

  We emerged into the backyard of the house that straddled both 43rd and Sloat, a short chain link fence the only thing between us and a buttload of zombies.

  And possibly a lioness.

  This did not look good.

  “What do you think?” Griff crouched down next to me in the corner of the yard, M4 in hand. “Do we wait for Monkey Boy to do his magic or just go for it?”

  Zombies from the house we’d just vacated were hammering at the fence, not quite smart enough to squeeze through the gap we’d created. Some of the zoms wandering down Sloat had noticed us and were slamming against the chain-link fence, bringing more of them over to see what the fuss was all about.

  “I think if we wait any longer,” I said, “we’re totally screwed."

  “If they don’t have the door open, we’re screwed too.”

  I nodded. “Yup. But I’d rather move and take my chances than wait here.”

  Griff reached out and gave my hand a squeeze. “If we don’t make it … I’m really sorry I didn’t a chance to get you into—”

  I held up my free had. “Don’t spoil the moment, okay?”

  He grinned. “Deal.”

  “Is that…” I heard singing. “Is that yodeling?”

  “High on a hill was a lonely goatherd

  Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo…”

  Yup, it totally was.

  The zombies following us from the house next door broke through the redwood at the same time the zombies on Sloat trampled down a section of the chain link fence.

  I unslung my M4. No need for stealth any more.

  “Let’s rock!”

  * * *

  JT stood on the roof a few doors down from George’s on 44th. His knee hurt like hell, but his vocal chords were feeling no pain.

  His yodel rivaled Julie Andrews’ as far as volume and perfect pitch, and got the attention of the zombies below. Not all of them, but enough to hopefully give Ash and Griff a good chance to make it to the entrance of the store.

  It also felt great to let rip with some show tunes without being told to shut up.

  * * *

  Griff and I opened fire at the same time, Griff focusing on the ones following us from next door while I took on the newbies from Sloat.

  I wasn’t the best shot in the world, but at this range it was hard to miss, provided I didn’t panic. It helped that a number of the zoms were evidently Sound of Music fans and followed the sound of JT’s voice down the block and around the corner.

  “We’re good back here.

  I risked a quick look and saw that Griff had created a nice little barricade of dead zombies in the breach they’d made in the fence. Other zoms pushed against the unmoving rotted flesh of their fallen comrades, but it would take them a little while to make it through.

  Both Griff and I renewed our attentions to the ones on Sloat, clearing out enough of them to create some space on the sidewalk.

  “Now?” Griff looked at me.

  I switched out the M4 for my katana. Running and aiming and firing at the same time? I’d be lucky if I didn’t hit my own foot. Then I nodded.

  “Now.”

  * * *

  Luke and Jenna stood sentry at the front doors. Phil waited right behind them, crowbar in hand, and ready to smash in the skulls of anyone without a pulse. The wooden boards were now piled in the aisle, revealing the metal theft prevention grills on the inside of each door.

  They could hear JT singing, the sound carrying down the atrium. Jenna cocked her head to one side.

  “What the hell is he singing?” she asked.

  Phil shook his head in di
sbelief. “You’ve never seen Sound of Music?”

  Before Jenna could answer, gunshots echoed outside and fists pounded on the front door.

  Luke and Jenna started to open it, but Phil held up a hand.

  “Who is it? “

  “We’re JT’s friends,” a female voice yelled. “Please open the fucking door!” Jenna and Luke wrenched the doors open.

  A man and a woman clutching a rifle and a Japanese sword, respectively, practically fell inside, undead hands reaching for them.

  The man turned around and fired his weapon into the skull of a zombie in a zoo uniform while the woman thrust the point of her sword into the eye socket of a former surfer in a wetsuit. The ex zoo employee tumbled backwards onto the sidewalk while the surfer collapsed, falling facedown, its front half in the store.

  “Seriously?”

  Rolling her eyes, the woman shoved the surfer out the door with one foot even as more zombies lurched towards the store’s entrance. Luke and Jenna slammed the doors and twisted the locks. Zombies piled up against it, splatting open palms on the outside. The metal grills on the inside shook, but held firm.

  The woman turned to face them, face and body covered in blood and viscera. Luke tried not to flinch at the smell, which was even worse than Dylan and the rotten food.

  “I’m Ash, and this is Griff.” She nodded towards the guy, equally drenched in gore. “Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

  * * *

  I looked at the worn, filthy trio before me. A youngish blond guy with a surprisingly neat beard and mustache. A young woman with a sweet face wearing a wary expression, curly dark hair trying its best to escape a single braid. A big guy in his early 40s maybe, bald, wearing a blue apron over his shirt and shorts.

  “I’m Phil,” the big guy said. “This is my niece Jenna.”

  Looking at Jenna, JT’s determination to keep his promise made even more sense. Not that I thought he was shallow enough to only want to save cute young women, but…

  …it couldn’t have hurt.

  Of course, the way the girl was staring at Griff, even under the layers of yuck, didn’t auger well if JT had hopes in her direction. The big guy, Phil, noticed it too and gave Griff total stink-eye.

  The blond guy stuck his hand out. “I’m Luke.”

  I shook my head. “We’re covered in infectious fluids,” I said. “We’re immune. You’re probably not.”

  He withdrew his hand hastily.

  I paused. “JT said there was four of you.”

  “Yeah,” the girl said. “Dylan. He’s—“

  She looked around and frowned. “He was here a minute ago

  Phil shook his head in disgust. “Probably sulking in the bathroom.”

  * * *

  ‘Fuck them,” Dylan muttered.

  No one noticed as he crept towards the back of the store, taking care to move as quietly as possible. He didn’t want to leave George’s Zoo any more. Sure, he’d have loved to have gotten out during those first few days, but now?

  What did he have left out in the real world? His mom and his brother were gone. There was no future. No place for Jenna to drive her stupid car. No colleges, no jobs, nothing. Just a lot of rotting pus-bags that wanted to eat him.

  No, he wasn’t going to leave. And neither would the rest of them. He’d told Jenna he’d pay her back. And he would.

  He began stealthily moving the garbage and recycle bins away from the back door.

  * * *

  I radioed JT.

  “You can stop yodeling,” I said. “We’re in.”

  JT gave a last yodel, then said, “Cool. Heading back. I’ll drop the rope down. Jenna can show you where. We can pull everyone up on the roof and wait for the copter.”

  “Roger that.”

  “And a whiskey tango foxtrot to you.”

  “Just call for the copter, okay, smartass?”

  “Roger that.”

  He signed off before I could call him a smartass.

  I turned back to the trio of survivors and Griff.

  “Jenna, can you show me how JT got in and out of here?”

  Jenna nodded eagerly and pointed towards an open sliding glass window, a faint shaft of sunlight shining down behind it. “The atrium.”

  I peeked through the window up at the open sky at the top of four walls. I noted the pipe running down one of the walls. Child’s play for JT to scale, but not so easy for the rest of us.

  I heard a holler and looked up as a thick rope tumbled down along the side of one wall, the end tied in a makeshift noose. I looked up to see JT waving from the roof.

  “Ready Betty?” he called down.

  “You have no idea,” I yelled back.

  I stuck my head back inside. “Okay, gang, let’s move it.”

  * * *

  He had to push the door hard. The weight of so many hungry zombies on the other side did a good job of keeping the door shut. Once Dylan got it cracked open an inch, however, mangled fingers clutched the doorframe and others reached in for the fresh meat waiting for them.

  Dylan laughed with glee. This would show Phil he couldn’t be pushed around. See how he liked zombies in his precious store. And see how Jenna liked—

  A still meaty hand with a gold band sunken into one putrefying finger reached through the gap, grabbed a handful of Dylan’s hair, and yanked hard.

  Dylan’s outraged scream cut off as teeth sank into his neck.

  * * *

  Someone screamed from deep in the store, the cutting off abruptly into a gurgle.

  Shitsnacks.

  I clambered back into the store, blades out.

  “Shit. Dylan!”

  The young blond guy, Luke, ran in the direction of the scream before anyone could stop him. He reappeared almost immediately, eyes wide, nostrils flaring like a panicked horse as several zombies staggered after him.

  “Jesus, they’re coming in the back!”

  Griff immediately moved towards the commotion, pushing Luke out of the way and swinging the stock of his M4 to connect with skulls with the efficiency of a wind-up mechanical zombie slayer.

  I grabbed Jenna’s arm and hustled her into the atrium, shoving Luke after her.

  Phil didn’t need any urging to follow them.

  I looked past Griff down to the end of the aisle where zombies bunched up in the bottleneck a partially open door and two large trash bins. The body of a young man sprawled on ground, several zombies chowing down on his cooling flesh. The zombies on the other side of the door pushed past one at a time, stepping unheedingly on the corpse and their fellow zombies, stumbling towards us.

  Griff coolly dispatched each one as it made it past the blockage.

  “We need to get out of here now,” I said urgently. “JT’s gonna need help pulling everyone up.”

  Smashing one more zombie in the head, Griff followed me into the atrium, sliding the window shut behind us and latching it. For all the good that would do. I figured once enough zoms started pounding on it the glass would hold maybe five minutes. If we were lucky.

  “You first,” Griff said, holding the noose end of the rope out to me.

  I shook my head. “No. You’ll get up there much faster than I will and then you can help pull the rest of us out.”

  Griff started to argue, then realized I was right. Without wasting any more time, he used the rope to climb up the wall, tossing it back down after he’d hoisted himself over the top onto the roof.

  The first zombie, a young man with bushy brown hair, reached the atrium window. It slapped its hands against the glass, smearing it with fluids. Jenna blanched when she saw its face.

  “Dylan,” she whispered.

  Phil stepped in front of the window and blocked her view.

  “Get her out of here,” he told me.

  I helped Jenna step into the noose. “Hold on tight,” I advised. She did, shutting her eyes as JT and Griff hoisted her quickly up to safety. Luke followed suit as more zombies joined Dylan at the window,
moaning and pounding on the glass.

  “You next,” I said to Phil when they’d tossed the rope back down.

  Phil looked at the rope and then at me, shaking his head.

  “I got news for you, hon. Gonna take more than those skinny ass guys to pull me up.”

  “Griff is stronger than he looks,” I assured him. “So am I, for that matter.”

  “So you go first,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but the sound of breaking glass stopped the words in my mouth.

  “Dammit, go!”

  “Uncle Phil,” Jenna yelled, “Get your ass up here!”

  I went to work with my blades, hacking, slashing and thrusting with all the finesse of a Cuisinart on crack, doing my best to keep the zombies from climbing through.

  One of them --the one that used to be Dylan -- reached in and grabbed my belt, pulling me towards the opening. Another managed to grasp my left forearm, preventing me from using my tanto. I tried to get a good angle with my katana, but the blade was too long. Teeth sank into my gloved hand as my face and neck were pulled closer to reeking, open mouths and jagged shards of glass.

  Strong arms encircled my body from behind, yanking me backwards away from the waiting mouths. The one zombie lost its grip on my forearm, but the Dylan zombie kept hold of my belt, sliding through the window, face and arms slicing open along the broken glass. I shoved the point of my tanto in one of its ears until it slumped down, limp fingers sliding down my legs.

  Ewww.

  Other zombies began squeezing through the window, heedless of the damage the glass did to their skin.

  Phil and I looked at each other. Without a word, he shoved the rope in my hand, picked me up, and heaved. Holding on for dear life, I practically flew up the three stories as Griff and JT pulled me up and onto the rooftop.

  “Hey Jenna,” Phil called up as zombies converged on him. “What did one zombie say to the other zombie when they were eating a comedian? This tastes funny.”

  Jenna looked down and started screaming her uncle’s name.

  Phil yelled when the first zombie bit him. Griff took careful aim and made sure he wouldn’t feel the next bite.