The softness and desperation in her words, stabbed at Jack. He looked over her shoulder at the wreckage. Mike was sitting on the ground nursing his leg. Carol stood over him with her arms crossed as if she was cold. Her face was one of fear and doubt as she looked at Jack. Steven and Sheri were holding hands. They were still weeping for the loss of their little brother.
“Charlie,” Jack whispered looking back toward the oncoming army of undead.
“We know. Steven told us. You can’t help Charlie now, but there are still those who need your help.” After a pause she added, “Help us, Jack.”
She was right. Jack hung his head feeling foolish. “I’m sorry. You’re right,” he said and offered the woman a weak smile. “You are a tough little lady.” The humor was evident in his voice.
“That’s what calluses do. They toughen you up,” she said, deadpan.
“Come on,” Jack said. When he stepped past her, he cast a brief glance at the approaching undead. “Mike, you alright?”
“My leg’s broke,” he said. The tone of his voice said that he knew what that meant for him. “You might as well leave me. You’ll move faster without me to slow you down.”
“Nonsense,” Jack said through a laugh. He turned his gaze on the whole group and raised his voice. “The moment we start leaving people behind to save our own skin is the day I give up on humanity’s chance for survival. Denise, set that leg. Carol, start loading up some necessities in easy to carry bundles. Kids, as we move into the mall, I want you to stay very close to us. We have no idea what we’re walking into.” Jack turned again to look at the zombies loping across the far side of the parking lot. He knew better than to take his eyes off them for very long. “We’ve got about a minute. Let’s get humping!”
Jack pulled the chopper’s sliding door open as far as he could manage and then climbed inside. When he stepped out to let Carol climb in, he was holding three AR-15s, each with one-hundred round high-capacity magazines that looked like small round barrels hanging from the action. Two AK-47s were slung over his shoulder. Extra banana clips bulged from his numerous pockets.
“AAGH!” Mike cried as Denise set the bone in his leg. A glaze of sweat immediately broke out on the young man’s pale face.
“You scream like a girl,” Denise said without humor as she made Mike hold pieces of aluminum to his leg that she stripped from the interior of the chopper. When Denise began to wrap his leg in duct tape, Mike groaned through teeth that bit into his bottom lip. His white-knuckled grip was clamped above his knee.
Jack grimaced, letting Mike see his empathy and then turned to the rest of the group. It was time to go. “Here’s the plan,” Jack said. “I’m going to help Mike into the mall. Denise, I need you to lead Carol and the kids on ahead of us. Get inside as quick as you can. Steven, find a way to lock those doors behind us when we come through.”
Jack handed Denise an AR-15. Carol received an AK-47 and offered Jack her own grimace.
“Just point and shoot,” Jack said to her. He then pointed at the barrel of the weapon and added, “That’s the dangerous end.” Sheri chuckled and Steven rolled his eyes.
“You ready?” he asked Mike, who was trying to put some weight on his foot. He was still sweating. “Here,” Jack said as he handed the young soldier an AR-15. “Put your arm around my shoulder and let’s get hopping.”
Denise jogged slowly toward the mall with single-minded purpose. The years she spent as a civilian didn’t change the fact that she had gained specialized knowledge from her military training. It all came back to her as if she was fresh out of A.I.T. Sweeping left and right with the muzzle of her weapon, she kept an eye open for the fast moving zombies. The slower ones were not a problem these days.
She could hear the footfall of her companions behind her and she maintained a pace that she knew would be easy to follow. The distance between the wreckage and the front door of the mall was less than two-hundred feet and they covered the distance rather quickly. Twice she was forced to shoot biters who were startled from behind vehicles parked and abandoned in the lot. Others could be seen inside locked cars as they flailed and growled from behind the glass of their prisons.
“Thanks,” Mike said to Jack as the two moved carefully behind the others.
“For what?” Jack asked.
“For not leaving me behind. You guys don’t know me and it would have been easy — even justifiable — to leave me back there.” He adjusted his grip on Jack’s shoulder and added, “I won’t let you down.”
“Well, sometime over the next day or so, I would like to hear how you managed to team up with that group of soldiers,” Jack said. “Are you aware of the things they have committed against innocent people?” His eyes were on the approaching crowd of man-eaters as he spoke. It was going to be close.
“Yes,” Mike said a bit softly. “I— I joined them shortly after my sister was devoured by a pack of . . . those things.” He nodded to the zombies. “I was scared and didn’t want to be on my own. I was with them when they set the explosive downtown.”
“Jack!” It was Denise. “They’re inside the mall!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
J ack threw a glance over his shoulder when he stepped over the yellow curb onto the sidewalk. The afternoon sun was blocked by the large portico that doubled as a marquee. It was designed to keep customers shaded in the summer and dry during inclement weather. When he came alongside the two women and children, they were still staring into the dim interior of the mall. The herd of zombies was just short of twenty-five paces behind him. In seconds, the faster creatures would be upon them.
The large double-doors were empty of the plate glass that normally filled their colossal frames. The wall-sized windows on both sides of the heavy doors had been shattered into piles of tiny diamond-like gems that were scattered all about the entrance. Inside, he could see a multitude of shamblers moving slowly about like disappointed shoppers having missed Black Friday specials.
“We don’t have a choice,” Jack said. “Denise, cover our backs. We’re going in.” Then speaking to Steven and Sheri, he said, “Watch the glass on the floor, guys.”
Denise nodded without a word and took up a position behind the party — her rifle holding a steady aim on the approaching horde. Jack grabbed Mike and the two led the way into the mall.
Grey-skinned heads with deep-set milky-white eyes turned at the sound of crunching glass under the companion’s feet and many of the shamblers began moving slowly in their direction. Jack felt the kids move up against him and he put his free hand on Steven’s head.
Jack would never have imagined that such a place existed inside a building. The malls he’d visited as a child could not be compared to what spread before him now. The two weren’t even of the same species. The terrazzo floors shone like still water and directed his eyes down a wide concourse where shops of every variety beckoned consumers with their colorful wares. It was like a carnival of consumer chaos. His eyes didn’t know where to begin to absorb the sight before him.
The mall was two stories. A safety rail made of polished brass and glass encircled the lip of the upper floor to prevent customers from accidentally falling. High above was an elaborate skylight under which dangled what appeared to be a rollercoaster track. Fashion boutiques and an art gallery could be seen on the upper floor. A theatre opened with carpeted steps across the way from the group and a number of ethnic restaurants lined the concourse on the way to what could only be described as a Food Court. Tropical trees and dark green shrubbery filled the main concourse accenting the steel, brass and glass. Some of the plants were still in bloom and filled the air with a gentle fragrance that smelled like soap. From somewhere the aroma of coffee beans offered hope that a streaming cup was no more than a few days away at the most.
A number of the shops above and below were familiar to Jack. Some would come in very handy once they were settled on the roof. Many of them had aluminum crash gates pulled down and locked to prevent thefts.<
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Jack looked sideways at Carol. She was having difficulty standing still. She was fidgeting. He watched her drift in and out of the tight group as if battling with her inner shopper. This was her playground, he realized.
“Carol,” Jack said softly.
“Hmm?” she said, not taking her eyes off a pricy black dress.
“We need to get on the second level. How do we do that?”
“Oh,” she said pleasantly, realizing that she could be useful. “Up ahead we will need to turn left by Kay Jewelers. There will be an escalator about halfway down the main concourse.”
Sporadic gunfire erupted from behind the group. Jack didn’t need to turn around to know what was going on.
Denise was doing her job.
As long as she could keep the faster creatures off their backs, they might make it somewhere to rest for a while before searching for a way to the roof.
“Look over there,” Mike said and pointed to the side of the concourse about twenty feet away. Nestled in small rows were several strollers. A blue strap ran through them and a small sign over a low kiosk offered the strollers for rent. Most were for toddlers. However, there was one in the shape of a red car. It was plastic and had a handle on the trunk for the adult to push from behind. The little automobile was large enough inside for Steven and Sheri to sit together side by side.
Mike let go of Jack’s shoulder and hopped over to the buggy. He was forced to drop four shamblers before placing his rifle across the flat roof of the car where drink holders were situated. He could hold on to the handle allowing him to move without tying Jack up.
The kid’s looked expectantly up at Jack.
“Go ahead,” he said and watched the two run over and slide inside the plastic car. “Can you push them?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. No problem,” Mike said as he hopped behind the stroller pushing it closer to Jack. “I can move faster like this.”
Denise backed into Carol and startled her. Reflexively, Carol squeezed off a couple of rounds, causing her to execute two mannequins positioned in the windows of Dillard’s Department Store. The two women looked at each other.
“Sorry,” Denise offered, then to Jack she said, “There’s a new wave coming through the front. These suckers are fast.”
The words hadn’t so much as left her mouth when twenty or thirty of the fiends could be seen speeding toward them from the shattered entrance doors. She was right. They ran like sprinters!
“Move! Carol lead us to those escalators, girl!” Jack raised his rifle and began firing single shots down the hall. He was joined by Denise and Mike. Gunfire echoed throughout the building, filling it with a mind-numbing choir of offbeat explosions. The sound seemed to excite the creatures.
In the distance, behind the running monsters, came even more.
The group turned the corner toward the escalators. Jack could no longer count the sheer numbers loping after them. For every one they managed to stop, two more replaced it. The mall filled with the smell of gunpowder and spoiling meat.
“There!” Carol screamed over the gunfire, pointing with a finger that still looked manicured.
Ahead of them, Jack could see a set of jet-black stairs lined by foot-thick rails leading up to the second floor. The separate stairways were at least thirty feet apart. It was far enough that he wouldn’t have to worry about something leaping from one to the other. The passage up the steps was narrow enough to defend.
Jack fired two more times at the oncoming enemy and then allowed his eyes to strafe the second floor quickly. There didn’t appear to be any zombies on the upper floor. If Jack could hold the creatures at the escalator, the rest of his party might find a way to access the roof or at the very least find somewhere to hide for a while. He could at least give them that.
“Up the escalator!” Jack screamed. “Damn it, Denise! Run! You too, Mike, get those kids up the escalator, pronto!”
Jack walked backwards firing at the scrambling masses that were now filling the concourse at the turn in the hall. He could hear the squeaking of Sheri and Steven’s car as Mike pushed it faster toward the steps. Jack thought it strange that such a small sound could be heard over the screaming, howling, growling, and moaning cacophony that filled the air around them. Then in the distance, there was another sound. It was slight at first. He felt a tremor in the floor briefly.
He turned quickly to look back at his companions to see if they heard it too. They were standing about fifty feet behind him on the first few steps of the escalator. Denise shrugged her shoulders and Mike shook his head. The sound grew into a low hum and began to have an affect the running zombies. The distraction caused them to slow their dogged pursuit of Jack and his companions.
Jack continued to fire his weapon steadily as he moved toward the escalator. Denise and Mike stopped a quarter of the way up the escalator giving covering-fire.
The ground began to tremor again.
“Go on,” Jack waved to Denise as he approached the first step of the escalator. “Get out of here! I’ll hold ‘em! Find a way to the roof!”
“What about you?” Denise cried.
“Someone has to hold them back until you are safe,” Jack shouted, walking backward up the steps. When he reached his companions, he turned and put his hand on Denise’s cheek. “Go on. Lead them to safety,” he said. “Mike, you are the man of the group, be a good man.” Receiving a nod from the soldier, Jack turned to Carol. He put both his hands on her cheeks and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “Your children are wonderful. They had to get it from someone.” Carol looked away. Sheri and Steven wrapped their arms around his waist. “I want you to remember something, Carol, if you remember nothing else. This old convict believes in you. Now—,” he cleared his throat and stepped back down a few steps. “Get going.”
“Sounds like a train,” Steven said, absently.
“What does?” Jack asked and then he realized that Steven was right. The strange noise that they had been hearing sounded like an old steam-powered locomotive. The slight tremors made it feel as if it was about to come rolling past them. In fact, he could tell exactly the direction it was coming from. He turned his gaze toward the far west side of the mall beyond the sprinting zombies still moving toward them albeit slower.
“Oh . . . my . . . God,” Carol said and put a hand over her mouth.
“That’s . . . impossible!” Mike added and shouldered his weapon.
Jack stared, refusing to believe what his eyes told him. In his peripheral, he caught Sheri Mason looking up at him. He looked down at her. Her eyes held a steady calm.
“We gotta go,” she said, then turned and ran up the steps of the escalator. Her little shoes pounded a steady beat of retreat. Like a pebble in a pond, her words and actions set off a chain reaction among the group that had everyone following her advice — all except Jack. Tears welled in his eyes as he took a step down the escalator.
“It’s not fair,” Jack said to himself and raised his rifle. Pulling the trigger on his AR-15, he dumped the remainder of his high capacity magazine with repeated pulls of the trigger. His weapon discharged round after round after round down the concourse. When the weapon ran dry, he withdrew his machetes.
“We struggle to live one more moment and every victory is hard won,” he said as he descended the steps. “Day after day, we are faced with the possibility of our extinction and the moment we indulge in the fantasy that we might just make it to tomorrow, we are pushed down and confronted with the impossible. It’s just not freakin’ fair!”
At the far western side of the mall came an undulating flood of undead. He would not have believed it possible had he not seen it with his own eyes. It wasn’t something humanly possible. The wave of zombies pouring through the distant department store was so dense that nearly every creature scrambling at the forefront was knocked down, swamped and then overrun by those behind them. The creatures in front, who gained a momentary advantage, met the same fate. From where Jack stood, it looked more
like a tidal wave of arms and legs and snarling heads rolling clumsily forward.
Jack knew that the creatures had to be moving through the department store from the outside. They were probably attracted by all the gunfire. From every side passage, more creatures rushed to join the crushing wave as it rolled toward him. Nothing of the mall’s internal miscellanea survived as the wave — some eight or nine feet high — crashed, rolled, and crawled through the public space, knocking over booths, kiosks, and whatever else happened to be in the way. Glass shattered everywhere the monsters landed. It was as if they cared nothing for one another in their rush to taste the flesh of the living.
Jack’s rifle lay at his feet. His initial attempt to slow the wave with persistent rifle fire made no discernable impact. At one point, he realized that if he wanted to keep from being overwhelmed by the avalanche of zombies rolling toward him, he’d better find higher ground. He spun on his heels and started to run up the steps when he saw Steven and Sheri come running from somewhere up top. They were frantically trying to get back down the steps. Steven slipped and slid down three or four stairs before catching himself. His elbow was bloodied in the process.
Gunfire erupted somewhere on the second floor. Carol appeared at the top and started down the escalator toward Jack. Her face was a mask of fear.
“What’s going on?” Jack yelled.
Then he saw Denise and Mike. She was helping him limp to the escalator. Mike was practically running on his broken leg. The two looked over their shoulders and then at each other. There was none of the former hatred in their eyes, merely resignation. Together, they leapt into the air toward Jack and the kids.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
T he world moved in slow motion for Jack. He knew that any moment the tidal wave of zombies would be crashing against the escalator below him. Yet, he couldn’t take his eyes off Denise and Mike as they flew, plummeting over a dozen feet through the air toward him. Their arms spiraled as they sought to keep their balance in flight. The look on Mike’s face said that he knew he was going to get hurt.
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