“Yeah, like the liquor warehouse or something like that,” Thorn added.
“No, man, every gangbanger in the city is going to be heading for the liquor warehouse, trust me,” Skit said.
“Something with food—lots of food—and the chance to get and store more food and other items or be linked to something else. It would need some kind of amenities too, and no windows. Did I say that already?” Her mind was gone. This was planning on a level she had never conceived of before and it thrilled her analytical brain. “A distribution warehouse or commissary of some sort.”
“How about the Jockey Club?” Thorn suggested.
“Too many windows,” she and Skit both replied.
“The only thing I can think of is Sam’s Club,” Skit said.
“Sam’s Club.”
“That’s a pretty busy area, Skitter. I think it would be pretty dangerous, don’t you?” Thorn stated.
“No, that’s where we want to be,” Skitter continued. “We need to get semis and vehicles to block off the roads and then kill all of the zombies inside… yeah, that’s it. We’ll take the hospital too.”
“It’s going to take more than just you and me, Skit.”
“Look at these houses and buildings, man; there are tons of people looking for somewhere to go, but they’re scared. We just have to call them out, give them a gun, and tell them we’ll protect them if they protect us.”
“Nope… nope, nope. I mean the Sam’s club idea is good, but that’s not the way to get people to believe in you. You will need to show them power, ability, and agility. Radio. Turn on the radio and see who is still on; that’s who we gotta get to,” Lisa said, not even realizing that she had automatically slipped into “we” as opposed to the “you” she had started the conversation with. Skit and Buck smiled inwardly; they recognized someone who loved a good fight.
****
It had been over an hour since the doctor had left the place of his origins; Ally and Elise were finding it virtually impossible to get out of town. Every entrance onto the 270 seemed to be blocked, and they could see in the distance where pileups and walking dead stopped traffic in the middle of the highway.
“I didn’t even know there were this many cars in Mount Ida,” Ally said.
“There aren’t; people are fleeing the countryside at the same time as people are fleeing the city. Throw in the fact that it’s tourist season and our little highway becomes a death trap. I think we gotta take 27 up to 298 if we are going to have a chance,” Elise said.
“A chance at what? I mean, where are we trying to go?” Ally asked, finally starting to get her thoughts together.
“Away from here; Mount Ida is dead. If we are going to have a chance of survival, we’re going to have to get to some place where there are more people.”
“No, I have to find the doctor… I owe him.”
“He ain’t here; if he’s what I suspect him to be, then he’s down closer to the Springs.”
“What do you suspect him to be?” Ally asked, truly surprised that Elise had even given it a thought.
“What you described is exactly what has been happening down in the Piney area and Hot Springs village. I bet he has some type of set up down there, so that’s where we should head,” Elise said, hoping that she wasn’t lying just to get the kid who never liked her to get out of town. It made sense though. How many serial killers can be out there? “Let’s try to get to the 298 and see what that does for us.”
“Okay, but we have to get on 270 to get to 27 to get to the 298, right?” Ally asked. She was tempted to turn the driving over to Elise but as of yet unwilling to relinquish her last tie to her mother—not to mention control.
“We can take Wheeler Parkway; that should get us there,” Elise said. They both shuddered at the thought of traveling through the center of town again, but there really was no other option; the 270 was impassable.
Chapter Nine:
Skitter Pop
The station parking lot looked like a war zone. Dead Zs were scattered all around the lot as were burned rubber marks, spent shell casings, and officers’ personal vehicles. The door was closed, but she could see from the lot that there were bodies moving around inside. She checked her newly acquired .22 magnum and the shells in her pocket then subsequently checked her .40 and the newly acquired Rhino .40.
“Are you boys coming?” she asked as she opened the car door.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world, but let me go first. We don’t need you bringing the whole building down on us in the first ten seconds because you’re trigger happy.”
“By all means, Buck, have at it.”
She opened the parking lot gate and let the stocky hammer-wielding man enter before she followed up the rear, her baton in one hand, and her semi-automatic in the other. They walked across the open foyer seeing stumblers wandering aimlessly. Lisa was glad to see that all of her coworkers looked to have escaped, and she found herself wondering about Tommy down in the cell. A scream snapped her out of her thoughts as Thorn rushed across the lobby with his hammer raised high, causing Lisa to react to the Zs he had attracted with his scream, and leaving her to wonder why he had been so insistent on not using a gun.
Who knows what goes on in the mind of a yahoo, for Christ’s sake—especially this yahoo, she thought. Lisa used her baton more today than she ever had and she was swinging at everything that came in her path, but there were too many and she knew it was only a matter of time before she needed her gun. Skit, who was weaponless, was instantly pushed into a corner as he tried to hold the snapping teeth at bay.
Left handed, she raised her gun and shot the closest one in the head. In quick succession she hit two more before she was close enough to bring her baton into play. The blood and goo flying through the room from repeated blows no longer bothered her. Her uniform was already matted to her skin with blood and viscera. She had been living in these clothes all day and would love to peel them off and take a hot shower but now was not the time to think about that. They cleared the lobby in a by no means stealthy manner and she turned to Buck.
“What was with all the screaming? I thought we were supposed to be quiet, Buck.”
“Sorry, I can’t help it.”
“So self-control is not your strong point I take it? Good to know, the armory is down those stairs.”
“Should we clear the rest of the lobby first?”
“You can if you want; I am getting to the guns,” Lisa said as she headed down the stairs with Skit on her tail. A few seconds later Thorn followed.
The armory had been picked through but there was still enough to keep them shooting for a while. She knew that most of the M4s were gone from when she and the morning crew loaded up. A lot more were gone now; the rest of the M4s as well as a lot of smaller arms and all of the shotguns had vanished, but several Mini-14s with a couple crates of rounds were still there. She grabbed a revolver and handed it to Skit as well as a couple of boxes for the big .45 caliber. She flipped it open, showed him the safety, and said, “Point and shoot is all you have to do.”
“I know how to work a fucking revolver. I just don’t like to.”
“The times, they are a-changing, Skit… get used to it.” Lisa had just finished quoting Bob Dylan in a mocking tone when she heard a soft growl behind her. She spun to find Buck standing there with a 30/30 pointed at her head and Tonka squared up facing him.
“Dude, what are you doing?” Skit exclaimed.
“Buck, put the rifle down; you aren’t going to shoot me.”
“I will if I have to. I like you and you’re like, really hot and all… but I can’t let you take these guns away from the city. We need them here. If you take them all, we’re doomed.”
“Fuck you, Buck. You say you want to help people and your first act is to steal and murder? What kind of fucking hero are you going to be?” The rifle barrel wavered, Thorn blinking uncomfortably as sweat trickled from his brow. “You put the gun down and we will talk about it sensi
bly. If you don’t, then you are a thug, no better than Jonah.”
“Hey, Jonah wasn’t so bad,” Skit interjected.
“Yeah, there are a lot worse than Jonah is.”
“Was.”
“Was? You mean…?” Thorn looked at Skit, who nodded toward Lisa.
“Betty Boop here decided his time here was done. Cold blooded, bro; I say put the gun down and talk, at least you have a better chance of survival,” Skit said.
Thorn could see the serious cast on Skit’s brow and wondered if he had made the right decision.
It was that fraction of a second, when he glanced away, that Lisa was ready for. Buck Thorn may be a lot of things, but a shooter wasn’t one of them. Thorn heard the subtle click of her holster release before he saw her arm fly up and into position. Suddenly out gunned by an experienced shooter, he dropped the 30/30 instantly and it clattered on the floor.
“You idiot, it could have gone off.”
“I never chambered a round.”
“You what? You mean you pretended to point a gun in my face? You know I could have killed you, right? You stupid son of a bitch; if you ever point a gun at anyone, make sure you fucking mean it,” Lisa said as she snatched the rifle up and checked the chamber; sure enough, it was empty. “Load up those bags with the shit in that cabinet. Most of it is target quality but it will kill zombies if you hit them right.”
“I still can’t let you take all of this to an island somewhere… and I don’t care if you do shoot me,” Buck said as the first of several zombies came rolling down the stairs in a heap.
Lisa looked at the pile of flesh and bone, shaking her head. “Seems they don’t do stairs very well. Skit, grab that battering ram and start smashing heads as they come down.”
“Me? Why me?”
“You haven’t killed any of them yet and you need to get used to it. If I’m going to help you guys save the city, I don’t want anyone around me that can’t kill zombies—or argues with me for that matter.”
“You… you’re going to help us… why?” Buck Thorn asked, bewildered by her sudden decision.
“Because you will fuck it up without me. Now get back to work,” Lisa said as she hit speed dial on her phone and wondered if it was still working. Service could end at any time and she doubted they would be able to use their phones after today. “Yeah, we’re here. It has been picked through pretty clean and the building has ten or twelve zombies left in it but we should get enough for our purposes. Give me about forty-five, I don’t know how the streets will be. Downtown was pretty empty on the way here so hopefully I will have a clear passage back. I picked up a couple of strag—Hang on, I’ll call you back, someone’s here.” Lisa hung up the phone after hearing several shotgun blasts ring out.
“Skit, get in here and get your .45 ready. You brought the keys to the car, right?” Lisa whispered and he nodded.
“Who is it?” Buck asked.
“How the fuck do I know? It sounds like hunters with birdshot in a pump 20-gauge shotgun. Buck, take your rifle and tuck in under the stairs; Skit you stay inside and be ready.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I am going to wait here and talk to them. They’re doing us a favor by cleaning out the lobby, but we can’t let them take the weapons.”
“Well, we could let them take a few,” Buck said, clearly shaken at the thought of having to shoot someone who is living.
“We’ll see; now get back in your hole,” Lisa said as she readied a mini 14 and faced off toward the stairs, hoping that the dead zombies at the bottom would distract them enough so that they didn’t just come down here shooting.
She watched as three pairs of legs started coming down the stairs, watching the lobby area more than where they were going.
“Looks like somebody’s already been here,” a voice said as it noticed the dead at the base of the stairs. All three slowed down to see what they were walking into. Lisa wanted to defuse the situation but these people didn’t appear to be trained for high-stress situations like a cop or a soldier and she didn’t want to startle them.
“Somebody is still here,” Lisa said when the three were visible about waist high and they froze in place.
“We don’t want any trouble, we just need some weapons.”
“I get that. This place was picked through before we got here, but there are still some that you could take, depending on what you’re going to do with them. Come down here and we’ll talk about it,” she said.
They slowly came down with their shotguns held across their bodies, wary of everything and everybody.
“A cop? I thought all of you fuckers ran away.”
“Nope, there are one or two of us still around. So what are you going to do with these guns?”
“Protect our families, survive. What else do you think we would be doing?”
“I don’t know,” Lisa started. “You could be marauders or thugs ready to take advantage of a lawless society. There is a lot of bad out there and the good people need to stick together so… which are you?”
“We didn’t come down here shooting, now did we? So… what? Do you have a plan, or a fort or something?”
“Nope, not yet, but we’re working on it,” Lisa replied. She had instantly got a feeling from the two men and one young athletic woman that they were simply good people trying to be resourceful. “Thorn, what was that radio station you mentioned?”
“Thorn? Is that Buck Thorn?” one of the men asked.
Buck came out from under the stairs and said, “Yeah, it’s me… hey Brett! How you doin’?”
“Hey Buck! Not so good; we lost Timmy. Dad had to put a bullet in his head this morning.”
“That’s too bad, Brett; Timmy and I were always tight. We used to go to the ti… the club when we were doing jobs together. Did he get bit?”
“Nope—not that we know of, anyway. We just woke up and he was going crazy trying to bite everyone. He ate half of his youngest before we found him, and then he charged dad; motherfucker got fast overnight. He never ran before—even when we was in sports.”
“He musta been outside last night and gotten a sprinkle.”
“What do ya mean, Buck?” Brett asked.
“It seems everyone I know who was outside last night when that horseman lit up the sky became infected with this shit. Everybody else seems to have to get bit.”
“Oh, is that your scientific evaluation?” Lisa said as she felt a strange compulsion to pick on Thorn. She couldn’t explain it, but it just felt right. “You’re kind of a gonad, Buck; this isn’t some religious prophesy or anything like that so keep your theories to yourself.” She finished then realized the timing was inappropriate for banter. “Look, he doesn’t know any more than you or I do about what’s happening; all we know is that it is happening and we all have to deal with it. I had to shoot another cop right in the head this morning, as well as Skit’s buddy, Jonah. This world has gone crazy and we’re fucked unless we band together. In a couple of days, gangs are going to start banding together and start raging through the population taking anything they want. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took to raping anyone they want because they can just kill them and walk away or keep them as personal property. I have a place to hide and avoid all of that, but I know I would hate myself if I did. So I am going to stay.” She knew now why she had to stay, even if it was her own words that validated things. She was a cop who swore an oath to protect and serve; she couldn’t turn her back on that, not now when it really mattered. “I am going to stay and try to increase the number of survivors, and I will kill anyone or anything that tries to stop me from doing that.”
“We don’t have a plan yet so maybe what you’re planning is right. I don’t know and it isn’t up to me alone, so I’ll have to let you know.”
“Alright, you’ll have to catch up later if you decide to; I got people waiting for me right now. What is the radio station, Skit?” Lisa asked.
Skit slipped out from the armo
ry, his revolver tucked in his waistband, and said, “AM 1430.”
“We’re collecting supplies for today, and then tomorrow we’re going to take over the Sam’s Club and surrounding businesses—create a haven so to speak. We’re going to have to block it off completely and kill a lot of zombies. Are you interested?” Lisa asked. The three of them just looked at each other and shrugged.
“I guess that plan is about as good as any we have heard so far, but I will warn you, that area is swarming with Zs. We couldn’t even get near it.”
“I figured. We’re going to have to draw them out, so listen to the station, and be ready tomorrow for when we call for some help. For now, you can have a couple of Mini-14s and a few hundred rounds, some older sidearms, and a little more ammunition for them; the rest is going to our cause.”
“Are you with her on this, Buck?”
“Yeah, it’s my idea actually.”
“It was not, you idiot. If it wasn’t for me, you would still be standing on a corner swinging a hammer,” Lisa said.
“I am pretty good with a hammer,” Buck replied and the three who were obviously familiar with Thorn smirked and seemed to become more at ease.
She smiled before she continued, realizing that this was just typical attitude for Thorn. “So, I’m not making any promises, but that’s our plan and we need help—especially with driving some semis to block off the area.”
“I’ll tell you what. We’ll go and talk to some people and see what we come up with. If it works, we’ll be there. But I don’t think that you can wait until tomorrow.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, once night sets in, I think we will lose more than half of those currently alive. The zombies seemed to be focused on easy prey right now but soon they’re going to be rutting through the corners for those who remain.”
“You’re probably right, but I don’t know what to do about that. For now, we’ll get on the radio and see if we can set something up, but we won’t be starting at Sam’s if it’s overrun; we’ll have to pick a neutral site and go from there.”
Zombie Rush Page 13