by Jack Hamlyn
Everything was quiet.
I looked up to where Chris and the others were peering over the ledge. I gave them a thumbs-up.
I took the stairs to the second story platform. I could almost feel the others above me. Their impatience. Their excitement. Their fear.
I waited again to see if anything would show. There were a lot of zombies in the streets, but for some reason, they weren’t infesting the alley. That’s what I had seen originally from the roof. As I looked down the line of alleys, I didn’t see anything. That was our way out. If things went well and Robin’s leg held up, we could sneak down the alleys and that would bring us quite near to the edge of town. Then we were home free. At least, I hoped so.
The first thing was to get the fuck out of Perryville.
I climbed down to the first floor platform and, again, waited. I was still pretty sore from my fight with the guy on the roof, but I’d been through worse. Mainly, I was tired. And it hadn’t helped having to piggyback Robin up the stairs to the roof. I don’t imagine she weighed much over a hundred pounds, maybe not even, but a hundred pounds on your back is tough when you’re climbing stairs.
I gave the others another thumbs-up.
I lit a cigarette and waited. I told them that it would be this way. It was going to take time and patience. I was going slow, because I didn’t want to get us into any mess we couldn’t get ourselves out of. I had my AK-47, an extra magazine I took off the crazy man. Chris had his AK (I learned that the shotgun he pointed at me was empty). That gave us some pretty good firepower, but it was my hope we’d get out of town without having to waste a shot. After an easy ten minutes in which I saw nothing, I climbed down the ladder. It didn’t reach all the way to the ground. It stopped about ten feet up, but that was no big deal.
I climbed down as far as I could and dropped into the alley.
I scoped it out quick, jogging about and looking for trouble. There was none to be had. As I reached the end of the alley, I saw the zombies mulling in the streets. If things worked out, we could cross to the next alley unharmed. If we ducked down, all the stalled cars might give us some cover.
I gave Chris the signal.
He went down to the third story platform, quick like a monkey. Then came Robin. I felt my heart began to beat faster. I had an absolutely awful image in my head of her falling and plummeting to the pavement. But wounded or not, she was a city kid and fire escapes were second nature to her as climbing trees were to a country kid. She made it down to the platform. It took her a bit to navigate the rungs with her leg, but she did just fine.
It took about twenty minutes to get her down to the first floor platform. Then she lowered herself on the ladder and dropped. Chris and I caught her. Charlene came down, then Sandy. The latter, bitching about it, of course. I piggybacked Robin and off we went.
Chris was our point man.
He was digging it, absolutely digging it. Here he was, a sixteen- or seventeen-year old kid prowling through a world of wreckage and the walking dead with an AK-47 assault rifle in his hands. I was willing to bet he’d done something quite like this in survival horror games. Now it was for real and he was pumped, really pumped at the idea. I just hoped he wouldn’t be a hero. Games are just games, but this was the big time.
We crossed the street to the next alley and were not seen.
“You wanna rest?” Chris asked.
“No,” I said, “we keep going.”
We made it nearly to the end of the alley when a couple zombies showed. Two men. One was dragging his leg and the other’s head was lying nearly horizontal to his left shoulder as if his neck was broken. He stared up at the sky.
Chris looked back at me as if he needed my approval.
“Do it!” I told him.
He opened up on them, hitting them at chest-level with four or five rounds. Entrails and rancid blood sprayed the pavement. It drove them back briefly, but that was about it. He corrected his aim and got them with headshots. They folded up.
“The selector,” I told him. “Semi-auto. Don’t waste rounds. Only headshots.”
He nodded.
Three more showed, then a fourth. Chris missed with his first round, and then blasted two of them with near-perfect headshots. The third and fourth were within four feet of him before he dropped them. I didn’t like that. He was getting cocky. Assault weapons could make you that way. I had been like that when I was first in the Army, but that had been in war games, this was a whole different ball game, as they said.
The shooting would draw attention, so we needed to move.
Chris was holding up good. Charlene was, too. Despite the shooting and the gore flying, neither was coming apart. But, these were kids of the new world where survival was primary and fear was secondary. Sandy looked a little green around the gills, though. Whenever she caught my eye, I could see there was no love lost. Somehow, I simply wasn’t measuring up in her book.
Chris stopped. “Listen,” he said.
I had heard it: gunfire. Somewhere in town, there was some shooting going on. It wasn’t near to us, though. I guessed it was three or four streets away, but I could tell by the sound that they were using assault rifles, what sounded like a heavy machine gun. Maybe it was just some people like us. Maybe. Then again, maybe it was ARM or some other survivalist pukes.
“Keep going,” I said.
Chris fell right into character. He stalked low ahead of us, a point man on an SAS hunter-killer team edging into enemy territory and looking for badass terrorists to waste. Whatever was going on several streets away had picked up in volume and frenzy. Somebody over there was really pouring out the suppressive fire. I heard a few explosions. Grenades, I thought, and a lot of them. I was really thinking ARM then…that many grenades, you’d need an auto-cannon to lay down that kind of spread.
I set Robin down.
Chris and I edged our way to the end of the alley. I didn’t like all that shooting. I sure as hell didn’t like the zombies, but if ARM was rolling through on some kind of mop-up operation, I didn’t want us being mopped-up, too. I peered out into the street. Not a lot of zombies. Not yet. Maybe ten or fifteen, but no stalled cars for cover. There was no way we could make it to the next alley without them seeing us. We were going to have to fight our way through and just hope we didn’t draw the attention of the shooters a few streets over.
That was my plan.
Then something happened.
Two people came running up the street from behind a parked bread truck and there were a pack of zombies right behind them. A woman and a man. The man was limping, slowing them down. I was about to call out to them when a dozen more zombies came up the street. They were sandwiched-in.
There was nothing we could do other than charge in there, shooting. But the dead were so close to them, we would have probably killed them in the process.
Chris raised his rifle.
I gripped the barrel and pushed it down.
He glared at me. “You’re not just gonna let them—”
But by then it was too late. The zombies move slow, but when there’s a lot of them and they converge, it seems like they come from every direction at once. There’s no stopping that many. Not when they hem you in like that.
The ghouls had the couple surrounded.
They swooped down on them like vultures. It was sickening to watch, but watch we did. I heard the woman scream and the man shriek out in agony as they were torn apart by the mob. Chris turned away and when I tried to put a hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off. The dead went at the dying couple ravenously, ripping off limbs, yanking intestines out, biting and clawing.
It became a feeding frenzy.
There was only so much meat to go around and the mob fought over the choicest cuts, stealing meat from each other, coveting organs and fatty tissues. A few crawled off to eat undisturbed. Bloodstained and voracious, they were like starving dogs, snapping and hissing and fiercely defending their take. Several played tug-of-war with entrails.
“I could…I could have done something,” Chris said.
“No, you couldn’t have. There’s too many. We couldn’t have drove them all away without getting bitten. There’s nothing we could do.”
“You’re an asshole,” he said and would say no more.
And at that moment, I pretty much felt like one. Maybe, the biggest one in creation. Chris refused to look at me. He was young, he didn’t understand. Maybe he thought he knew how these scenarios were supposed to play out, but that was fantasy inspired by his gaming. I had been through this shit many, many times. I knew what the z’s could do. I knew what to expect. Maybe Chris thought he knew the rules, but he didn’t. I had seen packs of hundreds and thousand in NYC. I knew what worked and what didn’t.
I walked back to the girls. I opened my mouth to speak, but Charlene said, “We saw, we saw. Those poor people.”
“Well, better them than us,” Sandy put in.
Robin laughed sarcastically. “That’s what I like about your sister, Charlene. She’s predictable. You can always count on her to be a selfish twat.”
“Fuck you!” Sandy said. “Fuck all of you! Do you think I’m here because I want to be? That I enjoy your fucking company? You’re all worthless in my book! When it comes down to it, none of you give a shit about anything but your own skin! Are you going to deny it?” she put to us. “WELL, ARE YOU?”
Charlene just glared at her. You could read her mind real, real easily: Of all fucking times, Sandy! Of all times to have one of your poor-little-princess tantrums! Like we need your high drama right now! Chris just looked downcast, hopeless. Robin smirked as she always smirked when humans let her down, which was frequently.
“Okay, enough,” I said. “We have to get going.”
“And you,” Sandy said, turning her wrath in my direction. “What good are you? You’re the adult! You’re supposed to figure things out and help us out and keep us safe and what do you do? You let those people die out there! You let them fucking die! Oh yeah, you’re a real prime dickhead! I can’t wait until it’s MY turn, because when it is YOU’LL throw me to those fucking things, too, because that’s the way people like YOU are!”
“Little Miss Drama,” Robin said. “Here, I got some drama for you.”
She punched her right in the face with a left that I think would have dropped even me. It certainly dropped Sandy, but it didn’t shut her mouth. “GO AHEAD!” she cried. “HIT ME AGAIN! HIT ME! HIT ME! HIT ME! YOU’RE BOTH A BUNCH OF SELFISH ASSHOLES! YOU’RE GOING TO GET US KILLED!”
Charlene stood there, mouth hanging open. She probably thought she’d never see the day when her blonde, prissy sister got smacked for running her mouth.
“You let those people die,” Sandy said, quieting now. Her eye was blackening quite nicely. “You let them die.”
“She’s right,” Chris said. “You know she’s right.”
“Oh, Jesus H. Christ,” Robin said. “Pretty boy weighs in.”
“You know what,” I said. “I’ve had it with this. I’ve did everything I could for you guys. That couple was toast. They had twenty zombies on them. It was out of my hands.” I shrugged and piggybacked Robin. “But, hey, go your own way. We’re getting out of here. You think I’m an asshole? Go ahead and think it, but do it on your own. I don’t need whine-asses with me. I have enough trouble. See you around.”
I moved down the alley with Robin and got to the street. The zombies were still quite involved in feeding on the corpses they’d created. Now was the time to move. I scampered to the next alley. A zombie woman who wasn’t getting much from the bodies came in our direction. I drilled her with a headshot and stepped over her body. The rest were otherwise involved. I made it about half way down the alley when I heard Chris and the others following.
“What do you fucks want?” Robin asked them.
“Can we please come with you guys?” Charlene asked.
“You can,” Robin told her. “Leave the twat behind with Mr. Powderpuff.”
Sandy was crying. “Please, oh please, let us come.”
“We shouldn’t have said those things,” Chris said.
“No, you shouldn’t have, but you did. So here’s how it works.” I looked at Sandy and Chris. “You come with us. That’s fine. I’ll try to keep you alive. But both of you, as of right now, grow the fuck up.” I directed this right at Sandy. “I don’t know who you thought you were before the dead came out of their graves, honey. Maybe that whiny bullshit and drama made the boys swoon. Maybe you were the queen of the cheerleading squad. But that’s done. That’s over. You’re just another body out here. Act your age. You pull this shit again and I’m done with you. Do you understand?”
She nodded, still sobbing.
Chris came up with his rifle.
“Keep the barrel pointing down, twinkle toes,” Robin told him. “Fucking guy don’t even know how to carry a gun.”
I started walking.
“Well, come on, twinkle toes, and bring your Barbie doll with.”
Robin. Oh man, she was really something.
I was being childish and I knew it, rubbing Sandy’s face in it like that, but she was a spoiled brat and she needed a reality check. The color of her hair and her pretty face might have been enough in the old world, but it wasn’t shit here. There was no time for theatrics. I was hurt by what they said, I’ll admit. They were kids and I should have known better than to take what they said seriously, but I did and it hurt. It was like taking a bullet for someone and then having them bitch you out because you got blood on the carpet.
Teenagers. Maybe there was something more self-serving than them, but I couldn’t think of what it was.
Onward we went.
And things started to heat up.
WARZONE
All hell broke loose by the time we got to the end of the alley.
Chris was walking a few steps behind me and a zombie came out from behind a dumpster and grabbed him. He fought his way free…just barely. The zombie was seconds from taking a bite out of his throat. Sandy screamed, as if on cue. Chris fell back and I shot it right through the mouth, taking out the back of its head. It fell next to Chris, who just stared at it, maybe thinking about how close death had been. It was a good wake-up call for him because he was starting to fall into his cocky mode with the AK in his hands.
“Watch your shit,” I told him.
“Look out,” Robin said, high atop her mount.
Sandy let out another little cry, very high and squeaking.
Zombies were coming down the alley to meet us.
There was no going back, so we charged right in. Chris and I moved forward, holding our AKs high. When we got within twenty feet of the cannibal corpses, we opened up. Within five seconds, we dropped six of them.
Then, as we walked through their remains, one of them turned out to be not so dead. It reached out a bloody hand and gripped Sandy’s ankle. She screamed with such high-piercing intensity it nearly blew my eardrums out. Chris put another round into the corpse and it quit moving.
“C’mon,” I said. There was no time to soothe Sandy.
We came out into the street and there were a dozen more. Worse, there was twice that many in the next alley. Two more came from behind a parked car. Chris killed both of them, pivoted to take out a third and—
Click. Click. Click.
He was out of shot. I was surprised his mag had held out that long. He swung his AK like a bat, driving off the zombie, but three more closed in on him. I dropped two of them, spraying gore into the faces of several more and then I was out of shot. I quickly ejected my mag, flipped it around, and shoved the new one in place. Thank God, for the madwoman who had taped her magazines together. I gunned down the ones closing in on Chris, turned as Robin cried out, and a huge, fleshy woman descended on me. She was so close that I shoved the barrel right into her mouth. I jerked the trigger twice on semi-auto. Her head blew apart and she staggered back, tripping up a couple more walking corpses.
; It was getting hot and heavy.
There was no point in cutting down the next alley; there were more zombies in it than in the street. They were the buzzards and we were the roadkill. We took the street, threading our way amongst the slow-moving dead. Slow, yes, but determined, relentless.
Sandy had practically seized-up and Charlene was dragging her along.
I was the only one with a weapon now.
We were moving fast, but there was too damn many. I dropped four, then five, then six and seven. The magazine wouldn’t last forever. Things were getting very dicey. We were in the middle of the street with a dozen coming at us and twice that many behind us. The buffet was open.
I lowered Robin. “Take her,” I told Chris.
Robin wasn’t crazy about the idea, but that’s the way it had to be.
There were thirty rounds in an AK-47 “banana” magazine, as they were called, and I’d already spent nearly a third of them. When I got low on ammo like this, down to my last clip, I started counting off the rounds in my mounting paranoia.
A towering black zombie came out to greet us.
He was mottled with green mildew. His eyes were bleached white. For one crazy moment, I thought he was the walking dead guy from I Walked with a Zombie, an old flick I had caught many times at two in the morning and on Saturday afternoons when I was a kid.
He opened his mouth and a jellied black mass fell out.
I raised the AK.
He didn’t come shambling right at me as they usually do. He didn’t hold his hands out like claws either, anxious to grasp. But he was one of them. There was no doubt. His hands were raised, palms up, as if he were trying to convey to me that he didn’t understand what had happened to him. I actually weakened there a moment. I felt pity for the tall, skeleton-skinny abomination…even with the hot, bacterial stench of death blowing out at me.
“STEVE!” Robin shouted.
I put one right between his eyes. His face collapsed, almost as if it was sucked right into his skull. He fell over, nearly squashing me beneath him.
Two more came. I blew their brains across the pavement.