by Gallier, TW
"There's too many!" she screamed. "Too many!"
Ka-boom! Ka-boom!
Ralph's shotgun blasts cleared them away for the moment, but murdered my ears. A few stray pellets ripped into the back of my left thigh and buttocks. I think he peppered Olivia's backside as well, since she whirled on him in fury.
"Watch where you're shooting that thing!"
"Sorry." He looked more terrified than sorry. "Let's get out."
"You should already be gone," I said.
I tossed Olivia her pack, and then grabbed mine as more zombies fought to get through the door. I almost lit them up with my AR15, but stopped when I realized I'd just clear the blocked door for more to come at us.
"I can't leave you," Olivia replied.
Ralph stopped in the open back door. "No stairs."
I shoved him out. He hit the ground cursing, but scrambled to his feet even before Olivia tossed her pack and jumped. I followed, but not before taking the time to empty a magazine into the zombies clogging the door.
"That was a waste of ammo," she said as I rammed in a new magazine.
"It was cathartic," I said, shrugging.
"You can't even spell 'cathartic,'" Ralph said.
"Don't have to," I said. Zombies came charging around both ends of the house. "Run!"
There was no grace, rhyme, or reason to our escape run. Ralph led the way back into the woods, running full-tilt. We were still faster than them, and relatively well-rested. The packs, though, were getting heavier and heavier.
We ran until we couldn't run anymore.
"Holy crap," Ralph gasped out, huffing and puffing, face dark red.
We were all bent over, hands on knees. My belly was churning. I didn't have one stitch in my side, but about a million. Outwardly, Olivia looked the least affected, but she was shaking like a leaf.
"I can hear the river," she huffed out. "So did we just waste a whole day for nothing?"
"Shit, I can hear walkers coming," Ralph said.
I held my breath, listening. Sure enough, I first heard the gurgle of the river, and then the rustle of zombies walking through the forest towards us. They weren't as fast, but they were relentless. Then I realized they weren't following us. Zombies were surrounding us.
"Ohmygod. Ohmygod," Olivia gasped out, looking all around with wild eyes. We could see them coming towards us. "Ohmygod."
My heart sank. We were surrounded. I'd failed her. I'd failed both of them. The thought of Olivia dying, of becoming a zombie, was beyond comprehension. I wanted to cry and scream in rage, and kill every damned zombie in the world.
"This is so unfair," I whispered, dropping my pack.
They shrugged off their pack. We moved into a defensive position, back to back to back. I found myself facing east, towards the river. We stuck the machetes into the ground before us and prepared to slaughter as many of them as possible before they dragged us down.
"What are we going to do?" Ralph asked.
I cringed at the desperation in his voice. I felt it, too.
"I love you guys," Olivia said. "You are my only friends."
Something snapped. I screamed in rage and lit those goddamned zombies up. I pulled the trigger as fast as I could, emptying the AR15's magazine within seconds. Slamming another magazine in, I opened up again and again. Ralph cursed as he blasted them with his shotgun, while Olivia silently did the same. We must've made a god-awful noise out there in the middle of the forest.
A once pretty blonde tripped over a dead zombie. I blew her brains out when she looked up and hissed at me. Blood splattered across the legs of the walkers behind her, but they kept coming. No hesitation in any of them. I wished I could be so damned fearless.
I did note in the back of my head, filed under useless info to me now that gut shots didn't kill them outright, but after a few minutes they did slow and drop to the ground to die. Also, leg shots through the bone forced them to crawl.
Seriously, bloody zombies crawling at me were even scarier than the walkers.
The bodies started to pile up around us. Zombies had to climb over the dead in some places. My AR15 killed a lot more than their shotgun, but I also ripped through my ammo faster. I had to release the sling and drop the AR15 to the ground.
"I swear, I'll never play Zombie Hunter again!" I cried, pulling both pistols. "I hate that game so much."
"I'm thinking about taking up skydiving," Ralph said. "You know, something fun and safe."
"Exactly," I returned, noticing the ranks of zombies were thinning out on my side. "I might start riding bucking broncos on the weekend, you know?"
"You guys are crazy," Olivia said. "I'm going to teach Sunday School."
"Well, that's safe," I said.
"In prison," she continued. "All by myself in a room with murderers, rapists, and hedge fund managers."
Ralph and I laughed. Not sure why. Maybe because we were about to die.
I paused just long enough to look around. There were considerably more zombies facing them than in front of me. An AR15 was a beautiful thing. Ralph and Olivia both had a long enough respite to load some more shells into their shotguns. They had to be low on ammo.
"What the fuck. What do we have to lose?" I said, sliding the machete under my belt on my left hip. "Everyone turn around and follow me!"
I took off at a trot, both pistols blazing. Shotguns blasted to either side of me, as they helped clear a path through the bloody, crazy-eyed walkers. We had to shoot the last few point blank, but then we only had empty woods before us.
"Run!" I cried.
I just wanted to get back to the river, and then back onto our island. As we ran, more zombies came at us from either side. We weaved through the trees and small groups of zombies, always heading downhill and towards the water. Mostly we avoided the walkers so we didn't have to waste ammo.
"A-ha!" I cried as I burst out into sunlight and onto the sandy shore. We were a lot further south than anticipated. The island wasn't in sight, but it was probably just around the bend. "Oh shit."
There must've been a hundred zombies coming down the shore. They began mewling and groaning, picking up the pace, when they saw us. The way south was open for about two hundred yards, but then more zombies were turning around towards us.
"Fuck me," Olivia groaned breathlessly, huffing furiously.
"You get horny at the weirdest times," Ralph said, and grinned at us.
He jumped and ducked when she tried to strike him with her shotgun butt. I shook my head. I couldn't be angry or amused or disappointed or anything. We were ten seconds from joining the zombie horde.
"Into the water," I commanded. "Now!"
We waded out to waist deep water. The zombies converged on the spot where we entered the water, and they stopped. More came out of the woods. Soon there were too many to count, all staring hungrily at us. Some were ankle deep in water, but none even attempted to wade out after us. I didn't know what their fear of water was about, but I loved it.
"Jesus, do we have to wade all the way to the coast?" Ralph asked. "At least we won't die of thirst."
"Yeah, we'll starve," Olivia said. "Or melt."
"Hypothermia will get us eventually," I suggested. "It'll just take longer than in winter."
Actually, I wasn't sure we could die of hypothermia in the summer, but the water felt pretty cold to me. Yet, we were still alive when just a few minutes earlier I was seconds from saying my last prayers before trying to die with glory. Now I was cold, wet, and alive. Miserable, but alive.
"Well, hello, Emory," Ralph said.
I turned and looked across the river. The forest was cut down over there. The farmland was all trampled down, and filled with zombies. Milling zombies. Looking a little southward, I spotted their problem. The small farming town of Emory. The only town structures visible were the two-story brick downtown, the water tower with the town name on it, and tall fences topped with and surrounded on both sides with long coils of barbed wire. Past the fence was an
open area with more people facing the zombies, and past them another line of fences. Behind the second line were four tall wooden watchtowers.
"They've spotted us," Olivia said, raising a hand and waving. "What do we do?"
Chapter 16
The wind changed, and the aroma of cooking food filled my senses. I wanted to go to Emory so badly. Yet, they looked like trapped rats. The zombies were lined up on the shores, closer to the treeline than the water. Many more zombies filled the farms and woods north of the town, all only wanting to sink their teeth into the residents of Emory.
"Why are they so afraid of water?" I asked.
"I don't know," Ralph said, looking at them with dread-filled eyes. "But this looks like something out of Dante's Inferno."
"You read Dante?" Olivia asked, giving him a doubtful look.
"Of course not," he said. "Why'd you ask that?"
"You said… Never mind," I replied, shaking my head.
I studied Emory more closely. Something wasn't right. The people inside the fenced-in area between the town and the zombies were waving us away. The people in the town itself came to the shore to wave us over. So weird.
"Look at the bridge," Olivia said, pointing southward and up. It was very high above the water. "I see three lines of defenses, with guys inside each area."
That was the only place the zombies were actually trying to break through. The defenders had long spears and were stabbing the walkers to death as they struggled climbing the fence. The fact zombies would climb, but not wade or swim, seemed odd. Everything about the zombie apocalypse was crazy to me.
That was another appeal of Emory. Answers. If anyone knew the whys and hows, it was them. But was learning the answers worth the risk?
"Can't argue with success," Ralph said. "They've kept the zombies out so far."
"I know, all of a week maybe? By that measure we're pretty successful, too," I said, maybe with a little more venom than intended. "I'm impressed by what they've done, and so quickly, but something isn't right."
What was more disconcerting was the lack of movement within the horde north of the town. None of them were trying to break through. There were quite a few of them huddled in groups near the fence. It looked like they were wrestling in large groups.
"Oh god, they're eating the dead," Olivia said.
She was right. I looked at the defensive fence. There were no dead in the coils of barbed wire or hanging dead on the fence. So the zombies pulled the dead away and ate them. Their food source was each other.
I averted my eyes. I didn't really want to watch a man being eaten, even if he was a zombie. At one time he was a man like me, just trying to get by in the world the best he could. Seeing what humanity had done to itself out of pure hate filled me with rage. So I turned downstream and started wading. Movement would keep us warm. I needed to clear my head of dark thoughts.
"Where are you going?" Olivia asked.
"South. Home," I said.
"What about Emory?" Ralph asked. "Or the island?"
I looked at the zombies on shore. A couple dozen were pacing us now. More were coming down from the treeline to join them. Most were content to just stand near the trees and stare at us and Emory. I didn't know if it was patience, stupidity, or if they had a plan.
"Both are traps," I said. Olivia joined me, so I moved between her and the shore. "We'll starve on the island. The zombies will eventually overrun Emory."
"Why do you think they'll take Emory?" Ralph said, finally starting to follow us.
It wasn't all settled in my head. It just seemed like a deathtrap to me. There were too many zombies, and they were tenacious, unrelenting, and not smart enough to look for easier prey. Mostly, there were just too many zombies.
"They'll run out of ammo," I said, pointing at the bridge. "They are already using spears up there." Then I pointed at the first line of fencing protecting Emory's north side. "That fence isn't worth a shit. I can see places where it's been knocked down and propped back up. Zombies don't care about barbed wire."
The two lines of fences went about five feet into the water, and then connected. The buffer zone was completely encircled by fencing and barbed wire. Odd. Maybe they didn't know zombies wouldn't enter the water when they built it. But why leave the town's shoreline unprotected?
"We might not have a choice," Olivia said.
I looked past her. Armed men were getting into three john boats with outboard motors. I picked up the pace as I continued south, watching them more intently than the zombies. They pull-started the motors, and pulled away.
"Here they come," I whispered.
My blood ran cold. We might be well-armed, but our ammo was limited. Plus I counted eight heavily armed men in those three boats. They looked big and grim.
"What the hell," I grumbled. "Can't they leave us alone?"
"They probably want our guns and ammo," Olivia said.
"I say we light them up before they get us," Ralph said.
I kind of agreed. It made me sad to know I'd gone to that place. My survival was so important I was willing to kill another preemptively. They might just be coming over to offer us sanctuary. Maybe they wouldn't attack us at all.
God, I wished I still had my AR15.
"Do we fight?" Ralph said, coming to a stop.
We all stopped and faced the incoming boats. Some of the men in them stood up, aiming their weapons in our general directions but not too threateningly. My finger tightened on the trigger, the other hand tight around the machete.
"I don't want to die," Olivia whispered.
All of the fight went out of me. Even Ralph's shoulders slumped.
"Don't move," one of the men called. "We have you covered."
"What do you want?" I shouted. "We're good. We don't need any help."
The boats slowed, but they continued towards us. I watched them split up, with one heading around behind us. We were trapped like rats.
"You don't have a choice, mister," a big guy with a beard and deer rifle said. "If we leave you, then you will die. But if you come to Emory, you can help us fight off the zombies."
They pressed in on us, front and back. Men pulled the guns from our hands, and then Olivia was dragged up into the boat behind us. As I turned toward her, to pull her back down, multiple hands seized me and I was yanked up into a different boat. The last boat grabbed Ralph.
The men remained silent, while the boats turned back towards Emory. I looked across the water at Olivia. She looked as grim as I felt. The town promised food and shelter, but would we be allowed to continue our trip home?
The unknown was scarier than the zombies.
THE END
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Check out these other stories by Rowdy Rooster Publishing:
TW Gallier
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Black Heart: The Crimson Knot
Black Heart: Wild On
Black Heart: Primary Urges
A Long Day's Night
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Tom Gallier
Edge of Darkness
Fantasy Tales I
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About the Author:
TW Gallier was born in Beaumont, Texas. He served 7 years in an Armored Cavalry Regiment (11th ACR Blackhorse Regiment), learning no useful skills. After the Army he went back to school to study electronics, figuring that would be a profession with job security. In 2008 he was laid off. It wasn’t the first time or last time he was wrong. But while in school, and holding down a full time job, he began writing in his spare time. In the mid-nineties he had his first short story sale and publication. He shares
his life with his wife and their two dogs.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
List of other titles
About the author