Love, Revenge and Zombies

by Travis Cotter

  Now all he had to figure out was how he was going to get past the ever growing mob of undead in the street. There were only ten rounds left for his 9mm, three shotgun shells and he was completely out of ammo for his m4. He also had one grenade and two stun grenades left but then something else he had almost forgot caught his eye in the bottom of his bag. The C4 was there lying at the bottom of the bag and it gave him an idea; he knew it could be dangerous but spectacular if it worked.

  He dropped his bags back down into the apartment and then climbed back down too. The sun was beginning to set again and he would spend the night getting his plan together and in the morning it would all come together.

  That night he made a steak he found in the freezer and a can of baked beans, it was a fine feast after all the cans of soup and pop tarts he had eaten. The reason for the nice meal was because he was going to leave the bar tomorrow. If his plan went the way he wanted then he would not be returning to it again.

  After he finished his meal and cleaned his dishes he made his way downstairs into the bar. The bar still had the smell of death and decay lingering in the air and it overwhelmed him as soon as he entered the room. He took one last look around the bar, grabbed a bottle of whiskey and headed back upstairs.

  He was going to go through his things and decide what he needed to keep and what he could leave behind. The first thing he was going to do was cut down on his weapons; he would only keep one of the AA12s, one M4 and his 9mm. He would keep all four knives but he was going to leave the grenade launcher behind. As much as he enjoyed firing it and he enjoyed the carnage it left behind even more, he knew it wasn’t practical and finding rounds for it would be difficult. The weapons all fit into the smaller duffle bag along with one of the drums for the AA12 and all the magazines for his guns.

  He wanted to take some of the canned goods also so he found a backpack in the closet and filled it with a dozen cans of soup and stew. The bag was heavier than he wanted but he knew if he needed to he could leave it behind. It was better to have it now and deal with it than not have it and be hungry later.

  The lights began to flicker in the apartment; Paul knew that this day would come eventually if order wasn’t restored in the world. There was nobody out there maintaining the power grids and now they were beginning to fail. The power was going to be out soon and it wasn’t going to come back on. The lights flickered again and Paul hurried to finish getting his things together in case he was left in the dark. He finished up after a few more minutes and was grateful that the lights were still on but now he was ready to turn them off himself and get some sleep. There was a lot of work for him to do the next day and he was going to need to get some rest. He was hoping that the night would be peaceful and that the nightmares wouldn’t come.

  Unfortunately he wasn’t so lucky, Abby and the undead were waiting for him again once he drifted off to sleep. The restful sleep he needed wasn’t going to come and the night would have him reliving the death of his heart yet again.

  Twenty

  The morning sunlight came through the window way too soon but there was work to be done and Paul needed to get to it. Paul gathered up the bricks of C4 and the blasting caps into a couple of grocery bags. The motorcycle jacket and helmet that Nick had lent him before were seating in the corner of the living room. Paul went over and held the jacket and thought about Nick and slipped the jacket on and then placed the helmet over his head. He took the bag with him and headed out the window and back into the alley behind the bar.

  He had his 9mm and one of his knives with him but he was hoping to get his work done and not have to fight but he was always ready to fight if it came down to it. So far the alley seemed to be clear; the piles of bodies at both ends of the alley seemed to have kept the zombies back. Before he had left the apartment Paul found keys on the coffee table, they were the keys to the padlocks on the back door. So the first thing he did when he was back in the alley was unlock the door and open it. The rush of air that came out of the bar was still thick with death but then again the air outside wasn’t really any better.

  There was a four story building next to the bar that looked to be offices for an insurance company on the lower floors and a couple of lawyers offices on the top two floors. The back door to the office building was locked but not with padlocks like the bar had been, it was only a deadbolt. He knew breaking in the door would be noisy but making noise was part of the plan so he kicked the door as hard as he could. It took three good kicks but finally the doorframe gave out and with a shower of wood splinters the door was open.

  Paul had the bags of C4 with him and his knife out as he entered the building. He tried to turn on the lights but he had no luck, he wasn’t sure if it was just that building that had lost power or if it was that entire area of town. The first room he entered was a large open room with half a dozen cubicles spread throughout it. This must have been the insurance office he thought as he surveyed the room. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the room with him, living or undead. He made his way to the front of the office and made sure he checked every cubicle as he passed.

  There were still traces of the people that had worked there before, framed pictures and coffee mugs could be seen on their desks and paperwork that would never get done littered the floor. The room was clear; Paul made his way to the two large glass doors at the front of the office that led to the main lobby of the building. There was a large window at the front of the lobby. Paul stood there for a minute and watched the undead as they aimlessly wandered the street.

  He headed upstairs to clear the next floor and found another room full of cubicles and like the first floor there was no sign of people. The top two floors were just as uneventful. He set up three bricks of C4 on each floor of the building. He placed two bricks of C4 so that they were across the room from each other and then placed another one in the center of the ceiling of each room. Once he finished setting up the C4 he headed back down to the lobby.

  The first thing he did when he got to the lobby was smash the glass doors that separated the insurance office from the lobby. The fire extinguisher that had been mounted to the wall worked well to bring the glass crashing down. He kicked open the front door to the street and smashed out the large plate glass window that faced out to the street. His plan was almost complete but first he needed to prepare the bar the same way he had the office building.

  A few of the undead had made their way into the alley and he could see a couple of them crawling over the bodies at the end of the alley. He needed to move quick if he wanted to get everything done before he had to start fighting. Paul headed back into the bar and set a brick of C4 on the woodstove and another on the wall across from it. The swinging door creaked as he stepped back into the bar; he made his way across the bar. He began pulling the tables he had nailed up off of the doorframe. He wanted the entryway to be open as he started clearing all the tables to the sides of the room so that the middle of the room was empty.

  There were only five bricks of C4 left but he was fairly sure it would be enough to accomplish what he wanted. There were two bricks set up on the bar itself, with one at each end. A third was set on the brick wall across from the bar; the office building was on the other side of that wall.

  He stood in the center of the apartment with the backpack on his back and his bag slung over his shoulder. One of the bricks of C4 was mounted to the ceiling in the center of the room and the other was on the floor directly under it. Paul took one last look around the apartment and took it all in. It was like he could still sense Nick in the room so he said “goodbye my friend, thanks for everything.”

  He picked up the detonator off of the table and headed back downstairs.

  There were a couple of zombies wandering through the open entrance. Paul headed out into the kitchen of the bar; he found one of the stun grenades in his bag. He pulled the pin and lobbed it into the bar; he ducked behind the swinging door with his ears plugged. The slight concussion of the grenade could be felt as he
knelt behind the door. A few seconds later he was standing again looking through the window on the swinging door. Paul could tell the grenade had stunned the zombies that were already in the bar but more importantly there were now many more funneling into the bar. His plan was working, he had hoped that the noise and flash of the grenade would attract more zombies into the bar and so far it was working. Paul propped the swinging door open so that more zombies could fill the kitchen.

  He avoided three zombies that were in the alley and then fished a second stun grenade out of his bag. He pulled the broken back door of the office building open, pulled the pin on the grenade and tossed it into the building. The grenade went off as Paul pressed himself against the wall outside the building and plugged his ears again. There was a zombie staggering dangerously close to him now, he drew his knife and jammed it into the side of the undead man’s head.

  Paul ran across the alley to the dumpster and lifted the lid open, he tossed his bags inside. He looked down into the dumpster and it didn’t seem too inviting but hesitantly he climbed in and pulled the lid shut. The smell inside the dumpster was actually not as bad as the smell of the dead that always seemed to hang in the air now.

  He sat in the dumpster for another twenty minute as he waited and hoped that the undead were filling the buildings to capacity. He was hoping that some of them were filling up the upper levels of the office building but he wasn’t sure if they still maintained the ability to navigate up the stairs.

  Paul slowly lifted the lid up just enough so that he could peek out. The plan seemed to be working, there were now zombies staggering out the backdoors of both builds so he was guessing it was getting pretty full inside. He crouched down at the back of the dumpster with the detonator in his hand; he said a quick prayer. He prayed that the metal dumpster would be sturdy enough to protect him when he unleashed the C4. There was nothing left for him to do but squeeze the detonator and hope for the best.

  “3, 2, 1…,” Paul counted down and set off the C4.

  The dumpster shook violently and the sound of the blast echoed inside the dumpster. Paul clutched his ears as he tried to keep out the noise but his ears had already begun to ring with a sound like church bells. The dumpster began to move a little as pieces of the buildings bounced off of it and the sound rang like thunder through the dumpster.

  It was another minute before he tried to venture out of the dumpster; he was waiting to make sure that all the debris had fallen to the ground. He slowly tried to lift the lid but it didn’t want to move, he could tell there were chunks of the building resting on top of it. He pressed his back up against the lid and pushed with everything he had and he could feel it slowly begin to move. The lid gave a little at a time as Paul continued to push on it. A few more hard slams against the lid and he was able to lift it enough to slide out of it.

  Once back in the alley he was able to take in everything he had done. For the most part the bar had been reduced to a giant pile of rubble. The pile was smoking and Paul could see countless bodies and body parts scattered throughout the rubble. The office building had held up a little bit better but not by much. It was a large frame of what use to be a building with only a few small sections of wall still standing. The body count was also high in the office building judging by the parts and people he could still make out in the rubble. All he could do was stand there and smile as he thought about what he had done and how many zombies he had just destroyed in a matter of minutes.

  The moment was ruined as he felt a hand wrap around his ankle and it began to pull on him. Paul casually looked down and saw a torn up body missing its lower half. It had burn marks across half its face and up its back. He couldn’t tell if it was male or female but really it didn’t matter to him, he pulled out his knife and plunged it into the top of its head. It was time to move on and he took one last look at the destruction he had caused, the blast had sent shrapnel out into the street and had leveled a lot of the undead. He needed to get moving before the ones that could get up did get up and started coming after him again. There were a couple of large pieces of brick and mortar resting on top of the dumpster. Paul slide them off and let them crash to the ground, he retrieved his bags and headed out of the alley towards the sporting goods store.

  Twenty-One

  The sporting good store was a large two story building that sat alone in a large parking lot, the store was designed to resemble a country lodge. The doors and windows of the first floor of the sporting goods store were all covered with sheets of thick plywood. The place looked like someone had hastily nailed all the wood to the doors and windows and then abandoned it. Some of the wood was crooked and there were bent nails all around the edges, it looked like whoever had been putting it up had been in a hurry and couldn’t get all the nails in right. There didn’t seem to be that many zombies around the building but either way he wanted to get inside as soon as possible. The explosion he had set off earlier seemed to be drawing most of them down the street and away for him.

  There was a door on the side of the building that looked like it had been the last door to be covered with a piece of plywood. There were only three nails it and whoever had put it up hadn’t taken the time to do it right. The board was angled to the right and had a small gap at the top left corner and bottom right corner. He figured the person must have been getting over run and had to finish quick, Paul was hoping they had escaped in time. He went to work with his knife and started prying the nails out. It only took a few minutes to get the nails out and now all he had to do was get the door open.

  He stepped back to give himself a little extra room to kick the door in but then he hesitated, something inside him told him to try the door handle first. Paul reached out towards the door and gripped the handle in his hand.

  “Here’s to hoping,” he said.

  To his surprise the handle turned and he slowly opened the door. He stood there staring into the darkness of the store. It was both inviting and off-putting, he welcomed the security of being off of the street but at the same time he didn’t know what was waiting in the dark.

  He held the M4 in his hand as he entered the store. There were no bullets left in it but the flashlight mounted on the end was the only light he had with him. The 9mm was in his other hand just in case something was lurking in the dark. Once inside the store he closed the door behind him and turned the deadbolt to lock it. He didn’t want anyone or anything to wander in behind him. If anyone wanted to get in then they were going to have to work for it and that would give Paul time to prepare if anyone did try.

  He wanted to search the entire store to make sure it was completely clear but he decided the first thing he wanted to do was find more ammunition. If there were zombies stumbling around the store then he wanted to be ready for them. If there were survivors he knew they could be just as dangerous so he wanted to be ready for them as well. So he was on the search for ammo first and then he would work on clearing out the store.

  The door he had originally entered through seemed to be a service entrance and as he looked around he could see shelves full of tents and sleeping bags. He was in the camping section of the store; a couple of the shelves had been knocked down. There were a couple of empty shelves but for the most part there was very little taken from that part of the store. Paul was beginning to like the idea of the sporting goods store even more as he made his way down the center aisle of the camping department.

  The store didn’t seem to have been looted that much which surprised him because there was everything anyone could ever need to survive if they left the city. It was confusing to think that people wouldn’t have made their way there to clear the shelves but then he thought about how quickly things had unraveled in the city those first few days. Most people didn’t have enough time to plan or loot. It was such madness and chaos the first few days and anyone that did venture out into the world faced an army of undead. Few could have survived but he still wondered why after a few weeks of this new world other people hadn’t found
the store before him. He knew the only answer that seemed to fit was that there really wasn’t that many people left alive in the city. That thought weighed heavy on his heart but there was nothing he could do about it now.

  Paul continued out of the camping area of the store and into the center of the store. The sunlight flooded through the top floor windows and down to the ground where he was standing. The center of the store was a large open area with a staircase on both sides that led to the second floor of the store.

  There was a large sign hanging in the center between the two staircases, it listed different areas of the store and had arrows pointing which direction they were in. The arrow for firearms and ammunition was pointing to the left of him and indicated that it was on the second floor. Paul took the stairs two at a time as he headed up and then turned left towards the ammo.

  The firearms were the last section on the far left side of the second floor. Paul grinned has he saw the wall covered with rifles and the glass cases in front of them full of hand guns. There was another section of shelves next to the rifles that were full of ammunition. Paul spent the next hour loading the guns and magazines he had with him. He also loaded another dozen guns that he pulled from the cases. He had a half dozen hand guns loaded, two pump action shotguns, two more semi automatic rifles and two bolt action rifles. If he was going to walk back into hell then he now felt prepared to do it with a smile.

  He had found a set of flashlights on a display at the end of one of the aisles near the firearms. The batteries were hanging right next to them so it seemed only logical to take one before he set out to search the rest of the store. The flashlight was in one hand and his 9mm was in the other as he did a quick sweep of the store. As far as he could tell there was nobody else in the store alive or undead. There had been another door at the back of the store that had been unlocked but when he tried to open it he was stopped by the plywood on the outside of it. He locked the door just to be sure and made sure every other door and window in the store was locked.