He didn’t have to waste a bullet on the first approaching creature, a male in a torn sleeveless suit. He just hit its skull with the butt of his AK-47. The thing slumped to the ground, and Marcel kicked it to send the other two approaching monsters tumbling over their fellow’s body.
Marcel started waving his hands and shouted, “Hey, you, worthless pieces of shit!” Dozens of heads turned in his direction. Dozens of feet shuffled toward him in the snowy morning gloom. The undead focused their gaze on him like sharks, who had felt the presence of fresh prey in their waters.
Andy ran down the stairs and swung his ax at an undead peroxide blonde with dirty hair, bashing the side of its head, spilling out brain matter and blood on the snow. There was a sound of cracking, like chopping wood.
Ivan and Ingvar joined the battle.
Andy stepped back to the ladder and raised his hand to help Ksenia and Marina to come down. The others followed them. Zhang Wei led his daughter, holding her by her hand.
“Let’s go,” Andy said.
They ran across the tennis court. They had reached the shed before they were out of breath. Luckily, the door was not locked. They pulled it open with some effort because of a little snow piled at the threshold. Inside, there was more than just brooms and shovels. They found hammers and saws, shears and even a chainsaw and a lawnmower.
Andy looked around and slapped his forehead. “I’ve completely forgotten all about this place!”
“Wow,” Ingvar said, looking at the chainsaw with admiration. “Classics.”
They armed themselves. Ksenia chose two hammers. Alyona and Marina took the brooms. The hard ones, for sweeping dirt off sidewalks. They removed the brush-heads and got themselves staves. Primitive but brutal weaponry.
They found the tennis net neatly packed in the corner of the shed. There were tennis rackets, too, but they were no use at all.
Zhang Wei took a baseball bat leaned against the wall. Now he was armed with more than just his fists.
“Our friends are catching up,” Ksenia said.
She stood in the doorway, looking out. The wall of the undead was coming at them like an avalanche.
Ingvar picked up the chainsaw. Makita. The chain was well oiled. He shook it and heard the fuel splashing about in the tank. He smiled a kid’s smile who got the first prize in a sports competition.
He pulled the string and the beast in his hands revved on the first try. “Yeah, baby!”
He ran his hand on the surface of the chainsaw and kissed it. “It’s a love at first sight. I know what Japanese chicks are like. I used to go out with one. You don’t mess with them, or they’ll chew your butt off like a chainsaw.”
With his fur hat on and the chainsaw in his hands, he looked like a Siberian woodcutter.
The moaning and growling were coming nearer.
Ivan unpacked the tennis net. “I have an idea.”
Ivan and Marcel took the net out of the shed, unfolded it and spread it wide. They cast it over the oncoming crowd. Some of the creatures got tangled like fish and fell down. Andy slipped out his ax and hacked at their heads.
Meanwhile, the ghouls were closing in. Ingvar stepped forward and worked his chainsaw through the bodies of the attackers.
Marcel fired his last shot and called out, “I’m out.”
He slung his AK-47 over his shoulder and held a pair of garden shears in front of him.
The noise of Ingvar’s chainsaw was attracting most of the audience. One female ghoul lunged at him, but Ingvar turned his head quickly and dodged it.
He flipped the creature the middle finger. “Ha, ha, bitch! Bite me!”
Another monster crawled from behind and tugged at Ingvar’s leg, sending him flying on the ground. The chainsaw dropped on the ground, churning up snow mixed with dirt in a wide, fountain-like arc. The zombie crept nearer and started biting Ingvar’s clothes in search of a weak spot. It tore the fabric of the coat like a ravenous Rottweiler. Ingvar rolled his hand into a fist and pulverized the beast’s lower jaw. He tried to resume his standing position, but the creature sank its remaining teeth in Ingvar’s wrist. Blood dripped on the snow in enormous rivulets and Ingvar screamed in agony. He kicked the zombie in the chest and rolled away.
Andy turned around and swung his ax, burying it deep in the zombie’s neck, separating it from the head. Then he repositioned his grip and sent the sharp edge of the blade into the upcoming ghoul’s abdomen. The undead emitted a low moan and continued its struggle, clawing at Andy’s face. Andy lost his balance and fell on his back. Another automaton shadowed over him, but at this moment Ingvar grabbed his weapon and put it to instant use. The rotating chain cut through the muscles and tendons and cartilages and the dead man collapsed on the ground. Headless.
Andy looked at Ingvar and nodded in appreciation. He was too out of breath to speak. Ingvar offered his hand and helped Andy to get to his feet.
The circle around them had narrowed.
“We have to retreat into the shed!” Andy called. “There are too many of them.”
Ingvar showed him his blood-soaked sleeve. “You go on. I’ll get as many bastards as I can.”
Andy opened his mouth to talk Ingvar round, but he saw a Norse man’s determination in his blue eyes. The infection had probably set in his system already. And by the time they could make a resemblance of a barricade, he would turn and attack them.
Andy ran to the door. Behind his back, Ingvar revved up his chainsaw and began sawing the undead like young birch trees. Limbs and trunks were flying around.
When the fuel petered out, Ingvar brandished the chainsaw like a sword. But he was too weak to hold it. He looked around him. There was nowhere to run. He tried to start the chainsaw. It purred once and fell silent. He wished he had saved enough fuel to point the blade against himself and let out his own intestines. Anything was better than being conscious while being eaten alive. He dropped the chainsaw. The monsters came near. He looked at the sky and folded his hands in a silent prayer. Then he made a cross sign as the creatures began biting, tearing, chewing, digging and clawing at his mortal flesh.
***
Andy peered through the small window outside. The feast was fierce but fast. Now the monsters were at the door. Their fists sounded like heavy hammers against the door.
Andy looked at the survivors. “Any idea?”
Before anyone could come up with one, a deafening noise, like an explosion, reached his ears. Andy backed away from the window but then stepped back again to glance outside. The gate wall had been shattered. Bricks and debris were all around. A huge piece of the wall landed on a parked minivan and smashed it like a beer can.
Right after it, a battle tank rumbled into the hotel yard. Half a dozen men sat on top of the tank. All of them had green camouflage outfit on. They were hooting and laughing as the caterpillar tracks traveled under the tank. One of the men put his hand into a gray bag and came out with a hand grenade.
“Rock-and-roll!” he shouted, flinging the grenade at the mob of creatures.
Four zombies got split in half. Then the tank machine gun started spitting fire, scything through the infected ones. The men on top of the tank opened fire, too. It was a storm of blood and flying lead. The creatures fell under the fire and the tracks finished the job, trampling them like dead leaves.
When the dust settled, the lid of the tank was thrown open and a man’s head stuck out. The man had grim countenance. He glared slowly around. Andy ducked and motioned everybody to go to the far corner.
The tank turret turned and pointed the barrel at their shed. The man in the tank put a megaphone to his mouth and blared, “YOU, IN THE SHED. COME OUT OR WE WILL BLOW YOUR CRAP HOUSE TO PIECES. MARCH SLOWLY IN SINGLE FILE. NO WEAPONS.”
Andy looked at the others. “I’ll go first. Stay here.”
He gave his ax to Dr. Brodde and unlatched the door. He stepped out. There were piles and piles of bodies scattered all over the tennis court and the yard.
“RAISE Y
OUR HANDS,” the megaphone blared again.
Andy raised his hands above his head.
The tank man said into the megaphone, “NEXT! COME ON OUT.”
“I’m the only one here,” Andy said in his accented Russian.
The barrel turned a little to the right, and the turret shook with vibration as a projectile fired across the tennis court and made a huge hole in the back fence wall.
“I WILL NOT REPEAT. MARCH OUT SLOWLY. ALL OF YOU.”
Ivan went out with raised hands. Followed by Ksenia, Marcel, Marina, Alyona and Dr. Brodde. Zhang Wei and Mimi were last to come out.
“THAT IS BETTER,” the tank man said.
The tank moved nearer and stopped. The man got out of it and jumped heavily on the ground. His thugs followed him. He was a huge man. His bulletproof vest made him look even bigger.
The man snapped a salute. “Major Konstantin Gavrilov.”
Neither Andy nor his people gave a reply.
Gavrilov turned back and took a look at the burning hotel. “What a pity! And we have made all this way just to stay at your hotel.”
A big fat thug laughed like it was the best joke he had ever heard.
Andy said, “Sorry. No vacancy.”
Gavrilov squinted. “Who are you?”
Andy said, “My name is Andrew Thomas. I’m the General Manager of the Arkaim Hotel.”
“Ah, another foreigner,” Gavrilov said.
He took a small piece of colored paper out of his pocket, which Andy recognized. It was the hotel business card.
Gavrilov looked at the business card. “It says here, Mr. Thomas, that your hotel is a home away from home. Is that right?”
“Quite right, sir.”
“Well,” Gavrilov said. “I see a discrepancy here, then. I am away from home. Your hotel is supposed to be my temporary home but you say you have no vacancy.”
Andy said, “As you can see for yourself, the hotel is burning. It will burn to the ground soon.”
“And what should a self-respecting hotelier do in such cases?”
“I don’t know,” Andy said.
“He should call another hotel and ask them if they have free rooms,” Gavrilov said. “Didn’t they teach that in your fancy colleges?”
Andy looked around him, at the bodies of the undead, at the burning hotel, at the hole in the fence. “Look, I appreciate what you’ve done here, killing off those things and all that but we don’t have time for this rubbish.”
“A very impolite young man,” Gavrilov said.
Andy said, “We’ve been through a lot, you see. Now let us go.”
Gavrilov looked at the business card again and said, “I found this in a pocket of your guest. A certain Ramses Campbell. A black guy. He was impolite, too. Oh, he was fucking rude. Do you know him?”
“Yes. Where’s he? Is he alive?”
“We came to him, actually,” Gavrilov said. “To pay him a visit.”
“He’s not here,” Ksenia said. “We haven’t seen him for five days.”
Gavrilov said, “But I was one hundred percent sure he went here.”
“Well, as you can see he’s not among us,” Andy said.
“That much I can see,” Gavrilov said. “I am not fucking blind.”
He took out a bottle of liquor and uncorked it with his teeth. “Want some?” he asked Andy.
“No, thanks.”
Gavrilov shrugged his shoulders. “More for me.”
He gulped down half the bottle. Then he whipped his mouth with his sleeve and put the cork back.
He came up to Andy. “That is too bad.”
“Too bad what?”
Gavrilov smashed the bottle against Andy’s head. Andy slumped to his knees. A rosebud of pain blossomed inside his head, and rosy liquid poured down his forehead. Being dizzy, he could not tell whether it was the liquor or his blood.
“Too bad you are a fucking liar,” Gavrilov said. “What the hell are you doing here, you American swine?”
He raised his boot and in a split second its heel met Andy’s chin. Andy jerked like a rag doll and sprawled face down on the ground. The hit was so powerful Andy was afraid his jaw was broken. He raised his head off the ground and said through his clenched teeth. “I’m from Sheffield, England.”
“Whatever,” Gavrilov said. “Your days are gone if you do not tell me where you are hiding that black-assed friend of yours.”
“He’s not here,” Andy said.
Gavrilov touched Andy’s throat with the broken bottleneck. “I could slit another mouth in your fucking lying throat. Right here. But you know what? There is no fun in it.”
He threw the bottleneck against the tank, and it smashed to pieces.
He looked at the line of people in front of him.
He pointed at Dr. Brodde. “You, old man. Come here.”
Dr. Brodde took a step forward. Gavrilov unholstered his gun and put it to the old man’s head.
“Campbell, come out!” he said in English.
Except for a few new ghouls seeping into the yard, nothing was happening.
“Come out right now,” Gavrilov said, “or this old geezer will die right here!”
No one came out.
“Oh well,” Gavrilov said and shrugged his shoulders. He pulled the trigger. The women shrieked. The old German fell. The blood spilled on the snow took a shape of a question mark. In terror, Andy looked at the old man’s immobile eyes.
“I’m telling you the truth, you bastard,” Andy screamed. “Ramses is not here and we don’t know where he is.”
Gavrilov ignored him. He raised his gun and shouted, “Campbell, wherever you are! If you do not come out, your people will die one by one!”
Gavrilov pointed at Ksenia and his men dragged her out to the front and brought her to her knees.
He snatched Ksenia by the hair and breathed in the morning air. “Oh, I can feel the spring in the air. Can you?”
FORTY-ONE
Ramses and Goran crawled on their belly to the giant hole in the brick fence and looked around the edge. In the tennis court, Gavrilov stood in front of the hotel people, legs planted wide. He brought Ksenia to her knees and pressed the gun muzzle to her head. Then he took another bottle out, opened it and made a gulp. He looked slowly around, scanning the area for a possible threat. Alert and confident.
“Campbell,” he called in broken English. “I am tired of your friends and this chick here. Besides, we are running out of booze. So I will be quick. I am going to count to ten. If you do not come out, I will kill her.”
The man spoke slowly, carefully choosing his words and avoiding contractions as if he had all the time in the world.
Ramses turned to Goran. “I’m going.”
“No,” Goran whispered. “He’ll shoot her anyway. Then he’ll kill you. Then the others.”
“One,” Gavrilov shouted.
“Marina is there,” Ramses said. “What if he kills her too?”
There was a gunshot. Then two more. They gasped and looked at the tennis court. It was not Ksenia they had been shooting at. The undead had walked through the broken gate into the yard and were coming to the tennis court without invitation for a game party. Gavrilov’s thugs were firing at them.
“No, wait,” Goran said. He rubbed his face with his hands. “Damn! I can’t think straight at the moment.”
“Two,” Gavrilov said. He took another gulp from the bottle and sprayed it at Ksenia’s face.
The henchmen laughed.
Another gulp. “Three.”
Ramses could easily take him down from here if he had a rifle. But he didn’t have one.
“Four.”
The only things in terms of weapons he and Goran had were a kitchen knife they had taken from the old couple’s kitchen and a propane cylinder they had found in a half-ruined shawarma kiosk. The knife was old and thin from multiple sharpening sessions but it was sharp. The propane cylinder contained five liters. Unused and full.
Gavril
ov put his foot on the back of Ksenia’s neck and every time he counted he pressed her face to the ground. “Five. Six. Seven.”
Ramses clenched his fists. “Fuck!”
“Eight.”
Goran tore the protective seal on the valve of the cylinder and removed the cover. “All right. Let’s improvise. Once you reach him, I’ll blow this baby up. It should buy you a couple of seconds. After that, you’re on your own.”
“Nine.”
Ramses nodded. “I’ll figure something out.” He patted Goran on the shoulder and rose to his feet. “Stay put. You’re my secret weapon.”
“All right.”
Gavrilov shook the last droplets from the empty bottle into his mouth and burped. “Ten.”
Marcel stepped forward. “Kill me instead but don’t touch her.”
Gavrilov looked at him for a brief moment, full of surprise, and thrust the bottle away. He chuckled. “As you wish.”
He trained his gun at Marcel and fired. The man’s chest exploded in a fountain of blood and shreds of clothes fabric. Marcel staggered and fell down. There was blood at the edges of the bullet hole in his back. A snowflake fell on it and turned pink.
“No!” Ksenia said, sobbing. “You’ll pay for this, bastard!”
Gavrilov turned to his thugs. “Well, he asked me himself.”
The cutthroats nodded approvingly. Someone even applauded as if it was the best show he had ever seen.
Gavrilov whistled. “Hey, Joker! Want to fool around with her? I would have a go at her myself, but I promised her friend not to touch her.”
The big fat man squealed with laughter and came up to Ksenia. She tried to kick him between his legs, but Joker caught her foot and twisted it to the side. Ksenia screamed with pain. The ankle she had twisted days ago began giving her hell again. Joker took her by the hair and began dragging her to the shed.
Gavrilov laughed. “Look, no hands. I am not touching her. As promised.”
Goran took a piece of his shirt he had drenched in gasoline and attached it to the propane cylinder. He clicked his gas lighter to check if it functioned. It did. “Time to go, bud.”
The Living & The Dead (Book 1): Zombiegrad Page 38