by Jack Flacco
“You know what I think?” Matty said. “I think they’re standing guard.”
Jon lifted his head over the window. “Then why would they stare at the wall if they’re standing guard? It makes no sense. They ought to be staring at the truck.”
“These are zombies, anything is possible with them. Maybe they’re listening for sound resonance bouncing off the wall. You know what I mean? Sort of like hearing for echoes. That makes sense, right?”
Jon pinched his chin thinking for a while, playing with the cards on the floor and said. “You know, sis, you could be right. Just like bats use sonar to hear echoes bounce off objects when traveling through the air, maybe that’s how zombies hear things.”
Matty sat next to her brother on the floor. Her eyes drifted from the cards he dealt to his small hands. Gazing at him she traced his fingers, his arms, his shoulders, his face, and the contour of his nose, lips and eyes. He looked so much like dad. A smile then appeared on her face as she wrapped her arm around him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, struggling. “Get off.”
“Nothing.” She said, not wanting to say to him she missed the human contact of a hug. Having Jon there made her even more grateful for having family around during this time of darkness. She squeezed him tight not wanting to let him go.
* * *
Even though Randy and Wildside sat in wait for Ranger’s arrival, their rifles lay in their grips at the ready. They’ve had too many instances of monsters taking them by surprise for them to afford not to have their guns in their hands.
Eating peanuts as he waited, Randy asked. “How will we know when Ranger gets here?”
Wildside chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure we’ll know when Ranger shows up. He has a way with making an entrance.”
They laughed quietly not wanting to alert the zombies across the street. The teens didn’t need the undead to turn their faces from the wall. They had had enough firefights to last them a while. Now that Randy knew Wildside would protect him, he relaxed more to share his snack and a conversation with his one-time enemy. “Ranger’s kind of over-the-top, isn’t he?” Randy asked.
“Ranger’s Ranger. There is no one like him. There will be no one like him ever again.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Believe what? That Ranger is one of a kind?”
“That we are the only ones left of society. I met an elderly couple in our town, Jessum. They were traveling when the change occurred. What if there are others like them? I mean, here we are, right?”
“I’m sure there are others.” Wildside dipped his fingers into the peanut bag and fished some of the pleasant treat. “Look at Matty, she was traveling to Las Vegas while all this happened. She managed to escape the change and the military death squads.”
Randy stopped chewing and stared into the distance. His next statement came as an abrupt interruption in conversation. “Listen, Wildside. Listen to me carefully. Whatever happens to me, take care of Matty. Okay? She needs someone who will appreciate her for who she is without making her feel different.”
“You mean someone who won’t make her feel like a gun-toting redhead who just as soon blow away a zombie than attend a school dance in a dress? So, you do like her.”
Randy shot him a glare, but didn’t admit or deny anything. He still wore a poker face, never showing his hand to anyone, even to Wildside, the person who saved his life.
Wildside didn’t need Randy to admit to anything, he knew he liked Matty simply from the way he smiled when they were in Jay’s Sporting Goods. Of course Randy had tried to hide the crack that had formed on the opposite side of his face, but Wildside caught it. It didn’t bother him that Randy worried about what might happen in the future. Wildside worried about it too. It did leave him wondering if Randy knew something he wasn’t telling. Squirming from side to side, he rose from the floor to his feet to stretch his legs. With his rifle in both hands facing the window, Wildside bent and touched his toes then extended his arms into the air. Pulling his weight to his right then to his left, he glanced through the window and noticed a difference with the zombies at the wall. He dove to the floor.
Randy didn’t need an explanation. If Wildside ducked, Randy ducked.
Wildside shot Randy a cold gaze. “One of them is standing behind the truck with its nose in the air.”
Slowly pulling himself over the windowpane, Randy peeked through the grimy glass. He spotted its nostrils flaring while it scanned the building windows where the teens made their perch. It moaned, sensing an invader, a foreign entity in its midst. Randy withdrew his head to the floor. “I think it spotted me.”
“How do you know? Did it look at you?”
“It scanned the buildings and stopped at ours.”
In the same manner as Randy, Wildside raised his head in a slow, determined pace. Once his eyes captured the sight, his eyes blasted open. In a trembling voice he asked, “How many were there when you looked?”
“Four against the wall and one near the truck.”
His voice still quivering, Wildside repeated the first part of Randy’s statement, “Four against the wall.” Then added, “And none near the truck.”
The realization sank in. One of the zombies must have spotted their movements in the window. A visitor would soon appear on their floor.
* * *
“Go fish.” Jon told Matty.
She huffed at the luck Jon had had with the cards. “I don’t know how you do it. I’m thinking you’re cheating in some way.”
“I’m just good. No cheating involved when dealing with a professional.”
Matty’s ears propped high. “Shh. Did you hear that?”
“Nope. You’re just sore I beat the pants off ya.”
“Shh. Listen.” Matty whispered to Jon, not wanting to stir a commotion. Together they edged their backs away from the wall to pull forward. They listened intently. The sound of a creak floated from the stairs. Matty and Jon scampered from the floor to the adjacent wall from the entrance to the room. With her gun drawn, Matty pointed it to where she thought the eater’s head might appear. Jon stayed close to her side. She placed her free hand on his chest to prevent him from moving.
A deafening silence filled the room. The siblings kept very still. When they heard another creak from the stairs, they drew closer to the wall. The gun in Matty’s hand wanted to slip after moisture had formed on the handle. She gripped it tighter. Jon’s breathing grew shallower. Her grasp on Jon tightened as they heard a third and final creak. Matty gulped hard and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She had to do something besides stand there. In one quick burst, she leapt into the doorway with her gun drawn.
A dog greeted her with a whine.
“Hey, little guy.” Matty knelt to the dog’s level, petting it. A quiet laugh escaped her seeing its eyes glow with life. The dog hopped on her, licking her face, wagging its tail and pouring affection all over her.
Relief filled Jon’s face. His weary eyes flooded in happiness seeing man’s best friend in the middle of the room jump and twirl in excitement.
A few minutes is all it took for the mood to change rapidly. The smiles and quiet amusement that had overtaken the kids and the dog vanished. In its place, their faces drained of its color, and their bodies froze in time when their stares shot from across the room to the open doorway. The dog’s commotion had alerted an eater of dreadful distinction, filled with hunger in its stomach and hate in its eyes.
Matty’s first reaction to draw her gun on the beast failed when the dog issued a ferocious growl. It proved to be the type of growl that would have brought fear to anything daring to touch Matty or Jon. Even more so, the dog stood in between the kids and the eater ready to pounce. The evil soul moaned, groaned and raised its arms not yielding to the canine’s warnings. It took a step from the doorway, which the dog perceived as a threat, triggering its instinct to attack. The stray dashed at full speed and leapt from the floor, pouncing on the rotten corpse,
causing it to step back. The mongrel’s vicious teeth locked on the zombie’s frail neck drawing first blood. The impact and the loss of its liquid life pushed the zombie backward, to tumble the stairs in a chatter of broken limbs, cracking bones and a yelp.
Running to the window, Jon’s hands landed on the glass. He stared out to the zombies that had turned from the wall, heading toward the entrance of their building.
“Matty! They’re coming!”
She darted to the edge of the doorway and gazed down to where the dog lay dead at the foot of the stairs. The zombie that had tumbled the stairs killing the canine, twitched. At first, its hands shifted slowly propping its body on its elbows. Soon after, its legs dragged it to its knees. It then raised erect, cracking cartilage, twisting its neck to gawk at Matty with a murderous scowl. Slamming its rot-infested claw on the handrail, it scaled the mountain one torturous step after another, bleeding green from the wound sustained on the throat from the dog’s bite. The others followed, pouring from the street into the building climbing the stairs.
Matty checked her clip. One bullet left with another in the chamber. Five zombies, two bullets, Matty’s stomach did a back flip while the muscles in her cheeks tightened. Akin to instinct, she slammed the door, locking it shut. In a quick dash, she spirited Jon to the windows. Words didn’t have to pass between them. The siblings pulled on all the frames but whoever had maintained the building had painted them shut.
“Shoot the glass!” Jon’s veins popped from his neck.
Matty pressed her nose on a pane and gazed at the sidewalk, “The jump will kill us!”
Thunderous pounding shook the door.
“I don’t want to die, Matty!”
The sound of the thumps grew heavier rattling the door on its hinges. A few more hits and it would collapse under the weight of the hungry beasts. The kids trembled, blinking with every strike. They needed a miracle.
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Without warning, three shots pierced the door. Green trails spit from the holes. Matty crouched to the floor, holding Jon’s head in her chest. Agonizing shrieks sliced through the stairwell. Loud thuds crashed against thin walls. A knife’s blade stabbed the door to retract in a smooth motion leaving behind a trail of green ooze trickling from the slot. The sound of one final moan expelling from a maggot bag’s chest ended with a series of tumbles and crashes. Then there was silence, the type of silence that hung making the air seem thick and wanting. Wanting of a tumble. Wanting of a crash. Anything but that dreadful silence.
With one kick, splinters from the frame shot in all directions as the door burst open smashing against the adjacent wall. To the zombies, the cowboy boot was enough of a wakeup call that a new sheriff had rode into town. But to Matty and Jon, it was their miracle.
“Ranger!” Jon skipped to the slayer in delight.
“Hey kid! Miss me?” Ranger picked up the boy in his arms and strutted into the room.
“Ranger!” Matty dashed, crashing into him with an embrace.
“I guess you missed me too.”
“Yes!”
Having missed each other for more than a day, they hugged for what seemed a long time.
After a few minutes, stepping over the dead bodies at the foot of the stairs, three with shotgun blasts to the head, one with a knife wound through the face and another with a broken skull, Randy and Wildside appeared at the doorway with rifles cocked and a ready-made attitude to take on anything in their way.
“Ranger, we knew it was you!” Wildside relaxed his weapon, patting his back.
“Is it ‘cause of the bodies I left behind.”
“No, ‘cause of the potent scent of your aftershave.”
“I thought,” Randy said in a dry, serious voice, “it was a pretty understated entrance. Where were the explosions? All I heard were gunshots. Even I could’ve done that.”
A disturbing look settled on Ranger’s face. No one knew if Randy had offended the zombie killer or complimented him for his quick skill as an effective dispatcher of the undead. His glare lasted enough to make Randy feel uncomfortable until Ranger let off a wild, gregarious laugh filled with warmth and joy. He extended his arm to pull Wildside and Randy together into his embrace with Matty and Jon. They were a team again.
Chapter 22
Arriving a block away from Worship Square, heavy fencing greeted the blue Range Rover. Large bold-lettered signs warned those foolhardy enough to think they’d get in, they’d lose there lives trying. The fencing covered nine square blocks from end-to-end. Whoever built the fortifications had also erected concrete barriers to supplement the fencing. Every few feet cameras surveyed the vicinity ensuring intruders stayed out. Military helicopters hovered over the secured area. No possibility anyone would think of getting in without an invitation.
Ranger and the gang parked their vehicle in the underground garage across the street from the fortified entrance of the complex. They then climbed to the top floor of the Green Grove residential apartment building to scan for possible weaknesses in the compounds security. As Ranger surveyed the area with his binoculars from the end of a long hall of the twelfth-story window, he noticed another fenced section in the middle of it all, same as the first, enclosing Worship Square. He shook his head knowing they didn’t have a chance to breach the complex with the one, two, three, four, five of them, and a truck pulling a hitch carrying a homemade bomb.
Even Matty, whose typical response to such situations is jumping in, guns blazing, accepted the no-win scenario. She bowed her head surrendering her hopes for a quick entry.
Ranger huffed some, perhaps thinking it’ll all even out in the end, but he didn’t allow setbacks to get to him. As he passed the binoculars to Wildside, he produced the file he had stolen from Douglas Cartage. He gave Jon and Randy, who sat against a wall near the stairs, a smirk only Ranger could pull off. Did he know something the others didn’t? Wildside may have had his suspicions when he had handed the file to Ranger back at the warehouse, but the pieces of the whole plan remained in Ranger’s possession. What could He have in mind after having noted Worship Square’s impenetrable defenses?
Ranger crouched and spread the file on the floor. The folder contained maps of the entire complex, including access points for deliveries. Days before the change, Douglas Cartage had supplied the complex with hundreds of cases of Demerol.
Randy edged closer to the map and noticed an elaborate design over the area. He didn’t know what to think of it. The design looked more like an intricate spaghetti pattern interwoven throughout the nine blocks with Worship Square right in the middle. The question would not leave him alone. What’s the pattern?
Wildside turned his attention to the huddle as Ranger went on to explain the file contained a map within a map. Ranger pointed to the system of lines over the entire region and detailed how they flowed from building to building, area to area. Each one connected with each other, providing access to supplies, transportation, and even escape. He made it clear the lines represented a network of tunnels that lay underneath the complex built ages ago to allow people to move freely during inclement weather.
Ranger’s plan to utilize the tunnels had Randy biting the inside of his cheek, closing his eyes and rubbing his throbbing temples. He remembered how he had awakened disoriented in a musty dark cell at Katlyn County Jail. With no memory of ever having arrived, he didn’t want a reminder of the institution from where he had escaped. It was enough of a reason for him to wander away from the team with a glazed look on his face, descend the stairs to the eleventh floor, and sit in a corner alone pondering on the dark memories of the jail.
Ranger threw his hands in the air.
Matty ran after him, flying down the stairs. When she stood over and saw him with his knees tucked to his chest, she said in a quiet voice, “Come back, Randy.”
“I can’t go into the tunnels.” He paused to rub the lines on his forehead, “Nothing will make me do that. I don’t care if I have to die. I’m not going.�
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She closed her eyes and thought for a moment before she decided to sit next to him. The images of her first zombie attack still scared her enough never to want to travel on a bus again. Knees drawn to her chest, Matty knew he didn’t need convincing. She stared at the same spot Randy had memorized, remaining silent and allowing her to feel his warmth transfer from his shoulder to hers. After a few minutes, she asked, “Would you do it if I asked you to?”
“Are you asking me to?” he tore his gaze away from his absent stare and looked at her side profile. His eyes navigated the contours of her features, studying every portion as if storing the information in his head for future use.
“Did you want me to?” she asked, gazing straight ahead.
By now his eyes floated on her lips like he’d imagine dancing on them, gliding on them from one corner to the other. However, the moment appeared short-lived as his thoughts raced and returned to the jail. He couldn’t ask her to ask him to go. He thought he couldn’t bear knowing he’d cause her misery if anything ever happened to him. Guilt is a vile trip he’d wish on no one. If he went on his own, without prodding from no one, he’d take on the responsibility for what could happen. But how can he go into the tunnels knowing his life had never remained the same after escaping from the jail? He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go. He needed time to think.
After Randy hadn’t answered her, Matty stayed with him until he decided what he wanted to do.
In the meantime, Jon sat with Ranger in the hallway beside the window overlooking the complex admiring his hero’s plan. Although the details remained fuzzy, Jon didn’t have a doubt Ranger would explain everything. For instance, how will they get into the tunnels if they can only access them once they pass the first set of barriers? The cameras would spot them. The helicopters would give away their position. Perhaps Matty was right. She had said the whole thing smelled of insanity. And Jon was not one to side with his sister often.
On the other hand, Wildside, who leaned against the wall next to the window, couldn’t wait to get in there. He wore pride well since he had spent much time with the design of the bomb that will eventually unleash it’s payload on the flesh mongers. He wanted to see the devastation up close and personal. No way would he let an opportunity like this pass. His concern though, reflected that of Jon’s. How will they get the bomb in through the gates with the military surveillance preventing them from even stepping near the perimeter of the fence? For sure, they’d get caught, even shot for their intentions of wanting to destroy Worship Square.