By the time we’d made our sixth pass around the circular driveway, he and his sniper son had put down nearly forty zombies, and I’d crushed a few more beneath my wheels. Sadly, though, we’d barely made a dent in the undead population, and between the horn and the gunshots, we’d only enticed more zombies from the surrounding neighborhood.
A much bigger problem, however, was that our little merry-go-round, shoot-’em-in-the-head scheme had gotten far less productive. While I crept along at fifteen miles per hour around the driveway, plenty of zombies had continued to follow the van, but many more had either ignored us on their way inside the church or spread across the driveway and the nearby parking areas.
Inconveniently, we’d also created several piles of gore, and on more than one occasion, my wheels had slipped and lost traction amid the bloody body parts left in the wake of our shooting and driving. Finally, when I hit a large bump (which could’ve been a torso, a couple of skulls, or something worse) and Ray lost his balance, toppling over backwards in the van, we both figured it was time to start Operation Batshit-Crazy, Part Two.
Chapter
13
“If you say, ‘I told you so,’ I’ll shoot you.” – Detective Jim Lipton, Dead Silence (2007)
Ray regained his footing in the rear of my van as I rolled forward, straddled Church Street, and hit the brakes. We only had a few moments before the undead mob would engulf us from all sides. I watched over my shoulder as my current partner in crime set down his shotgun and plucked two grenades from his backpack. Then I shifted the van into reverse, backed up toward the entrance, and stopped several yards away.
The horde of zombies still looked to be at least ten bodies deep outside, pressed against those already inside the church, like drunken Bourbon Street revelers on Mardi Gras Day.
Except, you know, more likely to tear your face off than simply vomit all over you.
Ray pulled the pins from both grenades and tossed them toward the open doorway. I promptly hit the gas and pulled forward, just as a few zombies bumped into the sides of my van. A few seconds later, two ear-splitting explosions blew a ragged, bloody passage through the undead blockade, shook the entire edifice, and crumbled part of the foyer. I’d seen grenades go off before, but never quite like that. The detonations were massive, accompanied by enormous fireballs.
Where the hell did he get those fucking grenades?
I knew Ray had been a longtime active Marine, but holy shit, I sure could’ve used a few of those things in my own zombie-killing arsenal. The closest I’d come was following an online video about making your own pipe bomb.
Before the flames and smoke had a chance to dissipate, gunshots echoed across the parking lot. Travis had opened fire at the entrance, taking down as many zombies as humanly possible, many of which were still inside the church.
“Go. Go. Go!” Ray yelled as he started to reload the shotguns.
Taking my cue, I slammed the van into reverse and headed toward what remained of the church entrance. As the vehicle rolled over an assortment of nasty, undead body parts amid the rubble, my usually ironclad stomach churned a bit at the nauseating sounds of thunks, cracks, and squishes beneath my wheels.
Travis, meanwhile, kept shooting any and all zombies he and his sister could spot inside and immediately outside the church, only pausing to reload. Fortunately, he stopped altogether once I’d pressed the rear of my van against the doorway. After all I’d endured in the last fourteen hours or so, it would’ve been a shame to die from friendly fire.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and got to my feet. With the goggles, I could only see about half a dozen zombies still in the partially destroyed foyer. I’d parked us so close to the gaping doors that none of the undead creatures in the parking lot would be able to squeeze inside. Good thing, too, since we had no idea how many zombies were waiting for us throughout the rest of the church.
Azazel chirped, and I gazed down at her through the slits of her carrier.
“You’re staying here, little one. I’ll be back in a few.”
Then, before second-guessing myself, I draped a towel over her carrier. Although I hated to leave her alone in the dark, I really didn’t want her to witness the chaos outside the van. Although many people would’ve disagreed with us, Clare and I had never viewed Azazel as merely a cat. To us, she was our little girl, and we were often very selective about what she saw, heard, and experienced. If we weren’t comfortable having sex when she was in the bedroom with us, then we sure as shit didn’t want her watching zombie brains and guts spurting all over the place.
As I approached the rear of the van, Ray tossed me my Mossberg, hopped down to the ground, and ventured into the church. By the time I joined him, he’d already finished off three of the nearest zombies.
“Git dat one,” he said, nodding to his right. “’Member, only head shots count.”
I almost spewed a smart-ass quip like, “No shit, Sherlock. Tell me something I don’t know,” but I refrained.
Instead, my eyes followed his gaze toward the wall, where I spotted a small table filled with flickering votive candles. It seemed odd to see such a peaceful tableau amid all the chaos, but obviously, the folks trapped in the church hadn’t had a chance to blow them out yet. They’d no doubt had other priorities – like surviving.
I aimed at the back of a teenage boy, who was dressed in a baseball uniform so caked with blood and zombie goo that I could barely discern the team sponsor who’d provided his jersey. The logo of Don’s Bail Bonds received a full-on blast as my shotgun sprayed out, propelling the boy against the side table.
“Shit.”
Given my ongoing hunger, fatigue, and headache, I wasn’t terribly surprised when the shot didn’t finish off the zombified kid, but I was still embarrassed in the wake of Ray’s advice about only targeting undead brains. Before I could correct my mistake, however, some of the candles tumbled onto the boy, and he caught fire. Typical of my ongoing bad luck, he scrambled to his feet, whirled around, and stumbled toward me.
Fucking terrific. A repeat performance of the goddamn, flaming Mardi Gras Indian in the Tremé.
In the time it took Ray to shoot the other two zombies, the former baseball player had set one side of the foyer ablaze. I shot him again, this time in the forehead, but it was too late. I could already feel the heat of the flames. The fucking church was gonna burn.
“Crap, we need to hurry,” I told Ray. “No way we’re putting this out.”
The two sets of double doors leading into the rest of the church were presently closed, but based on the shuffling and moaning sounds coming from the other side of the doors, I assumed they’d been open at some point during the zombie apocalypse. Along the walls on either side of me stretched several benches, but unfortunately, the flames were encroaching upon the ones on my right.
Before we lost the opportunity, I spluttered out an idea. “Maybe we can create a corral of benches around the doors on the left, prop them open, hop over the benches, and let the zombies inside the church fill the corral. Then, if there aren’t too many of them inside, we can slip through the doors on the right and seal off the corral from inside the sanctuary.” I beamed, quite proud of my zombie battle tactics.
Ray turned toward me, his night-vision goggles making it difficult for me to discern his expression. “But we gonna be trapped inside,” he countered. “We won’t know how many more zombies in da corr’dors an’ stairwells, an’ we might not find anudder way to git out.”
He might’ve shat on my brilliant idea, but he hadn’t yet deterred me. “If this fire spreads, we won’t be able to use this exit anyway.”
As Ray stared at the flames, shaking his head in dismay, the dire truth hit me.
Fuck. This fire’s gonna consume my van.
Ray must’ve read my mind because he turned to me and said, “OK, look, we do ya plan. Only you drive off an’ try to lead ’em away. Da van can’t git caught in da fire.”
“Fucking right, it can’t. No of
fense, Ray, but that van means survival for me and my wife. Besides, Azazel’s still inside.”
He nodded, seeming to comprehend that I wasn’t being a coward. I had proposed an idea, after all, to penetrate the sanctuary. I just hadn’t considered all the consequences. No way I’d endanger my precious zombie-mobile – or my beloved cat. Not even for a bunch of hapless humans trapped upstairs.
Before the flames could make the decision for us, we shifted all the benches between the two sets of double doors, creating a barrier that, once we opened the left-hand doors, would guide the zombies through the flaming foyer, out the church, and after me. I was relatively comfortable with the plan; I’d already played the role of Demented Pied Piper of New Orleans back at Home Depot.
Just hope I survive my encore.
Chapter
14
“Come and get it! It’s a running buffet! All you can eat!” – Shaun, Shaun of the Dead (2004)
As previously stated, I’d never been particularly religious, and neither were my brothers. Once my oldest brother, John, had gotten his driver’s license, he’d started taking me and James to the arcade in lieu of church on Sundays – and none of us seemed to suffer from the deception.
Still, I felt somewhat guilty for setting fire to a Catholic church in Gramercy. That certainly hadn’t been my intention when attempting to put the zombified baseball player out of his misery.
Ah, well. Shit happens.
Luckily, I spotted a silver lining. With the wall ablaze, I no longer needed the constricting night-vision goggles to see.
Before the flames reached the dark burgundy curtains hanging from the only two windows in the foyer, Ray and I ripped them from the rods and secured them above the double doors on the right. A moment later, Ray stood behind the curtains, his large frame mostly hidden from view.
As soon as I opened the left-hand doors, nothing but a bunch of benches and two pieces of dusty, antiquated drapery would separate my new friend from a horde of impatient, ravenous zombies. I stared down at his boots, the only things presently showing. I felt bad about leaving him behind in a burning church, but when I heard Ray pump his shotgun, I snapped out of my momentary daze.
The guy truly had balls of steel. I only hoped that was enough. First and foremost, I wanted him to live through our crazy-ass rescue effort. But I couldn’t deny my second realization: If Ray died in there, Clare and I would be stuck with his kids, which wouldn’t be ideal for any of us.
Don’t get me wrong: I loved my nieces, and I didn’t hate children in general. But Clare and I had never really wanted human kids of our own. More than anything else, we were cat and dog people – though Clare wouldn’t object to having a pet otter someday, and I wouldn’t mind adopting the elephant that I used to play catch with at Potter Park Zoo in Lansing, Michigan.
So, basically, the badass Cajun Marine needed to fucking live. At all costs. For him and his kids.
To help the cause, I even dragged a few of the dead zombies closer to the curtains – in lieu of covering Ray with zombie gore. I hoped the collective smell of the rotting undead would mask his fresher, more enticing scent from the ravenous creatures about to invade the foyer.
“Ready, Ray?”
“You bet,” came the muffled reply.
I moved around the barricade of benches, approached the doors we had “fenced off,” and grabbed one of the handles.
“Now,” I yelled as I yanked open one of the doors.
Jesus Fucking Christ, we are so hosed.
It only took one glimpse at the sanctuary to recognize there were a lot more zombies inside than we’d originally thought. Of course, it required the actual creatures much less time to realize a human meal stood in the open doorway.
“Good luck, Ray,” I yelled as I darted along the benches and clambered inside the back of my van. “There’s a shit-ton of the fuckers!”
Rapidly, I moved toward the driver’s seat and tossed my shotgun and goggles onto the floor. I’d left the back doors of my van wide open, having surmised the zombies would be more likely to follow me if they could smell me.
OK, maybe I’m not the smartest zombie battle tactician.
Like an idiot, I hadn’t even thought to start the van and leave the engine running before opening the sanctuary door. And naturally, when I turned the key in the ignition, nothing happened. My chest tightened, and beads of nervous sweat popped out along my brow. In a panic, I kept turning the key. Still, nothing.
Son of a bitch.
Although I’d made a lot of expensive improvements to my delivery-truck-turned-zombie-mobile, she was still a fairly old vehicle. After all she’d already endured, perhaps her crapping out was inevitable. I just wished she could’ve waited until we’d reached our family compound in northern Michigan. Especially since I could hear a herd of zombies moaning and shuffling not far behind me. With the rear of my vehicle pressed against the foyer, the only place they could funnel was into my fucking van.
I took a deep breath, attempted to calm my nerves, and turned the key again. Apparently, the fifth time was the charm. The van fired up, and I immediately hit the gas pedal, flipped on my headlights, and cranked the steering wheel to the left.
While Ray and I had been busy in the church, several zombies had cautiously neared my van – probably enticed by the possibility of food but, like Frankenstein’s monster, too scared of the flames to get too close. Unfortunately, though, they were currently in my way. Without hesitation, I whacked into several of them and crunched over piles of carnage as I rolled along the circular driveway. My poor van would be hell to clean, but at least I had escaped certain death.
Glancing over my shoulder, though, I noted I wasn’t completely in the clear. Backlit by the flaming foyer, several zombies darted toward the van, and one of them managed to grab ahold of my rear bumper. Clad in dirty overalls and clearly missing his lips, he tried to claw his way inside.
I jolted the van to the right, hoping I could shake him loose as I veered around the driveway, but he was one determined fucker. As I turned onto Church Street, a gunshot pierced the darkness, and when I looked back to check on my tagalong, I noted the zombie’s entire head (not just his lips) was gone. I was still dragging the body behind the van, presumably because his arm was caught in the bumper, but at least he could no longer try to kill me. Another shot rang out, the arm exploded, and the body tumbled into the street, leaving only a hand and part of a forearm flopping in the cool night air.
Scratch what I thought. Adopting Ray’s kids would be like having a small army. That kid’s an amazing shot.
Once the immediate danger had passed, I slowed down to fifteen miles per hour again and started to repeat my earlier routine: honking the horn and driving around in a circle, along the driveway and Church Street and back again. Unfortunately, however, I no longer had a badass ex-Marine with a shotgun in the back. So, I had to keep glancing awkwardly between the windshield and the rear, to ensure no zombies climbed aboard.
As I made my second circuit around the driveway, I noticed quite a trail of undead creatures behind the van. By the time I’d made my third trip past the burning church entrance, I could still make out the open doors leading into the sanctuary, but I could no longer see Ray’s boots beneath the flaming curtains. Although it pleased me to think he hadn’t been eaten or burned in the fire, I knew, from the sound of gunshots inside the sanctuary, that not all the zombies had vacated the church. In his effort to shoot as many as possible, Ray hadn’t even had a chance to shut the doors, as he’d planned.
Abruptly, I heard a beep coming from my shirt pocket. Someone was signaling me via my walkie-talkie. Either Ray or the kids.
I removed the device from my pocket and turned up the volume. “This is Joe. Go ahead.”
“Almos’ to da offices, but we gonna hafta leave t’ru a top-floor window. Too many downstairs for us to handle. Over.”
I pressed the talk button. “I’ll get the kids. Then if you can get everyone out the window
s and onto the lower roof, I think I might have an idea.”
I turned onto Church Street before remembering walkie-talkie protocol. “Over,” I added.
“Gotcha,” Ray replied. “Talk to ya in twenty. Out.”
I took one more pass around the driveway, to see if I could lure a few more zombies away, and then gunned it down Church Street. When the undead creatures following my van failed to catch me, they quickly lost their enthusiasm and headed back to the church. I could only hope the flames were enough to deter them from reentering the building and pursuing Ray upstairs.
As I retraced my route down East Second Street and North Millet Avenue, it occurred to me I no longer had hot air blasting in my face. With all the preparation and excitement of the past hour or so, I hadn’t had a chance to enjoy the simple pleasure of driving without having to worry about the radiator. Based on the gentle snoring inside the covered carrier, Azazel was grateful as well – or else, she was too exhausted to give a shit.
Chapter
15
“I came here to do something. So, we are gonna stand around, or we are gonna do something?” – Pillsbury, Land of the Dead (2005)
As I pulled alongside the house where Ray and I had left Frankie and the kids, I could see Travis and Nicole were already packed up and waiting for me near the edge of the roof. After helping them lower the ladder to the ground, I braced it as they scurried downward, and together, the three of us waited for Frankie to leap down onto the roof of my van.
Zombie Chaos Box Set | Books 1-4 Page 27
