Two blocks away from the park, Lennox was exhausted. He had a stitch in his side, his feet ached, and it felt as if every breath were laced with pins and needles. He knew he was going to have to cross the street over to the left side, but wasn’t sure how he was going to get through the ghouls.
They had gotten even thicker this close to the park, and he could smell the burnt rotted flesh on the air. He took a breather behind a row of garbage cans and contemplated his next move. The front door of the house next to him hung open, and he squinted to see if there was any movement inside. It didn’t look like it, so he took off and barrelled up the front steps.
He shut the door behind him, and did a quick sweep of the main floor, finding nothing. He rushed to the kitchen and flung open the fridge, scanning for something to drink. There was a can of beer in the door, and he grabbed it, popping it open. He knew it wouldn’t hydrate him, really, but at least it would wet his mouth a bit.
He took a few gulps and then set it down, grimacing at the taste of warm brew. He went back and peered out the front window, and took a deep breath.
“How the fuck am I gonna get across?” he muttered, scanning the area. He turned back to the kitchen and found the door leading out to the garage. He descended the few steps inside, looking around at the plethora of sports equipment and junk around.
He spotted something shiny in the corner, and pushed through some hockey nets to get to it. Leaned up against the wall was a curved chunk of fiberglass, looking like the detached hood of an old car. He lifted it, testing its weight, and then flipped it around, looking to see if there was anything to hold onto inside.
There were little bars welded to the inside, and he wasn’t sure what they were for, but he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He moved over to the garage door and peered outside.
“This is crazy. And stupid,” he muttered to himself. “It needs to work. But there’s not a good chance that it will.” He cocked his head. “But what choice do you have?”
And how much are you going to argue with yourself out loud before you just go crazy? He took a deep breath and wrapped his hand around the door handle, giving it a twist to release it. Here we go.
He threw up the door and took off at a run, gripping the bars with white knuckles. The noise of the door opening attracted the attention of the ghouls in the immediate vicinity, and they turned towards him on the street.
Lennox let out a yell and smashed into the sea of zombies, smashing the hood into the lineup like a battering ram. He managed to keep up his momentum fairly well despite being so out of shape, knocking ghouls back with the curved fiberglass. Halfway through, he was concerned about the ones he left in his wake, but didn’t want to waste any time looking behind him. The only way was forward, now.
When he broke through the other side, he threw the hood aside, and it hit the sidewalk with a loud clang. His shirt suddenly tightened around his throat, and he whipped sideways as a corpse managed to grab a fistful of his sleeve.
He jerked on it, but only succeeded in dragging his captor along into the grass. He fumbled with his knife, stabbing wildly, and managed to get it through the skull and wrench his arm free of the death grip.
He could smell the rotted breath of his enemies, they were too close. He ran. He didn’t even know if it was the right direction in his panic, but the gunfire was closer and he thought he was running towards it.
Gun smoke and ash and blood and screams… stop it! He wrenched himself free of his memories, coming back to the present. Lives are at stake, Lennox, keep your shit together!
The park was only a block away. The scent of burnt rotten flesh wafted into his nose and he almost welcomed it. It kept him grounded, kept him present, chased away his old demons despite bringing new ones.
He came upon a waist-high chain-link fence and threw himself over it, finally chancing a glance behind him. Some zombies from the road approached, but not enough to be worried about the fence, so he slowed his pace a bit through the row of backyards to try to chill his racing heart.
The last yard separated him from the park by another waist-high fence, but he barely noticed it as he took in the carnage. What had once been a beautifully landscaped park was now a charred wasteland, complete with flaming zombies waiting to barbecue their fresh meal.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Fuck me,” Lennox breathed, and then shook his head. He had to get across the park to the north. And he was going to have to fight his way through.
The smoldering ghouls still wandering around were spaced out and slow, some of them falling here and there when their limbs succumbed to fire damage. He clutched his knife and drew his sidearm. There was no point attempting to be stealthy here. The gunfire was loud enough and the zone hot enough that extra gunshots wouldn’t do much for his position.
He hopped the fence and moved at a quick walk, deliberate and strategic. He hopped over an unmoving black mass and slashed with his knife, severing a smoldering zombie’s head like butter. A trio still on fire staggered towards him, and he popped off two quick shots to dispatch the closest ones, lunging forward to stab the third in the forehead.
Despite not being in combat for years, the training washed over him, taking control of his limbs, muscle memory taking the wheel as he moved through the park. He kicked a crispy corpse in the chest and leapt over another, stabbing another and dropping his shoulder to barrel through two barely standing ghouls like a linebacker.
He came out the other side of the park with a half a mag left in his gun, covered in soot and dust. He tore across the street, darting up a back alley behind some buildings towards the interstate. He let the adrenaline drive him, taking in deep lungfuls of air fresher than that of the burned-up park.
A zombie staggered out from behind a dumpster and he stabbed it up through the chin, piercing its brain and shoving it aside. The gunfire was so loud, so close, but he fought away the panic rising in his chest, desperately grasping onto his training, the adrenaline, the mission. This was his mission.
When he was in sight of the bridge, his jaw dropped. The military wasn’t doing as well as he’d hoped. Troops fought a wave of zombies, and though many of them were firing from atop cars, enough were battling hand-to-hand that it was clear they definitely didn’t have enough ammunition to go around.
What the fuck are you doing, marching in here unprepared… he thought, shaking his head. They were even more unprepared than they knew, and he had to tell them.
He wasn’t sure how he was going to get over there, though. He had to get their attention somehow. There were too many ghouls between them. He jogged across a parking lot, trying to get a better vantage point, and saw that they’d set up a barricade of cars on the bridge, so that soldiers could fall back to safety and swap out with other troops. At least they had some kind of safe zone.
The telltale sound of helicopter blades cut the air, and his eyes widened as an Apache came into view. He opened his mouth to scream, scream at them to stop, but it was no use, nobody knew he was there.
He hit the ground, covering his head, as the chopper dropped another firebomb on the zombies, sending another shock wave through the area. The sound of shattering glass made Lennox’s stomach sink into his toes.
He staggered to his feet as the helicopter swooped away, his body suddenly so tired, so exhausted, so done with this day.
No! The mission!
He studied the area. The bomb had gotten rid of quite a few zombies, but there were enough that he wouldn’t be able to fight his way through to the barricade. He positioned himself at the edge of the parking lot, climbing up onto one of the cement dividers and waving his arms.
“Hey!” he screamed. “Hey! Over here!”
Nobody looked his way. The gunfire was too strong, the zombies too thick, the night too dark despite the solar-powered streetlights.
“Fuck,” he muttered, and looked around frantically. Swaths of ghouls staggered into the parking lot behind him, and his heart rate picked
up for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He clenched his jaw and pulled his rifle from his back, aiming at one of the cars near the barricade. He pulled the trigger, firing a few bullets into the door, and a few of the nearby soldiers froze, turning towards him.
He pulled out his flashlight and flashed it a few times, hoping like hell they would get the hint.
One of the soldiers gestured wildly, and a team of five began to battle in his direction, systematically taking out ghouls. Lennox jumped down from the cement pillar, rushing forward and taking out a few zombies from behind, lightening the load as the soldiers made their way to him.
“You bit?” one of the soldiers barked as they approached, and Lennox raised his arms.
“No, I need to talk to your higher-ups, now,” he declared.
The soldier looked hesitant, but one of his teammates lunged past him to kick an approaching ghoul in the chest. “Come on!” he snapped. “We don’t have time for this!”
Lennox scurried up to them, joining the team. He used his sidearm to help clear the way, and soon they were back at the barricade. He immediately clambered up on top, eyes wild, waving his gun around.
“You’re all walking into a trap!” he yelled and then realized too late how much of a lunatic he must have looked like. As he stared down no less than eight gun barrels, he lowered his arms and holstered his sidearm. “Sorry, it’s been a rough day.”
A Sergeant approached, standing in between two of the aiming troops. “Who are you?” he asked, cocking a brow.
“Former Private Lennox Stadler, sir,” he replied, putting out his hands. “I’m gonna come down, now.” When his boots hit the asphalt, he tugged at his dog tags, pulling them out of his shirt.
“Sergeant Miller,” the man in charge said, and motioned for his men to stand down. “What’s this about a trap?”
Lennox took a deep breath. This was his mission. It was almost over. He’d done it. Jax had believed in him, and he’d made it here.
“The high-rise over there, it’s on top of a convention center,” he explained, turning to motion towards Jax’s place. “There are a thousand of those things trapped inside, but they aren’t gonna be for much longer with these bombs weakening the windows.”
Miller immediately snatched a radio from his belt. “Captain Parker, do you copy?”
After a moment, a voice came back, “Copy, what’s your status, Sergeant?”
Miller raised his chin, staring at the high rise. “There’s a convention center just off the interstate we’ve just learned is full of a thousand of those things,” he replied. “Windows are weak from the blasts, and if they get out, we’ll be overrun. We’re already fighting by the skin of our teeth out here, we’d be fucked with another wave of a thousand.”
“One moment, Sergeant,” Parker replied, and the line went silent for a time.
The hair on the back of Lennox’s neck stood on end. He didn’t have a good feeling about the look on the soldier’s face. It was possible that he hadn’t helped Jax after all, and dread began to build in his gut.
“Stand by, Sergeant,” Parker came back, “we’ll send back the Apache and destroy the building.”
Lennox snarled. “No fucking way!” he cried. “My friends are in there!”
Miller fixed him with a steel glare. “We can’t sacrifice our entire mission and put all of the troops at risk for a few people,” he said firmly.
“Fuck that,” Lennox snapped. “You can’t just write them off. We need to get them out of there!”
The Sergeant stared down his nose at the fuming civilian. “Collateral damage is a byproduct of war,” he said, waving him off. “An ex-soldier should know that.”
“Those people are the reason that you have this information in the first place,” Lennox shot back, pointing a finger at the condos. “They sent me out here to warn you because they wanted to save your lives. Without them you would all be fucking dead! You owe them!”
Miller clenched his jaw, clearly unimpressed with the tone, but his eyes betrayed his uncertainty on the matter. He turned away from Lennox and pulled out his radio again.
“Captain Parker, do you copy?” he asked, voice a little annoyed.
“What is it, Sergeant?” Parker replied immediately, voice equal in tone and measure.
Miller took a deep breath. “There are civilians in the high rise,” he explained.
“How many?” the Captain asked.
Miller glanced at Lennox, who gritted his teeth.
“Three,” he ground out, clenching his fists.
The Sergeant sighed. “Three, sir,” he replied. “But-”
“We can’t risk the mission for three civilians,” Parker cut in. “Frankly, I’m appalled you even called back to tell me.”
Miller held up a hand as Lennox growled his displeasure. “Sir, the civilians are the ones that got us this message,” he explained. “Is there any way we can mount a rescue before we blow the building?”
There was a moment of silence, and finally the Captain sighed. “I take it they can’t get out close to ground level?” he asked.
Lennox shook his head. “Everything below the twelfth floor is overrun,” he said.
“That would be a negative, Captain,” the Sergeant relayed through the radio.
“There will be a chopper on the roof to pick them up in one hour,” Parker replied. “If they’re not there, they’re SOL.”
Miller nodded. “Thank you, Captain, I’ll relay the message.”
“Thank you,” Lennox said, pressing his palms together. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Jax, come in!” Lennox’s voice came through the radio, and Jax jerked in his chair, fumbling with the receiver. “Jax!”
Skylar and Marcus practically dove off of the couch they’d been curled up on, scrambling over to the radio desk.
“Lennox, did you reach them?” Jax asked, white-knuckling the radio while he waited for a response.
“I did,” came the reply. “I’m standing here with the Sergeant right now, and he says thanks for the intel.”
Jax punched the air with his fist, narrowly missing Marcus’ face as he leaned over his shoulder. “That’s great news!” he exclaimed, unaware of his near punch. “So what are they going to do?”
“Well,” Lennox drew out the word, and then took a deep breath, “they’re going to bomb the building. You guys need to get to the roof within the hour for pickup.”
Skylar paled. “Wait, what?”
Jax shook his head vigorously. “The roof?” He scratched the back of his head. “Okay. Okay, thank you. We’re going to get on that.”
“See you soon, buddy,” Lennox said.
Jax set down the receiver and maneuvered himself around to look at his shell-shocked companions. “Looks like we’re getting out of here, finally.”
“The roof, though,” Skylar said. “I guess it makes sense that there’s no other way. How the hell else would they be picking us up?”
Marcus chewed his lip for a moment. “Where’s the roof access?”
Jax shook his head. “There’s no direct roof access. The top level of the penthouse has a terrace,” he explained. “That’s where we have to get to.”
“But the penthouse is overrun,” Marcus argued.
Jax nodded. “It is,” he replied, though they all knew that.
“What a shitty time for that rich asshole to have a company party,” Skylar muttered, crossing her arms. “If he’d have waited a damn week then the upper floors wouldn’t be full of those things.”
Jax shook his head. “Too late to commiserate on that, now,” he said. “Where is the barricade?”
“The stairs before the penthouse,” Marcus replied. “The door was open, probably somebody trying to escape when the party guests started eating each other, so the top floors are full of those things.”
Jax nodded. “So we need to fight our way up to the penthouse,” he said slowly, counting off on his fingers as he spoke, “f
ight across it to the stairs, get up to the top floor balcony, then get to the stairs at the back to the roof terrace.” He swallowed hard. “You two need to—”
“No, no,” Skylar cut in, waving her hands back and forth in front of her face. “We’re not leaving you here.”
He cocked his head, eyes as firm as they could be. “I appreciate the sentiment,” he replied, “but I can’t walk. This isn’t just a prop, you know.”
“We’ll carry you,” Marcus replied quickly. “We’ll carry you up the flights of stairs.”
Jax shook his head, spreading his arms. “While fighting zombies?” he scoffed. “Or trying to be fast to outrun them? You can’t do that while hauling a wheelchair around. Not to mention how narrow the staircase is up to the penthouse door.”
“We’re not leaving you here,” Skylar snapped. “So we’re going to figure it the fuck out.”
“What have you got for weapons?” Marcus asked. “We don’t have anything at our place other than kitchen knives.”
Jax pursed his lips for a moment. “I have a six-shot revolver,” he admitted. “In my bedroom closet. I’ve never fired it before, though.” He looked between the two. “Either of you know your way around a gun?”
The couple shook their heads.
“My girl could outrun a bullet, but we’ve never fired one,” Marcus said.
Jax shrugged. “I guess it’s pretty straightforward,” he replied. “I’ll go get it for you guys. Probably good to have, just in case.”
“Not for us guys,” Skylar argued. “You’re coming with us. You get the gun, I’ll find some other hand-to-hand weapons, and babe, you figure out how we’re taking Jax with us.” She pointed to each of them in turn and then stalked off to the kitchen in a huff.
Marcus shook his head. “You’d better listen to her, man,” he said with a smirk. “Sky always gets what she wants.”
Jax swallowed hard and smiled sadly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He wheeled his way off to the bedroom, past his bed, to the closet. He opened it up and rummaged around the shelf until he found the old shoebox with his gun.
Dead America The Northwest Invasion | Book 10 | Dead America: Seattle [Part 8] Page 3
