Jem and Big T began to fire as well. The quiet autumn air was split wide open by the thunderous boom of her son’s Remington shotgun and the rattling roar of the black man’s Tommy gun. Biters went down, but when one dropped, two or three seemed to take its place. Soon the entire stretch of North Edenburg Street was swarming with zombies.
A woman in a pink terrycloth housecoat and large curlers in her oily brown hair shambled past the picket fence and started up the sidewalk toward Nell. Half of her face was beautiful, the other half a collage of naked bone and raw meat. Nell lifted the Python in both hands and snapped off a shot. The recoil pulled the barrel sharply to the right and the jacketed hollow-point ripped off the woman’s left check and ear. Nell’s second shot found its mark, however. The bullet entered an inch above the zombie’s right eye and exited in a fist-sized clump of brains and shattered skull.
“Look out, Mama!” yelled Jem.
Nell quickly turned to her right and found herself standing, face to face, with a Biter. It was a good-sized one, too—a tall, heavyset man in a brown UPS uniform. Before she could bring her revolver up, he reached out and grabbed her by the throat. Nell strangled as he lifted her bodily off her feet and regarded her with a skeletal grin that swarmed with tiny black motion. Then he reared his head back, mouth open, preparing to bite her across the face.
Suddenly, Nell heard a brittle crack and saw a hole the size of a dime appear in the Biter’s temple. A bigger hole appeared in the opposite temple as the projectile tunneled through and exited. As the Biter dropped to his knees and released her throat, Nell stumbled backward, nearly losing her balance. She turned her head and looked across the street. Behind the low wall of concrete blocks, peering between two of the slanted iron spikes, was a boy with shaggy blond hair. He looked to be no more than eight or nine years old. He held a slingshot—one with a black metal frame with yellow rubber tubing—in one hand.
“Good shot, Jake!” someone said. Nell turned her eyes and found that more folks were behind the wall. One was a tall man with long dark hair, eyeglasses, and a mustache and beard. A woman with brown hair stood next to him, while a young man in his early-twenties—the spitting image of his dad, without the facial hair—took position on the other side of his little brother.
Levi, Avery, and the Mendlebaums were out of the house now and making their way down the sidewalk, firing at the tightening knot of zombies, which still seemed to be appearing out of nowhere. In the street, Kate and Billy Tauchee were taking down as many as they could, but it appeared to be a losing battle. There were just too many of them.
“Everybody over here!” called the bearded man. He let loose with a modified AK-47, ripping a trio of Biters into bloody ribbons. “Quick… before those bastards bite a chunk out of your asses!”
Levi, Nell, and the others did as he said. With their heads ducked, they made their way across the crowded stretch of North Edenburg Street. As they dodged the hands and teeth of a dozen hungry zombies, the bearded man and his family picked them off, one at a time. The woman brought the butt of a twelve-gauge shotgun to her shoulder and fired repeatedly, pumping the slide as she swept the barrel from right to left. The boy continued to fell zombies like David dropped the mighty Goliath, while his older brother held a MAC-10 machine pistol in both hands, spraying the advancing Biters and mowing them down like weeds beneath the whirling blade of a lawn mower.
Finally, they made it to the wall and ducked through the open gate. As Nell passed the mailbox, she saw that J. NEWMAN was painted on the side. The last ones in were Billy and his family. The Cherokee ushered Enolia and Jessie through the gate, then whirled on his heels and fired the .30-06. The heavy grain slug took the top of a Biter’s head off above the eyebrows, then struck another directly behind it, bringing it down as well.
Levi clapped the bearded man on the shoulder as he passed. “Thanks! We really appreciate it, Mister…?”
“The name’s James,” he said. The man reached over, traded a handshake and then released another bee swarm of 7.62 mm slugs from the AK-47, mowing down four Biters in one burst. “This is my wife, Glenda, and my two boys, Jamie and Jake.”
“Well, we’re much obliged to you,” Nell told him.
“Y’all go on in the house and make yourselves at home,” James suggested. He slung the assault rifle to his side and slammed the gate closed, securing it from the inside with a heavy, iron bolt and a Yale padlock. Glenda and the boys continued firing at the dwindling crowd of Biters, taking down as many as possible. Several of the zombies attempted to scale the short wall and were skewered by the angled spikes. They wiggled and squirmed on the jagged lengths of iron, snapping and snarling angrily. James took a .44 Magnum Auto-Mag from a belt holster and walked from one to the next, delivering shots to their heads. As they slumped, their skulls disintegrated, he took a long painter’s extension pole and dislodged them from the spikes. “Like to keep my property neat and tidy,” he said with a half-assed grin.
As Avery made his way to the front door, Glenda stopped him. “You’ll have to go around to the back door. That one has a couch blocking it.”
“Good idea, to barricade the door like that,” said the boy.
“No, it was already like that,” said little Jake. “Before the zombie apocalypse.”
“Is that what we have here?” asked Big T.
“Duh!” said the boy, rolling his eyes. “Isn’t that what it looks like?”
“Jake!” his mother scolded disapprovingly.
The boy hung his head and pooched his lip. “Sorry, mister.”
Big T laughed and tousled his blond hair with a giant hand. “Anyone who can handle a slingshot like that is okay in my book, little buddy.”
Soon, they were all heading around the side of the house, past a trampoline and a combination swing set and clubhouse, talking and trading introductions as they went.
In the sky, the cloud of buzzards continued to swoop and soar, growing increasingly heavier and darker as scavengers from adjoining neighborhoods joined them, drawn by the heady stench of raw and lasting death. They watched and waited until the last person entered the Newman residence. Then they slowly descended upon the smorgasbord on North Edenburg Street and, picking and pulling, feasted until their bellies were full.
Chapter 17
Avery stood at the front window of the Newman house and watched the massive flock of buzzards tear into the bodies that littered the stretch of North Edenburg Street. “Filthy things. Won’t hunt for themselves. Always relying on others to do their dirty work… then they swoop in and chow down. Disgusting!”
“You’d better thank your lucky stars for those buzzards,” James told him as he thumbed 7.62 mm rounds into a banana clip. “They’re like a big red flag. If they show up, you know the Biters are on their way.”
Avery nodded. “You’re right about that, hoss. But when this storm blows over and the sun comes out, that street’s gonna reek after they’ve filled their bellies and flown off.”
“Yeah, it’s going to stink like a Texas whorehouse in August.”
“James!” snapped Glenda. “We’ve got company here.” She looked around apologetically. “You’ll have to excuse my husband. He has a way with words.”
The bearded man grinned. “Yeah. Old habits die hard.”
Jem stood at a bookcase, perusing the titles. “Did you write these books?” he asked. “Midnight Rain, The Wicked, Animosity, Ugly as Sin?”
James nodded. “Yep. I used to write the stuff. Now I live it. Ironic, huh?”
Levi and the others sat around the living room, eating a lunch of tuna fish on saltine crackers that the Newman’s had provided. They washed it down with flat Dr Pepper. Levi wore a black t-shirt that James had loaned him. The caption on the front of it read WOLFMAN’S GOT NARDS! with an image of the werewolf from Monster Squad just beneath it.
A thunderclap roared overhead and the clouds opened up. Avery watched as the buzzards fed until the downpour grew too heavy. Then they fled to t
he shelter of nearby trees. There were a dozen or so Biters still roaming around the street. They seemed oblivious to the bad weather. “It’s raining, sis,” he told Kate, “and I think your window’s down.”
Kate looked up from where she was busy cleaning everyone’s guns. She seemed extremely proficient at it. “Okay… so are you going to run out and roll it up for me?”
“No, ma’am! Not me.”
“I guess I’ll just have soggy upholstery then,” she replied, running a lubed patch through the barrel of Jem’s shotgun.
James glanced into the adjoining room. Big T, Jamie, Jake, and Jessie sat on the floor, flipping through old issues of Fangoria and Famous Monsters of Filmland. He couldn’t help but smile. “The boys needed some company. I think they were getting sick and tired of hanging out with mom and dad.”
“So, you’ve been holed up here since the outbreak began?” Abe asked him.
“Yes, sir. When I saw that the shit was about to hit the fan, me and Jamie built that wall around the yard and we gathered up as many supplies around the neighborhood as we could. That’s where we found this firepower.” He slapped the banana clip into the AR-47. “You’d be surprised what you can find in someone’s garage.”
A stretch of silence occupied the living room for a long moment. Only the sound of the children’s, and Big T’s, laughter could be heard. Then Agnes asked a question. “James, Glenda… do you know what happened to my sister?”
Husband and wife looked at one another uncomfortably. “We think Nathan took her.”
“Nathan? Who is that?”
“A little pimply-faced prick who lives a couple of blocks over,” James told her. “Back when times were normal, he was a first-class geekazoid before this whole zombie thing started. He was harmless, introverted, and more comfortable with his computers and video games than real people. I even signed a couple of books for him. Then his parents and his little sister turned and he changed. Got downright mean and joined up with some guys from his high school who were assholes to begin with. You know, jocks and rednecks. They used to bully him and push him around, but now he’s their freaking king. I reckon Neanderthals are drawn to someone with superior brain power when things get tough. They roam around Hendersonville like they’re a bunch of gangstas, looting, raping, killing folks, raising all kinds of hell.”
Agnes remembered the ugly graffiti and her sister’s discarded clothing. “What would they want with Angela?”
James looked at the kids in the next room, then back at the elderly woman, his face grim. “There aren’t many women and children around anymore. Miss Angela and Glenda were the last in the neighborhood… and Mrs. Thompson, before she turned. You know how teenaged boys are… how desperate they can be. That’s why I keep a close eye on Glenda and the boys.” He dropped his eyes, no longer able to look Agnes in the eyes. “I heard them across the street the night before she disappeared. I heard her crying… screaming. I wanted to go to her, but I couldn’t risk leaving my family here alone. I couldn’t take the chance of Nathan’s goons breaking in and taking Glenda and the boys with them. They think I’m a bad-ass, armed to the teeth. But I’m not. I’m just a scared man doing his best to keep his family safe.”
Agnes reached over and took his hand. “It’s okay. I understand. No need to blame yourself.”
Glenda reached over the armchair her husband was sitting in, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him on top of the head. “My fellow is a good man. He’s all heart… sometimes to a fault. That’s why I love him so much. Every now and then I think he needs a little sense knocked into his head, though. A tree limb almost did that once…”
“…which we won’t be going into right now.” He smiled and flexed his left hand absently. A network of scars crisscrossed his forearm.
They sat in the living room, listening to the rumble of the storm overhead. Then Agnes spoke. “James… do you think my sister is still alive?”
A pained expression crossed his face. “Knowing Nathan and how cruel he has become… I almost hope that she isn’t.”
The elderly woman looked toward the couch and the man in the werewolf t-shirt. “Levi, I know I have no right to ask…”
“Yes,” he said flatly.
“Yes, what?” Nell wanted to know.
“Yes, we’ll go and get her.” He looked over at James. “How many are there?”
“Besides Nathan, maybe eight… ten at the most.”
“Any idea how they’re armed?” asked Avery.
“Shotguns and handguns,” James said. “Maybe a rifle or two. They looted a gun store in town and Nathan’s father was a big hunter.”
“Any major artillery?”
“No, if you mean a Tommy gun or an AR-15.” He looked at the assault rifle in his hand. “Or an AK-47.”
Glenda’s face tightened. “James…”
“I have to, baby. Besides, someone has to take them there.”
The woman simply nodded and said nothing more.
Levi sighed. “Avery, could you ask Tyrone to join us, please?”
His son left and returned a moment later with the big man. When he saw the grim expressions on their faces, Big T’s smile faded. “What’s going on?”
“We’re going to get Agnes’ sister,” Levi told him. “I want you with us.”
“I’m in,” he said without hesitation.
“It won’t be Biters. It’ll be regular folks… if you can call them that.”
“I said I’m in.” Big T’s expression was as serious as a heart attack.
“James and Avery will go with us,” Levi said. “The rest of you will stay here.”
“Un-uh,” protested Jem. “I’m going with you.”
“Me, too,” added Abe.
“I need y’all to stay here and protect the womenfolk,” Levi explained. “If something should happen and we don’t make it back, this Nathan fella and his crew might be coming here.”
Enolia, who had sat on the couch quietly, hands folded over her belly, suddenly spoke up. “I really think Billy should go with you.”
“No,” her husband said flatly. “I’m staying here.”
“But, Billy…” The young woman’s tone was insistent.
He silenced her with a warning look. “I’m staying here with you and Jessie.”
Avery smirked. “Yeah, just sit this one out and be the babysitter. Let us men get the job done.”
“That’s enough, Avery!” Levi scolded. “Everyone here has a part to play… none more important than the other.” He turned to the Cherokee. “Billy, if we don’t make it back, I want you to take that rifle and pick that bunch off, one by one, before they even get here. Then take the vehicles and head out. Where to, I don’t care. Just find someplace safe.”
“I always thought the Biltmore House would make an excellent place to hole up,” James said.
“Biltmore?”
“Yeah, you know… the Vanderbilt estate in Asheville. It’s a damned fortress. You could hold off zombies forever in that place.”
Levi picked up his shotgun and motioned to the men he had picked for their mission. “I reckon we’d best go on and get it over with.”
Everyone grew silent as Agnes began to laugh. “Excuse me, but us poor, defenseless womenfolk are going with you,” she said sharply. “At least Kate and I are.”
“No, ma’am,” declared Levi in protest. “That ain’t gonna happen.”
“Yes, sir, it will… and I’ll tell you why. We can shoot better than the rest of you put together and that’s a fact. So get used to the idea.” She turned to her husband and kissed him on the cheek. “Abe, I know you want to play John Wayne, sweetheart, but you already have one cataract and another one on the way. You can’t see the sunny side of a barn, let alone hit one with a gunshot. Besides, you need to be with them if they have to make a run for it. You may very well be the most brilliant mind on the face of the earth right now—the last surviving scientist—and you may be able to do something to slow down this
outbreak or stop it all together. I know that’s a tall order, but I have faith in you.”
“But you should stay here with me,” he said weakly.
Agnes’ mind was set however. “She’s my sister. I want to be there when we find her… no matter what condition she is in.”
Levi opened his mouth to say something, but Kate intervened. “You know she’s right, Papa. We can hold our own if a gunfight breaks out… and then some.” She didn’t look like she was about to back down either.
Agnes smiled. “Then it’s settled.”
“I reckon so,” replied Levi, although he seemed none too happy about it.
Chapter 18
They decided to make their move at five o’clock, as the afternoon faded into evening. The storm had passed and the rain had ended, leaving a crisp coolness in the October air. The buzzards had left the dripping branches of trees and were eating hearty once again, stripping the flesh from the Biters who lay scattered along the stretch of North Edenburg. They were hungry, but not stupid. They concentrated on the arms and legs of the bodies and left the heads and upper torsos with their infestation of parasites alone.
Levi and the others said their good-byes, but tried to keep it light and not like a final farewell, like soldiers heading into a no-win battle. From what James had told them, they would be going up against a gang of high school students armed with handguns and hunting rifles. They were bound to be dangerous, but they had grown up in the suburbs all their lives and would be lacking in experience. Also, Levi’s group had the advantage of full-automatic firepower.
As the evening shadows grew long, they headed out. They took the Dodge Ram. Levi, Agnes, and Kate rode in the cab, while Avery, James, and Big T rode in the bed, brandishing their assault rifles.
It didn’t take them two minutes to get there. Levi pulled up in front of a large, two-story brick home with a high porch and painted white columns. It looked like the home of someone with money, a doctor or lawyer perhaps.
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