He walked up to the two ghouls and stopped ten feet away from them.
He squeezed a suppressed burst into the boss’s head that tore its forehead and brain out of its skull. Most of its nose was shot off as well. The ghoul collapsed.
Next, Halverson peppered the kooky Korean ghoul with a spray of rounds to its head. An interesting thing happened. The ghoul’s head snapped back and all but separated from the neck as the MP7’s 4.6 x 30 mm bullets pulverized the skull. Even in death the Korean’s bullet-wrecked face retained its goofy grin.
All anyone could hear was the dull whump of exploding skulls and the faint thudding of the two ghouls crumpling on the cement.
Halverson felt rather than saw movement near the stairwell. He scoped the area out.
What he saw nonplussed him.
A bare-chested Japanese baby in a diaper was crawling on its chubby hands and knees toward him.
“Oh, how cute,” said Tanya.
She pranced up to the baby, eying him joyfully. She bent over to pick him up.
“Don’t touch him,” said Halverson.
“What are you talking about? He needs our help.” She continued leaning down to cradle the baby in her arms.
Halverson sprang over to her, latched onto her arm, and wrenched her away from the baby.
“Ow!” Tanya cried. “Why’d you do that?” she said, put out.
“Think about it. Why is there a baby here?”
“He’s obviously lost.”
“Or?”
“Or what?”
She eyed Halverson with a confused expression on her face.
He walked around to the other side of the baby, who had his bald head down as he kept crawling.
It was at that point that Halverson discovered that the baby had only one arm. From his current coign of vantage he could see the wound on the baby’s arm socket where its other arm had once been connected.
“He’s got only one arm,” he said.
“All the more reason to help him,” said Tanya. She stepped toward the baby again to pick him up.
Halverson waved her off.
The baby looked up as he kept crawling toward them.
“You gotta be kidding,” said Tom from behind them, seeing its face.
The baby’s face was puckered in the early stages of decay. Its complexion was grey like parchment and crumbling. Its tiny eyes were white. The baby opened its mouth. What was well and truly pathetic about it to Halverson was the fact that the baby had no teeth. It was opening its mouth to bite them but it had nothing to bite them with.
Halverson leveled his MP7 at the baby’s head.
“Don’t!” cried Tanya.
She sprang toward the baby.
She wasn’t quick enough.
One shot from Halverson’s submachine gun was all it took to turn the baby ghoul’s soft little skull to pulp. Halverson knew he could have crushed the ghoul’s fragile skull in his hand, but he could not bring himself to do it. It was hard enough for him to pull the trigger to put the creature out of its misery.
Tanya cocked her arm and slapped Halverson’s face. “You bastard!”
Halverson’s face stung from her blow. He could not blame her for hitting him. He did not retaliate.
“First you want to kill my dad,” she went on. “Now you kill a baby!”
She slapped his face again. Her slap packed a mean wallop with the energy of youth behind it. Halverson’s face flushed and smarted. Wincing, he stepped away from her to avoid another blow.
Tom ran up to her. He pinned her arms behind her back and pulled her away from Halverson.
“It wasn’t a baby,” Tom told her. “It was one of those things. Look at its face.”
She struggled to free herself from his grasp.
With his MP7’s muzzle Halverson turned the baby onto its back. There wasn’t much of its pulped head left for anyone to make out the face.
“What face?” she asked. Her voice cracked with grief.
“Look at its skin.”
Sobbing, she inspected the baby’s skin. On closer examination, the skin on its chest turned out to be ashen and chapped. The baby’s one remaining hand resembled a desiccated claw.
“Oh my God,” she said. She drew away from the baby in disgust. “What’s happening to us?”
The episode with the baby left a sick taste in Halverson’s mouth. He was beginning to feel nauseous remembering shooting the baby in the head. He had to keep reminding himself it wasn’t a baby. It was a ghoul. There was nothing else he could have done.
He wanted to forget the entire matter. Easier said than done, he knew.
He had to get the baby ghoul out of his head. If only the little creature wasn’t still sprawled supine over there on the cement, its tiny hand curled up. He didn’t want to have to keep looking at the creature. He wished somebody would cover it up. For some reason he felt compelled to look at it. He told himself not to look over there. Brooding over it served no purpose. It was a fait accompli.
There were few things he knew of in life inherently more revulsive than murdering a baby. He would just have to stomach it and move on. But it wasn’t a baby for Christ’s sake! It was a ghoul!
If Tanya and the others were going to hold the baby ghoul’s death against him, so be it. He wasn’t going to hold it against himself. Like it or not, he had done what had to be done. Case closed.
He thought about something else.
For the first time Halverson became aware of how hot it was outside. Santa Ana winds were gusting through the open cement parking structure swirling the smog. Still, the visibility in here was better than outside, Halverson noticed.
He cast a glance in Lemans’s direction. Halverson could barely discern him through the smog.
Tom followed Halverson’s gaze. “Forget him.”
“Is it my imagination or is that guy leaving a trail of slime behind him?”
A throaty sardonic laugh issued from Tom’s mouth.
“Who’s that blonde with him?” asked Halverson.
“Valerie, I think.”
Halverson eyed Tom with amusement. “You know the names of all the women.”
“If they look good, I look.”
Halverson offered a half smile. He watched Tom walk over to Rogers, who was still carrying Reverend Jim with Foster’s help.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” Tom told Rogers.
“Ask me what?”
“Why didn’t you land at another airport?”
Rogers attempted to blow him off. “Oh, that again.”
“You couldn’t see a thing when you landed. That has to be dangerous.”
Rogers relented. “Want to know the truth?”
“That’s why I’m asking.”
“I didn’t want to scare you when we were landing.”
“Scare us?”
Grimacing under the strain of Reverend Jim’s weight, Rogers rearranged Jim’s arm around his neck. “We were low on fuel and I couldn’t make radio contact with any other nearby airports.”
“None of them?”
Rogers shook his head, which wasn’t easy with Reverend Jim’s weight on his neck. “For all I knew, they were all socked in with this smog or smoke or whatever it is. The truth of the matter is, we had to land somewhere and we had to land soon.”
“You figured you might as well take your chances here.”
“I know LAX better than John Wayne and Bob Hope airports.”
“I figured there was something you weren’t telling us.”
“This plague may be all over California. There’s no telling what’s out there.” Rogers gestured with his MP7 toward the smog just beyond the parking garage.
Tanya trotted up anxiously to Rogers. “Is my dad gonna make it?”
“I don’t know. He’s lost a lot of blood. We need to get him to a hospital.”
She bit her lower lip thinking about it. “Where’s the nearest hospital?”
“He needs an am
bulance. I don’t know where the hospital is.”
“How do we get an ambulance? None of the phones work.”
“Don’t worry about it. First, we need to get him to a safe place or we’ll all end up on a zombie menu.”
“If I don’t worry about it, for sure nobody else will.”
Halverson understood Tanya’s concern, but she wouldn’t accomplish anything by pestering Rogers. In any case, Halverson knew there was little chance Reverend Jim was going to survive. All the intel he had gleaned at Langley indicated that a bite from a plague victim was a hundred percent fatal and would transform the victim into a plague-carrying ghoul. For that reason, Halverson had to keep his eyes on Reverend Jim and would have to kill him once the transformation began to take effect.
“Why don’t you take point, Ray?” Rogers said.
“No problemo,” said Ray.
“You know where the restaurant is?”
“Not exactly.”
“Turn left when you get on the ground then turn onto the first road you see on your right. Take that road to the restaurant.”
Ray nodded. He strode ahead of the others down the stairwell. The rest of them followed.
They debouched on a sidewalk that skirted a road. Through the haze it was difficult to see much.
Ray was waiting for them on the sidewalk.
“What’s up?” asked Rogers.
“I was thinking if I’m taking point, I should have an MP7,” said Ray.
“Good idea.”
“And a suppressor,” said Halverson.
He withdrew a Brugger & Thomet sound suppressor from his bandolier. He handed the suppressor to Ray.
“Switch guns with Tom,” said Rogers.
Tom rolled his eyes, but said nothing.
Ray exchanged his Sig Sauer P226 for Tom’s MP7. Ray affixed the silencer to the MP7’s muzzle. He hung a left on the sidewalk.
The rest of them followed.
When they reached the crossroad, they walked onto it and headed right.
“At least we don’t have to worry about getting run over,” said Tom, walking in the middle of the road, waving his hands around with a smile on his lips.
“Don’t relax too much,” said Rogers. “Those things could be lurking in the smog anywhere around here.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They made it down the street without incident.
The haze was lifting, it seemed to Halverson. It wasn’t quite as thick now while it eddied around them. Halverson could discern the outline of the Encounter restaurant looming up ahead out of the smog.
Shaped like a flying saucer at its center, it had four white spider legs formed out of two arches that intersected fifteen-odd feet above the restaurant. Within the arches was a circular trellislike white wall that surrounded the restaurant. This wall appeared to be about twenty feet high, Halverson estimated.
“That wall won’t keep them out long,” said Halverson.
“I told you that before,” said Rogers. “I’m not even sure we can block the entrance in the wall.”
“It doesn’t look like it has a door.”
“The restaurant has one big, long window for its exterior instead of a wall. We can see everything from there and pick them off like sitting ducks when they show up.”
“As long as there aren’t any of them in there already,” said Foster.
“I hear ya,” said Tom.
“That’s why Ray’s scoping it out for us,” said Rogers.
As if by magic, Ray appeared out of the smog. Halverson raised his submachine gun and trained it on him before he recognized Ray.
“I’m a friendly,” said Ray. He held his hands over his head, including the one with the MP7 in it.
Halverson lowered his weapon.
“How’s it look?” asked Rogers.
“I didn’t see anyone beyond the wall,” answered Ray. “I haven’t checked out the restaurant interior yet.”
There was a deserted parking lot near the outside of the wall with a chain-link fence around it. Halverson knew that fence was next to useless. The ghouls would crush it when they massed against it.
Halverson and the rest passed through the entrance in the wall that engirdled the restaurant. He didn’t see any way to block off the entrance. It didn’t have a door.
“I don’t see any way to close it off,” he said.
“I don’t either,” said Ray.
“It might actually be better to leave it open,” said Rogers.
“Are you kidding?”
“No. Listen. If it’s open, all those things will plow through there. They won’t try to climb over the wall.”
“What’s your point?”
“We can concentrate all our firepower on that entrance and cut those things down all at once.”
“If they all enter that way,” said Halverson
“I’m betting they will, if we leave it open,” said Rogers.
“If enough of those things try to enter there and we nail them, the entrance will become blocked with stacks of dead bodies.”
“That works for me,” said Ray. He unleashed a toothy grin.
Rogers and Foster were standing supporting Reverend Jim.
“I hate to break this coffee klatch up, but my shoulder’s starting to ache something awful,” said Foster. He shifted Reverend Jim’s arm on his shoulder.
“Ray,” said Rogers, “scope out the restaurant’s interior.”
Ray nodded once. He angled for the door to the restaurant.
Reverend Jim groaned.
“How’s he holding up?” asked Foster.
“He isn’t gonna make it through the night without professional help,” answered Rogers.
“He isn’t gonna make it, period,” said Halverson.
“Do you have a medical degree?” asked Rogers.
“Just calling it like I see it.”
“How do you know so damn much about everything? That’s what I want to know. You know all about guns. And now you know all about being a doctor.”
“I’m a reporter. I pick up things as a journalist.”
“As long as this man’s breathing, I’m taking him with us.” Rogers fixed his eyes on Halverson as if challenging him to say otherwise.
Halverson said nothing.
Instead he pricked up his ears as two shots rang out behind them.
Rogers jerked his head around to identify the source of the reports.
“Who is that?” asked Foster. “Are there other people around here?”
“Help!” a male voice cried out from the parking garage. “Rogers, help us! Where are you?”
“Oh no. Guess who?”
Rogers shut his eyes in disgust. “Who wants to go help our friend Lemans?” he asked the others.
Nobody made a move.
“Looks like it’s unanimous,” said Tom.
“Come on,” said Rogers. “We can’t let him die out there.”
“He’s gonna bring those things after us,” said Ray. “They heard his gunshots.”
“How many times do we have to pull this guy’s bacon out of the fire?” said Tom.
“I can’t understand why you want to save him,” Foster told Rogers. “He gives you nothing but trouble.”
“He needs our help,” said Rogers.
“I hope those things feed on his head,” said Mildred. “It’s big enough for an entire meal in itself.”
“All right. I’ll go get him. Somebody, take my place here with Reverend Jim.”
“Forget it,” said Halverson. “I’ll get him.”
Before anyone could say another word he darted into the smog.
He heard Lemans’s voice.
“Help!” cried Lemans. “We’re over here! Where are you?” He fired another shot.
Halverson slowed his gait, trying to home in on the origin of the voice and the gunshot. He reached the sidewalk that bordered the parking garage. He thought he could make out two figures in the drifting smog.
Halverson
made for them.
But it wasn’t Lemans and Valerie, Halverson found out. It was two of those things. He didn’t think they had seen him. But they were in his path to Lemans. There was nothing for it. Halverson had to whack the ghouls.
One was a teenager wearing a red knapsack strapped on his back and a pair of silver headphones on his head. The other was a black woman in her late twenties with dyed blonde hair or possibly a wig. Halverson wasn’t sure. She was wearing a chartreuse tank top with her flesh-colored bra’s shoulder straps exposed on her shoulders.
Without hesitation Halverson stalked up to the two ghouls. He fired a burst from his silenced MP7 into the head with the headphones then into the head with the blonde hair. Both heads erupted into grey gobbets of brain matter and white chunks of skull.
Halverson noticed an interesting thing about zombies. They didn’t bleed. But then again, why should they? They were already dead. Apparently, the only parts of them that were reanimated were their brains.
Halverson picked up on two more figures groping through the smog up ahead. He raised his MP7.
“Help!” yelled the first figure.
Halverson lowered his weapon. It had to be Lemans and Valerie, he decided.
Halverson strode up to them. “This way.”
“Why didn’t you call out so we could find you?” demanded Lemans.
Halverson was in no mood for Lemans’s griping. “’Cause those things zero in on sound. Just look behind you.”
Lemans turned around. A ghoul was dragging its feet out of the parking garage in their direction.
“Keep quiet and let’s get out of here,” Halverson went on.
Lemans raised his automatic to shoot the creature. “Bye-bye, birdie.”
Halverson knocked Lemans’s gun arm down. “Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
Lemans glowered at Halverson. “We’re not gonna be safe till we kill every last one of those creatures.”
“We don’t have enough ammo to whack all those things. The only thing we can do now is hole up. So come on.”
“We need to get a car.”
Halverson retreated to the restaurant. “We need to find shelter before those things find us.”
Grudgingly, Lemans followed him with Valerie in tow.
Twenty feet later, Lemans tripped over the teenage ghoul that Halverson had recently offed and nearly broke his neck. Lemans managed to regain his balance by taking the full force of his falling weight on his knees before hitting the sidewalk. He cursed.
Zombie Apocalypse Page 9
