Screeching up ahead in the forest let him know the caution may not end up being so overabundant. They’d run past where the bulk of the looters had setup camp. He knew they’d all be running the opposite direction for the interstate. The people were separated into ten-man units called squads for the purposes of organizing them. Each squad was assigned a mile marker. Plan ‘A’ just meant for them to join up with their squads and head for their mile markers. When they got there, they’d be expected to hide until someone was able to come get them. If no one showed up for a few days, they were free to try and make their way back to the main camps.
The people weren’t allowed to carry firearms or bladed weapons but most of them had baseball bats or hammers to beat down Zombies as they ran. If the junkie who’d stabbed the guard at the pill handout earlier had been caught with the knife before that happened, he’d have been executed. It may seem harsh but that was the law in these lands. Kyler was torn about how he felt about that. It made sense from one angle but not from others. Right now, he didn’t have time to think about it too much as the screeching was growing exponentially louder by the second.
“There must’ve been a whole freakin herd close by.” Jeff said. He’d stopped and was fumbling around with his AK-47 trying to figure out how to make it fully automatic.
“I’m wondering if we even bother shooting any of them.” Kyler said. Their job was to protect the people. The problem was Kyler didn’t see how shooting a few rounds into a herd coming through the woods would accomplish anything except to get the Zombies zeroed in on them.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice.” Jeff said. He started taking shots at the Zombies now visible running through the woods straight towards them. There were a lot of Zombies coming. The bushes seemed to be spewing them out like a demonic popcorn machine.
“Let’s get the hell out of here.” Kyler screamed over the sound of their gunfire. Jeff looked over at him and nodded. It wasn’t like if they stayed there the Zombies would approach more cautiously thus giving the people more time to escape. There was nothing cautious about a herd of Zombies who’d heard gunfire. It just made them come faster.
They turned and ran for the interstate. Kyler had been hoping they could’ve ended up in the trucks. The new ones should’ve made it by now and be in position for the looters to load up. They could’ve spent the night in the comfortable beds in one of those. Air conditioning and some hillbilly music versus running for their lives from a herd of insane, diseased cannibals. Ahead of them a group of Zombies were ripping apart a tent trying to get at the person inside it. The person inside was screaming and swinging a bat around.
Kyler slid to a stop. He raised his pistol and took four carefully aimed shots putting the Zombies attacking the tent on the ground. Jeff and Kyler ran over to the tent where the person tangled up on the inside was still desperately struggling to get out. The Zombies had lifted the person and the tent up off the ground. Two of the Zombies were still wriggling around on the ground trying to get at them, so Jeff put a round through each of the Zombie’s heads. Kyler helped the person out of the tent. It turned out to be a middle-aged woman. She couldn’t seem to stop saying thanks to them. Even though they could barely hear her over the screaming Zombies approaching. It sounded like they had Zombies coming from every direction at them now. The extra gunfire certainly hadn’t helped their situation.
They resumed hauling ass in the direction of the interstate. The sounds of pursuing Zombies motivating them to push their legs as hard as they could. A different kind of scream made Kyler look over his shoulder. The woman they’d rescued was being taken down to the ground by two Zombies riding her. He skidded to a stop and turned around to go try to save her. He saw one of the Zombies look up with fresh blood all over its mouth from biting the woman’s neck. Her screams were getting more crazed. Kyler lowered his aim and put a round through her head. Then he turned and commenced running for his life again.
Jeff was nowhere to be seen. He must’ve ignored the screams from the woman and kept on running. Kyler knew he should’ve done the same. He didn’t know if he could’ve lived with himself if had of though. Instead of worrying about it he poured all his energy into running. He knew he’d have a lead now since any of the Zombies directly behind him would’ve stopped to take a bite of the fresh meat. They wouldn’t hang out too long though. The virus wasn’t looking for dead hosts.
Kyler was seeing spots when he finally caught up to Jeff. Jeff was bent over breathing hard at the edge of the tree line beside the interstate. Their rally point was on the other side of the road in the back of a tractor trailer. It looked like just an abandoned tractor trailer from the road, but it’d been hooked up to serve as a mobile command center.
“We in the right spot?” Kyler asked.
“About a mile that way I think. Where’d that woman go from the tent?” Jeff asked. He was looking into the woods like he expected her to pop out at any time.
“She didn’t make it. Let’s go.” Kyler said. Jeff nodded and they both summoned up a burst of energy to get them across all six lanes and the median as fast as possible. They collapsed on the other side for a few seconds. Looking through the scopes of their rifles to see if any Zombies had noticed them. So far so good, although they did now see a bunch of Zombies milling around on the side of the interstate they’d just run from.
They got up and began walking quickly through the woods parallel to the interstate to find the command center. When they finally caught sight of it, they both stopped and cursed. The trailer was surrounded by a big group of screaming Zombies. They were beating on the trailer from every side trying to get in. Jeff and Kyler stood there staring at it wondering what they should do now.
“Now what?” Jeff asked looking at Kyler.
Kyler shrugged and sat down with his back against a tree.
“Now we wait. Once enough of the Zombies wander off to make it reasonable, we go kill the rest of the Zombies hanging out by the trailer then we rescue our peeps in the trailer.”
“Easy peezee lemon squeeze.” Jeff replied before joining Kyler on the ground to rest.
Chapter 14: Wake Up Call
“Son of a bitch!” Kelly slapped Randy while waving her hand around with an expression of pain on her face. He took the weak slap to his face in stride. The girls were all gathered around holding lights on their moms hand. Randy was trying to clean up her scraped hands and get bandages on them. It wasn’t going well.
“I didn’t whine half as much when you sewed me up and I had a knife hanging out of my stomach. You scraped your knuckles.” He said with frustration as she yelled at him again.
“You didn’t whine because I took my time and did it good. Take your time. That stuff freakin burns. Get these kids out of here so I can use better words when you dump that poopy stuff on my hands.” Kelly looked over at Zoey, Ali and Doreen. The girls dutifully giggled at her use of the word ‘poopy’. That’s what she’d been going for. The sound of little girl laughter enabling her to endure her oaf of a husbands extremely poor attempt at nursing her hands back to health. She finally told him to take a lap and asked Caitlyn to do it instead.
Happy to be off the hook Randy went and sat in the back of the van with Tony. Tony was sitting up with a pistol in his hand casually aimed in the general direction of their prisoner.
“What’s up Florence Nightingale? You think of a way out of here yet?” Tony said by way of greeting as Randy sat down heavily on the back of the van.
“We’ll figure a way out. Not like we have a choice. I’m going to walk around to the side. I want to see if I can still hear them banging on the gate. You need anything?” Randy asked.
“Nope. Go check it out and bring me back some good news. If you can take the gag off this guy for me, I’ll try and get some more info out of him while I’m sitting here. If he pisses me off, I’ll go ahead and shoot him. Getting sick of carting him around everywhere anyway. He’s starting to remind me of those boxes you keep in your ga
rage and then move them with you every time you move houses but never actually plan on opening them? Just useless baggage. Except I don’t have to feed the boxes or deal with them taking big, stinking dumps three times a day.”
Randy chuckled as he reached up and ripped the tape off the prisoners mouth. He knew exactly what Tony was talking about. He’d given Kelly all kinds of crap about the boxes they dragged around with them every time they moved. It’d gotten to the point where they needed extra space in houses just to store the boxes that they both knew they were never going to actually open. The one labeled ‘Souvenir Cups’ really irritated him because they had three or four large boxes labeled for cups yet everywhere that they went they continued to buy the souvenir cups. It was like some weird addiction. Also, the guard they were keeping as a prisoner must have IBS or something because he seriously couldn’t stop going.
Randy heard the aggressive hum coming from the floors below. It got louder he walked around the garage towards the lower levels. Instead of wasting his time walking all the way down to confirm what they already knew to be true he walked back up to the level they were parked on. He checked in on Kelly. She was doing a lot better in Caitlyn and Myriah’s care than she’d been with him trying to patch her up. Tony shrugged his shoulders when Randy looked over at him. He took that to mean Tony hadn’t gotten anything useful out of the guard. He supposed he should ask the guy what his name was but then decided against it. He didn’t really want to know the name of a guy he was probably going to end up shooting in the head and leaving to rot in a ditch somewhere.
He fumbled around in the van until he found the spare tire kit. He took the tire iron and walked with purpose towards the door keeping them out of the hotel. It was the standard big, bulky door you find in parking garages. It had a handle to pull to open it which they’d already tried. He was wondering if he could whack on the hinges hard enough to get them to fall off. He was getting ready to take a swing when the door opened.
Standing there holding the tire iron up in the air his jaw dropped in disbelief as the door continued to open. His first instinct was to act fast before whoever or whatever was opening the door let it slam shut. He stepped neatly to the side and shoved the tire iron into the crack. The door was almost immediately yanked shut. With the tire iron in the way it couldn’t be shut all the way though. Randy yelled for Kelly and then pulled his pistol.
“Open the door or I’m opening fire!” He yelled at the crack in the door. The crack in the door didn’t respond.
If it was a random Zombie who’d pushed on the door then his yelling would’ve caused it to come bursting through the door with teeth bared. Since he wasn’t fighting for his life against a diseased cannibal, he had to assume an uninfected human had hit the bar on the other side to open the door. He couldn’t just open fire though the crack of a door on a person. As long as he kept the tire iron jammed in the crack, they’d still have access. Access that very well could mean the difference between life or death.
Kelly ran up to where he was holding the tire iron and the pistol. Right behind her Tony limped towards him as well. Kelly started to ask him what was going on. He shushed her and told her to grab the handle and pull. He hadn’t even bothered trying to overpower who was on the other side yet since he figured his main responsibility was ensuring the door didn’t get closed on them. A responsibility he was desperately trying to fulfill as the tire iron was being pushed out of the crack by whoever was on the other side of the door.
Kelly was in a vicious tug of war with that person. Randy struggled to keep the tire iron in the open space between the door and the wall. Whoever was on the other side of the door switched tactics. Kelly fell hard on her backside and Randy was yanked into the building by the tire iron he had such a death grip on. Tony got there in time to see Randy disappear. The door slammed all the way shut before Tony was able to grab it. Tony and Kelly both stared at the closed door. Tony tried pulling on the door handle, but it didn’t budge.
Tony leaned forward to try and see if there was a good place to try and slide in a knife or something to wedge the door open. The door flew open hitting him hard in the face. Kelly was up with her rifle aimed into the dark doorway. Tony did a strange ballerina kind of twirl that he emerged out of with blood pouring out of his nose and his pistol pointed at the dark doorway as well. Two teen boys were thrown out of the doorway and landed at Kelly’s feet. Randy followed them with a nasty looking bruise forming on the side of his head. He stopped to prop the door open.
“One of the little pricks hit me in the head with the damned tire iron. They’re lucky I didn’t shoot both of them.” Randy said. He turned his head and spat out at a wad of blood.
“What are you doing here? What are you going to do with us?” One of the kids on the ground whined. The other one looked up defiantly and kept his mouth shut.
“How many more of you are there in the building?” Tony asked the kid who was talking.
“There’s eleven of us left. Eleven the last time we counted. We need to go back. We need to shut the door. It’s time to go back in.” The kid was looking nervous. He wouldn’t make eye contact with any of them. Randy turned around and looked into the dark depths of the small stairway that ended in a door leading into what he assumed was the hotel.
“Is the door to the hotel open?” Randy asked.
“Yes, it is. We close it but we don’t lock it. Zombies can’t figure out locks.” The kid responded. He was looking in every direction that didn’t bring him into eye contact with any of them. The other kid was still lying on the ground.
“Hey babe. Can you go drive the van as close over here as you can get it. That gate below isn’t going to hold much longer. I think we need to clear this hotel and see if they have any rooms available.”
“What about the kids friends inside?” Kelly asked.
“Yeah. We’ll have a discussion with them.” He watched Kelly run off to get the van. He knelt down next to the talkative kid and asked him what kinds of weapons his friends had.
“Axes and knives and stuff. No bullets for the guns. Can I go sir. I’m sorry I hit you. I need to get back inside now.” The kid was all over the place. He must be having issues getting his ADHD prescription filled. He still refused to look directly at any of them.
Kelly pulled the van up and got out with her rifle in her hand. Randy was trying to get more information out of the kid. Kelly got the girls to stack all their gear neatly by the door to the hotel. Caitlyn and Myriah each had a gun in their hands. Doreen, Ali and Zoey were sitting over by the wall of the garage playing with some barbies they’d picked up back at the pharmacy they’d spent the previous night in. Being little girls playing a game they inevitably broke into an argument, but they kept the noise down. Randy turned away from his girls and looked back into the hotel.
“Ok. Tony’s coming with me. Kelly, you guard this door and get ready to drag the girls in if a bunch of Zombies show up. If you want, you can go ahead and move our stuff inside this little room. That way we don’t lose it if you have to get all the girls in here really fast. I’m going to leave you one of these kids as a hostage. I’ll take the talkative one here as our guide. We’ll come back and get you once we know it’s safe. Anybody else comes out that door with a gun in their hand put them on the ground. Sound like a plan?” Randy looked around his small group. No one seemed to have a better plan. Kelly looked like she was struggling with being left behind. Tony shrugged and made sure his magazine was full and a round was in the chamber.
Randy grabbed the talkative kid and pushed him into the stairwell. The other kid tried to follow, but Kelly grabbed him and pushed him back down on the ground.
“We’re going to go in here you’re going to take us to whoever’s in charge. You try to screw us over or get away and I’ll shoot you. You understand?”
The kid looked to be in his early teens. It was hard to tell his exact age as he’d sprouted some wild patches of facial hair and hadn’t seen running water in a v
ery long time judging by the smell of him. Tony asked the kid what his name was. On being told it was Billy he immediately was able to remember that since he’d been calling him ‘the kid’ in his head already.
Billy led them into the dark hotel. The interior door from the garage opened easily when you pressed down on the latch at the top of the handle. Behind them Kelly and Caitlyn were busy stacking their gear in the little concrete space. Randy assumed Myriah was guarding over the two prisoners. She’d also be keeping a lookout for any Zombies who may make it through the gate and decide to wander up higher into the garage. Tony was limping but looked pretty good for a guy who’d very recently been shot in the foot. Kelly may have missed her calling.
The interior of the hotel was dark. It smelled musty and smoky. Like a barbeque place with a low sanitation rating had caught on fire and the fire had been put out by a bunch of people pissing all over it while chain smoking. It was the smell of the apocalypse. The smell of mold and corruption. The scents of death and decay puffing out of the thick hotel carpet as they walked across it.
Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide Page 12
