Stark found himself wishing a group of zombies waited in the darkness and that they would rip the big bastard apart.
But no such luck.
Chapter 21
JEFF
“Paula? Paula?”
Jeff let go of the transmit button to catch her response. But he couldn’t hear anything, not even the static that separated them. The CB radio at Sammy’s Grocery was deader than the two corpses on the floor.
His four remaining companions—the actor, the Owens brothers, and Danny—winced as he smashed the microphone apart on the check-out counter. A bit of its plastic casing flew up to hit the wall sign that said the proprietor could refuse service to anyone for any reason.
He collapsed on the floor and buried his face in his hands. Not fair. Not fair to hear her and then have her taken away.
Behind him, the actor sighed deeply. “Well, so much for the radio. You know, we’re in a store. We have batteries.”
Jeff doubted replacement batteries would have made any difference. The blue light had apparently drained the ones in the radio, so it stood to reason the ones on the shelves were crap now, too. Apart from that, there would still be the same electromagnetic interference that was disrupting the plugged-in FM radio on the shelf. But he didn’t feel like going into all that. He doubted Criswell would have listened anyway.
Criswell. He still didn’t know his real name. Wasn’t sure he cared.
He looked up to see Danny standing over him.
“She’s alive,” Jeff said—which was obvious, but he didn’t know what else to say. Paula alive was more than he could have hoped for.
Danny nodded. The look had returned to his eyes—the saucy co-pilot look, rather than the scared screw-up look—and Jeff was thankful for it. “Yes, she is. But we gotta get moving.”
Moving—but to where? He mulled over what Paula said about going to the abandoned school on Pine Avenue. Something about taking out the source of the energy pulses causing all this. He wasn’t sure he understood, but he comprehended enough to realize she was headed into danger. He tried to tell himself Kelton wouldn’t needlessly risk her life, but he couldn’t help feeling irritated at Paula’s ex, nevertheless.
Gotta get moving. And he knew exactly where he wanted to go.
Danny held out his hand to pull him up, but Jeff only stared at it. I’m so tired.
From the back of the store, the sounds of Sammy and his zombie friend beating on the storage room door continued as indifferently as rain. Rat-tatta-tat-tat.
He glanced at the body of Sammy’s business partner, lying facedown on the floor. If they stayed here too long, Toby would probably get up and attack them as well.
“Danny? What do we do if they take over the whole world?”
“Then we take it back.”
Jeff found the strength to clasp the offered hand. He noted it was the same side as Danny’s injured shoulder, but his younger friend hardly cringed as he hauled him to his feet. Somehow, that effort to put on a good face made Jeff feel better. Yes, indeed, his co-pilot was back.
Now it was time for the captain to take the controls.
***
Something heavy smashed into the front door. Broken glass tinkled to the floor.
Danny ran to peek around the foam pad Sammy had taped over the door for privacy. “What the fuck?”
Jeff picked up his shotgun. “What is it?”
It hit the door again, whatever it was. More glass fell from behind the makeshift curtain. Danny raised his big handgun. “Jesus God, they’re using a telephone pole as a battering ram. They’re working together!”
Jeff pointed to the back hallway. “Everyone into the freezer. Now!”
Another crash of glass sounded as they ran.
Criswell huffed from the exertion. “These aren’t zombies. They’re goddamn Vikings.”
The five of them crowded into the freezer. Jimmy Owens held the door for them and shut it the moment they were inside.
Jeff found a light switch and flipped it on. He blinked in the sudden glare.
Boxes of ice cream and frozen vegetables crammed the tiny space. In contrast to the rest of the store, the inventory in here appeared normal. He realized it would all expire, unpurchased.
He took a moment to appraise his tiny group of survivors. Everyone was still armed, thank God. Criswell carried his splitting axe. Danny wielded his Magnum. Jimmy carried one of his condom bombs and a grill lighter, while his brother Justin held the big chainsaw.
Jeff doubted the boy would even have time to start it before he was attacked. He considered taking a moment now to help him pull the cord but decided against it. Justin would more likely cut himself or one of the other men before he succeeded in connecting with a zombie. Best therefore just to keep the boy toward the center of the group and protect him with the shotgun.
Well, it was a nice plan, anyway. But the best plans often went to hell.
***
At the freezer’s exterior door, Jeff exchanged a nod with his companions before pushing it open. It was a heavy son of a bitch, one of those solid-metal jobs that wanted to stay closed due to some fluke of air pressure. He could imagine knocking himself over with it if he wasn’t careful, so he held the door as everyone else filed out, one by one.
All seemed quiet outside. He looked toward the Gas ’N’ Sip and the woman’s van he hoped to find there.
And from that direction, a tidal wave of zombies charged at them.
He realized he wouldn’t even have time to raise his shotgun. Small good it would do against a mob that large, anyway.
“We have to run!”
Danny was the last person coming out, but Jeff had no choice but to release the door so he could flee. He had faith Danny would catch it and follow him.
But as he backpedaled from the charging horde—God, they’re fast—the freezer door fell back against its frame with a solid thunk. Danny stayed inside.
I hope he hides. Jeff ran away as fast as he could.
The group diverged ahead of him, and he debated whom to follow. Criswell beelined for a Volvo station wagon parked in the grass. Jimmy angled toward a shed on the far end of the grocery store parcel. He didn’t know if Criswell would find car keys—didn’t want to take the chance he wouldn’t—so he followed Jimmy.
Jimmy called back to him: “Have you seen my brother?”
“What?” Had they already lost track of him?
Jeff turned to look behind him. The main body of the forty or so zombies chasing them had diverted back to the grocery store.
“Oh, no.” Danny didn’t stand a chance.
But there was no time to dwell on it, because three males with bleeding faces had nearly reached him. It’s like they knew to be wary, because they slowed down instead of charged mindlessly.
Beside him, Jimmy Owens started hyperventilating. “Jeff?”
Jeff glanced at him—and in that moment, the male zombie on his left snatched the shotgun from his hands.
He was a tall one, with long legs and arms that had aided the theft. Might have been a basketball player in life. The zombie glanced down at the weapon before smiling at him—actually smiled—as if to say, Tag. You’re it.
Jimmy yanked his arm. “Come on!”
This time, they caught the zombies off guard as they dashed around the shed. The zombies were a full three seconds behind them as they rounded one corner of the building and then another and another, playing a fool’s game of Keystone Cops.
When they came back around to where they started, Jeff pointed to the vehicle Criswell ran to. “There!” They sprinted to the car.
The actor stood beside the open driver’s door. He was struggling to free his axe from the chest of a zombie at his feet.
“There you are!” Criswell said as they ran up. “It has keys, but I can’t get the damn thing started!”
Jeff stopped short, for the moment unsure what to do. Behind them, the zombies who’d stolen his gun still ran laps around the shed, n
ot realizing their quarry had eluded them.
Back the other way, a boom sounded. It was the battering ram still slamming against the grocery’s store’s entrance.
Danny? No. He couldn’t be dead. Not that quickly. Not that easily. Maybe he would find a place to hide inside the store.
“Justin?” Jimmy started for the piles of mulch and lumber stacked beside the store. “JUSTIN! NO!”
Jeff followed his gaze. The twelve-year-old sat in the cab of a forklift Sammy must have used to shuffle palettes around. The forklift’s engine coughed to life. What the hell was he doing?
Jimmy continued forward. “Justin!”
Zombies who’d been headed to the grocery store now stopped to take notice of the vehicle. It rumbled slowly toward them.
The boy finally answered his older brother. “It’s okay! This will stop them.”
“No! Don’t!”
Jeff ran after Jimmy to pull him back. There was no way to reach the younger brother in time as the forklift accelerated to perhaps five miles per hour. Jeff felt like he was in one of those nightmares where the faster you tried to run, the slower you moved—so when he caught Jimmy by the shoulder, he just stopped. There was no point in trying to rescue the doomed boy.
Maybe if Justin were driving a bulldozer, he would have had a chance. He might have done more than crush a single zombie under the tires. A bulldozer might have moved faster and pushed the crowd out of the way with its big blade, and then kept crunching forward on its tank treads.
But after the forklift bounced over the zombie’s body, it stalled.
The boy screamed as the crowd pulled him out of the open cab. Somehow, his shrieks were worse than what they were doing to him, which was stomping on his legs until the bones snapped and popped through his jeans.
“No! Oh, God—Mommy! Please, Mommy!”
Screaming for a mother who was already dead.
Jeff looked away as they ripped the boy apart.
Jimmy Owens stood where he was and clasped the sides of his head. He probably didn’t realize he held a butane-filled condom against one temple and a grill lighter against the other.
“There’s nothing you can do.” Jeff grabbed his arm and tried to pull him away. But the older brother wouldn’t budge. “Come on!”
Jimmy came along eventually, but he moved slowly, only slightly faster than a mental patient being led to a day room. Jeff thought of Danny potentially dying back there in the freezer and understood the feeling.
He towed Jimmy back to the Volvo. Criswell was behind the wheel again, cranking the key and beating on the steering wheel.
“Working is not what this car is doing. We gotta slow them down.”
Jimmy Owens grimaced as if he were passing the biggest kidney stone in Virginia. “I know what to do.”
He used the grill lighter to light the Fourth of July sparkler attached to his condom-bomb.
Criswell saw what he intended. He dove out of the car the moment before Jimmy lobbed it at the hood.
Like a water balloon, the bomb burst part and splashed lighter fluid everywhere. The sparkler ignited the fluid. Yellow flames shot through the engine and interior faster than Jeff would have thought possible.
The zombies who’d chased them around the shed stood on the other side of the conflagration, probably trying to take stock of the new situation. Jeff glanced back to the store to see the zombies savaging Justin Owens stand up to stare at the flames.
He hauled Criswell to his feet. “Come on!”
The three of them dashed across the street, in the direction of the hospital.
Jeff ventured one look behind him to see a satisfying sight. The zombies were crowding around the burning car like moths to a porch light. The night was utterly black, and since the street lamps had failed, the flames provided the only illumination.
He cast an appreciative glance at Jimmy Owens as the three of them disappeared into the trees.
***
As they ran, Jeff heard Jimmy sobbing, “Justin! Oh God, Justin!”
He wished he could stop and talk to the kid. Give him a hug and tell him it would be okay. Except that would be a lie. They were all getting picked off, one by one. Mac. Danny. Little kids and crazy mothers and grocery store owners. Paula could be dead now, for all he knew. If he stopped to console Jimmy, he wouldn’t be able to move again.
They didn’t have time for it anyway. Their brief respite ceased: as soon as they broke through the trees onto an adjacent residential street, a handful of zombies pulling an animal apart on someone’s lawn spotted them. (Oh no, is that the body of a dog?)
The zombies gave chase.
They were fast—remarkably fast. As he ran, Jeff glanced back to see they were all young men. They wore identical purple soccer uniforms. They also wore identical throat slashes, which made them uniformly dead.
Jeff thought he and Jimmy stood a chance of outrunning them if they were clever by using the street’s maple trees and parked cars as cover. But overweight Criswell was slowing to a walk.
Which is why it was such a surprise when Jimmy tripped and fell on his face. He was probably blinded by tears and simply lost his footing.
Jeff and Criswell began to turn around to help him, but those few seconds were all the zombies needed to catch up.
The kid rolled onto his back as they dogpiled onto him. “No, no, no!”
Jeff wanted to help, but he didn’t have any energy left. What good could he and Criswell do against them? He also realized with a kind of mercenary calculation that this was giving him and Criswell the chance they needed. While the zombies were distracted killing Jimmy Owens, they could escape.
So that’s exactly what they did.
***
He was too tired and numb to feel remorse for running like a coward. All he could manage was a vague sense of worthlessness. He compared himself to his father, remembering the ugly look on the man’s face as he paused on the way out the front door—carrying a gym bag full of clothes while his mistress waited in a car out front—long enough to mutter at Jeff, You gotta look out for number one, kid. Don’t ever forget that. That’s just what I’m doing, is all. Protecting number one. And then he’d gone out, slamming the door behind him so hard that it rattled the Christmas ornaments.
Jeff snapped to alertness when he realized he couldn’t see anything on the road ahead of them but the shapes of shadowed trees and parked cars. Zombies could be sitting on every porch they passed, and he’d never know it. The energy pulses must have knocked out the power.
“Slow down.”
Criswell stopped altogether. He held his side as he gasped the cool night air. “Fine with me.”
Jeff tried to listen for pursuers, but Criswell was heaving too loudly. He shushed him.
He knew the road they were on. If they took a right at the next intersection, it was a straight shot to the Dupree Bridge. He would suggest that Criswell take the chance to leave town while he continued on to his wife.
Criswell finally quieted, so Jeff held his breath and strained his ears. Crickets chirped in the dark maple trees around them, but that’s all he heard. He thought that was a good sign.
“Well, halle-fucking-lujah,” Criswell said. “If I had to run another half-mile, I’d be a—”
“Shh! Listen!”
Footsteps. Coming up behind them.
They glanced at each other and spoke simultaneously: “Shit.”
Jeff sprinted for the intersection. As he neared it, he saw a white delivery truck parked crookedly in the road. Two men stood beside it.
Guns flashed from the bushes off to his right. He felt and heard the bullets whiz by his head.
Survivors. They were aiming at him.
“Get down!”
He dove to ground, skinning his hands on asphalt.
Criswell grunted at he landed beside him.
The guns continued firing. A high-powered flashlight switched on and seemed to pan everywhere at once.
Jeff chanced
a look back to see the zombies wearing the soccer jerseys enter the glare. They went down in a storm of gunfire.
“It’s all right—we’re human!” He didn’t dare rise to his knees.
Voices answered from his left and right. “Clear!” someone said. A man. “All right, stand down!” a woman answered.
More flashlights clicked on as at least thirty people emerged from the shadows. Human and alive. Something relaxed in his chest. They were going to be all right. He stood up and wiped his bloody hands on his jeans.
A woman approached them. She carried a big shotgun, which made Jeff remember the one he lost back at the store. Two men flanked her: one bald, one bearded, both carrying handguns. The presence of all the weaponry further comforted him.
Beside him, Criswell drew in a breath. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“What?” But then he saw it, too.
The woman with the shotgun was Edith Holman, his airplane passenger from that afternoon. She looked so different now that he hadn’t recognized her.
Gone were the business slacks and blouse. She had exchanged them for jeans and a plain T-shirt, torn at the neck to reveal a bloody scratch. Another cut bled from her right cheek.
Surely this wasn’t the same woman who peed herself in his plane and had trouble pulling her suitcase from the luggage compartment.
Jeff swallowed. “Edith?”
She nodded. “Mr. Trent.”
God knew what she had been through that day. Zombies had a way of toughening a person up.
She shook her head at Criswell. “So, it’s true. Cockroaches always survive disasters.”
Criswell seemed not to hear the insult. “How do you two know each other?”
“I flew her in this afternoon from Atlanta,” Jeff said.
“You what? Jesus. I knew this was a small town, but I had no idea.” Criswell smirked at the woman, which Jeff thought was a stupid thing to do. “Well, I see you’re directing now. Are these people your new cast?”
Irritation crossed her face. Edith glanced at the survivors clustering around them.
I better jump in. Jeff cleared his throat. “What’s going on here?”
“These are the only people left in town I could find. We’re headed across the bridge to the military. They have this whole town sealed off and posts up and down the river. They’re shooting anyone who tries to cross it.”
Plan 9- Official Movie Novelization Page 20
