by TW Brown
I looked up to see him pointing frantically. Of course, I couldn’t see what it was he was pointing at, but my gut already knew the answer. I started for the corner of the building but pulled up when I saw a man with a machete running up behind the same woman that had just saved my ass.
A voice in my head was screaming for me to hurry, that Don and anybody with him would get away if I delayed too long, but my instincts were to try and help the person I could see that was in mortal danger.
I adjusted my course and brought my Glock up. I tweaked my aim to the point that I believed might at least give me a chance of clipping the machete-wielding man who was now less than ten strides away from being close enough to chop into the woman whose name I didn’t even know, and fired. The first shot must’ve missed because the guy never broke stride. I took a guess and brought the weapon a shade to the left and fired again.
The man’s right shoulder snapped back like he’d just been punched really hard. He still took a couple of steps as his brain had to catch up with the information his body was sending. As he did, the right arm dropped and his head jerked around in my direction. The man was halfway between me and his original target and quickly made the choice to alter his course and come for the person who’d just injured him.
His choice was fatal. As he closed the distance, he became a target that I couldn’t miss…and I didn’t. The first round hit him square in the middle of the chest and sent him backwards. There was no need for another shot, but I did put a round into his head as I passed him just to be certain.
The woman was crouching behind a stack of pallets and never even realized what played out behind her, barely acknowledging me as I hurried past on my way to where Marshawn had indicated. As I ran down the length of the building that was the school if my memory was serving me correctly, I heard something above me.
“They are on the far side, past that dorsal structure just ahead,” Marshawn called down to me. “I can’t make it over and they are still close enough that we can take them down if we hurry.”
I looked up and saw what he was talking about when it came to not being able to make it over. I now also knew why he hadn’t just gone over there and taken Don down himself. There was a vertical wall-like structure jutting up from the roof and running the length. It had a slight curve to it, but even at the tapered end, I was willing to bet it was ten or so feet above the surface of the roof. It would be hard enough jumping up to get a grip on the top of that structure, much less climbing over. Add in the fact that anybody doing so would be totally exposed and vulnerable and I couldn’t blame him for being “stranded” on this side of the building.
I moved along the rear of the church and school facility, pausing to scan for any signs of movement. From my position, I was at the top of a gradual slope that would take me down to the southwestern entry drive to the parking lot. In effect, I’d just done a lap around most of the building and was coming back to where I’d launched my attack from.
Just to the left of the last house before the entry drive I thought I saw the gate swing shut. I realized that I was on my own since nobody was following me and glanced up at Marshawn.
“How many?” I asked.
“Four.” The answer hung in the air as I steeled myself for what had to be done.
“Send anybody you can. If I don’t make it…” I started, not really sure what to ask for in the event of my demise.
“I’ll take care of your dog,” Marshawn called down. “But don’t worry, now that you are on the trail, I’m coming down and will be right behind you, so don’t do anything stupid.”
I wasn’t sure that was possible. I was preparing to chase after four people without knowing anything about how they might be armed. I had one arm that was a throbbing mess, my right eyelid may or may not be totally gone and that eyeball could end up being lost if—and it was looking like a really big if—I managed to survive.
I gave a weak salute and turned my attention back to the house where I’d been pretty sure that I saw the gate beside it swing shut. I hugged the church building as long as I could until I reached the end and then raced across the street towards my potential quarry.
I arrived at the somewhat pinkish house, only taking a second to observe that there would’ve been no way in hell that I’d have allowed any house I would live in to be painted that color. It wasn’t some “pink is for girls and blue is for boys” thing, it was just that it made for an ugly house.
I skirted an abandoned car that had collided with the small birch tree in the front yard, doing my best to stay low. As soon as I was able to see, I could confirm that the side gate was indeed open. I still couldn’t be sure that I’d seen somebody come this way, but this was the moment where luck or providence decided to grant me a favor.
A single gunshot came from beyond the tall fence in the direction I was currently looking. It wasn’t so close that I thought it could be in the backyard, but it wasn’t that far away, either. I broke into a run, ignoring the way every step was making me hurt. I don’t think I’d ever been this close to incapacitated and still mobile.
It’s funny what desire, adrenaline, and stupidity can accomplish in a person. I’d heard of people doing amazing things when they were put to the test. Heck, I remember one pro football quarterback that played an entire quarter on a busted leg. As normal people, we had a tendency to limit ourselves based on what society said we could or could not accomplish. Yet, from the warmth and comfort of our couches, we would watch people compete in athletic competitions in a sense of wonder and amazement. While I probably would’ve never aspired to the X-Games, Olympics, or the CrossFit Championships, I’d prided myself on taking care of my body. As a construction worker, I placed physical demands on my body every single day on the job. That was for nothing more substantial than a paycheck.
This was literally a matter of life and death. And revenge. I couldn’t forget revenge. Don Evans had killed people based on their skin color. He’d tossed me in a room with people that he assumed were my friends and made me fight for my life against their zombified versions. In truth, they were people we had just picked up, barely qualifying as traveling companions, but that didn’t change the evil in his intent. He’d sent his people to try and either raid, capture, or kill Carl, Betty, and the people I’d left behind when I believed that I would turn.
And during my capture, he’d taken the last thing I had left from my life before the dead rose and started wiping out humanity. To any outsider, it was just a picture…no big deal. But to me, it was the best thing I had left from a life that was starting to seem like a dream.
I crossed the backyard and reached the fence that bordered it. There was a child’s toy slide with large, red plastic steps on one end. It would be just tall enough to allow me to see over and beyond.
I stepped up and peered over and into the next yard. A curse sprang from my lips almost instantly. The grove of trees obscured my ability to see anybody. However, I could still hear, and it sounded like whomever had gone this way was encountering a bit of trouble. I heard a few shouts, a sporadic burst of gunfire, and then a single shriek that changed into the scream.
From the sounds of it, they weren’t all that far ahead of me. With them being occupied by whatever was going on, it was very possible that I could catch them. I was trying to figure out the best way over when I realized that all my focus had been in this one direction and I hadn’t been looking over my shoulder at all since I’d gotten here. I heard the footsteps, then a voice from behind that made me almost fall off the little plastic slide.
14
Overload
I spun, my heart in my throat. By the time I’d turned to face the person who’d startled me, my brain was already sending signals that it was okay to settle down. It was only Marshawn.
He jogged up to me as my heart clawed its way down from the triple-digit rate it had just been pounding and I allowed myself a single deep, calming breath. Marshawn had a rifle that I didn’t recognize slung over one shoulder, as
well as a holster hanging over the other with a handgun and a small pouch that I had to assume held extra magazines. In his hand was a machete that dripped with fresh gore. The dark metal of the blade made it impossible to determine if the fluids were from the undead or the recently living. I winced at the idea of hacking up a living human being. Shooting them was bad enough, but to take a machete to a person seemed a lot more personal to me for some reason.
As he reached me, I realized that the sounds of fighting back in the direction of the church had all but ceased. From what I’d witnessed, unless something drastic had occurred to tip the scales in the other direction, we’d made relatively short work of at least most of those who’d chosen to follow Don Evans.
A moment later, two more people rushed into the backyard. One of them was the woman that I’d traded saving each other’s lives with. She was holding a mismatched pair of pistols in her hands and I saw a splatter of blood across her face that looked to have been hastily wiped away.
“They are just beyond those trees,” I reported. “Sounds like they ran into a little trouble. I heard one of them go down to zombies.”
“That leaves three,” Marshawn said as much to himself as those of us standing around him.
I noticed that nobody questioned my report that one of Don’s people had been the victim of zombies. It was safe to assume that all of them knew the sound of that particular scream that could only come from a person being ripped apart and feasted upon by the undead.
“We better get moving if we’re gonna catch up with this creep,” Marshawn suggested.
I turned and looked at the fence with a bit of concern. The adrenaline was subsiding and I was getting the full-on pain experience now from my arm and eye. Basically, my entire right side was betraying me at this point. I was about to say something when the woman trotted over beside a small aluminum shed sitting in the far corner of the yard. She reached up, flipped something and the gate opened. I had no idea how she’d seen it since it was flush and the latching mechanism was basically hidden from view. My questioning look must’ve been plastered clearly on my face for her to see.
“I had the landscapers install a hidden latch when they scaped the yard and built the fence,” she said as I passed. “Stupid neighborhood kids were always sneaking in…” Her voice trembled and I waited for her to continue. “My girlfriend used to home brew beer, and when some of the high school kids found out, it sorta became open season.” She nodded to a chest freezer on the back patio with a padlock still fastened to a chain wrapped around the handle and latch, and her voice took on a wistful tone. “I would give anything to have that problem be my biggest concern again.”
I decided not to mention that maybe she should’ve considered a different color when she’d had the house painted. I also chose to just ignore the odds that we were passing through the yards of one of the last few surviving people in the city. I didn’t ask where her girlfriend might be. I think it was safe to say that everybody still alive had to of lost at least one significant person in their life to this nightmare.
There were four of us creeping through the tall grass and into the trees as we veered towards where we heard then sounds of some sort of fight taking place. Besides Marshawn, myself, and the woman, there was a short, squat, elderly man who looked like he might be a Pacific Islander. He had an uncanny resemblance to a professional wrestler that I used to watch when I was a kid. He’d been known as “The Superfly” and I could almost picture this guy climbing up onto something and hurling his body at the enemy. All he needed was a band of pukka shells acting as a headband along with a floral print lava-lava and he would have the look down solid.
The lone woman in our impromptu commando squad, the one who had saved me only to have me save her moments later, had straight black hair cut just above the shoulders. It also looked like she used to keep at least part of one side shaved down tight. She was filthy—as were we all—so it was impossible to tell if that was the case or not since her hair was a mix of mats and clumps held in place by the combination of dirt, blood, and just the natural oils that occur after several days of not being washed. I guessed her to be just a shade over five feet and maybe a buck ten on the scale.
We were now just a short distance from the point where we would run out of cover. If my memory was correct, there would be a rather uneven strip of treacherous field with a nasty little stream that cut through it. This was very near to where I’d doused my MP3 noisemaker. I knelt beside Marshawn to try and get a grip on what was going on with Don and his minions.
There were twenty or so undead converging on three people—one of them very recognizable as Don Evans, and another as Natasha. Don was sporting a sword that looked like a stolen prop from the Conan movies. It was massive and unwieldy, which was the first reason it made a terrible zombie killing weapon. I watched as Natasha ducked just in time to avoid being clipped by Don’s swing as he took down a pair of undead by cutting them in half at the waist. That would be the other reason it made a poor choice. Of course, the outfit he was wearing was also something out of a bad fantasy movie. The fur cape he had over his shoulders looked like a bear skin rug that had been pilfered from the Playboy mansion. His torso was crisscrossed by what looked like a few leather straps you might find in a fetish store. I rubbed at my good eye in disbelief.
“Is he wearing assless chaps?” Marshawn snorted.
“Umm…yeah, it looks like he is,” I replied.
“I would give anything to see a zombie bite him on his bare behind,” the woman sniffed. “He was always a jerk, and I’m not surprised to see that this is the person behind all this nonsense.”
I craned my neck around to look at the woman again. She was becoming more than a curiosity. First it had been her pinkish house where Don’s group had slipped down the side of to escape, now it seemed that she’d known the man I equated with evil personified at least on some level before the apocalypse.
She looked over and saw three sets of eyes locked on her. I assumed we all had the same questioning looks on our faces.
“He lived two houses over from Mikki and me,” the woman began. “Shortly after we first moved in, signs started showing up on our front lawn saying things like ‘Carpet munchers not welcome’ and that sort of thing. We finally put in a security camera and caught him. We knew right away who it was since we saw the guy basically every weekend when he would work out in his yard or on his car. He’d usually have some vapid bimbo draped on him. Basically, I knew he was a jerk, I guess I just had no idea to what extent.”
I wanted to hear more, but this wasn’t the best time or place. “So, what do we do?” I asked the group, cocking my head towards the small battle raging in the field about forty or fifty yards from where we all crouched.
“I say we let it play out and see if the zombies do our work,” Marshawn offered. That received a unanimous collection of nods.
I turned back as Don practically cleaved another zombie in half, his sword shattering rib bones as it almost completely sliced through the body. I was reminded of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive for some reason as viscera flew, splattering the living and the undead like it was being thrown from buckets.
Natasha had an aluminum bat with spikes jutting from it. I had no idea how they’d managed such a feat, but the damage the weapon dealt was impressive. When she spun our direction, I saw the butt of a pistol jutting from the waist of her jeans. Of the three, she was the only one dressed in what would’ve been considered normal clothing before the apocalypse. A pair of jeans and a simple black pullover shirt was it for her. I couldn’t see her shoes, but most people didn’t get bit on the foot, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. I couldn’t get over how casual she was taking everything. She would swing, drop a zombie, and then move on to the next one. She moved with an economic frugality that screamed fearless confidence.
At one point, I thought her confidence or cockiness—whatever the case might be—almost cost her as she moved in to attack a pair of undead. She hadn
’t seen the one that stumbled out of a nearby bush almost directly behind her.
It was strange, but I actually had to fight the urge to call out a warning. It managed to get a grip on her shoulder just as she brought her bat down in a ferocious overhead smashing blow that pulverized the top of the head of her target. The one that grabbed her leaned in, and I thought we were about to see one of Don’s lackeys bite the bullet, but she did this forward roll move and came up already facing her attacker. With one swing, her bat connected (literally) to the side of the zombie’s head, ending its existence in an instant.
“Damn,” Marshawn whispered. “Too bad she’s on the wrong side of this situation.”
“She’s kind of a bad ass,” I agreed.
She yanked the spiked weapon free and moved to stand at Don’s back. Together, the pair began to move towards the broken fence of the house nearest their location. It was immediately clear, at least to me, that they—Don and Natasha—were abandoning the third and final member of what remained of their group.
This poor unsuspecting fool had a machete in her hand and was surrounded on all sides by a tightening noose of the walking dead. I doubted that there was any chance the person could be saved unless a daring and dangerous attempt was made to do so, but I did not believe for a moment that Don even considered that possibility. I don’t think an attempt would’ve been made even if the odds were significantly better.
Just then, it seemed that the woman realized what was happening and called out for Don and Natasha to help her. She received no verbal reply, but Don drew a pistol from its holster. In that single moment, there were a number of possibilities. I was foolish enough to believe that he might at least provide his former minion a quick death. I could not have been more wrong.
The gunshot rang out, and for that single instant, it was the only sound that could be heard. The sounds of the undead and the whispers of those gathered beside me were all drowned out in that one split second. If only it would’ve stayed that way.
