“Ain’t it a nice night for a picnic?” Benny asked. “The stars are twinklin’ away, ah, so peaceful here!”
“You’re fucking crazy, man!” Cory spat as he jumped down from the transport, voice full of venom.
Benny laughed and smashed the butt of his gun into Cory’s face. “Come on now, chocolate!” he called to Zion, who was taking his sweet time not moving from his seat.
The guy with the mangled face ran his fingers through Monique’s hair, pressing the barrel of his handgun into her cheek so hard her skin puckered around it.
“Should I shoot her in the face?” he growled. “Or shoot out a kneecap so that she’s easy picking for the zombies?”
Zion clenched his jaw and got up, shuffling forward to the edge of the truck bed. Benny kicked out as he jumped, knocking his legs out so that he hit the asphalt hard on his side with a grunt.
“Ta ta, chumps!” Benny proclaimed, waving as he bounded back to the passenger’s seat. The mangled-faced soldier shoved Monique down roughly on top of her brother.
Zion glared up at him. “See you soon,” he promised.
The soldier sneered and jogged back to the driver’s seat, peeling out in a loud display of tire squealing.
“What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do?” Tom began to hyperventilate. “Ohfuckohfuckohfuck-”
“Hey,” Brent said firmly not not unkindly, “calm down. Deep breaths.”
“Turn around, man,” Cory said to Jerry, and the two shuffled back to back, trying to untie each other.
Tom began to rock back and forth. “We’re gonna die, we’re gonna die.”
“No we’re not, it’s okay,” Brent cooed. “How many times have I gotten you outta shit? I got you.”
Zion looked around, and wandered off towards a busted down car on the far side of the lot. Monique furrowed her brow, and then jumped at the feel of someone at her back, turning her head to see Calvin shimmying up behind her to do the same as Cory and Jerry.
Zion squatted down in front of the car, where the front tire was gone and the car rested on a rim, and used the jagged metal to cut through his ropes. He stood up and tried the driver’s side door, but it was locked. He thrust his elbow into the window, and it shattered upon impact. He reached in to unlock the door and searched the car, finding nothing useful. He popped the trunk and rummaged around, pulling out a tire iron and slamming it closed again.
At this point the group of untied prisoners approached him warily, Tom still blubbering as Brent dragged him along, regrouping next to the busted car. The zombie groans echoed even louder. They didn’t have much time.
“Jerry, head on down the driveway and see how many zombies they are and how close they are,” Zion instructed, and his friend nodded, running off. “Monique, Cory, Calvin, everyone take a side and look down at nearby buildings to see if there’s anywhere we can escape to from up here.” They too left, and he turned to Brent. “You keep babysitting Tom.”
“Hey, fuck you,” the leader of the complex let go of the moaning man, who fell hard on his ass but didn’t seem to notice. Brent crossed his arms. “I’m the one in charge. You listen to me. And don’t ever-”
Zion lashed out and gripped his collar, jerking his face inches from his own. His eyes were hard as steel, shocking Brent into stunned silence.
“Your stupidity fucked us,” he said, voice low and menacing. “You wanna be the boss at the complex, fine. But we ain’t at the complex no more. You in my territory now, bitch. So either do what I say, or get the fuck outta my way.”
Brent swallowed hard.
“Hey Z!” Monique called. “I found something!”
Zion let go of the ex-leader and ran to his sister, who was pointing below.
“There’s a building close enough to the second floor, we can jump to the roof,” she said.
“Thousand zombies!” Jerry yelled, huffing as he pumped his legs to crest back up to where they were. “One floor down! We gotta move!”
Zion pursed his lips as everyone made their way to his and Monique’s position, even Brent dragging Tom along. He looked over the edge, and took a deep breath.
“We’re gonna have to climb down,” he said.
Jerry snorted. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me? That’s some parkour shit.”
“Come on, it’ll be just like climbing trees as a kid,” Calvin put in, clapping his comrade on the back. “Just with a bigger threat of death.”
“No, no, no,” Tom burst into a fresh set of panicked gasps. “I’m pushing two-fifty and get winded walking to my car… there’s no way I can do that!” He scrubbed his hands down his face.
Zion pointed to the driveway, the shuffling and groaning growing louder and louder. “That’s your other option,” he said firmly. “Choice is yours.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“So watch me,” Zion instructed, gripping the side of the cement wall and hopping over. He anchored his feet against the outside, hanging off of the top with firm hands. “I’m going to hang and drop, and bounce with my feet off of the next level. That’ll make me bounce back, and I’ll have to grab on and pull myself up with my hands. Once I’m down there I’ll be there to help catch you. Monique, you come after me.”
She nodded nervously, but there was trust in her gaze. She knew that her brother would never let her fall.
They all leaned over as he let go, bouncing gracefully for his size and then hopping down, just as he’d said, grasping on to the next level down with his strong hands and vaulting back over to the floor below. He immediately popped back out, anchoring his body so he could help catch Monique as she dropped down.
“Come on!” he called, and she climbed over the side, letting her legs dangle. She swung a little just like she’d seen him do, and then dropped, stumbling when her feet landed on the ledge, but her brother grabbed her waist and pulled her in next to him. Calvin, Jerry, and Cory nodded their understanding and went in succession, the latter two finding it fairly easy considering their upper body strength.
“Like a fuckin’ glove,” Jerry fist bumped his best friend and they shared a grin.
Brent went next, scowling when Zion had to steady him and get him onto their floor, not wanting to be shown up by the others. When Zion leaned back out, Tom was leaning over, white-faced, staring fearfully down at him.
“Come on, man!” Zion urged. “Don’t worry, we’ll catch you!”
Tom nodded jerkily, and ever-so-slowly eased his body over the edge, hanging from his hands.
“Let go!” Zion called.
Tom shook his head, unable to make his hands let go. “I can’t!” he screamed.
Brent poked his head out to look up at him. “It’s okay, Tom, let go, we’ve got you.”
Tom’s heart pounded in his ears, mouth parting in a terrified moan. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to will away his fear, will away the world… and then a zombie brushed up against his fingers, and the feeling of squishy rotted flesh caused him to panic, letting go of the concrete.
The rest of the group watched in horror as Tom plummeted to the roof that was their destination, his head meeting the concrete with a sickening splat.
A zombie screeched nearby, and Zion snapped his head around. “We got spotted,” he warned, and vaulted over to the outside of the wall, repeating his previous movements to get down to the next floor. Monique went next, and then Jerry and Cory hopped down simultaneously by themselves, helping to get Calvin and Brent back in.
The next floor was even more populated with the backlog of zombies from the street, but from this floor they’d be able to drop down to the roof that was their escape route, and Tom’s untimely grave site.
Jerry and Cory leapt over first, dropping down and tucking into expert rolls to minimize impact on the concrete. Calvin attempted that, and managed, though far less gracefully than his personal trainer friends.
“Hurry,” Zion urged his sister, and helped her over the edge. He lowered her hands as far as he could go, giving her a little l
ess of a drop than the others, and she crouched into the landing, safely hitting the ground on her feet.
Zion turned to motion for Brent to go next, just as a zombie made a lunge for the ex-leader’s arm. He reeled back with the tire iron, ramming it right through the corpse’s face.
“Go!” he cried, and Brent hopped over the wall, letting himself hang before dropping down. Zion followed suit, rolling into his own landing. He looked up at the horde on all three floors, pushing up against the walls like lemmings attempting to fall off the edge. Luckily for the group, the cement barricade was too high, trapping the corpses in the parkade.
Brent hissed, and Cory hooked an arm under his to help him to his feet.
“Looks like you rolled it, man,” the younger man declared, furrowing his brow. “Be careful putting weight on it, now.”
Brent tore his arm away. “I’m fine,” he muttered, and limped over to Tom. He shook his head as he stared down at the motionless body, glad that the fall had liquefied the man’s brain so he wouldn’t come back as one of those things.
“We gotta move,” Zion said quietly, and led the group across the roof to the only door, standing a tall silhouette in the early morning light.
They moved briskly, Brent skipping to avoid putting too much weight on his ankle, and thankfully the door was unlocked.
“I’ll go first, in case there’s any resistance,” Zion said, holding up the tire iron to accentuate the point that he was the only one with a weapon. He grasped the door handle and opened it a crack, listening for anything.
It was quiet inside, and he slowly moved into the stairwell, wandering down onto a massive expanse of cubicles. He strained his ears and didn’t hear any shuffling or groaning, so he leaned back into the stairwell and waved the others after him.
“Daily nine-to-five grind,” Jerry commented as he surveyed the office floor.
“Everyone spread out, try to find anything you can use to arm yourselves,” Zion instructed, waving his arm. He moved towards one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, squinting out over the street to see if he could get their bearings.
“This isn’t good,” Jerry commented from beside him, smacking a metal ruler against his palm. “They fucked us, man. It’s not going to be easy getting out of here.”
“You know the city better than me,” Zion admitted. “If it ain’t gonna be easy, at least what’s the least impossible?”
Jerry shook his head. “We’re about four blocks south of the Pearl District,” he mused. “If we can get over the Willamette River, then we can get out of downtown into residential areas.”
“The 405 is just behind us, right?” Zion asked.
Cory and Monique wandered over to them, each holding metal staplers.
“Yeah the 405 is going to be a mess,” Cory piped up, inserting himself into the conversation. “There’s no way we’ll make it over there. And it’s so open that there is no hiding from zombies kicking around. Of which there will be lots.”
“We could try the Broadway bridge,” Jerry replied, pursing his lips in thought.
Monique peered out the window to the street. “First things first, we need to figure out how to get outta this building,” she said.
CHAPTER NINE
There were zombies clustered around the front doors of the office building, all across the street, nearly shoulder to shoulder. Zion peered over the edge of the roof, holding a metal disc they’d found in one of the maintenance closets. He reeled back as if he were about to throw a discus and hucked it up the street, in the opposite direction to the way they needed to go.
The clang echoed brilliantly, and the zombies immediately turned to look for the source of the noise. As they headed towards it, Zion saw Monique open the front doors of the building, waving everyone out silently into the street. He nodded to her and then took off running for the far end of the roof, vaulting over the edge.
He hung for a second before dropping down on top of a dumpster as noiselessly as he could, hopping down into the alleyway below. He smashed in the head of a wayward corpse with his tire iron on the way down, leaving it crumpled next to the dumpster. He took off towards the group on the street in hopes of making it to the Broadway Bridge without detection.
It didn’t take long, however, to realize that their hopes weren’t going to get them very far. They were attracting too much attention by virtue of being such a large group. Brent skipped as quietly as he could behind them, but his rolled ankle wasn’t doing him any favors.
Zion made it to them, taking the lead and busting a few heads in the process. He shoved one corpse into another, knocking a few over like bowling pins, able to clear a path for them to continue block after block.
When they barreled around the corner to head towards the bridge, however, they skidded to a stop. At least a thousand zombies turned towards them all at the same time in a horrifying synchronized display.
“Guys!” Jerry cried as he and Cory fended off the zombies clustering in the rear.
Brent swung with the two-by-four he’d found in the maintenance closet, taking one down, but at least a dozen descended on Cory.
“No!” Jerry screamed, diving for his friend who disappeared under a mass of bodies, and Brent grabbed his arm to keep him from needlessly fighting into his own death.
“Back up!” Zion cried, motioning to the only open space that would back them against a building. “Look for an open window, something!” he called to Monique and Brent as he, Jerry and Calvin attempted to fend of the oncoming horde.
“INSIDE!” a voice boomed from a nearby rooftop, and Zion looked up to see a silhouette motioning to his left. About twenty yards away there was an unbarred window.
“This way!” he bellowed, leading the charge to the window. He continued to slash and stab and swing with his tire iron, clearing a path for the group to the building. He managed to reach the window and throw it open, stabbing a corpse to use as a barrier to that Monique and Calvin could boost Brent inside. They hopped in after him.
“Jerry, let’s go!” Zion yelled, but the ex-personal trainer was blind with rage, smacking down corpses in retribution for the death of his best friend. “Jerry!” The horde was closing in fast, and soon there wouldn’t be a path for him to get to the window.
Zion jumped up inside as the barrier he’d made crumpled under five zombies, and watched as Jerry swung around, his eyes widening with the realization that he’d waited too long. The sea of zombies between himself and the window was too thick. The remaining quartet watched with horror as he fought valiantly, but was quickly overtaken by the hungry corpses. Zion clenched his jaw and slammed the window shut with more force than was necessary, drowning out the happy groans of the munching zombies.
He didn’t say a word, only clenched his jaw as he pushed past them further into the building. It looked like it had been a machine shop once upon a time. The big bay doors had a few CNC lathing machines stacked up against them as a barricade, and a stern-looking older man with a shotgun stood at the base. His shoulders were square and his gun aimed at the group. His face betrayed no emotion.
“What in the ever-loving fuck were you doing out on the streets?” he demanded, voice gruff with age.
“Our home was overtaken by a power-tripping military maniac,” Zion replied, keeping his own shoulders back, tire iron firm in his hand. “We resisted, so his lackeys dumped us in the middle of the city as punishment.”
The man let out a deep breath and lowered his gun, scratching the back of his head. “That’ll be Holcomb, I bet,” he said. “As soon as the zombies started slowing down, they rolled on up through town, killing everyone they could find and taking their goods. We saw what they did to a neighboring group a few days back. It wasn’t pretty.” As he spoke, a small cluster of people came out of the shadows, all dressed in the same navy coveralls as the old man. “They don’t just kill people… they got creative.”
“Well it seems like they’ve found their new home,” Monique said bitterly. “Our apar
tment complex. It’s full of people that can barely fend for themselves. Now those soldiers are there, having exiled those of us who were taking care of the place. God knows what the hell they’re putting our friends through right now.”
“Probably nothing pleasant,” the man replied grimly. “Come on. We don’t have much in the way of supplies, but you can have some water.” He motioned for them to follow, and his group led the newcomers into what looked like it might have been a break room at one point. “Name’s Adam. I’d say it’s a pleasure to meet you all, but these aren’t exactly pleasant times.”
“Well it’s a pleasure on our end,” Calvin piped up. “If we hadn’t have met you, we would’ve been zombie chow.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Zion added quietly.
Monique reached the table first, where a middle-aged woman handed her a few bottles of water.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said with a smile.
Adam narrowed his eyes at Brent. “Why are you limping?” he asked, suspiciously.
Brent scowled.
“Don’t worry, he ain’t bit, he just rolled his ankle,” Monique said quickly, and Zion leaned back against the wall, letting her act the mediator. These people weren’t warriors—they didn’t need intimidation. They were just a scared group trying to survive the apocalypse. He knew his sister’s gentler bedside manner would be more appropriate here.
The woman who’d handed over the water took a step forward. “Have a seat, then,” she offered, pulling out a chair.
“You a doctor?” Brent raised an eyebrow.
She deadpanned. “Former middle school nurse,” she replied flatly, as if challenging him to say something.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” he muttered, in typical Brent fashion, and she pursed her lips as she sat across from him, lifting his leg none-too-gently into her lap.
Monique couldn’t help but crack a smile as he tried not to grimace. She startled when she realized Calvin was standing a hair away from her elbow, and raised her eyebrows at him. He crossed his arms, jutting out his chin, as if he were a wiry little kid playing at being a bodyguard.
Dead America The First Week (Book 7): Portland Page 3
