by TW Brown
“They weren’t one of us and hadn’t ever stepped a foot inside our community,” Debra explained when Reggie seemed to be confused by the response.
Joel didn’t listen to any more of the talk. He edged past and resumed his trek towards the towers. He’d seen a few people looking out in their direction, but obviously self-preservation had taken over as the first person flung a leg over the rail of the balcony and planted his or her feet against the edge before pushing out and lowering themselves with a hand-over-hand method.
Picking up the pace, Joel continued to scan the area in the direction that the pair who’d popped off the door and left the noisemaker vanished. By the time he and his group had reached the intersection of Harmon Avenue and Audrie Street, he’d managed to catch one more glimpse of something moving too fast to be one of the living dead.
They’d been moving in a crouch and using the abandoned vehicles that were becoming a bit more prevalent in this area for some reason as cover. They’d crossed Audrie and made their way towards the parking structure across from the towers. All they needed to do now was cross Harmon and they would be on the same block. That was the easy part.
Below them, on the streets, the undead were plentiful. In some places, there were so many that the entire section of road would be impossible to cross as the zombies were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder. These groups were starting to mass up and collect others as they moved in the general direction of the planted noisemaker.
Joel signaled a halt as they watched the first person reach the bottom of the improvised bedsheet emergency exit rope. The individual looked around and then dropped. As soon as he or she landed, they rushed the nearest zombie and took it down.
Joel expected the person to make a run for it in some predetermined direction that would hopefully provide safety. He was momentarily surprised when the person ran for the busted open door, stabbing and chopping through the numerous zombies that had reached this particular opening. When the person disappeared into the dark opening where the door had been, Joel understood. His guess was confirmed a few seconds later when the person emerged with the device and took off through the palm trees and headed away from his position and along Harmon.
Moments later, the person vanished around the corner on the far side of the driving range that sat across the street from the towers: Topgolf or something, Joel believed was the place’s name. He looked up and was surprised to see the bedsheet rope being hauled back up.
“Wonder how they chose the person for that job?” Debra said with the slightest hint of amusement in her voice. “The person either lost a lottery draw, pissed somebody off, or was brave to the point of stupid.”
“Well, it worked.” Joel pointed as the stream of undead changed course, moving away from the doorway.
“Yeah, so what’s our next move?” Reggie asked with a dismissive shrug of the shoulders. “Thought we were here to recue your people and increase the numbers of our army.”
Joel made sure to clear his face of any emotion before he turned to face the man. “Yes, but this is the part where we assess the scene and then choose the path least likely to have us joining the numbers of the dead heads.”
“I say we hop down onto the roof of that credit union drive-thru,” Will suggested, indicating the nearby single-story building.
Joel nodded and the team started making the jump one by one. When it was Joel’s turn, he thanked whatever powers-that-be for his relatively good health. His desire to stay fit made it less likely that he would blow a knee or break his hip. Still, when his feet left the relative safety and sturdiness of the monorail track, his mouth went dry and his bowels clenched. The landing was much worse than he expected and for a moment he thought that perhaps he’d shattered both his knees despite his tuck-and-roll landing.
A hand appeared in front of his face and he looked up to see Debra offering him some help to his feet. He accepted, and when she pulled him up, she kept the momentum going enough to bring Joel in close so that she could whisper in his ear.
“Your landing was shit…if you’re hurt you need to shake it off in front of these pricks…and I want to be the one to kill that prick, Reggie, when this is over.”
Joel pulled back and regarded the woman with a raised eyebrow. Was she that good at reading his expressions, or was he that bad at hiding them?
“Last straw was when he wanted to know if he should kill off his people. That was where you drew the line,” Debra said softly, barely moving her lips so that Joel wasn’t sure if he’d just been fortunate enough to read them, or she had indeed spoken loud enough so that he could barely hear her.
Joel cleared his head once again as he regarded Debra. He felt a twinge of concern at her obvious ability to read him. He would have to make certain that he maintained somewhat of a poker face in her presence.
When the last person finally made it across, the entire group climbed to street level on the backside of the building. The few zombies in the parking lot were easily taken down by the time everybody was on the ground and Joel started off towards Harmon on the direction opposite of what the person carrying away the noisemaker had gone.
There was a small alcove on the corner with what looked like a power meter setup against the back wall. That would allow them to climb up and over easier. Joel decided that he should go first in order to assess the scene.
He was just pulling himself up to the top of the wall when a blast of feedback like you would hear from a bullhorn echoed up and down the streets. He froze, initially fearing that they’d been spotted and things were about to get nastier if that were somehow possible.
“You have refused all my demands that you surrender yourselves,” a familiar female voice crooned. “I promised your salvation and you spurned my gift. How could you refuse to be able to sit at the feet of God? Is living a life steeped in sin and evil so precious to you? And now…you will perish. Your death will come to you at the hands…and teeth of those who, like you, refused his mercy when it was offered freely.”
“I’ve got ‘em,” Debra hissed. She pointed to the pink-hued building across the street. “It’s coming from the Carriage House.”
Joel had almost narrowed it down himself and was glad for the confirmation that he’d been looking in the correct general direction. The only problem facing them was that the building was surrounded at least twenty deep from what he could see. The brick wall that ran along the side of the building had been breached in at least three places. Two locations looked as if cars had crashed through and one had obviously been blown open by some form of explosives.
“You can try to send your people down one at a time, but eventually you will run out of bodies,” the female voice continued. “We will just keep planting those noisemakers. Your undead brothers and sisters will keep coming in waves. Perhaps you can save us all the time and just come down and accept their embrace. Your fate is sealed…the sooner you accept it the better.”
“Okay, we’ve tip-toed as much as possible. It is time to get our hands dirty,” Joel said after the last member of the team had climbed over the wall to now stand inside the decimated grounds of the Signature Towers.
He hadn’t been able to tear his eyes from the one tower that had been practically demolished. The debris strewn about reminded him of what he’d seen on television a few years back when a bunch of warped radicals had crashed airplanes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. In his mind, it didn’t matter what religion you followed, the moment you started calling for the death of people who did not see things your way…you were perverting the ideology, and thus, a danger to the world around you.
His secondary mission here was to extract Conrad and his people in order to bulk the numbers of his community. His first task was to rid the world of the plague of this particular band of zealots. He shook his head to clear the doubts. Shouldn’t rescuing Conrad come first? That had been the mission he recruited his people for. The idea of adding to their numbers needed to be a priority…didn’t it?
“I think we would be best served to keep our group together.” Joel’s eyes flicked towards Reggie. The man had the look of a person seeing a buffet after being deprived food for weeks as he eyed the zombies in the distance that were clustered around the main entrance to the first of the two remaining towers.
“He won’t be a problem.” Will stepped up beside Debra and tapped the blade on his right hip. “Let me take him and a mix of ours and theirs inside that tower to see if we can get to the people.”
“That leaves the rest of us to take out those fruit loops,” Debra said, licking her lips in an almost sexual expectation of the coming fight.
“Conrad is the priority. Tell him I sent you and if they have kids, you need to pull him aside and let him know the rules.” Joel clapped Will on the shoulder and the men nodded at each other.
“Reggie, grab two of your people,” Will barked. “We are going inside the tower to see if we can get to the survivors.” As he walked away, he pointed to three of the volunteers that had come along. Joel almost vetoed Malik’s inclusion, but Will needed people who were good in a fight.
He watched as the team of seven dashed across the debris-filled swimming pool area and vanished into the ruined decorative vegetation. As soon as they emerged and hurried up the stairs to where the door had been removed and the noisemaker planted, he turned back to the others.
“This is not a capture mission,” Joel said to the remaining people in his group. “We are going in with the intention of maximum death count. No survivors. Is that clear?”
There were a few nods, but most just stared back grim-faced. One of the bikers raised a hand. “Everybody? I mean…what if we find women or children?”
“Maybe you weren’t listening, but that voice spewing nonsense was a woman. As for children…we don’t take children. You would be doing them a favor by giving them a quick ending.” Debra stepped forward and glared at the group. “If you aren’t on board yet, this is your last chance. Once you enter our community, there is no going back. We have an edict against children being brought in. They are an unnecessary drain on resources that will be too precious to spare for any who can’t pull their weight in the community.”
Joel hadn’t planned on saying anything quite so gruff, but he had to admit…it was the truth. He scanned the bikers and was not surprised when three more stepped away from the group.
“You gonna kill us like you did those others?” the woman with tattoos creeping up her neck asked with a sweet voice that was definitely at odds with her gruff exterior.
“Nope.” Now it was Joel’s turn. He was tired of the delays. It was time to get down to business. “Those people were ours, they deserted having sworn to our charter. You have never set foot inside our compound. You don’t know anything about our defenses or actual numbers.”
The trio of bikers that had stepped aside started to confer. Joel decided he didn’t have time for any more nonsense.
“Talk amongst yourselves if you want, but we’re moving out.”
Without another word, Joel started towards the storage buildings at the edge of the outdoor swimming area. He climbed up again and saw that the undead were thinning a bit, but there were still too many that had been drawn by the noisemaker in the area.
He had to wonder again how these things operated. On the surface, they seemed very simplistic. He was hoping that his deductions about their behavior was correct in that they would head after a sound and simply continue in that direction until something drew them in another.
He was about to find out. Easing down from the top of the wall, he looked down at the group.
“I need one volunteer.” He let his eyes scan the people massed below him. He was surprised to see that the three dissenters had apparently changed their mind about leaving and were still with the group. “There is a plus and minus to this mission. The good part is that you won’t be in the battle with these folks.” He hiked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the Carriage House. “The bad news is that there are still too many zombies in this area. We need to pull some of them away.”
“And how do you plan on us doing that?” one of the bikers asked, his voice more curious than upset or challenging.
“We use their own trick. The volunteer will make as much noise as possible and try to draw at least the mob on Audrie Street away.”
There was a moment of silence until one of the original three that had shown hesitation in continuing on with the mission stepped forward. “I’ll do it,” the tattooed woman said. “What should I use to make noise?”
“Bang on cars with the flat part of that axe on your belt,” Joel suggested. “It’s really only important that you make some noise and get as many of them to follow you as possible.”
The woman sighed. She turned to one of the other bikers and shrugged out of her small pack. “Take this. Something tells me that I’m gonna need to be able to run, climb, and who knows what else. If we both make it to the other side…I’ll get it from you then.”
“Okay…hug or whatever you need to do and then let’s get this show on the road,” Debra scolded.
“I’m about to risk my ass for you…maybe show a little courtesy?” the woman shot back.
“Yeah…you’re risking your ass and can basically run anywhere you want.” Debra stepped close to the woman until their noses were almost touching. “The rest of us are about to charge into what will likely be a nasty shootout against an unknown number of hostiles. Forgive me if I don’t lean over and kiss your ass.”
The woman’s mouth opened and then shut again. She pulled the hand axe free from the loop at her hip and climbed up to the top of the wall. She looked back at Joel and gave a nod. He returned it, and then she was gone.
A few seconds later the harsh clang of metal on metal sounded. The racket was punctuated by a terribly off-key rendition of what Joel thought might’ve been an old Pat Benatar song.
Moments later the sounds of gunfire came from within the tower where Will’s team had vanished. Joel peered over the top of the wall and saw that the herd in this area had thinned some. A small part of him wanted to wait just a few minutes more, but he knew from his time in Nam that battles often only last seconds. Every minute he delayed might be enough to cost them this fight. If they were going to strike, it had to be now.
“Let’s move,” Joel hissed, throwing one leg over the wall.
He landed on the ground just feet from a pair of walkers that were trying to turn around and face him with almost comical results as they bounced off each other in their uncoordinated effort to get at him.
Before they had a chance, Joel stuck one and then the other. He would not wait for the rest of his team any more than he would expect them to wait for him. Joel took off across the street, shoving zombies aside and, in one instance, grabbing one by the arm and slinging it into a small group that might present a problem if he didn’t get rid of a couple. His attempt was almost like some twisted version of bowling as his projectile-zombie stumble-slammed into the little cluster.
A few fell backwards and that was enough to create a domino effect beyond his hopes. Only two remained standing, and neither were close enough to lay hands on him. It almost felt like he’d had to sprint the distance of four football fields, not simply the four lanes of this one street, but at last he reached the other side and jumped up, grabbing the top of the wall that bordered this part of the Carriage House and pulled himself up.
He shot one look over his shoulder and winced as he saw two of the bikers running for one of the breaches in the wall. Obviously they’d decided that the easiest way through was preferable to the clearest section of street. As he threw his other leg over and dropped to the ground, he heard a scream that quickly changed in register.
Looking around, Joel spotted a solid metal door—obviously some form of emergency exit—and sprinted for it. A blur passed him
as Debra sped past and vaulted up onto the stairs. She gave the door an experimental tug and then stepped back and to the side as she brought her shotgun around.
Joel held up and waited as Debra fired. There was a thundering boom and then she grabbed what was left of the handle and jerked the door open. A man inside the entrance was bringing his rifle to his shoulder, but Debra fired again, her blast catching the man in the chest, sending him staggering back, a splatter of red spraying the wall behind the man as his back was blown out.
“Anything that moves!” Joel shouted again as he charged in with Debra.
13
Pros Versus Joes
There was just a brief moment when Joel thought that maybe they would at least have an easy start of things. Then the sounds of footsteps approaching erased any such hope. And there were a lot of them.
Debra slammed into a door to their right, crashing through and splintering the frame. Joel followed suit and charged to the first door on his left. He felt a dull pain in his shoulder and winced as he smashed through and tumbled to the floor of an empty hotel room.
Scrambling to his feet, Joel pressed himself against the wall as three bikers and one of his own people charged in behind him. A fifth person was just reaching the doorway when a hailstorm of gunshots sounded. The woman was looking right at Joel as her body jerked and twitched. For some reason, he thought he saw the exact moment that life left her as the eyes dulled and she slumped to the floor.
Throwing the barrel of his M4 into the hall and pointing it in the general direction their attackers should be, Joel squeezed the trigger, sending a volley in return as the rest of his team joined either him, Debra, or busted in another door in a desperate attempt to find cover.
