George's Terms: A Zombie Novel (Z Is For Zombie Book 1)

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George's Terms: A Zombie Novel (Z Is For Zombie Book 1) Page 13

by catt dahman


  Mark slid next to Len, holding a heavy pipe. “I want to try some stealthiness if there is just one or two of them. I played baseball.”

  “It’ll be nasty work.”

  “Don’t we have to be quiet and get used to this sort of thing?”

  Clubs and fists would put them much closer to snapping jaws, but ammunition wouldn’t last forever; this might be the way of the future.

  Inside, two small children were with their mother; one child was a Red. Mark went for the mother while Kim grabbed the child to restrain it.

  Swinging back, Mark hit the woman in her head, causing skull shards, brains, and blood to fly. She went down in a gory mess, but still moved, trying to get to her feet; he swung twice more, making her head look like jelly, brains oozing out in a grey puddle.

  Len asked for the pipe. “I’ll get the kid; you did your job.” He swallowed before he could puke. He wanted to use the gun, but it was his turn to use a melee weapon.

  Shuddering, Kim pushed the child forward, its hissing, moaning, and odor of torn flesh made it a bit less than human.

  Len swung hard. The group looked on the bed at the last child, trying to crawl down to bite them. Luckily, he was caught up, tangled in tubes and tape that once had helped him when he was alive.

  “Fuckers.” Kim took the pipe and finished the job, groaning each time he bashed the child in the head.

  All four men had gone wide-eyed with disgust and horror at what they had seen or done; Bryan vomited, again. This united them in a terrible way, but they all had managed to take out zeds, using blunt objects, and sometimes, it might be necessary to do so again, without hesitating over the violence. Kim paused to vomit before they moved on.

  Another x.

  In the next room, Mark was a split second from using the pipe when he stopped in mid-step. A little girl sat in a chair, weeping. She looked up with her tear-stained face, filled with a look of horror and dread as she cringed away from the four, gore-soaked, tall men who stood over her, carrying big guns and looking very angry.

  Her name was Toni, and while waiting to be rescued, she had survived on water from the sink and snacks in the room. She had been admitted to the hospital for bee stings, which were now healed. With only faint pinpoints covering her face and arms, he tried to show them where the bees had stung her.

  “Mama went to get me a soda. Then everything fell in, and I waited.” She was angry, crying pitifully. “Don’t hurt me.”

  Len felt guilty about the bloody pipe and guns they carried, “We are looking for any bad guys. We can get you a soda and something to eat. I know you’re hungry.”

  “Is Mama with you?”

  “Let’s get you out of here, and we can figure out about your mama, okay?”

  “You’re strangers.” She shook in fear.

  Len felt a temper tantrum coming on from Toni as she looked at them in stark fear.

  They whispered for Tink, and after a few minutes, he collected Toni and her stuffed bear in his arms, promising her food, a visit with Dallas, and safety.

  The gentle giant of a man had an instantly calming effect on Toni, as they knew he would. She allowed him to pick her up from the chair and carry her out.

  In a few minutes, Julia reported that the others in the cafeteria and on the teams had almost cheered to see a survivor who raised spirits as they faced the rest of the search.

  “A bright spot in all this mess,” Kim mumbled.

  “Wish there were brighter and less nasty,” Bryan said.

  Using Sally’s keys, they found supplies that she and Doc needed; these were quietly relayed to where they were needed.

  “Lobby is ahead with a hall branching off; then rooms are beyond the lobby. It’s dark in there with a lot of downed rubble…a really big mess with hiding spots for bad guys, so we need to be careful of anything hiding in there. It isn’t small either…so keep alert.”

  They angled to one side, seeing movement in the rubble.

  It was amazing to see so many rooms that had fallen, mostly into an intact section of the huge hospital. This part had an uneven, buckled floor and was filled with trash from above, some of the trash six feet tall or more, chairs and tables, desks, and plaster tossed in all directions.

  “Oh shit.” Mark jumped to the side. They saw a hand, moving from beneath the trash, the hand that had grabbed at his boot. It searched and crawled like a spider. “Where’s the head?”

  Positioning around and searching, they found the rest of the person, his head hardly showing. Bryan took a turn, jabbed the pipe in hard through the eye, cracking the skull, popping the eyeball, and causing a wet plop sound. He dry heaved.

  The back-up team moved in quietly, Roy leading after taking Tink’s place. Without warning, a zed man lunged at them from behind concrete, making them scatter in response. Julia, Beth, and Hagan scrambled back and were now closer to the unexplored hallway.

  Mark jabbed and swung at the man, but he didn’t go down; Mark fell amid the trash.

  Len and Bryan scrambled farther into the lobby, looking for a shot to help Mark as Kim swung in closer. No one could get a clear, unobstructed shot in the confusion.

  Across the lobby, zeds began moaning, filing out from a room, and pulling themselves from rubble.

  Bodies dug themselves up from bricks and metal and pushed chairs aside to stand, even though they had crushed, smashed, and torn arms and legs, bleeding holes in chests, and ripped open stomachs and breasts.

  Fingers and hands had been mashed away, noses and the flesh of their faces hung in bits and pieces, joints were ripped to unnatural angles. Seeing the zeds dig themselves out was like watching corpses rise from graves.

  Hagan and the women were pushed further the opposite way as they stepped away from the zeds.

  “Hold your fire,” Len yelled, “use the rifle stock. Check fire.”

  In their positions now, there were fewer shots that would hit one of their own. As jumpy and untrained as they were, Len waited, unhappily, for a shot to hit one of the team. He slammed his rifle down on a head, bursting it like a ripe melon.

  Mark held back the man attacking him as Kim swung at his head, but the man luckily kept dodging as he tried to bite Mark. Everything was happening as fast as lightning, but also, at the speed of molasses. It was surreal.

  When the third team asked what was happening, someone yelled that Mark was down, and after a wail, Misty ran into the lobby, screaming for Mark.

  Len saw everything going straight to hell; it was a bag of dicks, but it could get worse.

  And it did.

  “I told you I heard rescuers.”

  A dozen people came pouring from the rooms across the lobby where the team had been headed. They called enthusiastically to their rescuers.

  Now, the teams had no shots, almost two dozen excited people were in the middle, and zeds came out of the rubble, lurching at them from all over. There had to be thirty who had come from the rooms across the lobby, moaning as they shambled.

  The newcomers didn’t skirt the lobby but ran down the center where it was clear of trash; as Roy and George went to them, the retreat was effectively cut off but for Misty, who stood looking and wailing at Mark on the ground and Kim who couldn’t get a sure swing.

  “Do not fire. People, get back,” Len yelled at everyone at the same time as he took a breath and fired, hoping his aim was good enough.

  The man attacking Mark went down with a bullet to the head just as Kim cracked the man’s skull. Unfortunately, it was seconds too late. Len should have let Kim fire.

  Mark was up in a flash, grabbing Misty as he and Kim tried to get closer to George and Roy. Len and Bryan dodged rubble to get to the middle where several were fighting with zeds.

  A woman went down with her throat ripped out, spraying blood everywhere while a teen screeched as his fingers were being torn off by the teeth of some gory man who shared the ‘prize’ with another man who was ripping at the teen’s shoulder.

  George and Roy
were able to step in to swing at heads, hoping to crush them, but a woman, running manically, slammed into George, knocking him into the twisted metal and bricks.

  Bryan and Len roughly grabbed the running people to push them back closer to the lobby walls, yelling for them to stop running and to be still.

  Mark got George up, and they, with Kim and Roy, finished taking out each zed, searching the trash for any hidden zeds, and getting the new survivors to the relative safety of the wall. It felt as if the battle had lasted for hours, yet it had all happened in less than five minutes.

  Their path of retreat was now open, guarded and defended by the third team who had rushed in and turned the tide. Chauncey, Big Bill, and Johnny had fired so skillfully that they alone had provided George with the chance to get to his feet and for the second team to rally.

  In the center, Kim had slammed skulls, beaten hands back that reached for them, and had known that he, Mark, Misty, and Roy were in a bad spot.

  George had gone down, and they hadn’t known immediately if the woman who crashed into him was a zed or a survivor. Chaos ruled. Kim had seen the woman snagged by a zed; George was finally able to shoot with his Sig.

  The woman’s face was partially torn open, and Misty, her pretty face in a grimace of anger and fear, shot the woman point blank with a small handgun. Misty hated these things, but it didn’t dawn on her that the woman had not yet turned and was still human; she only saw blood and felt fury.

  When Kim first heard the shots, he expected one to hit him, but the third team had been concentrating on the edges, thereby allowing Len and Bryan to get there to help.

  When the last skull crumbled in a pie of yellow-white shards and mushy brains and the last shot went in, Kim called out, “I love you, Johnny, Big Bill, and Chauncey.”

  Bryan gathered the seven new survivors.

  “Len, Guys,” Johnny called.

  “Just a sec.” Len had wanted to get all of the people gathered, calm and safe, back to the cafeteria as soon as possible. He was still thinking of the lobby behind those screens and the danger, waiting there. There still might be zeds there, hiding in the junk that lay everywhere.

  Nothing was going fast enough, and yet, it was flying by before he could even get his head around most of it. He had too much going on in his head. What did they need to do first?

  “No, Len. I mean now,” Johnny persisted.

  “What?” he knew his tone was too short tempered. He was trying to think.

  “Bobby and Warren went that way to help Hagan and the girls.” Johnny pointed to the hall that branched away.

  “Beth?” Kim called.

  Nothing moved, and the hall was in shadows.

  Something moaned.

  20

  Bringing it Back Home

  “Slow down,” Len ordered Kim. “I want the survivors briefed and taken back to Doc and Sally to be checked for bites. George goes with them to be checked, also. Mark, too. Get a team, Roy, and watch that lobby. Bryan, you handle all the rest but the lobby; after you get everyone to the cafeteria, join Roy. Don’t start anything, but fight if necessary.”

  “Len.”

  “You do what I said, Mark, help Roy and Bryan.” Len knew they all felt as if they should help him. “Kim goes with me, and I want Johnny, Big Bill, and Chauncey.”

  “You got it, Major,” Johnny said. Big Bill, who never said much, glanced at Chauncey with pride at having been chosen.

  Len felt shitty that any one would feel pride for having been picked to risk his life. “We’re going to get Hagan and the ladies. And if you get into a fight, give Misty some practice since she’s determined to jump into battles.”

  Kim was already moving towards the hallway. The rest followed, scanning the floor carefully, amazed at what they saw and didn’t see. There were several zeds with skulls crushed and blood splattered, showing that the five had come this way, unable to get clear shots but dispatching threats. Yet none of the five were in the hall.

  Johnny turned around in a circle. “Where are they?”

  There were no doors, and the short hall ended in a wall of jagged cement, metal, and bricks, with no way through. It was as if the five had simply vanished. “Here.” Kim stared into a dark maw next to the wall where the floor had fallen in.

  It was apparent the floor had given way beneath the five as they retreated.

  Len sent Chauncey for rope, hoping he could hurry, despite the other activities going on, the lobby full of zeds and the unruly survivors, trying to get to the cafeteria.

  Kim was about to bolt through the hole and go on his own; Len knew because he felt the same way. To keep them both busy, Kim and he looked over the hallway again and found nothing but the zeds that had been taken down; there was nothing to indicate anyone had been injured. Len, Johnny, and Kim, smoked.

  “We have to find them.”

  “And we will. Damn, Kimball, you know Hagan is a bad ass, so is Julia. Beth is tough and smart as hell, and they have Billy and Warren with them. That’s not a bad team at all,” Len said.

  “Why don’t they answer?”

  “I dunno, Kim, but we’ll find out. We have no reason to think they aren’t okay. Give the girl some credit for being smart and tough.”

  Chauncey came running back with the rope.

  “That was fast.”

  “They relayed the rope to me.” Chauncey grinned.

  They kept guns and lights on Kim as he went down first. “Not bad…about twelve feet,” he called back.

  It was a dark space about ten by ten with a body to the side.

  Big Bill squatted next to Billy, who was dead. “Damn. Went through him like shit through a goose.”

  A sharp pipe had gone through Billy’s lower back and up through his stomach, washing him with crimson gore. It looked as if Billy had been skewered when they fell to the floor.

  “Blood here, too. Someone else is hurt.” Johnny pointed to the ground. “Then it stops. Must have bandaged the wound.” Metal poked out close to the blood.

  “Doesn’t look too bad, either,” Len said. He jumped up, almost falling over as they scrambled to one side. Moans echoed from a dark crack in the wall, and a hand reached out, searching.

  “Is it stuck in the crack? God, that’s creepy,” Johnny said.

  “They fell, and Billy was killed. They heard the moans and saw the hand. Those gals never carry a light, so I am guessing Hagan may have had one. Billy’s was broken. Warren wouldn’t have had one. So there was only one light down here with that moaning from there,” Kim said. “Shut it up; I can’t think.”

  Big Bill grinned, took a pipe, and began jabbing it into the crack until something crackled and the thing stopped making noise.

  “Thanks,” Kim said. “With little light and their having lost Billy’s, there was big stress. They were being quiet ‘cause they couldn’t determine how big the crack was, if anyone could get to them, or even how many there were.”

  “This is why he’s a private investigator.” Johnny patted Kim’s back. “So little light, scared, zeds after them, and more could have come along and fallen in with them in here.”

  “They were literally backed against a wall,” Len said.

  “Right. So what did they do?”

  Len darted forward, lifted Billy’s head a little, and looked closely. “Hagan. He is a real zombie movie buff, I know…weird, but what he did was this; he used his knife and cut the brain stem.”

  “Wicked! Why?” Chauncey looked at the make shift surgery.

  “Cause they didn’t want the zed in the crack to get out and turn Billy into one of those things. But they couldn’t wait ‘til he bled out; he was hurting something awful.”

  “They could have.” Johnny made a bashing motion with her rifle.

  “Warren or the girls wouldn’t be ready for that yet. Hagan watched the movies; he told me about the brain stem; he was smart and had finesse; he did it this way.”

  Kim was impatient. “Okay. So where?” He went to
the small area again. “There.” He showed them some hand and foot holds on a wall with a hole above.

  “Makes sense. But they’re going farther away from us.”

  “Hagan did it before. And they didn’t have a choice, they thought. Besides, they knew we’d come for them. They are looking to hole-up,” Len said.

  “But Hagan isn’t the one hurt,” Kim muttered. “He’s the one helping them climb; they’d need his muscle to do that.” He took hold of a pipe, tested it, and began climbing. It was difficult.

  Despite both being strong, Chauncey and Johnny both needed a hand up, making everyone feel Kim was right in his guess.

  Once they had climbed up, they were in a long, but low-ceilinged area. Rewarded with a more open space, they breathed hard, falling back onto the floor, next to a circle of trash someone had left as a sign.

  Kim grabbed part of a bandana from the circle. “Hagan is claustrophobic,” Kim told them as they rested.

  Len cast his flashlight over the area, a large area that they’d be able to walk in. He wondered if again they would find other rooms and lobbies full of the monsters. They didn’t have the manpower to handle a horde. He told them they all needed to be very quiet.

  One way out was a fairly tight crawl on a downward slope. The only other way they could go was up, again through sludgy water

  Len stood, and then dropped back as a volley of bullets pinged around his head. “Shit fire, Hagan. Julia, it’s us. Stop shooting.”

  Chauncey swore as he dropped back down.

  “He’s a live one,” someone said.

  “He’s got a gun.”

  Len silently made a series of intricate, complicated motions to his team, each nodded, understandingly.

  “Hey, asshole, you shot me,” Chauncey yelled; unfortunately he was serious, muttering as Len tied bandanas around his upper arm.

  “You have guns.”

  “But I didn’t shoot you,” Chauncey yelled back.

  “How many with you?”

  Len yelled now, “Two. How many with you?”

 

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