“What!? You’ve gotta go!” she said in a panicked voice.
“Why? What’s going on?”
Fear flashed across her face. “That gang! They’ll be back any minute.”
Another neighbor, carrying a blue crate, rushed past me with a terrified look on his face. Others were frantically loading their cars with their belongings in a hurry. I looked around in complete disbelief; everyone was terrified, running for their lives.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“They’re taking over,” she said. “They gave us one hour to get our stuff, and they said if we’re not out by the time they get back, we’re as good as dead. We’re lucky they’re giving us that. Other gangs would’ve killed us right on the spot and stole the clothes off our backs.”
I cocked a brow, not believing what I was hearing. “Are you sure they weren’t just—” I started to ask.
“They already killed four people,” she said.
“Is Sammy okay?” I asked as she hastily walked off.
She didn’t answer.
“Mrs. Jaleno, where’s Sammy?” I asked louder.
When she didn’t answer, panic set in. I ran down the corridor and stopped at Sammy’s apartment. The door was ajar and slightly cracked, which I didn’t take for a good sign. With my gun drawn, I eased inside. Murmurs echoed from the bedroom, and I swallowed hard as a droplet of sweat rolled down my face. Is it a zombie? Was Sammy one of the four who were killed? Oh my gosh! Is she a zombie now? I couldn’t handle losing Sammy. My heart pounded as I took small footsteps toward the closed bedroom door.
Listening intently, I suspected what the outcome might be. If Sammy was a zombie, I would have to shoot her. The thought made me shudder. I had promised to protect her, told her I’d always have her back, and she was all I had. Her family had been murdered a year earlier, and I’d become somewhat of a big sister to her. If she’s dead, that’s it, I thought. I’ll pack up my dogs and go with Jack and the others, leave Philadelphia behind forever. If Sammy was gone, there was nothing left for me there but death and despair.
As my fingers curled around the doorknob, I held my gun steady. I took a deep breath and pushed the door open.
Instantly, someone knocked the gun out of my hands, catching me by surprise. A jarring impact hit me in the gut, knocking the breath out of my lungs.
Pain exploded across my stomach and I could hardly breathe. Trying to catch my breath, I looked up.
Sammy was tied to a chair, with a gag in her mouth, and all she could do was shoot me a terrified look.
“Sammy?” I whispered as I tried to stand up after the harsh kick to the midsection.
The taller man was dressed in black, and his blond, greasy hair was tied back in a ponytail. The other had acne scars, and his hair was short and black, with a matching, scruffy beard. I recognized them right away as gang members, and I was sure I’d arrested the blond before on deadly assault charges.
The blond pointed a gun at me and smiled. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” He turned to his friend. “I think I recognize that pretty policewoman.”
“Pretty? Ya ask me, she looks more like a drowned rat,” the other man said.
“Hey, Officer,” the blond said, licking his nasty lips, “maybe you oughtta frisk me. I can see you don’t got your nightstick, but I might have one you can borrow.”
Disgusted, I asked between gasps, “What do you want? What is she doing here, tied up like that?”
He looked at me with a cold glare. “What do we want? Well, sweet thing, we want this apartment, and we’ll have it. We already gave everybody their eviction notices.”
“You said you’d give them an hour,” I said.
“Yeah, and we did, but since this one insisted on givin’ me some lip, I figured I’d better hold her till Runo gets back. He’s gonna feed her to one of them slimy freaks to show the rest of the tenants what happens if they defy Runo.”
“You can have the apartment, if that’s what you want,” I said. “Just let us leave, and we’ll never come back.”
The man looked at his buddy and laughed. “Seems she don’t get the gist of what I’m sayin’, huh?”
“Nope,” his friend said, then spat a nasty, black, sticky ooze of tobacco remnant on the floor.
“Well, Smurfette, here’s, gotta pay for her smart mouth,” the blond said. “If ya run your mouth, you die. Them’s the rules, honey,” he said.
The black-haired one looked at me and shook his head. “Can you believe she walked through all them zombies to rescue this mouthy little—”
“Hey!” I said, sickened by their total disregard for me and for Sammy.
Ignoring me, the blond continued, “Apparently, she don’t know the number one rule.”
“I do,” I said. “Always have an exit strategy.”
He laughed, looked me up and down, then licked his lips again. “Nope.”
“Well, please enlighten me. I’m dying to know what I’ve been doing wrong all this time.”
His gaze narrowed. “Rule number one is pretty simple, darlin’. Don’t have one ounce of sympathy.”
“And why not?” I asked. “It’s the only thing that makes us different from those zombies out there.”
He laughed. “Heroes don’t simply survive, Copper—not in real life anyway. That only happens in those Hollywood flicks. You wanna live, you might have to step on some people along the way…and you sure as heck can’t let people go around mouthing off to you,” he said, glaring at Sammy, who just rolled her eyes at him.
The guy with the acne chuckled. “I’m thinkin’ the zombies might like to munch on a little pork. I say we feed the officer to ‘em too.”
“Hmm. I wonder how long she’ll last,” the blond said, scratching his chin.
“Longer than the last one, I’m sure.”
“Sounds like a plan. We’ll charge admission.”
Sizing up my opponent, I looked him in the eyes and showed him no fear.
“Don’t stare at me like that, Miss Piggy. You’re about to die,” the blond said.
I knew his threat wasn’t empty. He knew who I was, and the fact that I carried a badge put me on the opposite side of the law than that gang. They would torture me fiercely, then kill me. All anarchy had broken loose, so the thugs had the upper hand. They could do whatever they wanted—to me or anybody else.
It’s now or never, I thought. With driving speed and power, I delivered a heel-of-the-palm strike to the blond’s chin. His head jerked backward as I painfully slammed his lower teeth into his uppers. When he fell back, his head slammed into an oak dresser, and blood began gushing out of his head.
Horrified, his friend pointed the rifle at me.
In a blur, I grabbed hold of the barrel and quickly pulled it to the side with force. I held it downward, then punched him in the face and kicked his knee until it bent backward in a very unnatural, painful contortion. I placed my other hand under the gun and began twisting it, forcing him to let go of the trigger long enough for me to wrestle the weapon from his hands. I then backed up and pointed the rifle at him. “Untie her…now!” I demanded.
“All right, lady! Just don’t shoot me,” he said.
“Then don’t tempt me or try my patience. Do it!”
He rushed over and untied the ropes and removed the gag.
Sammy stood and rubbed her rope-burned wrists.
The man looked at me, inching ever closer. “I did what you told me to, Officer.”
“Come any closer,” I said, “and you’ll be roasting S’mores in Hell!”
Without saying a word, Sammy grabbed a bronze statue and hit the man over the head, dropping him to the ground like a bag of cement.
The men were hurt, but I was thankful I hadn’t had to resort to murdering them, especially in front of Sammy.
“So…Lucifer’s been shopping or what? Chocolate and marshmallows in Hell?” Sammy asked, smirking.
“Graham crackers too.”
“
Right,” she said. She then opened her closet and nervously reached for her Glock, a holster, and a knife.
“Hurry up, Sammy!” I said, nervously looking around.
“I am.”
I walked into the living room and peeked out the door. There were at least a dozen gang members flooding into the lobby, a major flaw in my escape plan. I’d hoped we’d get out before they came back, but we’d had no such luck.
“What’s up, Runo?” someone asked.
“Runo?” Sammy said, walking up behind me. “If their leader’s back, he’ll be looking for Dumb and Dumber any minute,” she said, nodding to the bedroom where the guys lay on the floor.
I softly closed the door and deadlocked it. “You’re right. We definitely can’t go out that way,” I whispered. “There are far too many of them.”
“Can’t you just karate chop ‘em all? I mean, you were doing some killer moves a minute ago, like some kind of ninja superhero.”
“Sammy, it’s about the same as standing on the tracks while a huge freight train barrels straight for us. We can’t possibly take on a freight train, no matter how many martial arts or self-defense tactics we know.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Simple. We get off the tracks.”
“Open up,” a guy said, following an unexpected knock on the door. “It’s Runo.”
Startled, Sammy and I exchanged horrified looks.
Chapter 3
“We need a distraction,” I whispered.
“Please don’t hurt me,” Sammy yelled. “Why are you doing this? Get off me!” she said, then let out a few more loud screams for dramatic effect.
“Heh. Sounds like our boys are havin’ a little fun,” Runo said.
Without saying a single word, I motioned Sammy to one of the bedroom windows. I climbed up the dresser and peered out. It looked clear, so I opened the window, then quietly popped out the screen.
“Hurry!” she whispered.
As I climbed out the window, a zombie moan sliced through the air. A corpse in a checkered shirt and ripped jeans climbed out of the overgrown vegetation. The smell of rotting decay hit me full force. Another one, with a green, bald head, came from the other direction.
“C’mon!” I said, then started to help Sammy out through the window.
Suddenly, she looked at me strangely. “Wait! I have to go back,” she said.
“No!” I whispered. “Not a chance!”
The zombie reached out for me, and I let go of Sammy. As soon as I did, she darted back into the apartment. A chill shot down my spine as the gang beat on the door. Using the rifle as a bat, I smashed the zombie’s face, until it dropped to the ground, motionless. A naked corpse with exposed skin and muscle snapped its jaws within an inch of my face. I jumped back and clobbered it, and the thing hit the grass with a loud growl. Next was a zombie in a red sweater. I swung, delivering a forceful blow to its neck.
A face-eater with blood dripping from several parts of its face met my gaze. It was dressed in a blood-soaked, white dress, with one matching heel barely strapped on its foot, and it took uncoordinated steps toward me, letting out a feral snarl. Its buddy’s chest was torn open, its muscles and ribcage on display like some kind of cadaver in a university dissection test. The nasty, bloodthirsty pair charged forward, gnashing their teeth and pawing wildly at me, the main target of their murderous rampage. I rammed my gun through the first one’s left eye socket, instantly dropping it, but the ribcage man just kept coming. I whacked its head, then kicked it. A sickening crunch sliced through the air as I stomped its skull.
“Behind you!” Sammy shouted.
I spun around and kicked one zombie in the chest, but another one teetered toward me from the right. I quickly fractured its skull by delivering a powerful blow to its left eye. “C’mon!” I screamed, grabbing Sammy’s hand.
The mindless corpses just kept coming, and the growl and screams of the diseased echoed behind us.
As we took off through the back parking lot and cut through the bushes, somebody jumped out and tried to grab me. “Where ya goin’, honey?” asked the man, shooting daggers at me from his cold eyes and brandishing a knife at me. “Hey! I know that blue-haired freak. She attacked my friends.”
I sucked in a deep breath as the blade glittered in the sun that was now peeking out between clouds. I would only resort to deadly force if I absolutely had to. Blood pounded inside my head, and I quickly jumped back, grabbed his wrist with my left hand, and gouged his eyes with my right.
He screamed in anger and disbelief that he’d been bested by a girl.
With quick reflexes, I moved behind him, grabbed his jaw, and jerked him down to the ground, then held him there with my knee on his head.
Sammy walked over and pointed her gun at his head, ready to blow him away, but she didn’t have to, because I reached for my handgun and knocked him out.
Another guy reached for me, and I punched him in the throat, dropping him to the ground as he gasped for air.
His friend suddenly came at me with a bat, a surprise ambush. I ran toward him and invaded his personal space, so close that my nose almost touched his. His eyes widened in shock, as if it was the last thing he expected me to do. I knew he might still be able to hurt me, but at least he wouldn’t have that much momentum behind his swing. I conked him in the head with my rifle. As he fell to the ground, I looked around, glad to see that no more of them were coming.
Sammy clapped softly. “Pretty amazing to see you in action, Val,” she said.
“C’mon.”
We jogged down two streets, then started to walk briskly.
“I’m surprised you didn’t shoot him,” she said.
“He’s a kid, probably not even eighteen. I wasn’t about to kill him.”
“Why? Because he has his whole life in front of him? I doubt that, with all these flippin’ zombies. Heck, I doubt any of us do.” She looked at me in admiration. “I bet you could take somebody three times bigger and stronger than you.”
“It’s not about strength, Sammy. It’s about knowing where the pressure points are, the weaknesses.”
“Like?”
“The eyes, knees, neck, and, my personal favorite, the genitals.”
“Sock ‘em in the balls, eh? I love this. There might be a zombie apocalypse, but I get to hang out with the coolest zombie-fighter there is. Girl power at its finest!”
I chuckled. “Gee. I’m flattered.”
“Well, the best part is that you genuinely wanna make this hellhole a better place,” Sammy said. “I keep trying to tell you that you can’t, but you keep trying, keep helping people. Even in all this chaos, you’ve got the compassion of a saint.”
“A saint?”
“Yep. The saint of kicking butt—lots of it.”
I laughed. “Hmm. I’m not sure there is such a thing.”
She chuckled and shrugged. “I don’t judge. You let me be who I am, and I’m gonna do the same for you. You never question my hairstyle, my clothes, or my makeup. You just…love me unconditionally.”
I wrapped an arm around her. “Always have and always will.”
“You’ve babysat me since I was five. Have I always been a pain?”
“Only the biggest ever.”
“And you’re honest too. I love that!”
We continued to speed-walk, as I was eager to find the best escape route to get out of the city. I didn’t know if the zombies or the thugs were worse. As we walked, we passed several dead, rotting zombies. Clearly, they’d lost the battle against the survivors, as black liquid oozed out of the bullet wounds in their heads. The only cleanup crew for that road kill were the birds that picked at their torn legs and the flies that buzzed around the decaying feast. It looked like something out of a warzone, entirely hideous, and when I dared to peer closer, I saw only maggots.
One zombie, with twisted legs, lay on the sidewalk. It reached for my leg and chomped its teeth in anticipation of just one little bite.
“Not gonna happen,” I said, then shot it right in the head.
Gagging, Sammy glanced down. “The smell’s unbearable.”
“Yeah, I know. Living in an undead world’s not exactly glamorous—definitely not for the faint of heart.”
“This sucks. We’re surrounded by death and gore. I’ve tasted hell up close and personal, and it’s left a bitter taste in my mouth that no amount of toothpaste or mouthwash will ever get rid of.”
Taking shallow breaths, Sammy and I stretched our shirts over our mouths and noses to help us escape the stench of rotting flesh. We jogged past the horrendous scene, stepping over torn limbs and chunks of flesh that had obviously been ripped off not too long ago.
Sammy blinked. “Wow. I survived the collapse of civilization. Wouldn’t that make a cool t-shirt?” Before I could answer, she continued, “It’s like…watching a horror movie, in living color, every single day. Talk about 3D! Every time I take a walk, I see dismembered body parts all over the place. That’s not exactly helping my nightmares.”
“That’s why you’re gonna move in with me,” I said.
“Thanks, Val. I can really use a friend right now. Everything is just so…well, it’s weighing heavily on me. I just want our world back. I can’t deal with all this gore.”
I wrapped my arm around my young friend. “It’s a daily struggle to put the pieces of our lives back together again, but I swear that we will.”
“So you say,” she whispered.
“It’s just gonna take some time, Sammy. Zombies can’t last more than one to three years.”
“It’s been a whole year already, and there are still plenty of the bloodthirsty ghouls out there,” she retorted.
“They’ll eventually rot out. Nobody can fight Mother Nature, not zombies. We just have to survive till then.”
She stepped around a half-eaten, rotting arm on the sidewalk. “So, the zombie head-squashing continues.”
“For a while longer.”
She glanced at my ring finger. “Hey, where’s your rock?”
“I haven’t been engaged for a year now. I put it away for safekeeping.”
“Ah. I get it,” she said.
“Travis is gone, and I know it’s time to move on. It doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget about him. He’ll always be…in my heart.” I shook my head, trying to rid it of the painful memories. “But anyway, I don’t really wanna talk about this.”
Val: Prequel to The Zombie Chronicles Page 2
