Z-Risen (Book 2): Outcasts

by Long, Timothy W.

  ###

  09:45 hours approximate

  Location: Clairemont, CA - Undead Central

  The kids in the two new cars roared back toward us. I didn’t really think about options for them. If they were caught, they’d probably be killed, or at least get their asses kicked. The guy in the red sports car did a little wave as he drove past. I waved back.

  Then they were gone.

  The carnival arrived a minute later.

  Donny had been busy moving shit around in the back of the HUMVEE. He whooped once and then slammed a heavy box on top of the transport. Markus conferred with Joel Kelly. Markus nodded and then disappeared up the stairs.

  I waited around with my dick in my hand, wondering what in the hell I should do. Donny called my name.

  “What’d you find?” I asked.

  “Got some frags. Best fucking thing? I found a few rounds for the fifty cal. We can spook ‘em. Now who’s going to go out and bullshit our way out of here?”

  “I guess you’re staring at me because I have the duty?”

  “That would be real Christian of you, partner,” he said.

  “What if they start shooting?”

  He tossed down a box of shells. I caught it and read the tops. He’d given me about thirty fresh rounds for the Mossberg.

  “Shoot back,” he said and loaded the big machine gun.

  Donny handed down another box to Joel.

  Joel opened the green metal box, extracted a few round items, and then handed a couple to me.

  “These are M67 frag grenades. You’ve seen this on TV a million times, right? Pull the pin and throw. After it hits, you’ve got anywhere from three to seven seconds before the blast. When you throw, make sure to yell ‘frag out,’ especially if we’re around you.”

  “What’s the range of the explosion? I don’t want an ass full of shrapnel.”

  “Fifteen meters immediate blast zone, but shrapnel can travel as far as a few football fields, so you make sure you’re behind something. This will scare the fuck out of anyone on the other side of the fence.”

  “Scare them worse than a bunch of zombies?”

  Joel winked.

  We moved toward the perimeter.

  He checked the fence and figured out a way to lock it with a metal bar. It wouldn’t hold up to a halfway-determined assault from even a small vehicle, but they didn’t know that.

  Brick walls rose on either side of the fence. Joel found a spot out of sight, then loaded rounds into magazines and secured grenades to his tactical armor. I refilled the rails and breach of my shotgun. Standing, I couldn’t see over the wall. I limped to the front office, dragged a chair out, and placed it next to the wall. I climbed atop it to get a look at the approaching force.

  The wall was old and pitted and made of red bricks. I found a couple of places where the grout had eroded, so I was able to view the road through the small holes.

  What I saw was a scene straight out of a Mad Max movie. Trucks, cars, and motorcycles closed on us. Someone had mounted a head on the hood of one of the trucks. From a distance, I couldn’t tell if it was male or female.

  Maybe they would just hang a right and keep going. I scanned the parking lot and saw that everyone was hidden, either behind cars or in the Chevy, which had moved to the side of the building and was out of sight.

  The lead pickup truck came to a halt, and a guy hopped out and took cover behind his door. Another man slid out of the passenger side and took cover behind his door. He wore some kind of camouflage gear. As far as prospective allies went, this was not looking promising.

  Then at least fifteen motorcycles roared up behind them.

  They were a motley bunch, but they were well supplied with guns. I saw more than a few women among them. They all had hard faces.

  “We know you’re in there. Just give us the military vehicle and we’ll be on our way. We don’t want anything else.”

  “That’s not cool. What if we need it?” I called out from behind the wall.

  Joel shot me a questioning look.

  “What?” I whispered.

  He shrugged and pointed toward the guys on the other side of the fence then showed me a fist.

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say.” I whispered back.

  “Be a hardass,” he shot back.

  Jesus. Why wasn’t he talking?

  “How many are there? Maybe you guys can join us. We could use a few more men,” the guy said.

  He wore a pair of reflective sun glasses even though it was overcast. His hair was steel grey and about an eighth of an inch long. He wore a giant gold cross around his neck on an equally huge gold chain. He also had about five guns strapped to various parts of his body. Topping that off was an assault rifle bigger than anything I’d seen since this whole shit-fest started a few weeks ago.

  “Yeah. We can use ya.” His buddy spoke up from behind the other door, then chuckled.

  “State your intentions.” I deepened my voice.

  Joel shrugged. Thanks a lot for the vote of confidence, pal.

  “Name’s McQuinn, Frank McQuinn, and we intend to take that HUMVEE and go.”

  “Do you see that big gun on the HUMVEE?”

  “Yep, sure do, and no one’s behind it. Run out of ammo?”

  “You don’t want to find out.”

  “Look, man. There’s, what, two or three of you? And one’s a chick. We scouted you earlier at the shopping center. Good moves back there.”

  “Yeah, thanks. I got all my Christmas shopping done in one day.”

  McQuinn chuckled.

  “Just give it up. We don’t want to have to do things the hard way. Right Roscoe?”

  “Goddamn right,” his companion said.

  “Just go away and no one gets hurt,” I said.

  “You said that already.” McQuinn sighed. “Have it your way.”

  He motioned and a couple of guys moved up behind his pickup.

  A shot rang out and the side mirror, right next to the man, exploded. He fell away from the door, hand up to shield his face. He was back on his feet in a split-second and behind the pickup just as fast.

  “Hey, man! I thought we were having a friendly conversation here.” McQuinn yelled as he rubbed his cheek.

  More men moved in toward our position. I counted nine and relayed the information to Joel. He nodded and made some hand gestures of his own in the direction of the hotel. That made me feel better. At least they had a plan of some kind.

  “The next round is through your fucking head. Now turn around and go.”

  Donny stopped hiding and popped up in the gun turret. He yanked back on the release and then fired five rounds at the pickup truck. The sound of the huge machine gun thundering in the mid-morning sent shivers up and down my spine.

  So much for my shitty attempt at diplomacy.

  This was bound to happen. The zombie fucking apocalypse was going to bring out the worst in people; it was inevitable. The same thing would happen during any catastrophe. You’d get your share of people helping out, of course. We saw that when the bombs exploded in Boston. We saw it when tornado after tornado leveled parts of Moore, Oklahoma. A lot of people helped out.

  Then there were the other guys. Those who only gave a shit about themselves or how they could fuck others over. That’s who we were facing now.

  I lifted the shotgun, held it over the top of the fence, and blasted. I wasn’t aiming for anything in particular, since I couldn’t see a damn thing. I just wanted them to know that we were all armed and ready.

  I peeked back through my little hole and saw guys scrambling. They dropped to the ground in shock. Some thought to drag out weapons, but they’d just have a wall to shoot at. Or Donny, and no one seemed interested in taking on the HUMVEE.

  Donny let loose with another short burst. The booming gun scared the shit out of me, and I couldn’t imagine how bad it would be out there, in the path of those huge rounds.

  The lead asshole’s truck
took all of the damage. Bullets punched into the hood and steam erupted through the grill.

  Joel Kelly slipped to the gate, took a breath, then popped out and laid down a few rounds. He aimed low and hit a tire. Just like that, he was back behind the wall.

  Donny stopped firing and all was quiet—except for the sounds of glass falling to the ground and guys calling back and forth in fear and confusion.

  McQuinn ran to the choppers. He didn’t even look back.

  “Get the fuck out of here or we’ll kill every one of you!” I yelled.

  He jumped on the back of a motorcycle. The driver spun the bike around and roared off. A second truck backed up and attempted a half-donut that ended with the driver planting the ass of his pickup into a telephone pole. It fell over with a crash and crushed part of the truck.

  Just like their arrival, their departure was fast and ugly. Within a minute or two, they were all headed back the way they’d come from. I wanted to cheer, but settled for shooting Joel Kelly a thumbs up.

  Too bad our victory would be short-lived.

  ###

  10:05 hours approximate

  Location: Clairemont, CA - Undead Central

  I sat down and wiped sweat off my forehead. So that was a battle? It was more like a one-sided ass whipping.

  Joel stood over me as the last of the motorcycles roared away.

  “Think they’ll be back?” I asked.

  “Probably. We should clear out.”

  “Are we safe?”

  “Brother, we haven’t been safe since you carried your big ass down the stairs and interrupted my game of spades back on the McClusky.”

  “But you have to admit, I have my moments.”

  “Was that one of them? What were you trying to hit with the shotgun, a building? I think you even missed that.”

  “Fuck you, Marine. I laid down cover fire.”

  “When you lay down cover fire, you need to actually hit stuff.”

  “Noise was on my side.”

  Joel looked at me and then his eyes clenched tight for a split-second.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He farted.

  ###

  10:15 hours approximate

  Location: Clairemont, CA - Undead Central

  We were crawling into our loaded vehicles when the rumble returned. We’d only taken ten or fifteen minutes, but it was long enough for the assholes to return with new trucks and their egos pumped up. I ran back to the wall and found my peep hole. What I saw scared me.

  Markus was already hopping into the driver’s seat. He got back out, took a look, and swore.

  “Shit. Just got the gun packed up.” He rummaged around in the HUMVEE again.

  “I can only provide a little more fire. Maybe three or four bursts. We need a way out, and we need to stop as many of them as we can. Let’s make them pay for ground,” Donny said and slid in the back.

  “We need a back door outta this place,” Joel said.

  “Fence in the back. Can we blow it?” I asked.

  When we made our new home, Fortress Mark II was the perfect location to keep Z’s out. The fence extended all the way around the building and the small parking lot. It wasn’t all that high, old cast iron, painted black, but it stopped the casual creeper from hitting us on our six.

  We ran to the back of the building and made for the fence.

  “Why the fuck won’t those guys leave us alone?”

  “It’s gotta be the transport,” Joel said as I tried to keep up with him. “And maybe they think we have a lot of supplies. I think the main problem is that we hit them. We fucked with their pride and now they’re motivated.”

  “Damn. Still doesn’t make sense.”

  “That HUMVEE is worth its weight in gold right now. You’ve seen the world, Creed. You’ve seen what it’s become. The population’s been cut down to almost nothing and only the strong will survive and right now those guys want our strength.”

  “So we should run.”

  “They might not be trained and we are. Problem is, we’re a few and they’re a lot. Same shit happened on patrol. You’d have a bunch of well-trained Marines and all of the sudden you’re facing a larger and very determined Al Qaeda.”

  The grass was all but dead where Joel knelt down and checked the fence. He pushed against it, rattled it, and then stood and rammed his shoulder into it. At ten foot intervals, metal posts had been driven into the ground. That made for enough reinforcement against even Joel Kelly, super Marine.

  “Can we blow it up? Couple of grenades?”

  “It’s worth a shot. We could put one at a post here.” He pointed.

  “Another one here,” I said and stood ten feet away.

  There was another parking lot next to ours, but it was for a small Mexican restaurant that had been gutted by fire. The open road lay beyond that, a clogged freeway even farther away.

  “I’ll get Sails and the Chevy. You go and provide covering fire.”

  I hobbled along behind Creed, my leg screaming with pain every time I took a staggering step. I’d turned my nose up at some Aleve earlier in the day, but right about now I’d pop half the bottle.

  Joel explained the plan while Markus loaded his rifle. I stuck around for a few minutes but moved toward the fence when I heard rumbling.

  They had a moving truck and it was coming up to speed. They’d put a piece of corrugated steel over the windshield with a small view-hole cut for the driver. Behind them, cars were flanked on either side, along with a couple of motorcycles.

  “Christ, what did we do to these guys?” Roz asked.

  “Like I said. We hurt their fucking pride,” Joel replied.

  Shots erupted and bullets winged our way. They hit some of the parked cars but none of them struck the HUMVEE. A window shattered in the hotel. Falling glass tinkled around us.

  Donny aimed the big gun and shot at the truck. He splashed hits across the hood, and a few punched through the corrugated shield. Against a .50 cal, it might as well have been paper, but we couldn’t see the driver. For all we knew, the guy was lying down and just keeping the wheel straight. If we had unlimited ammo, Donny could have turned the entire front into Swiss cheese. That would have bought us time.

  Joel grabbed Christy and Roz. They dove into the Chevy with Sails once again behind the wheel. She gunned it and they zipped around the side of the building.

  “Fall back. Move from cover to cover, but lay down lots of fire, Creed,” Markus said.

  He lifted the sniper rifle and took aim.

  Bullets splashed around him and that’s when I noticed a couple of guys were firing from inside cars. One of them was leaning all the way out so his entire torso was exposed. He wore some kind of armor like Joel.

  It didn’t help.

  Markus fired, and the big round punched into the guy’s chest. He didn’t throw his hands up in pain; he just slumped to the side and then fell out of the moving car.

  Markus aimed again and fired at the truck.

  Donny shot a few more rounds but the truck wasn’t stopping. In fact, it was gaining speed, and it was aimed right at the fence.

  “Go time!” Donny yelled out and Markus moved.

  He was almost at the HUMVEE when he spun around.

  I moved behind a little hybrid we’d pushed out of the way yesterday and fired a few rounds, but it was like shooting at a brick wall. I hit, sure, but the truck wasn’t stopping.

  Markus staggered to the HUMVEE, his hand on his shoulder. He managed to crawl inside and back the transport up. Donny shot until the .50 cal ran dry. He lifted an assault rifle, but slumped back as a round slammed through his head.

  Blood blew out in a mist, something I’d become all too familiar with since this whole fucking nightmare started.

  The HUMVEE kept backing up, even as the truck hit the fence. The rending crash shook the ground. The metal buckled and the gate flew apart.

  I ran as fast as I could, damning my ankle, expecting to take a round in
the back at any moment. I ducked around the corner of the hotel and got a face full of brick for my effort, thanks to a bullet exploding next to my head. I dove to the ground, rolled to the side, and got my back against the wall. The Mossberg flew, so I leaned over and snapped it up by the stock.

  I blew out a quick breath and risked a look. The HUMVEE kept backing up as the truck came through. The collision stopped the HUMVEE and pushed it forward until it hit the side of the hotel. Markus opened the door and staggered out. He had his sidearm in hand and started firing before he was even on his feet. His shoulder bled, and he looked like he was in shock. It didn’t last long; a couple of rounds found him.

  Fuck! If Joel didn’t get the fence down with a pair of grenades we were so screwed. These assholes wouldn’t bother to talk. They’d probably shoot Joel and me down and then go after the girls.

  Wait. Grenades. Frags. I had a couple jammed in my pockets.

  I practically whooped as I pulled one out and turned the nearly one pound ball of explosive. I gripped the handle against the side and yanked the pin. I slipped from behind the wall and threw like the big truck was home base.

  The grenade sailed through the air but I was already taking the next one out. I pulled the pin and repeated my throw even as shots rang out and rounds exploded around me. I’d forgotten to yell “frag out!”

  Then I was on the move.

  My ankle screaming in pain, I put everything I had into getting out of the area and into the car. As far as I knew, Joel and crew were already blowing the fence and leaving me behind.

  I bolted around the corner and almost took a round in the face, thanks to Sails. She had her handgun raised, and it was just as steady as it had ever been. How that small woman managed to hold a .357 with an eight inch barrel and not even show the strain was something else.

  Behind me, the first explosion sounded. Two seconds later, the other grenade went off, followed by an even larger explosion that rattled my spine.

  Joel and Roz were running like they were on fire. They dove behind the car, and Sails gave me a quick motion that seemed to say “get the fuck down!” I dropped to the ground.