“Shoots a little to the right,” Mikki remarked as she made an adjustment to the sight. Then she lined up another shot but Floyd stopped her.
“What are you doing? Don’t shoot ‘em!” Floyd ordered. “You’ll piss ‘em off!”
“Now all of a sudden you don’t wanna shoot creepers? And just how the hell are we gonna get out of here if we don’t?”
The two other shamblers started howling. Not the kind of moan when they smell prey, but the kind of howl when they realize they are under attack. They understood their buddy was no longer with them and they began calling for reinforcements.
“Oh, shit. Too late now!” Floyd lamented.
“Let’s figure out how to get off o’ this damn roof first, Floyd! Otherwise it won’t matter.”
Mikki was right. Floyd looked around and saw nothing they could use. Six stories up was too far to jump, and there was no outside fire escape they could use to climb down, either. However, Floyd got an idea when he looked up.
There was an electrical box on the roof that once had probably powered the entire building, but since there was no electricity, the wires should be safe. Floyd swapped out his drum mag for slugs and aimed for the far end of the cables, where they connected to an electrical tower. He fired once and a cable broke loose, falling down to the roof and over the side of the building. He fired again and the other cable joined it. Unfortunately, they made a lot of noise as they fell and hit the outside wall. That meant there would be even more of Pizza Dude’s buddies showing up soon to investigate the sound.
Mikki followed Floyd’s lead as he grabbed the cables and pulled them over to the other side of the building, away from the gathering crowd of zombies. They pulled and hung on the cables momentarily, bouncing as hard as they could. Satisfied that the cables would hold their weight as they climbed down, they moved to the edge of the roof, ready for anything.
Or so they thought. They were, in fact, not ready for what they saw.
“Damn, Floyd! Did Pizza Dude have free coupons? Where the hell did they all come from?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think they’re goin’ back any time soon.”
The entire area below was already filled with Pizza Dude’s friends and family. There had to be a couple hundred already, and more were pouring in through the streets. Fortunately, despite the occasional howling and other odd noises, the zombie ravers below had not started moaning, indicating they were not yet aware of Floyd and Mikki’s presence up above them.
“Hey, Floyd?”
“Yeah, Mikki?”
“You know how in every monster movie, there’s that one ‘Aw Shit’ moment, when it’s totally hopeless, and you wonder how in the hell the heroes are gonna get out of it?”
“Yeah.”
“This is our Aw Shit moment, ain’t it?”
“I reckon so, Mikki. I reckon we’re on the express elevator to hell and the cable just broke.”
Chapter Forty-Five
“What do we do, Floyd? Wait ‘til them creepers calm down?”
“The longer we wait, the more likely they’ll wander out to the interstate again. If they surround the truck, we’re hosed. We could blast the lock off the roof lid, but we’d only end up back in the street, where we’ll be surrounded.”
The two stood peering over the edge of the roof at the growing mob of undead below. The creatures were still agitated and howling occasionally, but that seemed to be subsiding. They wandered around aimlessly, bumping into each other, into the sides of buildings, etc. That would change for the worse as soon as they sensed the presence of live meat. Fortunately, zombies never looked up, unless they heard something or saw a light. Their thinking was strictly on a one-dimensional plane.
“I was really hopin’ we’d find some more grenades in that SWAT truck.”
“There was a box of grenades on the street by the hotel entrance, but it was empty.”
“Yeah, I saw that. Poor bastards musta’ thrown everything they had at ‘em.”
“Wouldn’t be enough grenades to help us with this crowd anyway.”
Floyd took a look through his binoculars at the interstate. It was only about half a mile away, but it might as well be a thousand. He scanned the other buildings and rooftops nearby. No point trying to get down through one of the other buildings. It looked like this was the only uninfested building in the area.
“If we can get closer to the truck, we’ll have fewer brain-eaters to worry about,” Floyd pondered aloud.
“And just how we gonna do that, Spider-man?”
“Exactly! Just like Spider-man. Follow me. Hope you ain’t afraid o’ heights.”
“I ain’t afraid o’ nothin’. Except clowns.”
“Clowns? You’re kidding, right?”
“They creep me out, OK? Now let’s get movin’. We got bigger things to worry about, right now.”
Floyd checked everything on his body and belt to make sure nothing would fall off. Mikki did the same. Then they each grabbed one of the fallen wires Floyd had shot down, but instead of climbing down, they climbed up to the electrical junction box.
Floyd pulled on the next set of wires. They seemed sturdy enough, so off they went. Hanging upside down, arms and legs wrapped around the wire, they pulled themselves along like an upside-down inchworm. Hanging like that over a sea of zombies really gives you a different perspective on things.
Dropping down to the roof of the next building, the pair moved to the edge to see if their situation had improved any. It hadn’t. Mikki was wishing for a tactical nuke right about now. But then, she was always wishing for a tactical nuke. She’d have to add that to her Christmas list…if she survived that long.
There was another set of wires heading over to the next building. That would get them closer to the truck, so up and over they went. Looking down, they saw another horde below them. However, they also saw something else. Several crashed cars blocked the street at the intersection. That meant that they wouldn’t have to worry about landing in the middle of an Ungrateful Dead concert and being surrounded.
They climbed down an assortment of pipes and metal boxes to the roof. Looking over the side, they could see the barricade of cars below them. This street led straight to an interstate off-ramp they could use to get back to the truck. The street wasn’t too wide, but it was full. At least this crowd wasn’t agitated. Floyd and Mikki would have the advantage of surprise.
“Alright. Whatta we got?” Floyd asked.
He and Mikki took stock of their inventory. What had seemed like overkill when they started seemed pretty inadequate now. They would have to be smart if they were gonna get out of this one alive. At least there was no big-ass ugly bear swiping at them…or cats!
Floyd tried aiming at the far connection of another electrical cable but couldn’t quite make it out in the fading light. “Can’t get a good shot,” he said.
“Allow me,” said Mikki. She flipped on the infrared sight and it lit up beautifully. “I am really likin’ me this new rifle!” Two quick (and silent) shots later, and two cables had dropped over the side of the building. They dragged them along the side of the building until they hung right over the crashed cars. Floyd swapped out the slug mag for the drum mag and handed Clyde to Mikki.
“Take good care of Clyde for me,” he said.
“Like he was my own baby!” Mikki reassured him.
Floyd checked his receiver again. Numbers one to five were still lit green. So far, so good.
Mikki had three glow sticks left. She cracked the inner vials and shook them up to get a good glow, then threw them over the edge down at the crowd in strategic locations. She gave them about a minute to gather around them, which concentrated the crowds into three tight groups.
“With love from Floyd and Mikki!” she muttered, pulling the pins from three grenades and throwing them into the middle of each crowd. Despite his earlier protests, Floyd had actually given her his four grenades. He knew that she would make the best use of them, anyway. Th
at meant she still had five grenades left.
The three grenades went off and cleared the immediate area. The noise from the explosions, of course, also woke up every creeper in the area. Oh well! If you wanna make an omelet, you gotta blow up a few eggs.
Floyd slid down to the top of the cars and grabbed the Mini Uzi. He slung a pouch over to his left side that held all of the anti-personnel mags they had on them. He jumped down onto the street and moved forward steadily, stepping over the blown-away remains of the local inhabitants.
“Death from above!” shouted Mikki, as she threw a grenade into the intersection Floyd was approaching. The next group of creepers were heading his way until, BOOM! She threw two more grenades into areas where the creepers were congregating, then slid down the cable to land just behind Floyd. She took Bonnie in her right hand and Clyde in her left, while Floyd moved forward as fast as he could without tripping over body parts.
Just as they had hoped, they made it through the intersection and kept going. A throng of creepers was already on its way to fill in the gap behind them, so they had to keep moving. That meant cutting a path through the mob ahead in the street, which is exactly what Floyd planned to do.
Firing in carefully controlled bursts, he shot a wide arc through the crowd. The flaming bullets laid the creatures out almost as well as the 50-cal. And there were fireworks! It looked like Guy Fawkes Night in London.
Flaming zombie parts blew everywhere. Floyd was glad he didn’t have street-sweeping duty tomorrow. Mikki would have loved to enjoy the show, but she was busy covering him from behind. One shotgun pointed on either side, she blasted anything nearby with a blast to the head.
Zeke had been right. It was easy to one-hand these weapons! No recoil at all! She really missed Zeke, but not enough to join him any time soon.
“Better pick up the pace, Floyd!” she warned, hearing the moans mounting in intensity behind her.
“Going as fast as I can,” Floyd replied through the helmet radio, as he swapped out a mag. Full mags from the left pouch, empty mags into the bag on Floyd’s right.
Mikki tucked Bonnie under her left arm, grabbed a grenade, pulled the pin and dropped it behind her. The explosion a few seconds later took out a number of creepers that were getting too close for comfort and sent the others reeling backward, dazed by the sound and the flash of light—if not the flying shrapnel. One grenade left.
Mikki took the chance to empty the rest of the shells in her drum mags at anything within range. Dropping to her knee, she swapped out both empties for full mags in record time and was back on her feet again, just fast enough to blast a few approaching creepers in the face with the strobe light and then blow their heads off. She whirled around like a dervish spitting fire in every direction at anything that was too close, widening the gap between her and any standing creepers. Somehow, she managed to avoid shooting Floyd in the back—or ass.
A stream of fiery bullets led the way, as Mikki quickly grabbed the empty drum mags she had dropped and threw them over her shoulder into her backpack. Beyond the off-ramp, the number of creepers extended as far as the two could see. Fortunately, the light show from incendiary bullets, strobe lights and the occasional grenades had drawn all the shamblers past the ramp, which left it wide open.
“It’s now or never!” Floyd exclaimed, popping in the last Mini Uzi mag. Mikki joined him at his left, spitting death from the barrels of both guns. The two fired and fired at anything nearby as they made it to the off-ramp. Then they ran up the ramp like hell was at their heels.
It was.
Chapter Forty-Six
“Shit!” Floyd cursed. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
He was pissed off at the amount of ammo they had just wasted. Well, not wasted, exactly. They certainly had needed it, and they did have more in the truck, but they were completely out of Zeke’s special ammo now and they had burned through most of shotgun shells. It would take at least an hour just to reload all the mags.
They were barreling down the median as fast as they could go, without hitting a bad bump and flipping over. Small pockets of undead littered the median and the interstate ahead. Floyd played Bowling for Zombies to work out his anger issues.
“Oh, quitcher bitchin’ Floyd! You sound like my gramma. Damn! Ain’t nobody coulda handled that like us! Yeehaw! Floyd and Mikki, baby!”
She popped George Thorogood and the Destroyers into the CD player. Bad to the Bone blasted through the speakers, as loud as it could go. It was appropriate for her mood.
As with just about everything, Floyd eventually let his anger go. It wouldn’t do any good to complain. Besides, they did have enough ammo left, assuming they didn’t have to empty out another city full of zombies anytime soon. And he did like this song, too.
“You never mentioned your gramma, before. Did you gut her, too?” Floyd asked, only half joking.
“Nah. I shoulda, though. I told her what my dad was tryin’ with me and she blamed me for it. She would never blame her precious little boy. Bitch!”
The way ahead was blocked, so Floyd had to back up on the interstate. Throwing Freedom into drive, he kicked it up to speed and used the plow to ram through two cars butted up together. They went flying on both sides as the truck roared through, taking out a few more shambling brain-eaters along with them. It was about 20 more minutes before the wrecked cars thinned out and the highway was clear again.
“So you only got the one grenade left, Mikki?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmmm. I wonder how long it’ll take.”
“How long what’ll take?”
“Until you blow something else up. I bet you can’t go one hour without blowin’ the shit outta something.”
“Nah, I’m saving this one for a special occasion.”
“What, like your birthday?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Well, it’s 9:40 PM. We’ll see.”
Floyd drove on for a while, barely even paying attention to the road. They were headed west and had a long way to go. Mikki brought him back to reality when she said, “Hey, Floyd, remember the words to Hotel California?”
“Of course. We sang it together. Why?”
“Cause someone just lit up a candle.”
It wasn’t a candle, but there was definitely a light in the darkness, far up ahead. Floyd pulled over and checked his map for this area. There wasn’t any town listed, so it could be anything.
They moved forward for a little while longer before Floyd pulled over again. Looking through the binoculars, he could make out a small roadhouse. There were about 20 motorcycles of various kinds outside around the structure. The windows were all blacked out so you couldn’t see inside, but a blue and pink neon sign lit up the word, “Welcome.”
Floyd pulled over about 20 feet from the front door. It was 10:27 PM. Donning their helmets and grabbing their shotguns, the two left the truck and headed for the door. They could hear the sounds of voices inside and a generator running in the back. It was highly unlikely that any brain-eaters were inside, but Floyd and Mikki had learned to take nothing for granted.
They opened the large front door and stood in the doorway. They could see about a dozen bikers sitting at small round tables throughout the room. Most had food or some kinda drink in front of them.
Floyd lowered Clyde and said, “Hey guys!”
Neither Floyd nor Mikki knew what hit them, but it was several shotgun blasts, half a dozen .38-caliber bullets and a couple of .45s. They both went flying out the door and landed hard on their backs. Half dazed, they heard uproarious laughter coming from the bikers inside. So much for the welcome sign.
The laughter grew louder until something metal hit the ground just inside the doorway and bounced along for a few seconds. The grenade blew out all the blackened windows and devastated the center of the room. The neon welcome sign when dark, as well.
Leaving Bonnie next to Floyd on the ground, Mikki pulled the two pistols from her back holsters and stormed inside, screa
ming like a woman possessed. She jumped on the nearest table that was still standing, spitting lead from both guns as she spun around. She peppered any head or torso that she could see, and when both guns locked open as the mags emptied, she dropped them on the floor, jumped in the air, pulled the two pistols from the front of her waist and blew away the big fat bearded guy hiding behind the bar before she landed on it. He never even had a chance to raise his double-barreled shotgun.
Without hesitating a moment, Mikki jumped down right onto Fat Ass’ body, then kicked open the door. Guns blazing, she jumped through the doorway and took out eight more bikers coming down the hall to see what the noise was all about. They were all lined up nice and pretty, with no place to hide, as each one took a bullet and hit the ground. A couple tied firing a few shots, but it did them no good. Mikki kicked open a door on the right side but it was an empty crapper. The next door on the left was open but it was an empty kitchen.
The door at the end of the hall was open and a light was on inside. Mikki dove through it head-first, then rolled and landed in a sort of half summersault as a shotgun blast went off. It was aimed just a little too high, and Mikki spun around on her knees to take the guy out. No one else was left.
Outside, Floyd felt like he had been run over by a freight train. On the other hand, the stars looked really pretty in the sky from where he was laying on his back. He heard the shooting had stopped, so he sat himself up and waited for Mikki. A minute or so later, she walked out, took off her helmet, and nonchalantly lit up a cigarette.
“You alright?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Top of my game. So this is what it feels like to get shot in the chest.”
“Trust me, you get used to it.” She reached down and helped him to his feet.
Floyd asked to see Mikki’s watch. “52 minutes,” he said.
“Say what, now?”
“52 minutes. Less than one hour before you blew something up.”
Floyd & Mikki (Book 1): Zombie Hunters (Love Should Be Explosive!) Page 22
