by R. J. Spears
I only hoped Brother Ed gave me the time to get there before he shoved off and headed north without me. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t. He’s just that way.
Chapter 43
Double Trouble
“We’ve got to get inside,” Doc Wilson said, looking up to the dark sky, waiting for the sight of a helicopter to accompany the sound they had heard just seconds ago.
“But the door is down there and so are the zombies,” Mrs. Hatcher said, pointing at the zombies.
Five zombies shambled past the door Doc Wilson, Molly, and Mrs. Hatcher had used to exit the building. They weren’t moving fast, because they never did, but they were spread out, effectively acting as a barrier to a quick escape. And a quick escape is what they needed. If the helicopter caught them out in the open, then no one knew what would happen, but none of them thought it would be anything good.
Molly stepped forward, putting some distance between herself and the group, brandishing her metal pipe and said, “I can take them out.” She swung the pipe out in front of her, seeming to practice what she was about to do.
Doc Wilson liked the girl’s courage, but she was clearly over confident. “There are too many of them.”
“I can do it,” Molly insisted.
“How many zombies have you killed before today?” Doc Wilson asked.
Molly paused before answering, “None, but you saw what I did.”
“I can help,” Henry said.
“No, you can’t,” Doc Wilson replied. “You can barely stand up.”
“I don’t need a man’s help to do this,” she said.
“Molly, I’m sure you’re capable,” Doc Wilson said to mollify her but wasn’t sure she was up to the task, “but we have two badly hurt people here, and there’s one of you and five of them.”
Molly cut in, “She can help.” Molly motioned with her pipe in Mrs. Hatcher’s direction, and Mrs. Hatcher jumped back as if someone had shocked her with a cattle prod.
Doc Wilson looked back to the sky, listening intently to the sound of the helicopter, but was unable to determine where it was in the semi-darkness. He only knew it was coming their way and doing it fast.
“It may not be a question of whether you can do it or not but how fast you can,” Doc Wilson said. “We don’t want to be caught out in the open.”
“How would they see us in the dark?” Mrs. Hatcher asked.
“They could have thermal imaging,” Henry said.
“But couldn’t they see us inside with that?” Molly asked.
“Enough!” Doc Wilson said nearly shouting, shocking everyone because he always was an example of restraint. “Listen folks, we don’t have time for a debate. Those zombies will be on us in a half a minute, and who knows when that helicopter will show up? We need to get inside, and we need to do it fast.”
“But how?” Mrs. Hatcher asked, her full attention focused on the approaching zombies. She looked as if she just might go airborne at any moment.
“There’s a door on the front side of the school,” Henry said.
“That’s too far to go,” Doc Wilson said, and it wasn’t just because of the helicopter and the zombies. He wasn’t sure Ellen could make it.
“How about going through the windows?” Molly asked, pointing her metal pipe at the row of windows running along the side of the building. The windows sat above a three and half feet brick wall. A classroom was inside the window, cloaked in darkness.
“That’s going to make a lot of noise,” Mrs. Hatcher said. “And won’t the zombies get in?”
Molly looked at the older woman with a heated stare and said, “You can stay out here and let a zombie chomp down on your ass. I’m going inside.”
With that, she took two long steps, pulling the metal pipe back, and then swung it forward. The pipe hit the glass with a resounding crash, making Mrs. Hatcher jump again. Glass shattered into the classroom, making even more noise.
Not waiting on any cue, Doc Wilson moved toward the new opening with Ellen, moving slower than he liked.
“Sweep your pipe along the edge here,” Doc Wilson said. “We need to clear out any jagged edges.”
Molly did as she was told, smashing away any sharp edges, but just to make sure, Doc Wilson shook off his coat and laid it over the edge.
“They’re getting closer,” Mrs. Hatcher said.
Two of the approaching zombies were less than twenty feet away and had their hands in the air, clutching for something that was well out of grasp.
To compound the urgency, the sounds of the helicopter seemed to be closing fast. None of them knew which of the two threats would reach them first, but they sure didn’t want to find out.
“Mrs. Hatcher, I need you inside to take Ellen when I help her in,” Doc Wilson said.
Mrs. Hatcher started toward the window, but Henry stuck out his hand and said, “Give me your...your… whatever that is.”
Mrs. Hatcher surrendered her mop handle faster than you could say Zombie Robinson and was up and over the bricks and inside the building even faster. To her credit, she stayed by the window, awaiting Ellen’s arrival.
“Henry, you can’t --” Doc Wilson started to say, but Henry cut him off.
“Just get my mom inside. There’s no one else to help Molly, and these undead bastards will be here before we can get everyone inside.” Henry lifted the mop handle and grunted as pain shot down his right shoulder. He transitioned it to his left hand and didn’t feel that much more confident. It was a mop handle, and he was barely able to stand, but there were no other choices, but to make a stand and protect their escape.
Doc Wilson surrendered to what was obvious and turned his attention back to getting Ellen inside. “This isn’t going to be easy.”
Ellen said, “It’s not going to get any easier, so let’s just get it done.”
Doc Wilson did his best, lifting Ellen as gently as he could, but she stifled a scream as she passed the threshold of the window. The pain overwhelmed her, and her body went limp halfway through the passage. A moment later, she tumbled forward, falling directly onto the waiting Mrs. Hatcher, who crumpled under the weight. Both women screamed as they hit the floor inside.
Doc Wilson leaned inside the opening and asked, “You two okay?” The inside was so dark, he only saw black forms on the floor.
“I’m okay,” Mrs. Hatcher said.
Twenty seconds later, Ellen grunted out something that sounded like, “Okay,” but she was breathing hard and heavy, clearly in a lot of pain.
“Here they come,” Molly said.
One zombie had taken a lead over his companion. He wasn’t small like the last two zombies Molly had faced. He was a long and lanky teenager, looking like a basketball player. His extra-long arms had an extended reach, and his hands were already out and ready to grab some delicious human flesh.
Henry said, “I’ve got an idea. Get his attention.”
“What?” Molly asked, not comprehending.
“Yell or something,” Henry replied, taking a step away from Molly toward the roadway.
“Hey, fuckface, come and get it!” Molly yelled, and she took the full attention of the basketball zombie, not really certain she wanted it.
Henry sidestepped two more little steps then made his move, taking two unsteady small jumps toward the tall zombie. It was totally focused on Molly and paid no attention to Henry at all. Its hands were quickly approaching Molly’s personal space when Henry jabbed the mop handle between its legs. It was a near perfect strike and much like someone poking a stick in the spokes of a bicycle. The zombie tripped and went down in a heap just in front of Molly.
She didn’t need any cue at all and brought her metal pipe down onto the back of the thing’s head. As keyed up as she was, the force of her blow cracked the thing’s skull wide open.
While the move had worked to perfection on the first zombie, it left Henry badly exposed to the second one. Number two was a chunky looking woman of an undetermined age due to her state of zombification.
The skin on her face was dried up and stretched out, pulling it back and leaving her with a permanent rictus grin. There was nothing inviting about the smile as far as Henry was concerned.
The smiling zombie ignored Molly, making Henry its sole target. It rammed into his midsection, and both the zombie and Henry stumbled along in the grass. This went on for several steps before they both went down with the smiling zombie on top. Despite the pain in his shoulder and his half-addled state, Henry shot up his hands and grabbed the zombie by the neck. It pushed down against Henry’s hands, clacking its teeth, snapping at the air.
With gravity on its side, the zombie was winning the battle as it lowered its mouth toward his face. Its putrid breath spewed out into Henry’s face, making his stomach almost lurch.
Inch by inch, it moved closer and closer, then its forehead slammed down onto his face, nearly breaking his nose, but it did not bite anything. Still, Henry got a fireworks show inside his head complete with flashes of bright orange, yellow, and white.
When the light show was over, he blinked furiously for several seconds, not really able to see much of anything, but he felt the weight of the zombie lying on him and took in its stench. Some instinct inside him took over, and he shoved the zombie off of his body. When he looked up he saw Molly straddling his legs, her trusty pipe still in hand, only it dripped with a dark black ooze. Her breath was coming out explosively as if she had just run a marathon.
“I thought you were a fucking goner,” she said, looking down on him.
“Well, I’m not,” he responded.
“Get him up,” Doc Wilson called from inside the window, waving back at the two of them.
The helicopter sounded like it was on top of them. Whomp-whomp-whomp went its rotors.
Molly stuck out her free hand. Henry reached up and took it. While she was smaller than him, she had some decent muscles from being a field hockey player before the fall of the world. She yanked him upward, and when he made it up on his two feet, he nearly fell back over, his head still wobbly from the crash, but she kept him upright.
“Let’s go,” she said, tugging him along toward the window. When she got to the wall and the open window, she released his hand, tossed her pipe into the building, and vaulted through the window in what looked like one fluid movement. Henry didn’t do as well as his legs hit the wall, and he bent over the opening but didn’t go inside. He popped back up like a jack-in-the-box and nearly fell backwards.
The helicopter came on quickly, and Henry thought he could feel the downdraft of its rotors washing over him, but he wasn’t sure that wasn’t the breeze.
Molly saw this and jumped forward, reaching over the threshold and snapping out a hand to grab Henry by his coat. He tottered backwards, but she yanked him inward, and his legs hit the wall, and he flipped forward into the room, tumbling into Molly, and they both went down in a heap.
The helicopter whooshed overhead, kicking up debris and spraying it into the windows, sending a cloud of dust into the room. One moment it was there, and the next second, it was flying off and into the east.
Everyone inside breathed out a sigh of relief, and that’s when three zombies hit the wall and threw their arms into the window, trying to get at the juicy people inside. Their undead stench came with them, nearly turning Molly’s stomach.
Molly exclaimed, “Don’t these fuckers ever give up?”
They don’t, but neither did she, and two minutes later, she had bashed in each one of their skulls.
Chapter 44
Fire and Fury
Colonel Kilgore didn’t mean to hit Private Miller, but when he saw the truck engulfed in flames, something inside him broke. It was like an oil well that had built up pressure under ground, and it finally broke through to the surface, explosively. Before he could stop, his fist hit the unsuspecting Miller in the jaw, just below the ear. He hadn’t seen it coming, and it had taken him off his feet and splayed him across the grass in the front yard of the house just fifty feet from the burning truck.
The flames from the truck illuminated the houses in the neighborhood, making them look almost warm and cheery, basking them in an orange glow, making Private Soto think of Halloween for some reason. That was until Kilgore cold-cocked Miller.
“You fucking idiots!” Kilgore raged. “We are so close and you..you...damned idiots have let this happen!” He motioned with a closed fist at the truck, and a string of spittle flew off his lips.
He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but Soto thought that maybe he could use reason to calm down the out of control Kilgore. “Sir, we were still searching houses in the next block. We had no idea…”
Opening his mouth turned out to be a mistake. Kilgore whirled on him, and his eyes looked almost ready to pop out from rage. Soto ducked just in time to miss the roundhouse from Kilgore, but he followed it up with a left jab that struck Soto in the shoulder. The impact spun Soto around, and he used the momentum to move out of Kilgore’s proximity.
Still enraged, Kilgore chased after Soto, kicking out at the fleeing man. Kilgore’s foot glanced off Soto’s leg, but Soto was in full flight. His back tingled, fearing that Kilgore just might shoot him.
Private Beltran had come to the party late and watched from beside a house, knowing it was best to maintain a safe distance, but in Kilgore’s current mood, he didn’t know if being within a mile the man was safe. He definitely didn’t want to be within bullet range, so he moved back into the shadows, hoping the storm clouds of Kilgore’s rage passed through quickly.
Soto ducked around the side of another house but stopped and peeked around the corner, trying to find out if Kilgore might be in pursuit. He was only twenty feet away from Kilgore, and it had taken him out of the danger zone, but he wasn’t sure how safe it was. He knew that was a big gamble because he didn’t know if the Colonel was going to pursue him or not because, if he was, Soto was clearly a dead man. As it turned out, Kilgore didn’t follow him. Instead, the Colonel stood in the middle of the street, stamping his feet. He screamed a string of curses, even making up new ones. He came close to howling at the moon.
Soto wondered if Kilgore had reached a tipping point, ready to fall off the cliff into pits of craziness. He had been on the edge for so long that it was very possible that he had left the land of sanity and bought a ticket for some time in crazy town. Maybe for a permanent change of address.
As he had done thousands of times in the past few weeks, Soto wondered why he was still on board with the Colonel. But he knew why. While the Colonel was not on the side of the angels, he was on the side of the winners. And in the apocalypse, winning was everything because losing meant you were dead.
Still, he stood with one foot in the ‘stay with the horse that brought you camp’ and with the other foot in the ‘get the hell out of Dodge’ playground. It really depended on whether Kilgore decided to return from his trip to cuckoo-ville. These watch-and-wait periods were getting more frequent, but wait he did.
The Colonel raged on, yelling some more and even tugging at his hair. At one point, Soto was sure that Kilgore had pulled a chunk free and tossed it in the street. This was getting bad, and Soto started to lean toward the foot that was telling him to run.
He just about reached the point of no return when something moved past the Colonel. The heat of the fire created a shimmering of the air in the street, and along with the smoke, the combination of the two partially masked what was coming toward Kilgore. The figure broke through the smoke, and it turned out to be the Harley-thing, moving forward, bent over at the waist, its arms lolling back and forth in that way it always did, reminding Soto of a dog.
Kilgore must have noticed it because he stopped his fit of anger and went still, looking toward the approaching creature. The Harley-thing walked in a tentative and cautious way, the way a dog might approach an unpredictable master, but it didn’t stop.
Soto wasn’t sure what to make of it, and he had always been creeped out by the creature. He didn’t want to think abo
ut what it really was, because it clearly wasn’t human. And he knew that whatever created it wasn’t human either.
Still, he watched and waited, rebalancing his weight evenly, ready to move in either direction.
The Harley-thing continued on its path toward Kilgore, albeit a crooked one that seemed to skirt as much around Kilgore as toward him. Still, the path cut the distance between the man and the creature. After a few more seconds, the Harley-thing stopped just a few feet away from Kilgore as if assessing the man, waiting for him to lash out or calm down.
The next few seconds seemed to stretch out for what felt like an hour as Soto felt an uneasy tightening in his chest. It was the same feeling whenever he had flown a dangerous mission in the past.
The Harley-thing made a tentative side-step toward Kilgore, who now seemed to be ignoring the creature altogether and instead, stared directly in the blazing fire that used to be their truck. Soto got this strange idea that Kilgore was searching the flames for some sort of meaning, the way a mystic might read bones strewn out on the ground. He shook off this thought, admitting that he was just weirding himself out. Still, he also conceded that there was some strange shit going down.
The Harley-thing made two slow steps toward the Colonel and eased its head into his body, nuzzling Kilgore’s side at about hip level. Kilgore seemed to ignore the gesture, but the Harley-thing did it again, but with a little insistence, as if to say, ‘I’m here.” Kilgore didn’t stop staring into the flames, but he reached down and patted the creature’s head in an absent-minded manner, the way a dog owner might placate their pet.
Whatever creep factor had been welling up inside Soto increased exponentially, and he thought he felt bile easing its way up his throat.
The creature moved in close, slightly knocking into Kilgore with its shoulder, making Kilgore sway back and forth ever so slightly. Instead of breaking into a new rage, Kilgore responded by stroking the thing’s hair. Soto watched as Kilgore’s posture seemed to soften with each stroke.
