by Perrin Briar
The undead rounded the corner. They heard the obvious thud of the heavy engine and headed toward it. They approached the car. Just as their fingers traced its perfect paint job, Dana hit the gas and lurched forward, eating half the street in seconds. She stopped, waiting for the hoard to catch up. And then depressed the accelerator again.
“Pointless being coy now,” Dana said.
She turned the audio system on. Ramstein bled from the speakers. Dana perhaps ought to have chosen something with a stronger roof than the flimsy fabric this one had, but it was too late to change now.
The undead grasped at the car and pulled off strips of paint. She’d been such a beautiful car…
Dana took another corner. More undead, but not from the hoard. These were from elsewhere in the city. They closed on her position. They descended fast, Dana restricted by the car’s movement and lack of space.
The undead grabbed at the wing mirrors, pulling and tearing. They snapped off in their hands. In her remaining side mirror, Dana made out Hugo and the others beat a hasty retreat down a quiet alleyway.
Now, Dana really was on her own.
Chapter Forty
THE CAR DIDN’T HAVE much fuel in it, and why would it? If someone wanted to take it for a spin they didn’t need to drive far. She kept a close eye on it as she traveled the city in a small circle. She couldn’t afford to get lost. Depressing the gas pedal to make the engine roar was burning the fuel faster than she liked. She resorted to planting her fist on the horn instead.
Efficiency was the word.
Getting the undead to follow her had been a successful endeavor. In fact, truth be told, too successful. She had gathered every undead within a half mile. But she wasn’t going to keep them running for much longer.
Dana got out of the car, pick up a brick, and smashed at the closest undead until it hit the ground. Then she placed the brick on the gas pedal. The fuel indicator blinked red. Almost empty.
The diseased came around the corner and approached in their stiff-legged gait. She needed to hurry if she was to set the plan off as she had hoped. She reached over and released the handbrake. The door swung closed. Anna barely managed to move out of the way before it slammed into her.
The car bolted forward and hit the chain-link fence. It hadn't been going fast enough to tear through it, and so got entangled. The engine continued to roar. The car pressed further into the fence. The creatures approached it, the majority following the sound of the roaring engine.
A dozen infected followed Dana as she raced toward an alley. She threw back her arms and stretched her legs, racing down the road to get as much distance between herself and the car as possible.
The roads were empty, devoid of obstruction. Her feet slapped on the tarmac, bounced, and reflected back at the empty windows.
In front of her, not thirty yards from her current position, was a barricade. It consisted of large concrete blocks that would normally have been used as the foundation to bridges and other constructions over large bodies of water.
Located here as they were, they interlinked, leaving no space between them. Now she looked closer, she could see the doors and windows of the first two floors had been bolted shut with metal plates. Someone—probably the military—had tried to contain the spread of the virus.
They had failed.
There was a lot of sticky blood on the ground, stains where the military’s attempt to set up a defense had failed. Thick clouds of black buzzed over the fetid stench of a thousand corpses. The smell was strong. Dana had to cover her mouth and nose with her shirt to walk amongst the fallen.
Her instincts kicked in. She turned to run back the way she had come. More of the creatures had followed her down this dead end than she had expected. She couldn’t hope to fight them all.
She turned back to the tall concrete wall. There had to be a way to get through.
On one side of the concrete wall was a large sentry gun. No doubt they had been placed here to keep back the roving hordes. Dana ran, knowing the faster you got there, the more time she would have to try and figure out how to make them work.
She remembered her lessons from the juvie squad a few days ago. What felt like a lifetime now. Bullets fed into the gun from a large crate box that sat beside it on the ground. There were still plenty inside. But Danna didn't want to use the gun if she didn’t have to. The noise would only bring more of the creatures down on her. She would end up in the same position the military had gotten them into previously.
The weapons were encased behind a short wall of sandbags. In the moonlight, they were wet with something Dana didn’t like to imagine. She got to it and crouched down.
With any luck, the creatures would end up moving on. But she couldn’t rely on that. She had to figure out how to use these weapons in case the time came to use them.
She crawled to the closest gun and looked at each individual piece that made up the whole. It didn’t look difficult but then, they never did. The difficulty came when they stopped working the way they were supposed to. She wished Hugo was with her. He was the one with a curious knowledge of all things military-related.
The car’s horn, a continuous drone up until now, quietened and then stopped. The diseased were pulling the car apart. A small explosion and Dana was certain there would be nothing left of the vehicle. Added to the fact the loud noise would garner a great deal of attention from any undead in close proximity, and it was a recipe for disaster.
Parts of the beautiful car rained down on the area, some still aflame. A low punting noise came then, that would have been comical if Dana could eyeball what had caused it.
She ducked her head down and then raised her eyes above the parapet to see the wheel bounce. It was coming directly for her, as it rolled in her direction.
Even worse, the diseased and unholy appeared to be paying a great deal of attention on it.
Dana prayed under her breath they wouldn’t approach it. Her prayers went unanswered. A handful of the monsters peeled away from the wreckage and followed the wheel’s long cyclical movements.
Toward her.
They were in a frenzy, angry at having lost their meal. It had only been metal and plastic. It hadn’t sated their hunger. Some had been burned by the explosion but took no interest in beating the flames on their backs.
Dana turned to the gun and set to figuring out how the damn thing worked.
Chapter Forty-One
Dana got behind the gun and weighed her options. There is no way she could climb over the wall. She couldn’t wait out the undead. Who knew how long it would take for them to move on—if they ever did.
The zombies drew closer every second.
She loaded the chain of bullets into the sentry gun and took aim. If she was lucky, she would carve through the undead enough to make her escape. It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the only one she had.
“Suck on this, you bunch of undead ‘tards!” Dana said.
She pulled the trigger.
A single shot, six feet wide of the approaching creatures, and the sentry gun instantly jammed. The large bullets wouldn’t feed into the machine gun.
The undead turned in her direction and gave her the grimace she always feared. They ambled toward her, faster than they had been before.
“Come on,” Dana said, fiddling with the shells that refused to play ball and slide into the firing compartment. “Come on!”
She returned to the firing position and went through the checklist in her mind. Everything appeared to be in place. She pulled the trigger again.
The gun let off a dozen shots before it jammed. Dana turned the rifle around and opened fire on those at the front of the encroaching crew. The bullets powerful as they sheared through the zombies’ limbs like a hot knife through butter. But it was no good if all she could do was get a few rounds off at a time.
No wonder the soldiers failed to hold the position here if the equipment acted like this!
Dana moved back to the gun and reloade
d it.
The undead were getting close now—two more minutes at their current pace and they would be on top of her. How long would she last then?
She tried to remain calm and not panic, but she couldn’t help casting glances back at the approaching undead. She was doomed if they got much closer.
Was that it? Had she finally managed to fix the infernal thing? She wasn’t sure, and that in itself was a terrifying thought. She had done her best with the time she had. She returned to the safe end of the weapon and took a deep breath.
Here she was, out in the middle of an infected city overrun by beasts, and she didn’t know what she was doing. If she was going to die, it would be now. She needed a little luck. Just a little. She supposed that was all anybody ever needed when their time finally came.
The lead creatures were in her position, legs bumping into the sandbags. They leaned over, reaching with grasping clawed fingers. They hissed, eyes wide, cheeks torn open by their brethren, teeth showing through.
If the machine gun failed again, she knew that would be her own grisly fate. Reaching forward like that, the creatures’ fingertips made contact with the business end of the rifle.
It was now or never.
Dana pulled the trigger.
The bullets began to fire, and slammed into the craniums of the closest monsters. Their faces were blown open, the bullets passing through bone with ease, and slammed into the walking corpses behind. Nothing could stop the bullets as they drilled through the gathering and buried themselves in the ground or walls at the other end of the street.
Despite the first few successful rounds, Dana did not breathe freely. Not until she had cleared the first few rows of approaching undead.
The gun was loud and reverberated up Dana’s arms and body. The gun was difficult to control, forcing itself first in one direction, and then another. Heads exploded. Bodies were severed in half. Bone was no impediment to the giant rounds.
The empty casings spat out of the machine on the opposite side, creating a golden wave. Round after round pummeled the undead into submission.
Then, finally, all at once, Dana found the undead no longer with her. She let go of the trigger. Her body was still shaking. She wasn’t sure if it was the situation or the juddering of the machine gun up and down her arms.
She had cleared the way. Now she could get out of there.
But that was before she heard them.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Heading for her.
A fresh wave was coming. Untold scores. The rest of the giant horde she had encouraged to chase her.
This was no doubt what had happened to the soldiers who had made their stand. They had stayed here too, fighting to the death, believing in themselves, in their skills, in their ability to get out of there alive. But they had failed. And if the United States army had failed, what chance did Dana, all by herself, have of defeating them?
None.
She was doomed.
She would not make the same mistake they had.
Necessity was the mother of invention. The gun wasn’t strong enough to break through the solid wall. But perhaps it could pound through the metal plates over the doors of the houses on either side of the street.
She turned the turret around and fired at the wall. The bullets slammed into a metal plate, the thudding loud tinny, reverberating, cacophonous. If the undead hadn’t heard the gunshots, they were certain to hear this.
The bullets from the crate were already beginning to run dry. Dana could see the bottom of the crate. It wouldn’t be long before they were gone altogether.
As Dana had to lean over to peer into the crate, it knocked her aim off slightly. The bullets were no longer slamming into the metal window covers. Instead, they were blasting the brick wall and the wooden doorframe.
The doorframe.
Of course!
Dana repositioned the rifle and took aim. The undead were groaning louder now, getting closer with every second that passed.
The bullets slammed into the doorframe, blowing it out.
Then Dana tilted the weapon up at the window directly above the door.
She got off two dozen rounds before the gun clacked empty. The undead were almost on top of her now.
Dana ran, slipping on the empty shells.
The gun hadn’t blasted the door open. She had done the best she could with the limited time she had.
She prayed to God it was enough.
Chapter Forty-Two
THE METAL PLATE was still bolted in place over the door. Dana was out of bullets and, worst of all, time.
Something was still holding the door in place. She hoped it wasn’t still fastened tightly.
She darted a look over her shoulder at the creatures hot on her tail. They were grimacing, faces bent and twisted in anger. They filled the street from one side to another, no hope of escape.
Dana wouldn’t last ten seconds amongst them. If the door didn’t give way…
It was no good dwelling on such things. If it was her time, it was her time.
Except it wasn’t only her she had to think about, but Max.
She was still out there, she knew. She had to be.
Dana couldn’t bring herself to believe she had perished in the university fire, explosion, or whatever had happened to the building.
Max was a survivor, like herself. She had gotten out.
Dana had to believe that, otherwise she would stop and turn around right then and there and let death take her.
Despite her being Resistant, she could still die from bleeding to death. The undead could tear her to pieces. It wasn’t just the virus that could kill her. She was as vulnerable to injury as anyone else.
Dana was drawing close to the door. A few more wide strides and she would be upon it.
She kept running, throwing her arms back, lengthening her stride. She shut her eyes, bellowed, and threw her shoulder into the door.
There was a dull clong! as she made contact. Dana staggered back. And the door…
Stayed in place. It hadn’t budged.
“No…” Dana said.
She took a few steps back and threw her shoulder at the door again. Dust rained down from the top, lightly dusting her head.
A crack formed in the brickwork on either side. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to fan the flames of Dana’s desperation.
The undead’s groaning was loud and cacophonous in her ears now, consuming her world.
Dana beat on the door again.
The door shifted and then tilted forward, smacking down on the entry hall floor on the other side.
A cloud of dust and Dana was enveloped inside it.
She coughed, the dust clogging her lungs. The cloud was thick. It might provide her with a little extra time if she was quick.
She got to her feet and, though she felt no pain, felt how odd her ankle felt when she stepped on it. It felt loose and flimsy. It didn’t matter—wouldn’t matter—if the zombies got hold of her.
She took off up the stairs to the second floor. The house was partly shredded by the bullets she’d fired into it. They’d torn up the upholstery of an expensive armchair.
Dana got to the top of the stairs and moved to the window she had used the machine gun on. She had attempted to blow out the frame as she had on the door downstairs.
She had done a poor job.
This window wouldn’t give as easily as the door had. She daren’t risk using her shoulder this time either. She didn’t want to fall out and onto the crowd on the other side as she had with the door.
Looking down the stairs, the dust was already beginning to settle. The undead below filed into the house like unwanted guests. They hadn’t even noticed the stairs yet.
But they would. Once Dana started beating on the window.
She moved to the bedroom behind her. It was a kid’s room, a teenager’s, judging by their personal exploration of rock bands on the posters.
She glanced at the window on the other wa
ll. Any hope she’d had that only one side of the house had been secured with metal plates over the entrances and exits were dashed. They had been securely fastened on this side too.
Dana grabbed the first heavy object she could find: a wooden chair and ran to the window with it.
She beat on the window, the glass shattering and spraying over the floor. Dana was careful to place her dislocated foot.
The undead’s heads turned in her direction, the noise palpable. They began ascending the steps.
They fell immediately but continued up the steps on hands and knees. They couldn’t climb the stairs like a normal person, but they could ascend like a child.
Shit.
Dana had been hoping they would have struggled.
Evidently not.
Dana had less time than she thought. If she was to turn and deal with them, it was time she would lose that could have been used to beat on the window.
She doubled down and beat on the window frame with all her strength.
Her hands were a blur of movement as she struck at the window again and again. She let out a whimper and a growl of annoyance.
Why was this window so well-made?
Then, finally, the sweet sound of splintered wood.
The windowpane was beginning to give way.
The undead drew closer every second. Their bodies writhed like a hideous monster snake as they worked their way up the stairs. Their heads arched up, looking at her with empty eyes, rotten teeth protruding and vicious.
“Not today, fellas,” Dana said.
She beat at the window three more times. The metal cover tilted back, fell, got stuck, and then jolted under its own weight, before falling to the ground on the other side.
There wasn’t the loud clang Dana had expected, but instead a splat. It had landed on half a dozen corpses, squashing them beneath it. At least two were dead. The others were still writhing, trying to get free. Their brethren fell upon them, feeding.
Dana wasted no time and climbed onto the ledge. She kept her back flush against the brickwork and edged along the wall.
