by J. W. Vohs
The place turned out to be a goldmine. Several pairs of every kind of leather-working tool imaginable littered the back room where the alteration and repair work was done, and rolls of materials of various qualities and thicknesses were hung on racks around the walls. All of the threads and needles used to stitch the heavy fabrics were stored in large sewing boxes, and they even found a huge storage container filled to the top with patterns for nearly every type of garment the shop made or repaired. In the storefront they found dozens of leather coats, pants, gloves, and boots, all of which joined the other supplies in the back of the vehicle.
As soon as they had taken everything they needed from the leather-store they checked out the pizza place, which, unlike the business next door, had been ransacked by people who’d left three zombie corpses in their wake. The smell of the decaying bodies, combined with the odors of the spoiling meats and cheeses, had left the air so foul that Lori and Jerry began gagging while David spent a few moments swallowing back the bile that threatened to rise from his stomach. Finally he quietly commanded, “Jerry, Lori, watch the door. Luke, Christy, on me.”
They quickly checked every place in the small business where a zombie could possibly be hiding, then they looked over the foodstuffs left in the cluttered storeroom. Whoever had been there had been in a hurry—containers and shelving units were strewn all about the floor. The smell in the room was possibly worse than what they had experienced when they first entered the pizzeria, and Christy gasped, “For God’s sake, let’s just get the hell outta here!”
David was just about to agree with her when Luke kicked aside a large stack of pizza boxes and triumphantly declared, “They missed one bag!”
The teen hung his axe on his belt and hoisted a fifty-pound sack of flour onto his shoulder. David asked, “Anymore of those?”
Luke shook his head, “There’s nothing else in here for us. Let’s go!”
Lori and Jerry needed no further encouragement to exit the building than the sight of Luke carrying the huge bag of flour, and the entire group moved out to the vehicle with disciplined but rapid precision. They took up positions guarding every direction as the teen set the bag on the cement behind the back door of the Rover before transferring a bunch of the leather garments into the luggage carrier on top, quickly creating a space for the flour and closing the hatch as he urged, “Let’s move!”
The group crowded back into the vehicle and drove over to the Rite Aid a few hundred yards away, and though the store’s windows looked as if they’d been hit by a bomb they decided to check the place out anyway. About fifteen zombie corpses littered the sidewalk and the inside of the store, accompanied by nearly as many human remains that had once again been eaten down to the bones. The sound of gunfire, now coming from their west, could still be plainly heard even though the wind was blowing away from them. This time everyone ignored the noise and strapped on their headlamps before gingerly stepping over several bodies and entering the building.
The place had been completely trashed, with make-up, hair-care items, and thousands of other goods considered of little value to the looters covering the floor and making every step hazardous. They moved toward the pharmacy and discovered that it was in even worse shape than the rest of the store. Virtually nothing was still in the shelving units, and the floor was completely covered with a pile of medicines at least a foot deep. They all just stared at the insane mess for a moment until Jerry broke their reverie by ordering, “Luke, go back to the front of the store and keep watch. Everyone else, move into this pile on your knees and start reading labels.”
They were able to search for over half an hour until Luke warned that a large group of zombies was moving down Clague Street from the north. During that time they’d managed to find over a hundred mostly undamaged packages of antibiotics, an old physicians’ desk reference book, and, miraculously, twenty-eight bottles of Hydrocodone in a box buried under a stack of cold medicines kept behind the counter because they contained pseudoephedrine. They quickly loaded their goodies into several backpacks they’d brought into the store with them, topping off the loads with OTC medicine, peroxide, iodine, rubbing alcohol, and various bandages and medical tape they found lying around.
Finally they quietly moved forward to join Luke, who held up a closed fist and motioned them down from his well-hidden observation post when they were about twenty feet away. They all froze and slowly dropped to one knee as they tried to look out of the store and see what had Luke so concerned. A pack of at least a dozen zombies soon came into sight, all of them in better condition than the ones they’d been seeing lately, but none of them even close to the fast runners they’d all developed a healthy respect for. As the monsters passed through the intersection they didn’t even glance at the Rite Aid, moving as quickly as possible toward the sound of gunfire that had slowed a great deal in the last half-hour, but could still be heard coming from the barrels of at least three different types of weapons.
Once the flesh-eaters had passed they all quietly discussed what they should do next. Christy wanted to look for more medical supplies but was immediately voted down. Jerry could see that at least a few large packages of toilet paper were still on the shelves, and he was adamant about retrieving them before leaving. Lori helped him grab and carry as much of the stuff as they could possibly take, and then they all went out to the Range Rover and completely filled the luggage rack with the salvaged goods.
When they were all loaded up and ready to go they found Luke standing at the front of the vehicle, listening to the gunfire with an intent look on his face. He turned to Christy and asked, “What’s over in that direction?”
She thought for a moment until answering, “The only place I can think of besides houses is Saint Bernadette’s church.”
Lori agreed, “Yeah, it’s right over in that direction. Blake and I used to go there, and that’s where Jenny was baptized.”
Luke just nodded as he reached into the backseat and pulled out a wrapped quiver full of extra arrows. Then he said in a tight voice, “I’m going to follow the sound of gunfire and help those people under attack. If you guys don’t want to go, I’m walking.”
Jerry grabbed his arm and argued, “Hold on there, son, we don’t know what’s going on over there. Could be two groups of people having it out over a stash of meth for all we know.”
With a combination of serenity and determination, Luke looked at his father and explained, “There’s a place inside me, in my heart, where I feel things that I know are right. I call it the place where God speaks to me, but that’s not exactly right because I’ve never heard an audible voice or words.”
His dad nodded nervously, “I know, Luke, you’ve told me about that before—what does that have to do with you wanting to head toward the sound of that gunfire?”
“Dad, I know you won’t like it, but that place in my heart is compelling me to go there. I’m sorry to disobey you, but I have to go. Please trust me.”
Christy jumped in to defuse the situation, “Everyone in the Rover, we’re all going with Luke!”
David looked at her through his raised visor and began to protest but she cut him off with a curt shake of her head and fire in her eyes. “Let’s go!”
Nobody argued with Christy, and Jerry seemed relieved and disturbed at the same time. Once again Christy navigated while David drove, and in less than a minute the parking lot of the church was in view. As they pulled closer they could see that dozens of vehicles were parked helter-skelter in the lot, most of them as close to the door as possible regardless of who they’d blocked in. A few seconds later and David noted that the lot was also covered in zombie corpses, hundreds of them. They were especially thick near the doors and windows, many of which were ominously open.
Christy ordered him to park the Rover on a side street behind the main entrance to the church where they listened to the noise of gunfire and shouting through the open second-story windows of the building. Lori offered, “All of that shooting is tak
ing place inside the church. I think it’s coming from the rectory, up on the second floor facing this street.”
After looking around for a good minute, the only zombies they could see were about a dozen individuals, each of which was mutilated and badly burned, moving along separate paths to the church. Finally, Luke called out from the middle of the back seat, “I need you guys to let me out of here!”
David sighed inside his helmet and called out, “We go together!”
They opened the doors and jumped out of the vehicle with weapons in hand, half-expecting a horde of zombies to come running their way. After a moment the only flesh-eater to even notice their appearance was a stumbling creature that resembled a burnt hot dog positioned upright; the arms were gone, the face melted off, and the legs somehow keeping the monster standing in spite of being burnt to the bone in several places. The ghastly zombie looked as if it would need a half-hour to cover the thirty yards of distance between it and the humans it somehow sensed were nearby, so they didn’t worry about the pathetic creature.
Lori knew the grounds so she took point and led them around the side of the huge gothic church to the more modern addition in back. They ran up to one of the open windows where Lori went in first, followed by David, Jerry, Luke, and Christy. They found themselves at the back of the sanctuary, and the sight that greeted them inside this house of worship would have been rejected as a postcard from hell because it was too horrible to comprehend. Hundreds of zombie corpses littered the pews and aisles; there were even a few of the monsters lying on the altar. There were also at least twenty piles of live zombies clawing frantically at dead humans beneath them. Every few seconds one of the creatures would emerge from the scrum with a piece of flesh hanging from its bloody face, chewing and moaning with a tone of satisfaction that really freaked everyone out.
Finally, Luke quietly demanded, “Lori, lead us to the sound of those guns!”
They followed the former soldier with weapons at the ready, stepping around scores of zombie corpses that lay still and unmoving in the hallways, passing several rooms that held snarling, moaning, writhing packs of flesh-eaters devouring humans they had taken down. Thousands of empty brass cartridges covering the floors, along with the hundreds of zombie corpses missing parts of their skulls, bore testament to the brave defense of the church that those lying at the bottom of the mounds of feeding creatures had mounted before being overwhelmed by the sheer number of attackers. Luke seemed to be especially offended by the sight of the mounds marking the places where human beings were being consumed by mindless, soulless monsters, staring at the scenes with an expression of righteous disgust.
Finally, they came to an open door where the moans of zombies and echoes of gunshots mingled together into a crescendo of battle emanating from a fight taking place right in front of them. A quick look into the very large, dorm-like room on the other side of the doorway revealed about a hundred zombies crushed together into a frenzied mob trying to break through a barrier of furniture and pianos resting against the far wall where a large, arched entryway held several men firing directly into the faces of the flesh-eaters that had the last humans in the church cornered.
The small group of leather-armored fighters tried to assess the situation from the rear of the zombie-crowd. David was about to turn to ask Jerry what they should do when he noticed a zombie at the back of the pack fall unmoving to the floor with what looked like some small, brightly colored flower sticking out from the back of its head. Suddenly realizing that he was looking at fletching, he turned in the other direction just in time to see Luke release another arrow from a firing position he’d taken on a folding chair, dropping a second zombie as efficiently as the first. Realizing that the fight was on, David shouted at everyone to form a half-circle around the boy.
A number of zombies heard the shout and turned to see the live humans behind them. Their hungry moans announced the presence of more food to other flesh-eaters who also took notice of the people standing in the back of the room. David and Jerry had rehearsed this type of situation with everyone in the group before, and they positioned themselves in a formation that was gun-halberd, gun-halberd. Luke was carrying at least thirty arrows, and Lori and Christy had four clips of ten rounds each for their pistols. Jerry and David’s job was to keep the zombies off of the shooters as they aimed, fired, and eventually, reloaded.
Somewhere in the back of David’s head he quickly did the math and doubted that they had enough projectiles for the number of zombies in the huge room, and he hoped that the people on the other side were able to continue fighting as well. Then there was no time to think about anything but defending himself as a wall of zombies came rushing at them with arms outstretched and hungry mouths gaping wide.
The girls were good with their guns, and zombies began dropping into a pile at their feet as they poured rounds into the monsters’ faces from less than six feet away. But some of the creatures were getting through, and David and Jerry were doing heavy work with their halberds as they struggled to keep the flesh-eaters out of the small circle protecting Luke. The teen had yet to miss with his bow, and he was trusting the other members of the group to take care of the closest monsters. He continued to nock arrows, pull back, aim, and smoothly release the string from his fingers like some sort of deadly archery-machine.
David had lost count of how many zombies he’d speared or hacked down with his halberd, but his arms had grown weary and he was unable to bring the business end of the weapon up high enough to stop a fast-moving monster that had scrambled to the top of the pile of corpses. It leapt upon him from a height of about four feet. The flesh-eater’s weight instantly dropped the leather-covered human to the gore-splattered floor, where the creature tried to gnaw through an armored left arm while David struggled to reach the short sword with his right hand. Finally he grasped the handle of the weapon, which he quickly pulled free with a burst of panic-fueled adrenaline. He then thrust the blade into the zombie’s neck and jerked back and forth until he severed the spinal cord. The beast was still alive but could do little other than blink and gnash his teeth. David pushed the paralyzed monster off of him and rolled to his knees, where he hefted the sword in a two-handed grip and slammed it through the eye of the zombie. Then, through the haze of battle-lust he realized that Christy was calling for him.
David stumbled to his feet and looked to the left for his wife; she was apparently out of ammo and was fighting to hold off several zombies with nothing but her short sword and courage. He quickly found his halberd beneath the creature he’d just killed, and after pulling it free he swung it toward the head of the nearest flesh-eater attacking Christy and was rewarded with a crunching noise that he’d learned to recognize as a killing blow. He was still weak and out of breath, and he didn’t see Christy finish off the second monster with her blade. She grabbed him by the arm and shouted, “Where’s Luke?”
David looked around to see Jerry and Lori finishing off a trio of zombies, but Luke was gone from his chair and nowhere in sight. His longbow was propped up against the wall along with an empty quiver, but the boy was gone. David wearily motioned for Christy to climb up on the chair, and she allowed him to help lift her. The moment she could see above the mound of corpses surrounding their position Christy saw Luke at the end of the room. The teen was spinning his trench axe and moving his feet in what seemed to almost be choreographed motion as he lopped off three zombie heads in less than five seconds. When the last one dropped Luke looked up to see the final gunman still standing in front of the door leading to the rectory, doing his best to fend off what appeared to be the last three zombies from what had easily been more than a hundred just minutes earlier.
Luke lifted the axe above his head in a firm, two-handed grip, then flipped the weapon toward the creatures ten yards away. The shaft and blade spun with deceptive slowness until slamming into the back of the skull of the largest of the flesh-eaters. Luke was sprinting forward even as the axe struck home, leaping through the air
to tackle another zombie about to take a bite out of the gunman’s shoulder as he was fighting off the last creature. Luke rolled to his feet after taking down the monster, leaving it motionless on the floor with a dagger protruding from its eye-socket. Then he grabbed the final zombie by its long dark hair, and spun it into the wall head first. When the flesh-eater fell to the floor the teen finished it off by smashing the heel of his combat boot through the creature’s now-softened skull.
Christy watched Luke’s attack from across the room with disbelieving wonder. They all knew the kid was deadly with his bow and recklessly brave, but she’d had no idea he’d improved so much with the axe. He had just displayed the strength and speed of a world-class athlete and the instincts of a trained assassin. She was shocked that the teen was such a brutal and efficient killer. She motioned for David to help her down, explaining, “Luke’s all right! All of the zombies are down and he’s checking on the people over there.”
Jerry and Lori had won their battles and were checking each other for bite-wounds while trying to catch their breath. Jerry finally looked over at David and asked, “He’s ok, right?”
David simply nodded as he turned to look for a way through the pile of corpses all around them. Christy was approaching the entrance they had used, and she closed the doors to the large room and wedged them shut with David’s halberd and her own short sword. Since they knew that there were still plenty of live zombies roaming the building, David mentally slapped himself for not thinking of the doors earlier.
Walking up to Christy he placed a shaky hand on her shoulder before huskily stating, “You’re as smart as you are tough.”
