The Zombie Wars: Call To Arms (White Flag Of The Dead Book 7)

by Joseph Talluto

  Another climbed up, and when she screeched at me from the edge of my perch, I put a bullet through her mouth. A second one got a leg over the top but fell off when I shot him.

  After that it was quiet. I knew there were at least two more out there, but if they were lying in wait, they were even more evolved than I gave them credit for. I switched magazines on my Glock, swapping the depleted one for a fully loaded one. I’d replace the spent rounds later when I had the chance.

  I climbed down, taking care not to slip in anything funky. Zombie gunk was just as infectious as a bite, and keeping it off your clothes was just as important as keeping it off your skin. If you had some on your shirt and then pulled your shirt over our head, you could get that shit in your eyes, and then you’re done. We always tried to make sure we wore button up shirts just so nothing went over our heads.

  I crossed the room, keeping my gun trained on the door. I knew the hallway extended to my right, and the corner of the hall was on my left. There was a stairwell around here somewhere, so there were several places for ambush. I hadn’t killed that one teen, so I knew she was still out there somewhere.

  I looked to the right, then stepped out, pointing my gun to the left. I didn’t see anything, but that meant nothing. I moved slowly forward, scanning the dark hallways for threats. I killed several of the zombies, but I didn’t think I had killed them all.

  I glanced behind me and caught a glimpse of a small ghoul launching itself through the air. I dropped flat to the ground, and the little biter sailed over where I was just standing. She hit the ground and rolled, twisting around to come back.

  I fired from the floor, hitting her with at least three of the five shots I threw her way. I didn’t kill her, I just bought myself a second to sit up and aim, sending my sixth shot through the bridge of her nose.

  I let the breath out that I was holding, and looking back down the dark hallway, I saw several little glowing orbs dancing back and forth. They hovered about head high and would be mesmerizing if they weren’t attached to such deadly monsters.

  “Damn,” I said to no one in particular. I briefly thought about going back to my little perch, but these guys could reach up and cause some serious trouble. My best bet was to keep moving and get the hell out of here.

  I holstered my Glock and pulled my carbine off my back. I’d avoided using the rifle so far, but since I’d already killed with the pistol, the noise of the rifle wasn’t going to attract any more zombies than were already on the way. I pulled the flap off the spare magazines I had in my vest and headed towards the stairs. I’d eliminated the worst of the threat, it was time to find out what happened to my friends. As I reached the stairwell, a fat zombie waddled out towards me. She was a disgusting sight, with big chunks of fat ripped off her arms and sides. Her pig-like eyes stared at me through a sagging fat face, and her lank blond curls were caked with filth. She raised a fat arm in my direction and opened her small mouth, groaning with hunger.

  “Not on your best day, Debbie,” I said, kicking her in the chest and sending her down the stairs. I don’t know why I called her Debbie, I just guessed that might have been her name. Debbie rolled down the stairs, leaving a trail of black goo whenever her face smacked a stair. She tried to stop herself and just managed to wedge her head in between the bars of the banister that followed the stairs. She pulled and twisted, getting herself even more stuck. I fired a shot as I passed by, adding another hole to her nasty head. She slumped and lay there, a mass of putrid flesh.

  “Debbie does Dead.” I chuckled to myself as I reached the next level down. Debbie’s dead head stared back at me, her mouth open and her tongue out. Not her best look, I was sure of that.

  At the first floor, there was another small group of zombies, but they fell quickly to the red dot sight on the top of my rifle. I walked down the hallway, careful around the open doors of the classrooms. At the center of the hall was a huge open space with a large stairwell leading down to the street. An enormous chandelier hung over the stairwell and arched plaster columns joined at the ceiling. In another time, this building would be a fantastic place for events and activities.

  Not anymore. I moved down the stairs and towards the front door. There was a kind of patio in front of the building with stairs leading off in either direction. A low wall was directly in front of the building, and I crept out to it to check out the street.

  I didn’t see anything, so I used the opportunity to get a drink and replenish my magazines. I was going to have to get more 9mm ammo in my backpack when I got back to the truck.

  A banging sound behind me reminded me that re-entering the building wasn’t going to be a possibility. Three zombies spread themselves over the glass around the door, but the reinforced glass wasn’t going to let them through.

  As I reloaded, a new sound came to my ears. At first I wasn’t sure what it was, but as it got louder I was able to identify it. It was the sound of running feet, followed by the sound of a lot of running feet. There was another sound in there, which was much harder to identify. It was a high-pitched sort of wail, starting and stopping at regular intervals.

  I placed my rifle on the wall, and put the extra magazines were I could reach them. I waited until I could see what was happening as I didn’t want to disrupt the chaos headed my way.

  Around the corner came Tommy and Duncan. They were running flat out, followed closely by Charlie. Behind them, a crowd of about fifty young zombies raced to catch up, grabbing at the air and snapping their teeth. In Duncan’s pocket, Tucker stuck his head out, and he was screeching in a constant stream.

  I had to suppress a laugh. It wasn’t funny, but it was. I waited until my friends passed by, and then I cut loose on the crowd. From my vantage point, I was shooting about head level from the wall. I didn’t really aim, I just sent rounds into the masses. Several dropped, but not enough.

  I was hoping I would be able to take a little time to aim, but the rifle fire prompted the Z’s to change course, and suddenly they were coming right at me. I fired again and again, killing the zombies in front and behind. I tried to thin the herd before they reached me because I wasn’t going to have a chance after that. The crowd was halfway to me and splitting up, getting ready to hit me from both sides.

  “Down!” Charlie yelled, and I didn’t need to be told twice. I ducked behind the wall, and dozens of rounds ripped through the air. The smack of bullets hitting flesh was loud, as was the sound of flesh hitting concrete.

  “Move!” came another yell, and I took the most direct route. I leapt over the wall and raced away from the converging zombies. There was about twenty of them left, and if they were in a frenzy before, they were in a positive lather right now.

  I ran, sliding to a stop in front of my friends.

  “Nice to see you guys are alive,” I said, exchanging magazines and taking aim at a young man on the left.

  “Back at you,” Tommy said. “Nice to see your sense of timing is still pretty good.”

  “Talk later. Kill now,” Charlie said, firing.

  The crowd thinned as they advanced, and Duncan killed the last one nearly at our feet. I clapped him on the shoulder and gave Tucker a scratch between the ears, getting a heavy purr in return.

  “Thought we lost you,” Tommy said, stepping away from the carnage. We got back into the street and headed west, working our way back towards the downtown area and the river. We couldn’t find an easy path into this town, so we used the river that bisected it and floated in. Our boat was in the middle of the town, and we had no other way to get out.

  “Tough place,” I said, jogging alongside Charlie.

  “Tell me about it,” he replied. “Thought you bought it back there when we got separated. Didn’t know what the hell I was going to tell Jake and Sarah.”

  “Almost did,” I said. “I tried to find some high ground to help you guys out, except a crowd of zombie kids chased me all over that building.”

  “That sounds about as much fun as we had,” T
ommy said. “We got away from the main horde, only to wake up the faster one when jackass up there kicked a door in that had been nailed shut.”

  “Hey!” Duncan complained. “How was I supposed to know?”

  “Maybe when a piece of plywood is hammered into place in a new building, you might think it wasn’t part of the original design?” Tommy said.

  “Enough. Let’s get out of here. Did you at least get a message out?” I asked.

  Tommy nodded. “This place should be okay to salvage as long as they come by the river.”

  We made it down a hill, going under a railroad viaduct. We left our boat on the other side of the river next to what used to be a community college. I was surprised when we landed that both sides of the town were overrun, but there was nothing to be done when the disease hit both sides at the same time.

  “Right side!” Duncan yelled, whipping out his melee weapon. I swung my pick around, and Charlie flipped his tomahawks over. Tommy unlimbered his mace, and we went to work. Ten zombies stumbled out of an alley where it looked like they had managed to find something to kill. Their fingers and hands were covered in bright blood, and their mouths were dripping with gore.

  I caught a glimpse of what they had killed, and I was suddenly furious. I slammed my pick into the head of one, and rotating my feet, I ripped the metal out of one head and buried it in another. A third tried to reach for me, but I got my pick’s handle in between us. Using my forward momentum, I forced the Z back, ramming it into the steel I-beam. Pushing my handle up, I rammed the zombie’s head into the corner of the steel, cracking the skull and killing it.

  The rest of the team finished the remaining Zs, and I went over to the alley. Curled up in obvious agony was a small boy. He had been torn apart by the crowd we just killed. Bite marks and torn flesh covered his arms and legs, and great holes had been torn in his sides. He wasn’t very old, maybe ten or twelve, but he didn’t deserve to die like this, no one did. I sighed and brought my pick down, spiking the top of his head. If nothing else, he wouldn’t come back to the world that had killed him so cruelly.

  I turned and saw the rest of the team watching me, and Charlie shook his head.

  “Tough luck. Pretty recent kill though, judging by the blood,” he said.

  “What’s in the sack?” Duncan asked.

  I lifted the small satchel and several cans fell out. “Looks like he was foraging.” I swept the cans back up into the sack and handed it to Duncan

  “We need to get going,” Tommy said. “There’s a lot more of them out there, and we don’t have the firepower to take it apart.”

  I nodded. There was something wrong about this, but I didn’t have time to worry about it.

  “Let’s get out of here. “We’ve done enough, and the army will know what they’re walking into,” I said.

  We found our boat and headed back upriver, paddling carefully through the shallows. Charlie and I propelled the boat while Duncan and Tommy kept an eye on the shore. A mile upriver we hit the banks, and Tommy pulled the boat up. Duncan scouted ahead, and right when Charlie and I got onto solid ground, we heard Duncan call out.

  “Hey! Back off!”

  The three of us scrambled up the bank to find Duncan in the middle of a standoff. Three men were pointing their guns at Duncan, and Duncan, for his part, was pointing two guns back.

  Charlie, Tommy, and I threw down on the men, increasing the amount of firepower. Tommy held two guns like Duncan, but I kept myself to the one.

  “Let’s all take it easy right now,” I said.

  “They were trying to get into our trucks. They had already taken the stuff out of the back,” Duncan said.

  The man in the middle spoke up. “Didn’t know it belonged to anyone.” He said, raising his hand and pointing his rifle at the ground. He hissed at his companions and they lowered their guns as well.

  “Who are you?” Duncan asked. He hadn’t lowered his guns yet since the men still had their hands around the stocks with fingers close to triggers.

  “Just scouts for the community a few miles back. We make runs to the town all the time. Try to kill a few zombies every time. Eventually we’ll get them all. Was that your fire we heard?” the middle man asked.

  “It was,” I said. “We’re scouts ourselves, checking the territory for the New United States Army that will be sweeping through this area in a couple of days. If you want to join, just stay where you are. If not, well, I haven’t reinstated the draft yet.”

  “You reinstated? Who are you?” The man on the right spoke up. He had a mean look about him, and I really didn’t care for him.

  “No one you need to worry about if all you’re doing is trying to survive. Mind your own, and don’t do anything that might be against the law,” I said.

  The man on the left snorted. “Ain’t no laws. Not no more,” he said derisively.

  Charlie stepped forward. “Yes, there are. Cross a line you shouldn’t, and you’ll pay for it. Keep it simple. If you know it’s wrong, don’t do it.” Charlie holstered his weapon and crossed his arms.

  “Well, we’ll be going now, sorry to bother your stuff,” the middle man said.

  “Not yet,” I said. “The polite thing to do would be to help put back the stuff you took out.”

  The men didn’t like that, but I wasn’t going to be polite anymore. They were going to steal, obviously, and lied about it. Obviously.

  When we were done, I asked a question. “Any of you know a boy, about ten years old, brown hair, wearing a blue hoodie?”

  “Sounds like one of ours. Denise’s boy, I think. Why?” the middle man asked.

  “He must have been foraging. He was killed by zombies. For this,” Duncan said, handing over the small sack of cans.

  “Ah, hell.” Left Man dropped his head and reached out for the sack. It clinked a little when he took it, a sad tune for the lost boy.

  “Why was he out alone?” Tommy asked. “He clearly had no business being in that town. Whoever sent him in there killed him as surely as did those zombies.”

  “No one sent him, ‘cept maybe his ma. Our community been on some hard times. We’ve exhausted the food stores hereabouts and had to start making trips to town,” middle man said. “We were on our way there when we came on your trucks. Thought we hit the mother lode.”

  “Well, the army’s coming. I’m sure they’ll help you. Tell them John Talon said to help you out. When they ask you for a code, tell them six-zero-four-six-two.”

  “Sounds like a zip code.” Right Man said.

  “We’ll see you later,” I said, getting into the truck. Charlie followed, and we drove south,

  “Thoughts?” Charlie asked as we looked for a place to spend the night.

  “Those idiots probably sent that boy in there to find food for them, probably told him it was a test to become a man, or some other stupid shit like that,” I said, irritably.

  “That why you gave them the wrong code?” Charlie asked.

  “Damn right.”

  Northeast Louisville, KY

  We drove up a very scenic road which would take us around the town of Louisville. There was no point in trying to work our way through any more than we had, it was futile to try and fight the zombies more than we already did. I did notice that there was a lot of zombie activity to the south, which made me curious about the current state of the population. I had been through Kentucky on a number of occasions, and it was a state covered in history, kudzu vines, and riflemen. It was a source of pride for the locals to be able to shoot well, and I had a feeling in Kentucky and Tennessee we were going to see a lot more survivors than zombies. That would work well with my overall strategy that I was formulating in my head. Instead of one army, why not build three?

  Covered Bridge Road was a very nice drive, and in the fall I am sure it would have been lovely. Right now, it was a road we happened to be on looking for a place to hole up. Push came to shove, we could sleep in the truck, but my back wasn’t going to forgive me for
another night of that.

  Charlie had to do some interesting driving when we came close to 71. Cars choked the highway, and there were long lines of vehicles that had made it off the main road only to find death waiting for them at the other end of the off ramp.

  Past the highway there was a gas station. Charlie pulled over and stopped to look around. A big gas tanker truck was parked on the side, and Tommy went over there to try his luck. Charlie and I got out to stretch, and I took this opportunity to burn off any virus residue from my pick and my knife.

  “That’s is a good idea,” Charlie said, flaming his tomahawks as well. Duncan did the same, and I got a better look at what he was using as a melee weapon these days. It was an interesting combination of several weapons. Attached to a three foot pole was a small axe head with a long beard to it. On the other side of the axe was a square hammer head that Duncan had beveled the edges on, making it more into a kind of pyramid with a flattop. The other side of the staff held a small metal cap that ended in a conical point. With a good swing, Duncan could put the head of that axe through the roof of a car.

  Tommy came over to us with a big grin on his face.

  “Gentlemen, luck has smiled. That tanker is nearly half-full. We can top off the trucks, fill the spare cans, and fill more if we can find them,” he said.

  “Fantastic. Let’s get the trucks closer,” I said. We fired up the trucks and parked them near the tanker. Pulling out our siphon hoses, we went to work, filling up the first truck, then the second. We were just finishing up the last spare can when there was a rustling in the woods behind us. We all stopped and went over to the edge of the lot to take a look.

  Down in the embankment the trees began in earnest, and in those trees there was a lot of movement and thrashing about. I followed the treetops back to the north, and the math added up.