by Zuko, Joseph
She heaved and groaned “He’s not dead yet.”
The second Karen’s butt hit the front door it was opened by Troy. Her brother grunted, “What’s going on? Oh, Jesus?” He spotted the problem and picked up his shotgun from the corner where he had left it by the front door. He passed Karen as she and Leon entered with Eric into the foyer. Troy joined Sara and Frank on the driveway.
“Where the hell did they come from?” Troy yelled over the noise of their gunfire.
Frank snarled, “Hell!”
Troy cycled through all six-shots and instantly began to reload the gun. His thick fingers slowly worked the rounds into the shotgun as Frank flipped the taped together banana magazines over and popped the fresh one in with such speed, Troy couldn’t believe it. The man’s old hands moved so accurately, like a skilled magician preforming amazing feats with a deck of cards. He had thirty-rounds loaded before Troy could get two into his shotgun.
Jim capped a few more, but he was running out of time.
I can’t leave him here.
We are going to need his help to survive.
He grabbed Cliff by the collar of his leather jacket and pulled with all his might. Jim dragged Cliff’s limp body across the grass. The progress was slow going and at the rate they were moving both of them wouldn’t make it. Halfway across the yard and Jim was out of steam. He emptied the rest of his magazine into the horde. “Cliff!” he hollered. “Please, man! You’ve got to move! I need your help to get through this!” Jim knelt in front of Cliff and gave him five across the eye. “They wouldn’t want you to die like this!” It was either Jim’s words or the back hand to the face, but something he had done woke Cliff up.
Cliff blinked awake and looked up at the man that bitch slapped him, “Jim?”
“Get to the house, now!” Jim lifted Cliff from the grass and pushed him toward the front door.
Cliff chugged for the front of the house. He ran with an awkward gait because his butt had gone numb from sitting on the ground for so long. He saw the pile of severed limbs on the ground and was hit with shock. When he noticed it was his saw sticking out of one of the skulls it all came back to him. As he crossed by the heap of meat he gripped the Para cord braided saw handle and pulled. The skull the blade was buried in popped free from its neck and came along for the ride.
Sara emptied her last magazine. “I’m tapped. The rest of my guns are back inside.” She turned and ran. Troy worked another six rounds into the bottom of his shotgun and ripped off every shot. More infected bodies rounded the corner and raced out into the street. There were hundreds of them.
“Let’s go.” Troy tugged on Frank’s shoulder.
Frank let his SKS swing on its strap and it fell to his back. He extracted both Berettas from his shoulder holster. As Frank stepped backwards he quickly fired both guns until they slide locked. Then he turned tail and ran.
Karen and Leon rushed into the kitchen and dropped Eric to the floor. Both little girls came rushing into the room. “What’s happening, mama?” cried Valerie.
Karen pulled her children into her arms and kissed them both. “I need you to take your sister and run. Go to Ganny’s bathroom, shut the door, lock it and stay inside until I tell you to come out, okay?”
“Lock it?” Valerie’s brow crushed down onto her eyes.
“Lock?” Robin added.
“Yes baby, lock the door and stay as quiet as you can. I love you, now go.” Karen nudged both girls in the right direction. Valerie took Robin by the hand and they raced out of the kitchen and down the hall for the back bathroom.
“What should we do with him?” Leon looked around the wrecked kitchen as he dropped Eric’s legs.
“Leave him here. We have to do something about the front door.” Karen bolted back to the foyer just as Cliff and Jim entered the house.
“Where are the girls?”
“In the back bathroom.”
“Good. You should hide with them.” Jim released his rifle’s magazine and tossed it to the floor. He dug through his jacket pocket until he found a full one and popped it back into the gun.
“I need to stay here and help fight.” Karen slipped the Ruger from its holster and clicked off the safety.
Everything felt off for Cliff. As if he was upside down and inside out. His vision was like looking through the wrong end of some binoculars. Everything looked small and far away, but even with his system shutting down he still noticed the busted door frame at the front of the house. He pointed at the splintered wood. “This won’t hold them.” Cliff noticed the severed head stuck to the end of his saw. He pinned the skull between his boot and the floor. It made a loud crunch as he yanked back and forth on the handle. Finally the blade came free and the head bounced along the hardwood floor. Cliff swatted at it like he was playing golf and sent the split noggin out the front door.
Sara leaped over the rolling cranium as she came through the door. “We’re so screwed!” She headed straight for the duffle bag full of guns and grabbed the first one she found. Sara checked the mag. It was full.
Troy burst through the doorway. He was already reloading the shotgun. One of his two bandoliers was close to empty. “There’s so many of them! What the hell are we going to do?”
Frank stomped into the house and worked to replace both magazines in his pistols. “Any ideas?”
Jim released the bolt on his gun and stepped up to the door way. “Keep shooting!”
Outside the flood of zombies raced toward the driveway. Bodies crashed into the back of the PT Cruiser. Then they smashed into the black truck on the front yard. They looked like a flowing river, pounding into the stones that line the muddy banks. It was as if they were one unit. One solid mass armed with blood stained teeth and nails. Then the smell hit every one in the home. The wretched stink of shit and sour flesh filled the neighborhood.
Everyone with a loaded weapon stood at the doorway and emptied lead into the horde. The gunfire was deafening. The porch filled with smoke. Which smelled better than the monsters. Out of the corner of Jim’s eye he noticed Karen. She stood next to him as she fired her gun. It was poor timing, but he couldn’t help himself from thinking.
Goddamn, she looks hot firing that gun.
He was going to file that image away for later.
It took less than thirty seconds to empty their guns, but the horde was still coming. Jim slammed the door shut and put his shoulder into it. Troy and Frank joined him. Three seconds later the first dead body hit the solid wood door. The impact caused the door to open enough for one of them to get its fingers into the gap.
Jim slammed his shoulder into the door, breaking the zombie’s digits. “Oh, shit!” Jim cursed his dirty rotten luck.
Chapter 6
The room was full of noise as people hustled about, moving supplies and setting up stations to reload spent shells. Dallas closed in on Doctor Lindsey Bryant as she worked at her microscope. He always liked the Doc. She was pleasant at church functions and even though she was normally the most intelligent person in the room she didn’t act like a know-it-all Brainiac. She was also easy on the eyes and that never hurt. Dallas laughed at himself on the inside and just a hint of a smile escaped as he thought:
No way would Doc ever go for a lunk head, like me.
Besides my baby is a thousand miles away, on the other side of the country. He pushed away the idea she might be in danger or dead. He had a mission and there was no time to worry about something he had no control over.
He stepped next to her and gently touched Lindsey on the shoulder as he said, “Doc, do you have a moment?” Even though his tone and touch were both gentle, she still jumped. “Sorry, it’s just me, Dallas.”
She held her heart as her face went flush. “Mr. Welke, I’m the one that should be sorry. I don’t know why I’m so jumpy. It’s just…”
Dallas cranked up his I.Q. whenever he talked with Lindsey, “It’s just that society is crumbling around us and there is nothing we can do but watch? We�
�re all jumpy, but know you’re safe inside these walls.”
“Thanks to people like you.” The color in her cheeks returned to normal as she pushed her glasses up onto the top of her head. “How can I help?”
Dallas found an extra chair on the other side of her lab table and moved it next to her. He took a seat and leaned in so no one could overhear the conversation. “I have a mission that’s going to takes me outside the perimeter. I’m hoping you have some kind of info you could tell me to keep me and my people safe out there.”
She squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger. Both eyes scrunched closed as she gathered her thoughts. “Don’t get bit,” was the best she could do for him.
“Got it, anything else you could tell me?”
She motioned to the microscope and hushed her voice. “I’ve only had a day to examine this disease or infection or epidemic, whatever you want to call it. I only have theories at this time and none of them will help you outside this church.” Her expression begged for mercy and sleep, but Dallas was in no position to help her with either.
“Okay,” he nodded at her trying to hide his disappointment. Dallas looked around the room to make sure no one was listening in when he noticed Pastor Caruthers. The pastor was listening to a crying woman. His arm draped across her shoulders as he consoled her. Caruthers was out of earshot so he couldn’t have known what they were talking about, but he was definitely staring at the two of them. Dallas might not have been book smart or college educated, but he was excellent at reading people and Caruthers, for whatever reason, was jealous.
There’s no time for this church drama.
I’ve got to hit the road.
He turned away from Caruthers and back to Lindsey.
“If you find out anything, give Scott the info so he can pass it along.” Dallas started to reach for her knee to give it a comforting pat, but he chickened out and bailed on the idea. He didn’t want to stir the pot with Caruthers lurking in the distance. Dallas quickly got up from his seat and hoped neither of them noticed him reaching for her leg.
Lindsey bobbed her head at him as she slid her glasses to her nose and turned back to her work. “I’ll do my best.”
Dallas headed for the exit, trying to disguise the dread from the others around him. He didn’t look back at Lindsey or Caruthers.
Blaine moved through the church’s kitchen looking for Dana. She was in charge of keeping the church in order and would know the best people to volunteer for this death march Dallas signed him up for. The kitchen was a very large room and three sets of appliances filled the back wall. The ranges and refrigerators were secondhand restaurant appliances. They were beat up hunks of stainless steel, but worked perfectly to feed the large congregation. A dozen people cleaned dishes from breakfast and were already working on lunch.
Dana stood at the end of a prep table. She added ingredients to a large mixing bowl in front of her. She looked exhausted and on edge. As Blaine drew closer, he noticed she was mixing up a batch of cookies.
“Sweet, chocolate chip,” he said as he slipped a spoon from a drawer, straddled up next to her and scooped out a little cookie dough before she could stop him.
“Leave some for the kids, would ya.” Dana swatted at him and pulled the bowl to the other side of the table, putting it out of his reach.
Blaine licked the spoon and asked, “Why are you making cookies?”
She pointed the mixing spoon at him. “You better wash that before you put it back, Blaine the Stain.”
He made a bratty face at her. “I will.” He hated that nickname and chose to ignore it. “What’s up Betty Crocker? Don’t you have a million other things to do besides baking?” Blaine finished off the sugary treat and headed for the sink to rinse off the utensil.
Dana dipped the mixing spoon into the bowl and kept turning the ingredients. “The children could use something sweet. It’s been a rough day for them and I needed a distraction. Besides being a pest, what do you want?”
Blaine dried the spoon and placed it back in its drawer. Then he moved in close and lowered his voice. “We are going after Eric.”
Dana managed to not yell, but she loudly dropped her spoon into the bowl. “What? That’s against the rules.” Her chin dropped to her chest. “I mean, I did say for him to find Eric and bring him home safe, but I didn’t think he would send a team. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She lifted her head and squinted her eyes. “Who’s going with you?’
“That’s what I’m here about. So far it’s Dallas and I, but we need volunteers and I was hoping you could help me select a few. They need to be healthy, good with a gun, level headed, but dumb enough to say yes.” He smiled at her, hoping his joke would make her laugh, but her gears were already turning as she thought about his request.
Dana nodded her head as she spoke. “There’s Charlie Lowe. He did a tour in the Army. He doesn’t have any kids to worry about so I’d start there. Let’s see who else.” She picked up her spoon and got mixing again. “Theo Boggs.”
“Mr. All American is back from college?”
“He was here on spring break. Lucky for him he didn’t go to Cabo or Daytona Beach. Theo has talked a lot about hunting with his father as a kid. He should be good with a rifle.”
“Eric might be in a bad way. You got anyone with medical experience?” Blaine checked his watch. He was running low on time and had to get a move on.
“Uhm, there’s Shawna Rollins. She’s an E.M.T. plus she runs marathons. Yesterday happened to be her day off, otherwise she would have been gobbled up like all of the other emergency teams. She’s single, no kids. I don’t know how she is with guns.”
“Anyone else?”
“That’s it. We’re short staffed everywhere and don’t have a lot of bodies to spare.”
“Alright, thanks for the help.” Blaine swallowed a lump in his throat. “I hope I see you later.” He turned from the table and headed for the kitchen door.
“Stay safe,” Dana spooned out little balls of cookie dough onto a backing pan and said a prayer to herself.
Blaine exited the kitchen and entered a hallway. He made a few turns that led to a set of double doors. The word Nave hung above the entry. A constant noise pulsed from beyond the closed doors. Blaine hit the door with a hammer fist and an avalanche of sound came crashing down on him. This was the largest room in the building and where they held mass every Sunday. The pews had been moved and stacked along each wall. In their place were forty tents of different sizes and colors.
Children were everywhere. Blaine couldn’t move without almost stepping on one that was busy playing or crying or both. The adults worked feverishly setting up living areas to make this room sustainable. But the noise was maddening. The room was built acoustically sound so one person could speak without a PA system and be heard at the back of the room. The people were speaking normally and it was like a raucous rock concert in here.
If we don’t get some sound padding on these walls, within two days, these people will be at each other’s throats.
Blaine trekked along between the tightly positioned tents as he hunted for his three targets.
Then it hit him. The marvel of it all. The miracle surrounding him.
All these people would be dead if it weren’t for Brother Paul and his plan.
Chapter 7
Jim grunted as he pressed his shoulder against the door. “We have to find something to block this up!”
Body after dead body collided with the door. The three men were holding it for now, but they didn’t have long.
“What can we jam in front of the door?” Leon panicked.
“There’s nothing heavy enough in here to keep them out!” Karen pulled the last full mag from her pocket and slid it into her gun.
The window in the kitchen crashed open, but the barricade Karen and Leon built yesterday kept the infected out. Wet fists and grinding teeth dragged against the thick plywood.
Cliff stepped into the
kitchen to check on the noise. He was surprised to see a boarded up window. “Do you have any more lumber?”
Leon squeaked, “In the garage, but there’s no time to build anything.”
Cliff glanced up and down at the entryway into Penny’s house. He made a quick mental measurement. “No it’s not. Show me where it’s at!” A decade of making his living on a construction crew was about to save everyone. He set his bloody saw blade on the kitchen counter next to the sink as Karen lead the way. Leon and Cliff both followed on her heels.
Another mangled hand worked its way through the front door. “If you’re going to do something, do it quick!” Troy yelled at the rest of the group.
Sara was there in a flash with one of Jim’s machetes. “I got it.” She slashed the blade through the air and hacked off the hand. Her chopping motion landed only a few inches from Jim’s nose.
Jim looked at Sara. Her grimacing face told him she didn’t mean to get that close with the razor sharp hunk of steel. The severed body part tumbled to the floor. Sara sent it into the other room with a flick of her heel.
“That was… good aim,” Jim groaned.
“Yep!” Sara gripped the weapon with both hands as she got ready for the next limb to pop through.
As Karen moved from the kitchen to the dining room some movement outside the sliding glass door caught her eye. A pack of infected busted down the gate into the backyard and were standing at the door. Their bloody fists pounded at the glass, but it held. Karen opened the door to the garage and hit the lights. Cliff and Leon raced to the remaining stack of lumber.
“We need four lengths, measuring five feet long. These two-by-sixes are ten-feet. I need a saw.”
Leon handed Cliff the battery operated saw he had used the day before to split the infected kid’s head in two. Cliff noticed the dark red spots on the tool right away.
