by Zuko, Joseph
Karen released a chest full of air as she folded her arms in front of her head and laid it down on the workbench as if she was playing a game of ‘Heads up, seven up’. She whispered to herself, “He’s fine. No way is this going to end badly.”
Chapter 17
Disgusting images popped like fireworks in Dallas’ mind.
Thick blood smeared on every surface.
He took in bits of info at a time. If the whole scene was revealed at once his mind would have exploded. He was sorry Charlie was there to share in the misery, but at least he wasn’t going to be alone with the nightmares.
Skinned humans.
Charlie, the poor guy, was dry heaving his guts out and hadn’t taken a second look back at the room. Dallas couldn’t stop himself. He kept glancing around the freak show.
Meat hanging from bones.
The sour taste of breakfast hung on his tongue and he used his teeth to scrape off the nasty flavor. He ran his hand across his mouth and wiped the last of the mess clean. The open bedroom door let a cone of light shine into the hallway. Hanging on the wall next to Charlie was a family photo taken at a mall studio. The happy family of five grinned with their arms wrapped around each other. By Dallas’ best guess the thing on the bedroom floor, scrambling to its feet, was the father. It looked like someone tried to kill him with a weedwhacker and a blowtorch. He had lacerations covering his face and arms, patches of skin were burned black and the front of his entire body was covered in gore. Laying on the bed and the floor behind the monster were three smaller bodies. It had been snacking on them for some time. It lurched at Dallas and sprang into action.
“Here he comes!” Dallas panicked, retreated and pushed Charlie before the thing could grab him. Charlie stepped dead center on the crimson stain that matted the carpet and slipped to his ass. His arms and legs splayed in every direction.
Dallas leaped over his fallen friend. He slashed his clenched fist at the creature and the knife blade took off the tip of its nose. The beast didn’t flinch. It just kept up its chase. Dallas landed his jump, stumbled backwards and crashed his spine into the sheetrock. The infected dropped to his knees and moved onto Charlie.
Dallas grabbed Charlie by the arm and tugged as hard as possible. Charlie’s body zipped out from under the infected in the nick of time. The beast’s teeth snapped where his leg used to be. Dallas launched himself across the hall and kicked the kneeling brute square in the jaw. Its limp body flew down the flight of stairs and landed in a pile. Dallas removed his handgun and fired. It took three shots before he landed the kill.
Charlie, laying on the floor like a tormented turtle, heaved in a lungful of oxygen. “We should have used the guns.”
“Yep.”
Outside, waiting in the idling bus, Theo ducked behind the steel plates. “Someone’s shooting at us!” he yelled.
“That came from inside the house,” said Blaine.
“Should we go check on them?” Shawna inched along the aisle and settled next to the bus driver.
“We stay here and stick to the plan. There must have been one of those things inside.” Blaine’s knuckles went white as he squeezed the wheel. Sitting still, out in the open, was getting to him.
“Maybe he shot the sniper guy?” said Theo as he peeked out from his cover.
Blaine tapped the gas and revved the engine. “That was Dallas’ handgun not his rifle.”
“How do you know?” Theo extended himself fully and took his shooting position.
“Because I know, now keep a sharp eye. I don’t want anything sneaking up on us.” Blaine elbowed Shawna. “Check the back would you?”
“Alright.” She turned and jogged to the end of the bus. Shawna eyed each of the houses before answering. “It’s clear.” She was about to turn when something snagged her attention. A side gate, leading to a backyard shook violently and not like it was hit by a strong breeze. Something was crashing into it again and again. “One of those things might be at that house.”
“Where?” Theo moved from his spot and raced to join Shawna.
“Right there.” Shawna aimed a finger at the gate.
Theo spotted it as the latch busted and it swung open. A second later a dozen monsters poured from the backyard and flooded the driveway.
“Blaine.” Shawna angled her gun out the side window and opened fire.
Gunfire erupted outside as Dallas helped Charlie to his feet.
“Sounds like they’ve made contact,” Charlie said as he headed for the steps. “I’ll check on them, you get set up.”
There was no time to argue, but the last thing on earth Dallas wanted to do was to go into that bedroom alone. Charlie disappeared into the living room as the assault rifles continued to crack outside. Dallas put away his knife and handgun. He unslung his rifle and inched for the open door.
The guy that did this had a disease. It made him go crazy. As far as Dallas was concerned, if they were infected they were no longer human, they were a wild animal and a caged beast with a revolting virus that was capable of anything, even ripping its own family to pieces. Knowing this didn’t help calm Dallas’ stomach. The images were still unsettling.
Dallas’ vision was pulled in a thousand directions, but he checked the window first. The room was full of light, but thankfully the blinds were partially closed and blocked the street leading to the shooter. He stepped over a little body next to the bed. His boot made a squishing sound when it pressed against the floor. He didn’t dare look and see what part of the body he had pulverized. He kept moving, staying focused on the window and didn’t let his eyes wander. He eased next to the window and scanned through a slit in the blinds. A thousand yards away stood an office building. It was a four-story building and twice the size of any of the surrounding structures.
If I was a sniper, that’s where I’d be. On the top floor.
Charlie stormed out the front door and into the cul-de-sac. He spotted ten monsters banging at the side of the rig. Theo’s arm was stuck out the window and he popped rounds from his handgun at them, but was having a heck of a time getting an angle on the kill shot.
Charlie’s trigger finger was itchy, but he resisted and didn’t shoot at the bus. “Hey!” he yelled. Their mangled bodies twisted as they investigated the new noise. “Come here!” he waved them in his direction, then took off running for the front of the bus. “I’m bringing them around! Get ready!”
Charlie rounded the front of the rig. He glanced back and was shocked to see how fast the monsters could sprint. They were about to catch him if he didn’t turn on the jets. Charlie kicked it into high as he raced away from the bus. He ducked behind a Camry and shouted, “Now!”
They opened fire. Three rifles clapped like thunder as the infected were slaughtered a few feet from Charlie. He hopped up, his rifle at the ready and was happy to see all ten of them had their tops blown off.
A clicking sound caused Charlie to spin on his heels. A nasty beast, lumbered from the tail end of the bus. An eyeball hung from the socket and swung back and forth as it moved.
“Dang, sister. You ain’t winning no beauty contests,” said Charlie as he raised his rifle. He popped a round and its brain went splat against the side of the bus.
He turned a quick three-sixty. The lot was clear. He gave the three people in the bus a wink and bolted for the house.
Dallas took a knee and raised the scope to his eye. The top row of the office building filled his lens. He tracked left to right and stared into each window. As he attempted to focus and steady his hands a thought clicked.
I should have checked the three bodies before I put my back to them.
Crap!
The fear that one of them was about to chomp his neck caused him to twitch. He turned so fast some vertebra in his spine cracked, which felt great, but Dallas’ panicked move caused him to drop the tip of his rifle and the barrel caught a few of the blinds. The three little bodies hadn’t moved an inch, but he ripped the blinds from their brackets and they
crashed down on top of him. He was caught in a net of wooden blinds. The harder he fought against the trap the deeper it ensnared him. Before he could get free, a hole the size of a dime appeared in the window right above his noggin. It was followed by the sound of the gunshot. Dallas hit the dirt. His face crashed in what looked like a nibbled on liver. Juice squeezed from the organ before he could lift himself off it. Dallas wanted to puke, but he was empty.
Charlie appeared at the door. “What happened?”
“Stay back.” Dallas removed his knife, cut the twine and slid the blinds off his body. He rubbed his cheek again and again on his shoulder, but the blood was too thick and it smeared from his jaw to his ear.
“How did you get stuck in-?
“-Don’t ask!” Dallas crawled along the floor until he got behind a thick dresser. “Just stay back. They know I’m here.”
“What do you want to do?” Charlie used his forearm to block the disgusting carnage from his sight.
“I don’t know. Just give me a minute to think.” Dallas dug his hand into one of the open dresser drawers. He found a white t-shirt and used it to clean his face.
Dallas was pinned down, surrounded by death, terror was about to send him into cardiac arrest, but the second he took a sniff of the fabric he was using to clean his face he became calm. This family used the same softener as his ex-wife.
His mind flashed to the past.
Climbing out of a shower, his wife, Cyndi, hands him a fresh and hot towel straight from the dryer.
Picking up his toddler and playfully biting her on the stomach.
Saturday mornings, snuggling under a blanket with Cyndi and Maxine.
They watch cartoons and giggle at Bugs Bunny as he tortured old Elmer Fudd.
Dallas had never been so homesick in his life.
Charlie kept yelling, “What do you wanna do, man!”
The noise ended the daydream, but Dallas had an idea.
It was stifling inside the bus. Shawna’s forehead poured sweat as she stood next to the door. She fired sentences at Blaine as she fumbled to reload her gun. “I think we should go check on them. That shot came from the shooter. What if they got hit? We need to get in there and make sure they’re safe.”
Theo chimed in, “She’s right. We’ve got to check on them. Let’s go.”
Blaine raised his hand and said. “Will you two cool it, okay? I’m sure Dallas is fine. He’s drawing the shooter out so they can spot him. Let’s say we all tear in there and we find them alive or we find them dead. What’s the difference, but when we come out someone’s running off with the bus. Or it’s surrounded by a ton of those things, then what do we do?”
Shawna got the mag to click into place, wiped the sweat from her eyes. “In five minutes, if they aren’t back, I’m going in.”
“This is so wrong.” Charlie grunted.
“Keep moving the thing and try to make it look natural.” Dallas hid at the corner of the window. He used a curtain as camouflage. His scope raced along to the floor of the office building. He searched for movement or a glint off the other gunman’s lens. “Raise it up, like it’s crawling across the room.”
“I’m going to end up in hell for this,” said Charlie as he lifted the father’s dead body higher into the window and moved it like a puppet along the sill.
Dallas whispered, “Tell them it was my idea.”
A round punched through the window and grazed the dead flesh of the decoy. Black blood spritzed Charlie as he jumped and let the body fall to the carpet.
Dallas caught a flicker of muzzle flash. The report echoed through the bedroom.
“Holy hell!” Charlie dropped onto the dummy.
Dallas focused on the window. His heartbeat rang in his ears. Sweat dribbled and stung his open eye. He didn’t have a second to wipe it as the gunman came into view.
Shawna slid the bolt back and pushed open the door to the bus. Not knowing if Dallas was okay had finally gotten to her.
“It hasn’t been five minutes.” Blaine grabbed at her arm to stop her.
“Close enough!” She hollered at them and broke free from his grasp.
Blaine called after her. “You should wait. Dallas has this under control.”
Shawna couldn’t pinpoint why she was so anxious. She had a horrible feeling about this neighborhood. As if the dead were already haunting these grounds.
A gust of wind blew in off the Columbia River. The breeze alone was worth stepping out of the bus shaped oven. The street was littered with the dead and she had to hop over a few corpses the second she left the war rig. Once she got her legs turning she moved like a cheetah across the street. She ran with grace and bounced off the balls of her feet as she glided up on to the front yard.
“Man, Shawna can move.” Blaine was taken back.
Theo’s jaw dropped, “Dang, she looks like she’s running a four-six, forty.”
“A what?”
“Don’t you watch football? A four point six second, forty-yard dash and yes that’s fast.”
Shawna would never say it out loud, because it sounded crazy, but something from above was telling her, Dallas was in trouble and he needed her.
Charlie cowered below the window. His body pressed tight against the dead man’s chest. “Did you see him?”
Dallas could see the gunman, but it was a gunwoman, maybe thirty-years of age. The lady wore a blouse, as if she worked at a bank and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. This wasn’t what Dallas expected at all. He had figured on an old grizzled man, like a hunter with an eyepatch. Or a Lee Harvey Oswald type, greasy with a weasel face.
I never would have imagined the person on the other end of the rifle would be… her.
Dallas wasn’t a sexist, far from it. He knew exactly how strong, smart and motivated a woman could be. Whenever he thought the words, ‘lone gunman’ what came to mind was a ‘shitty white guy’, not a healthy young lady.
The window spider webbed in front of Dallas. The curtain ripped away from his shoulder. The bullet passed an inch from his head. The sonic boom blasted his eardrum.
She’s got me in her sights! He panicked.
Dallas squeezed the trigger.
Chapter 18
Brother Paul sighted an infected woman as it leaped across the hood of a pickup truck on his right. Pop, its head exploded onto the windshield. He targeted the next infected and killed it, then the next after that, bang. Down the line he went, killing the first wave of the infected horde. He was stopping them from crossing the front line and attacking his people.
Paul had helped Dallas get his life back on track and most of their time was spent at the firing range. Reading scripture and blasting paper targets was how they spent most of their time together. Brother Paul had gotten pretty good at hitting the bullseye on a stationary object. Today he felt like he was at the top of his game. The rifle seemed to have a mind of its own and he could swear something other worldly was guiding his hands, but it wasn’t enough. The fallen evergreen had split a perfect V in the wall of dead bodies and the infected poured through the gap.
Paul exchanged his mag, he tried to think of an idea, but there was no time and even if he did hatch a plan there was no way to implement it. The field behind the church was total chaos. It was too loud and everyone was spread out. Clear communication was an impossibility. All he could do was keep shooting until he ran out of ammo and hope the others would do the same.
Dana followed Paul’s example and kept shooting. Seeing the man in action was quite exciting. She didn’t know what the future held. Right now it looked pretty darn bleak. In fact it appeared like it might come to an end with a mercy shot to the temple, but she prayed it wouldn’t end that way.
As the bullets sprayed and the people screamed, Dana made a promise to herself. If by some miracle she was able to get through this, she would do everything in her power to get closer to Brother Paul. Dana didn’t care if there was a scandal. As two leaders of the church, there would definitely be
talk.
Our church is progressive and in this new world, exceptions could be made.
She let the fantasy play as she ripped through a mag full of rounds.
One day the fantasy will be real.
Pastor Michael jumped from the vehicle he had been perched upon. He sprinted ten-yards from the front line, then continued to fire at the approaching horde. People raced past him and took up new positions all around him.
The sheer terror on their faces. He thought to himself.
Is there anything scarier than the knowledge you are about to die?
No!
Michael loaded his last full mag. The infected climbed over the vehicles. There were no more obstacles to slow them down once they hit the open field. He hammered all thirty rounds in fifteen seconds, but it wasn’t enough. One of the monsters survived his attack and was on a collision course with him. The rifle clicked empty. He looked back at the church and thought about running. Lindsey was there at the window, watching the battle. He wished he was with her now or that he could die from a sudden heart attack, but his body wasn’t cooperating.
He turned back to the infected. It had tunnel vision and appeared ravenous, as if it was starving to death and Michael’s body was the only thing that could fill the void. It was dressed in doctor scrubs and its ribs were exposed on one side. It had blood covered claws. Its eyes were black and its skin pale. It was moving at a good pace, but ran with a limp. Michael had no weapons, nowhere to run and was about to be served up as a hot lunch.
When he was in high school a group of his buddies started a pinching war between their little clique and it drove him nuts. He didn’t want any part of it at first, but was dragged into it once he felt the need for revenge. They quickly became pros and knew exactly where the most sensitive nerves were and which ones could bring tears to your eyes. You would be posted up next to your locker, talking with a pretty little sophomore and one of them would get you on the back of your arm, thigh, earlobe or your ass. They’d die laughing when your waterworks started flowing. Michael hated it. It wasn’t just the embarrassment that he hated, it was the pain. He loathed the agony worst of all. The excruciating, searing, white hot, throbbing, that his buddies could produce would remain on his body all day long.
