“That’s true,” laughed Georgie. “I just don’t know if it’s safe. Last night I heard something making noise outside.”
“Did you see anything?” asked Dudley.
“No,” answered Georgie.
“Did you look or did you hide under the covers?”
“Bite me.”
We had a good laugh at this. Dudley making fun of Georgie was always a good time. The insults started flying back and forth as we sat there in the dining room, when suddenly Lucy who had been periodically looking out the window between the boards, called our attention.
“The neighbor across the street is coming out.”
It was a young girl of about twenty. She looked scared to death as she reached the road and looked up and down. She started to cross the street, coming towards us, when we heard the scream.
Georgie was right. He did hear something during the night.
She froze solid in her tracks as the corpse ran towards her. It came from between two empty houses at a furious run.
I ran to the front door.
“Georgie, let’s go.” I called out as I passed him by.
He picked up his rifle, the one that looked like an M16. I threw open the door and Georgie panicked.
“What if it isn’t one of them?”
“Give me a break Georgie,” I yelled. “Look at it.”
The zombie had already begun to rot in the wet and humid heat. Its graying flesh was peeling off of its finger tips and face. The shock of dark hair on its head was plastered to its skull with what may have been oil. The blood on its clothes looked old and it was covered in some sort of slimy muck that contrasted only slightly from the substance on its head. Still, as bad as it looked, it was moving in on the frozen girl rapidly.
Georgie took aim and fired. The bullet tore a chunk out of the thing’s hip. It spun around, landed on its face, got back up and now limped towards the girl at a slower pace.
“In the head you idiot,” screamed Dudley. “You gotta shoot them in the head.”
Merrick was going nuts. It was all Lucy could do to hold her back and all the racket and commotion she was making only added to the tension.
Georgie was still aiming for his second shot, when Kingsley shouldered him out of the way and nailed it with a single blast from a shotgun.
“Hard to miss with one of these,” said Kingsley with a smile.
No one said anything for a moment. I think we were all uncomfortable about having just killed something that used to be a man.
“Fuck!” I just about shouted. Then I laughed and turned to Georgie. “All these guns and you can’t even shoot them.”
Everyone was laughing. It broke the tension. It was kill or be killed. There was just no sense in feeling bad for shooting something that wouldn’t hesitate to eat you alive.
The girl began to cry very loudly. She actually fell to her knees with full body wracking sobs that threatened to never stop.
I heard zombie screams come from farther down the street.
I ran towards the driveway. There were three of them running towards her now. I didn’t think, there was no time for rational thinking. I just ran inside the house, grabbed my tomahawk and ran back out.
I was halfway to her when I began to panic. I realized that the zombies were going to reach her at the exact same time I did. I ran faster. I poured all my strength into my legs when I heard the gunshots coming from Georgie and Kingsley.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard those shots. I didn’t even look over to see the effect until I reached the girl. I trusted my friends.
Two of the zombies were down for good and the other one was struggling to his feet after being knocked on his ass by what looked to be a shotgun blast.
I didn’t hear the pounding footsteps coming from behind me until the surprise zombie was almost on top of me. I spun around and came just about face to face with the raging corpse. It truly and deeply scared the living hell right out of me. I had no idea there was a forth zombie. I had no idea where it even came from. I think I maybe even screamed a little bit.
It reached out for my throat as it tackled me to the street. I held its face inches from my own by its neck and somehow in my panic still managed to twist my way out from underneath it. I got to my knees and immediately kicked out with my boot. It fell backwards, got quickly back up to its feet and charged into my swinging tomahawk.
The crunching sound my weapon made as the blade shattered bone and entered brain was sickening. I didn’t waste any time gagging about it though, I grabbed the girl by the arm and was already on Georgie’s porch before the swaying corpse even hit the floor.
Lucy closed and locked the door behind us.
“Why the hell didn’t you grab the gun?” asked Georgie.
“I dunno, I just grabbed out and my fingers went for the tomahawk.”
“But hell Jaxon,” he continued. “If that thing had bitten you…”
He doesn’t have to finish. Everyone knows the score. We’ve all seen the movies. Yet, to be perfectly honest, I felt sort of comfortable with the tomahawk. A blade just feels much more natural in my hands than a gun ever could. I don’t know, I guess I’ve always felt safer and in more control with some sort of edged weapon.
“I’m Lucy,” said Lucy to the new girl. “What’s your name?”
“Nancy,” answered the girl. She wasn’t crying anymore. She seemed to be in shock.
“Your front door is still wide open. Is the rest of your family still inside the house?” asked Georgie.
“No.”
‘Where’s your family then? I saw other people looking out the windows over the last few days.”
“They’re dead. My brother killed them all.”
“Was that your brother that tackled me?” I asked.
She just nodded her head and we watched as her silent tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Well, that’s great. Nice to meet you, hold on a second, let me just bury a tomahawk into your brother’s head. There we go, sorry for the interruption, now where were we.
To put it lightly, I felt pretty bad, but at least it explained where the fourth zombie came from. It followed her right out of her front door.
“We’re still going to run out of food,” said Kingsley in a complete subject change.
“Not like we can do anything about that now,” laughed Georgie before continuing on in an uncharacteristically angry and resentful voice. “More of those things are obviously coming this way. We all heard the screams when Jax was running back to the house. They were probably just a few streets over, heard the gunshots and then followed the noise.”
To be fair, Georgie was probably right and what kind of world are we unfortunate to live in where something like that happens?
I can’t seem to tell whether or not he’s joking, or whether or not he’s actually asking me a question. So after blankly staring at him for a few seconds, I gave him a small courtesy smile and he then continued as if I had never floundered for a response.
“We’d better go soon then.” answered Dudley. “It’s probably only going to get worse.”
“We’ll go tonight, after the sun goes down.”
“But Jax,” asked Lucy. “Won’t those things be harder to see?”
“Let’s just hope that we’re harder to see as well.”
It was decided then. Dudley, Kingsley and I would take the Jeep after sunset and look for food. Georgie would stay behind with the girls for their protection and because he’s a pussy. On our way back, after we were loaded up with food, we’d fire two shots in the air at the end of Georgie’s street so that they’d know to open the garage door for us.
It sounded easy enough, we go out, sneak around, grab some food, fire two shots, they let us back in and we all have a jolly good time. Hope it works!
As the sun was setting, I should have been freaking out. I was about to go into the lion’s den and try not to be eaten. Yet, I wasn’t freaking out. I don’t know why, but I was coming back to my
usual charming self. In fact, the very second I chopped Nancy’s brother in the head with my tomahawk, I began to actually relax somewhat.
Weird, don’t you think?
I just sort of nodded my head. I still had no idea what to say. The things this man went through…I didn’t have the words. He wasn’t too bothered by my apparent lack of decent feedback however; he just gave me a small grin and once again continued his tale.
It wasn’t easy to get into the Jeep without Merrick, but eventually we made it. I wish we could have taken her, but she’s a bit of a barker and we were trying to be stealthy. Dudley was driving the Jeep. Kingsley was riding shotgun and I was in the back seat with my rifle. Hopefully, I could blast anything that came running at us.
They opened the garage door manually for the quietness. We coasted down the driveway and into the street. Once there, Dudley keyed the ignition and we crept down the road slowly.
At the end of the road, we turned to the left and continued cautiously.
The first zombie came from the left side of the street. No scream at all. I just heard the pounding footsteps. Dudley gunned the Jeep and I fell back into my seat.
“No. Slow down so I can get a decent shot.”
He took his foot off the gas; I aimed, squeezed the trigger and blasted the top of the things head off before it got within ten feet of us.
“Jax, if you guard the rear,” said Kingsley. “I can take care of this side.”
“Rock on.” I answered.
Of course, I had thought that that was already the plan and made a mental note to verbally communicate my ideas in the future.
We probably only had to take out another three zombies before we got to the supermarket. It was actually kind of easy. I was expecting a whole lot worse.
Then, we arrived at the supermarket.
Apparently, zombies love to shop for groceries. Because, this place was teeming with them and I’m talking about well over a hundred. We had the Jeep stopped at a slight distance to the side of the supermarkets parking lot and we were watching them wander in and out of the store and around the lot aimlessly. It was the weirdest thing. Why in the world would so many zombies gather around a grocery store? I know now, that they tend to frequent the places that were familiar to them when they were alive, but still…don’t they have any better memories than going to the supermarket?
“Are there any other grocery stores around here?” whispered Kingsley.
“Yes.” I answered. “There’s one just a little bit farther down the road.”
“How are we going to get there?”
“Fuck if I know.”
“Maybe if we just go real slowly past them, they won’t notice.”
“Meeerrrrraaaaaahhhh!”
We were pretty much used to what that scream meant. Slowly, the three of us turned our heads to the supermarket to see how bad things were about to get.
I don’t think that they could have gotten any worse. Every head in the parking lot was looking our way.
To say the least, it is a very unnerving experience to have a stare down with that many rotted things that were once human. I don’t think mere words can describe what that scene really entailed. Slime and mud covered corpses that were well into various stages of decay, sizing you up for dinner.
“Oh fuck me.” moaned Dudley. And truer words could not have been spoken. All three of us were frozen solid as we waited for the storm to start. We stared at them and they stared at us. Why they hadn’t already charged us, I could not say. Why we didn’t run…well…I guess we were just hoping that they wouldn’t charge.
They charged.
Like a rampaging semi they came forth. It started with only one of them (a grotesque male whose face was peeling off), but before he had even taken five steps, they all decided to follow his example. Over one hundred starving zombies poured through the parking lot and every one of them was hell bent on taking a bite out of us.
And let me tell ya, they ran fast! We could hear their feet pounding on the cement even over their screams.
Don’t even get me started on the smell. The days spent out in the sun, heat and humidity took their toll. The reek was upon us as soon as we saw them. Now that they were charging us and getting closer by the second…the smell was simply…unbearable.
Dudley wasn’t moving.
“Hey Duds,” I said in a calm voice.
“Yes.” He answered in a whisper.
“Hit the fucking gas!” I shouted.
He did and we took off down the street. The only problem was that we should have taken off in the other direction. Because, we were headed directly in front of the parking lot and some of the zombies were already running in that direction to cut us off.
Now, I’ll go on record saying that zombies are incredibly stupid. There’s no doubt about that. All they’re really capable of doing, is reacting to basic instincts. In other words, if they see a human, they chase it. If they catch a human, they eat it. That’s it, nothing more.
But damned if we weren’t about to get surrounded.
I readied myself with my tomahawk.
Kingsley took out a rope from my backpack and threw it to me.
“I don’t want you falling out.”
Quickly, I tied it around my waist.
Then…they were upon us.
Dudley did his best to swerve around any that got in front of the Jeep. He did a pretty good job and the zombies even helped his cause somewhat by dodging the vehicle and trying to grab at us from the sides. Kingsley had a Colt .45 and was blasting everything that rushed in from his side. I was still in the back swinging and chopping at everything I could reach.
It wasn’t easy to hit anything with Dudley’s driving jostling me all over the back seat, but as soon as one of those fleshy hands grabbed on, I swung. It was working, even though we couldn’t drive too fast without crashing into one of them, we were still pulling away bit by bit. It even looked like we were gonna make it when Dudley swerved just a little too hard and I fell out of the Jeep.
My tomahawk dropped from my hand as soon as I lost balance. I hit the road in a tumble that probably broke some ribs. To make matters even worse I felt a hard yank on my stomach before I had even stopped rolling, which meant the rope was still attached to my waist.
I’m not sure what hurt worse, the yank of the rope or being dragged behind a Jeep going 40 mph. To make matters just a little bit more terrible, the rope decided to slide farther up my torso and began to dig into what I was now positive were broken ribs. I was in agony.
Dudley couldn’t slow down. If he did, the Jeep would be overtaken.
I reached for the knife on my utility belt. I seemed like an eternity, but I finally managed to find it amidst the dragging and rolling. I hacked at the rope around my waist and it came away quickly under the sharp blade. I rolled some more and finally came to a stop. I didn’t take stock of my injuries. I didn’t have time. The dead were coming.
They reached me just as I stood up. The first one tackled me and I rolled him off before he could get a firm grip. Damn, they smelled bad and double damn they were fast. I was at a dead, limping run in the blink of an eye and I could still feel fingernails scrap against the soft skin of my back.
Obviously Dudley realized that I fell out. As soon as he was safely ahead of the danger he slowed down as much as he could. I could see his wide terrified eyes in the reflection of the rear view mirror. He wouldn’t leave me. Not Dudley.
There was nothing in my way, but behind me was an army of zombies. I ran for all I was worth. It wasn’t fast enough, I was just too injured. They were gaining rapidly and only a few steps from catching me. When I got close enough to the Jeep I dove for the tailgate.
I hit it hard and my ribs screamed out in a chorus of pain. Kingsley reached out over the passenger seat and grabbed my left arm. He pulled and I crawled. Things were looking up once again when I felt the tug on my leg.
One of them had managed to run fast enough to latch onto me. It
was a woman. One of her hands grabbed my leg and the other grabbed the back of the Jeep. Her feet were dragging, but she was slowly pulling herself up.
I still had my knife in my right hand. When she pulled herself to within biting range I shot my arm back as hard as I could and buried the blade into her temple. She squeezed tighter on my calf for a brief second and then limply fell away from the moving vehicle.
When she hit the road, she began to roll wildly, knocking some of her closely following fellow zombies out of the chase just as Dudley really hit the gas and we careened away.
I pulled myself into the back seat, found my tomahawk lying where it fell on the floor, spared one last look behind us to make sure things were really over and surrendered to the pain.
I woke up to agony around fifteen minutes later. Dudley was driving slowly and cautiously, while Kingsley looked around for any signs of trouble. They were arguing over where to get the food, (the grocery store down the street was too close to the danger zone we had just escaped) or if they should stop everything and get me back to Georgie’s and see how badly I was hurt.
I was hurt pretty damn bad. By the vast degree of mind numbing pain, my best guess was that my ribs weren’t the only thing that was broken. I had hurt something on the inside. I didn’t know exactly what, but I knew that I had some serious internal problems working against me. Without medical help, I was in big time trouble.
Dudley drove down a street called Sunland Park Drive and stopped by the side of a park. I heard them discussing a gas station a little ways down that would probably have some food. They couldn’t see any zombies around, but they were afraid to leave me in the Jeep alone.
I managed to open my eyes and take in my surroundings.
The park looked wonderful. It looked cool and inviting. The air smelled of the rain that would start falling any moment. I wanted to lie in the cool grass instead of the hard confines of the Jeep.
“Drive into the park.” I said.
“There’s some tree’s over that way,” said Kingsley pointing. “They’ll hide the Jeep while we figure things out.”
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