El Paso Under Attack - 01

by Michael Clary

  Are you getting the picture here?

  “What do you mean?”

  I mean, that Jaxon has always been tough, but this was a deep, gushing head wound and he was still ready to go. In fact, he was refusing to stop.

  “Okay.”

  Nobody is that tough. I could very clearly remember how badly injured he was in that park when we went looking for supplies. How weird was that, we leave him for awhile and when we get back, I find out that the grass has swallowed him and he’s damn near completely healed. I thought for sure he was a goner, but nooooo, he’s right as rain.

  My uncle was changing somehow. It was like he was adapting to the environment he was placed in and he was doing it at a somewhat supernatural rate.

  I was just glad he was on our side.

  It didn’t take us too long to hit a four way intersection. Down the road somewhat, we could see a group of zombies sitting around a bunch of trees in a parking lot. The dead are always lazy in the hot sun.

  “We should shamble zombie style across the street,” said Jaxon.

  “Are you retarded?” I asked. “Let’s just run like hell.”

  “If we do that, they’ll know we’re a food source. If we shamble like zombies and go slow, they might think we’re one of them and ignore us.”

  “What if they charge?” I asked. “What if they can smell us and decide to charge?”

  “Then we run like hell. It’s not like we’re losing our chance to run. Now let’s smear some of the zombie blood on your clothes and try to cover up your human scent.”

  Most of the zombie blood on his shirt had dried, but he still managed to fuck up my shirt pretty decently. It was disgusting.

  It was also the best idea we were gonna get. I was just worried, because his head was still gushing pretty badly.

  We shambled across the road. I knew at least a couple of them were watching us. I could just feel it. If they smelled our human scent or his human blood over the dead blood, they’d be on us in a second.

  It turned out, that we were far enough away from them. The masking of Jaxons blood with the zombie blood must have worked. They still might have been a little suspicious, because I heard one of two of them sort of moan in our direction. They never gave chase though. I guess it was too hot for them to bother without knowing for sure.

  “It’s working.” I said once we were almost across the intersection.

  “Of course it’s working you fool. It was my idea,” said Jaxon. “If it were your idea, we’d be getting eaten right about now.”

  “How about you go fuck yourself?” I asked.

  “Shut up, there are more of them up ahead.”

  He was right. There was about twenty or maybe even more sitting by some bushes. They were massed in the same direction we were headed.

  Jaxon grabbed my arm and pulled me towards a little doorway, which was out of their line of sight.

  “What are you doing?” I asked rather angrily at being yanked by the arm. Damn he was strong.

  “Stay here. I have another idea.” He said.

  He then shambled off towards the group of zombies that we had just passed. In less than five minutes he was back with a severed arm. He began wiping the bloody end of the arm all over my clothes.

  “What the fuck?” I asked. “I’ve already got enough on me.”

  “Relax. You need more; some of them were watching us in a hungry kind of way. Besides, I think that what normally makes them chase a victim isn’t only because the victim runs, it’s the human scents. They probably have an incredible sense of smell. They can easily tell the difference between human and zombie.”

  “But this is revolting!” I almost shouted.

  “That’s okay.” He answered with a little laugh. “It’s dead blood, even the color is different. I’m hoping that the more we use, the more we can hide our human scents and my bleeding head.”

  “Oh shit, this is fucked up.”

  When we started out again, we kept up the shambling, zombie walk. Just to be safe, we crossed to the other side of the street; away from the new group that was sitting in the direction we were headed.

  This time I was positive that we were being watched. Many of them even sat up as we shambled in front of them. Twenty zombies were a lot to have to fight…especially if we couldn’t use our guns.

  “You still couldn’t use your guns, even if you were attacked by twenty zombies?”

  Twenty zombies would rapidly turn into hundreds if we used a gun. They were definitely attracted to noise. A gunshot is like a diner bell.

  “So what did you do?”

  We shambled almost all the way to Tito’s apartment.

  “You mean it worked?”

  Yes and no. They didn’t rush and attack, but in the long run, something about us must not have seemed right to them, because they began to follow from a distance.

  I think we both began to relax just a little bit as we passed them by without incident and gained some distance away from them. A couple of blocks away from Tito’s, we heard a moan come from behind our backs. Jaxon and I both turned to look back up the street. More than half the zombies from the large group were following behind us, plus a few extras that probably came from inside one of the buildings we shambled by.

  We were in deep, deep trouble and we knew it. I was hoping that Jaxon was thinking of something, because I sure couldn’t think of shit. I also couldn’t ask him. They’d charge for sure if they heard us talking.

  “That whole masking our scents thing didn’t work as well as I’d hoped,” whispered Jaxon. “So get ready.”

  “Get ready for what?” I was seriously freaking out. I could see more corpses creeping out of the nearby buildings. Not like hundreds of them or anything, but more than we could handle in a fight and it sounded like he was getting ready to make a fight out of it.

  “RUN!!!!” shouted Jaxon.

  Off we went, like bats out of hell. We ran and ran. It wasn’t more than a minute before we hit Tito’s parking lot. I knew what his plan was then. He was hoping to lose them in the maze of buildings and walkways that make up an apartment complex.

  As soon as we ran, THEY KNEW. We hauled ass and so did they. The screams began, and more and more started coming after us. They came from inside the buildings, they came from under bushes, they came from the alleyways between buildings, they came from everywhere.

  Their pounding steps behind us made the ground tremble. There were that many of them. I saw them from my peripheral vision. I wouldn’t take a chance and actually turn around and look. I was too freaked out.

  After the parking lot, came the maze. We turned left and right and left and right. We then ran straight ahead past a few more left and rights and finally lost them.

  Jaxon wasn’t stopping.

  “Keep going!” He shouted at me.

  I was admittedly slowing down. I’ve been working on my cardio ever since, so it wouldn’t be a problem now, but back then and at that moment; I was sucking some serious air.

  Jaxon ran back to me.

  “We’re almost there Dudley.” He said. “We need to be inside his apartment and secure before they catch up to us.”

  “Okay.”

  He was right and I knew it. There were hundreds of them now. Their numbers grew and grew as soon as we started running and they started screaming. If they saw us go into Tito’s apartment, they’d surely be able to break down the door or at the very least, trap us inside.

  I ran for all I was worth. I worked out a lot back then, just not enough cardio. Regardless, I was going to make it. I forced my muscles to obey my commands.

  Jaxon was opening the latch on Tito’s patio door. Then we were both tumbling through and slamming it shut when a group of at least ten zombies rushed past. Of course they were still looking for us. They’d probably be looking for us the rest of the night.

  Jaxon knocked on Tito’s door lightly. There was no answer.

  “Tito,” I whispered through the wood. “Open the fu
cking door dude. It’s us.”

  There was no answer.

  “Tito,” whispered Jaxon. “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”

  The door opened.

  Tito was standing there with wearing the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on the man.

  “I heard you guys the first time. I just had to move the barricade. How did you get in here with all those things around anyway?”

  “With style and finesse,” I answered.

  I should at this point inform you that most of the time, Tito doesn’t enjoy our humor.

  “I’m sure he was glad to see you though.”

  He surely was.

  “With style and finesse huh?” He answered me. “You wouldn’t know style or finesse if it jumped out and…oh, fuck me!”

  The smile was wiped completely off his face as his eyes went wide in fear.

  Standing about twenty feet down the walkway leading to his apartment was an incredibly huge mass of zombie cannibals.

  “Fuck,” said Jaxon. “Get inside.”

  And inside we went. As soon as the door was closed, Tito once again erected his barricade of wood, metal and couches.

  The zombies rushed us. They were pounding the door with an impressive force. We could hear them screaming through the walls. We were trapped. We were stuck. We were caught in the very situation we were trying to avoid.

  Jaxon was whipping his head around and around. He was absorbing his environment. Yet, what could he do? What weapon existed that could strike down so many of our enemy? There must have been hundreds of them out there.

  I had a lot of faith in my uncle at this point, but when he went into the kitchen and started rummaging around I was thinking that the man had lost his mind.

  “Where’s your laptop?” He asked Tito.

  “You dumb fucks led them right to me.” Tito shouted in return. “I was safe. That door can’t keep them out. We are fucked.”

  “We will be soon,” answered Jaxon. “Where’s the laptop...NOW!”

  The next thing I knew, he was talking to Georgie via the laptop. I was looking over his shoulder. He was asking Georgie to look up something dealing with a gas explosion.

  “What’s going on Jaxon?” I asked.

  “I left Georgie a note and told him to stay by his computer in case we needed help.”

  “What are you having him look up?”

  “Tito has a gas stove. I’m going to blow it up.”

  “Well that’s wonderful Jaxon,” said Tito. “But we’re still in here.”

  “Not for long,” answered Jaxon.

  The directions for blowing up the stove started scrolling across the laptop.

  Jaxon started writing back. He was asking Georgie to find another way, one that would take a little longer.

  The front door started to crack and splinter.

  “Tito, start putting up more of a barricade,” ordered Jaxon. “I need more time.”

  Tito reluctantly went to work and I began to help him. We were piling everything we could find in front of the door. There were decaying arms reaching out for us through the cracks. I began to hack at them with my machete.

  “Tito,” shouted Jaxon. “Can you understand these directions?”

  Tito left me to the hacking and went to look at the computer screen. They sat there staring at the screen for a few minutes, while I hacked and hacked at the arms that reached out for me.

  “I can do it,” said Tito at last.

  The next thing I knew, he was in the kitchen and yanking his stove away from the wall. I don’t know what he did exactly and if I did, it probably wouldn’t be safe to print it here. The next thing you’d hear about is a bunch of some kids somewhere blowing up their kitchen.

  However, in just a few seconds, he called out that he was ready.

  “That’s all great Jaxon,” I shouted through the hacking. “But we’re still trapped in here and if your idea is to blow us and them up, I’m not down for that.”

  Jaxon wasn’t even looking at me. He was cutting off a piece of sofa fabric with his knife and putting it on a tiny pile of trash. He lit this into a small fire about the size of a fist and then he turned his attention to one of the nearest walls. After making sure it was the one he wanted, he punched it so hard, the whole room shook. His fist went right through the wood or plaster or whatever it was. He then took out his tomahawk and began hacking and kicking at the hole until it was big enough for him to fit through.

  “Hit it Tito.” He shouted.

  Tito did something all right, very suddenly; the room was filled with the smell of gas. It almost over powered the smell of decay that was coming from outside the door.

  “Move Dudley move,” shouted Tito as he dived through the hole and into the bedroom of the next apartment.

  I was right behind him. Jaxon was next. I must say, it was a nice apartment, very nicely decorated.

  “Same thing,” shouted Jaxon to Tito.

  The zombies would soon be through the barricade of Tito’s apartment, so we started barricading up the hole we had just created as Tito ran to the next kitchen.

  In less than three minutes, the zombies were through and working on this new barricade. Jaxon was pounding through another wall. The cut on his head was still bleeding profusely and he had to periodically wipe the blood away to keep his vision clear.

  We were through the next wall, and into the next apartment. There was a dead man in the bathroom. I went to make sure he wasn’t going to come at us, while Tito worked on the stove and Jaxon barricaded the new hole.

  It was a suicide. The guy stepped into the hot water of the bathtub and opened his veins. I felt sorry for him. I wanted to just sit and take a minute. The world was going to shit. I don’t know why this out of everything I had seen brought it home for me, but it did.

  Jaxon was grabbing me. He was shoving me through the new hole he’d made. I don’t know how far the zombies were behind us. I have no idea. Everything became a blur.

  I knew I was cracking; I just couldn’t get my shit together. It didn’t seem to bother Jaxon any, it was almost like he expected it to happen eventually. He had me by the wrist and was dragging me around. Blood was flying off of him and hitting me in the face. Pieces of drywall and white dust were sticking to the blood.

  Suddenly, Jaxon stopped.

  “Fucking blood in my eyes,” he shouted. Then a slew of obscenities came out of him.

  I caught a glimpse of his eyes…the whites had actually been stained pink from all the blood in them. He ran to this new apartments sink as Tito began to tear the stove from the wall.

  Quickly he washed the blood off his face and out of his eye’s.

  “Ah,” he shouted after dunking his entire head in the water. “It itches.”

  Tito stepped away from what he was doing and ran over to Jaxon who was writhing on the floor.

  “Holy shit Jaxon,” whispered Tito. “That cut is closing up.”

  Another twenty seconds I’m guessing, I’m still not sure, and Jaxon was back on his feet. He grabbed my wrist and dragged me through yet another hole and into yet another apartment.

  I’m guessing we went through about eight of these apartments. I wasn’t counting. I was actually trying to get a decent look at Jaxons head wound. It was tough to see, but it did indeed seem to have at least stopped bleeding. I was mesmerized. A couple of minutes ago that wound was gushing blood, now it wasn’t bleeding at all.

  “Let me see your head.” I asked.

  “What?” He answered. He wasn’t really paying any attention to me at the moment. He was looking out the window.

  “I wanna see your head.” I repeated.

  This got his attention. He walked over to me and grabbed my shoulders.

  “You need to snap out of it.” He said while looking in my eyes.

  Boom!!!

  The first apartment had blown. The second apartment followed in a dull whump.

  “Move Tito,” shouted Jaxon as he grabbed my hand a
nd jerked me out the front door.

  The three of us were running back up the street towards the quads. Most of the zombies must have been inside the apartments trying to get at us, because there weren’t many of them on the sidewalks. The ones that were there rushed us of course, but Jaxon shot them down with his pistol. We could see large groups of them running after us from farther down the street in the opposite direction than we were heading, but they were only just reaching Tito’s apartment building, so we weren’t that concerned.

  It wasn’t even a minute before the entire building went up in the loudest explosion that I’ve ever heard in my life. The sheer force of it knocked us all off our feet.

  I must have blacked out, because when I came to Tito was screaming. A female zombie was on top of him and trying to bite at his throat. I grabbed my pistol and shot her right in the spine.

  Jaxon threw her off and helped him to his feet. I think he must have gotten hit with something in the explosion, because the back of his shirt was ripped and the bruise that was forming covered half his back.

  “No more need to be quiet,” said Jaxon as he pulled his rifle off his back.

  I did the same and smiled as Tito held out his hand for a gun.

  “You can’t shoot dickhead,” said Jaxon.

  “Give me a gun damn it,” growled Tito.

  “You still don’t have a sense of humor.” I added. I felt a lot better now. Whatever happened to me had finally passed.

  “Look who finally decided to join us,” growled Tito.

  “I’m not giving this dickhead my gun.” I said. “He never went to the range with us. He’ll probably end up shooting me in the ass.”

  Jaxon wasn’t paying any attention again. I looked over to what he was staring at. Tito’s entire apartment building was a huge tower of smoke and flame. The large groups of zombies that had been running after us must have caught some of the blast, because all of them (at least a hundred) that weren’t in pieces were slowly rising to their feet.

  “We better move,” said Tito.

  “Wait a minute.” I answered. “Look at what’s left of the walls.”

  Tito took another look and saw what I was pointing at. The walls of Tito’s building, or at least what was left of them after that huge explosion were beginning to buckle. Just as everyone else began to notice this, they collapsed with an ear shattering screech. The entire building came down as we looked on, then more explosions began to sound off, blowing chunks of metal and wood and dust hundreds of feet into the air as the rest of the complex erupted.