Both men went down fighting, but it didn’t take them very long to go down.
“Well,” said Dudley. “You did try to warn them.”
“Yep,” I answered. I was waiting to see if I’d start feeling some remorse. I felt a little, but they never gave me much of a chance for any other options. “Let’s go find Martin.”
We grabbed the radio and headed back towards Kingsley and the Jeep. We were at a good jog when we reached the final turn and something felt wrong. I slowed to a creep and peered around the corner of a building.
I saw the Jeep, but only Thomas was inside of it. It looked like he had fallen asleep. I knew better.
“Where is everybody?” asked Dudley who was peering over my head.
Just then our radio crackled to life.
“Mr. General, can you hear me good buddy?” it was Martin.
“Be a pal and try not to irritate my Gamma team would you? I still have three of your friends left and I’d hate to have to shoot them as well. Tell me, was this Thomas a close friend of yours?”
“Don’t say anything about Gamma team,” said Dudley as I reached for the mouth piece on the radio.
“No shit,” I retorted.
“Were you concerned? Or were you confident that you could save your friends?”
I was totally panicking is what I was doing. I normally just react. I don’t plan too far ahead, so I never have the opportunity for confidence.
“Hey Martin,” I responded. “Do me a favor and kick that Calvin in the balls for me as hard as you can.”
To my shock, they did exactly as I asked for.
I hate to laugh at the suffering of others, but this was just too funny. The entire situation between these two guys and how much they don’t like each other wasn’t especially funny when I was hearing things from Calvin, but the way the General keeps picking on him…well it’s a little difficult not to become sadistic and join in on the fun.
I could hear Calvin moaning and crying over the radio. I felt kind of bad for the guy, but to be honest it was something we laughed about later.
“Alright Martin,” I said. “Tell me what I have to do to get my friends back…and Calvin.”
“You can have them back when you turn yourself over to me my friend.”
“And what happens when I turn myself over to you?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. There were seven victims lying in that bank that just happened to get in the way of his men. I just wanted to see if he’d lie about it. Plus…I was stalling.
“I’m afraid that I’ll have to make sure you don’t end up getting in my way again, but afterwards, I’ll let all of your friends go free providing they don’t do anything to upset me.”
“Gimmie a minute,” I replied.
This was fucked. This was about as fucked as fucked could get. I had no idea what to do. There was no way in hell I was going to let that crazy asshole put a bullet in my head, but for the life of me, I didn’t know what to do.
I thought about storming the bank, I was pretty sure that was where they were hiding. There were however, two problems with that idea. The first one was that they may not be in the bank and the second one was that even if they were in the bank, they might kill the hostages before I could bring them down…if I could bring them down.
“Well, you obviously didn’t end up turning yourself in, because I’m sitting here talking to you.”
Yeah. Like I said, that wasn’t an option. Even if I did turn myself in, he’d probably just kill everyone anyway. It would have been more efficient.
“Does the bank have a backdoor?” asked Dudley.
“I have no idea. Why?”
“We could try to sneak up on them,” he answered.
Now, to be honest, I thought that was a pretty bad idea. I mean…we weren’t exactly trained soldiers and I highly doubt that we possessed the skill to sneak up on a bunch of ex-military mercenaries.
Dudley could sense my hesitation.
“You got any better ideas?” he asked.
“Fuck it. Let’s see how it looks.” I answered.
I left the radio where it was and Dudley, Merrick and I crept across the street and made our way towards the rear of the bank.
We encountered some zombies on way. They were milling around the back of the neighboring building.
Have you ever seen a startled zombie?
“I can’t say that I have.”
It’s kind of funny; they aren’t used to it at all. They tend to look up or turn their heads in this over exaggerated kind of way. Then, they stare at you for a second as if they can’t believe you just walked right up to them. After all that, they sometimes scream. They always charge.
We were on top of them before they could react much. One of them was able to grab a hold of my leg before I pushed my knife through the top of its head. Merrick was once again more than happy to help. She had managed to grab a hold of one zombie’s wrist and was shaking her head from side to side before Dudley could swing at it with his machete.
“Don’t hit my dog asshole,” I snarled.
“I’m not gonna hit your dog.”
“Make sure you keep it that way,” I retorted.
Ever since that time, I’ve always joked with Dudley that he should keep Merrick beside him in case he needs any help. She’ll be more than happy to hold them down for him.
“Does Dudley find this funny?”
Not a bit.
Anyway, we got the drop on the zombies, so they weren’t exactly a problem. Yet, there was no rear exit to the building.
We stood under an overhang from the building next door to get out of the rain. We were soaked to the bone, it was a cold rain, but it wasn’t horrible. It was a break from that humid heat.
“Let’s move up the side of the building through that little alley,” I said. “Maybe there’s a side entrance.”
Between the bank and whatever building was next to it, was a little alley about four feet wide. It was littered with all kinds of rubble and extremely dark. I doubted that there would be an entrance, but I figured that we might as well check and see.
Halfway through, we saw that a car ramp blocked off with a chain link fence separated the bank from the alley. There was no way to get inside the bank.
We were now towards the front side of the bank, still in the alley and crouching beside the car ramp. As luck would have it, and I do consider it to be sheer, dumb luck, I happened to see movement in the corner of my eye as I craned my head over the ramp in order to see the front of the bank.
The movement was coming from the window of an office building across the street from the front of the bank.
I just found Martin.
It was a smart move not to be waiting for me in the bank, because that was where I expected him to be. Instead, he was waiting for me across the street, ready to come from behind when I entered the front door of the bank.
I motioned to Dudley and watched his eye’s grow wide when he realized what I was looking at.
“I’m going to act like I think they’re holding up inside the bank,” I said. “I’ll put my arms up and everything.”
“What the fuck?” said Dudley in astonishment.
“Just listen,” I snapped. “After I go in the bank, one or both of them will come running outside of that building and enter the bank behind me. They’ll think they got the drop on me. All you have to do is follow them in and start shooting.”
“What if I miss?”
“Then try again. If you miss, trust me that I’ll be firing as well. We’ll give them two targets and they’ll be trapped between us.”
“What if only one comes out and the other starts shooting the hostages?” asked Dudley.
“I don’t really know,” I answered with complete honesty. “You got any better ideas?”
“We could try going in through the rear of their building.”
“It’s an idea,” I answered.
“It’s what we were going to do if they were in the bank a
nd the bank had a rear entrance,” said Dudley.
“Because we had no other options…I don’t really like going with the whole, I have no other options approach.” I said. “At least this way, we sure to take out at least one of them…hell, maybe even both of them and if not, maybe the other one will give up when they realize they’re the only one left.”
“I’m just worried that they’ll end up shooting our buddy or that Jen chick.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll shoot Calvin first.”
We had a brief laugh once again at Calvin’s expense. It was brief, because we had to do something soon and Martin was probably getting very antsy since we weren’t communicating with him anymore.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
Dudley nodded his head in agreement and I left the alley with my rifle held up high over my head. Merrick wasn’t happy, but for some reason she stayed with Dudley.
The minute I reached the street and began to walk to the banks entrance, I felt eye’s upon me. Worse than that, I felt that ugly feeling of having a rifle being pointed at me. I got just a little bit nervous that they’d shoot me down in front of the bank instead of come out and get me. I was hoping that Martin was sadistic enough to want me face to face when he pulled the trigger.
Just as I reached the glass entrance of the bank, I heard movement behind me. They were making their move.
I guess they didn’t want to wait for me to get inside the bank. Martin’s man had been waiting behind a car on the side of the road for me to make my appearance.
“Stop right there,” he shouted.
I froze in my tracks.
“Keep your back to me and back up,” he shouted.
I did exactly as he said.
I turned my head a little bit to the right and I saw that he was still crouched behind the car. Dudley didn’t have a good shot.
“Don’t turn your head,” he screamed at my back. “Keep walking backwards. Turn your head again and I’ll fire.”
I took his advice and continued to walk backwards.
“Stop right there,” the man shouted when he was satisfied with the distance between us. “Where’s your friend?”
“I have no friends,” I answered. “Nobody likes me.”
“Did you really say that?”
Trust me, I’ve said a lot worse in worse times than that.
“I’ll bet you have.”
“You wanna be a wiseass?” snarled the man as he stepped out from behind the car and began to close the distance between us.
“You got him covered?” shouted Martin. It sounded like he was at the front door of the office building.
And then Martin began to scream out a warning, just as the sound of a gunshot echoed up and down the street.
He must have seen Dudley stand up and take aim, but his warning came too late. Martin’s final man took a straight shot to the head. He was dead before he even realized he’d fallen into our trap. I felt his blood mist against my back. It was a warm feeling that fought against the cold of the rain before finally dropping its temperature and joining the wet drops in a final embrace.
Martin was pissed. He spun immediately and sprayed automatic fire at Dudley. Dudley however, must have the reflexes of a cat, because he wasn’t even scratched before he was safely out of sight behind the cover of the concrete car ramp.
Martin immediately turned back towards me, (luckily he wasn’t still spraying bullets everywhere) but it was too late. I already had my pistol aimed at his face.
He lowered his rifle immediately.
“You really think that you’re something don’t you?” he asked. Dudley came out of hiding with Merrick just about dancing around his feet. He joined me in aiming at Martins face.
“Well, my wife likes to think so,” I answered. “Throw down the rifle.”
He did as I asked.
“I don’t mind throwing down my weapon,” said Martin. “But I don’t surrender. I don’t think you have the stones to shoot an unarmed man.”
“I think I do,” I told him. After all, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t do the same thing.
“I have a better idea,” said Martin with a bit of a desperate whine in his voice. “Why don’t you drop your weapon and face me man to man.”
To be honest, it was just about the stupidest thing that I’ve ever heard. Why in the world would I drop my rifle and fight this guy? I mean, I won fair and square didn’t I? If the situation were reversed, I’d already have a bullet in my head. There was no way in hell I was gonna give up my advantage and fight this asshole.
“So what did you do?”
I handed my rifle over to Dudley like an idiot and told him to hold onto Merrick.
“Why?”
Because I didn’t want to shoot an unarmed man in the face and there was no way that I could let him go. Also…I just kinda wanted to kick his ass.
He rushed me immediately. I let him take me down, I wanted him close. He was faster than I expected, but not by much. His elbow came down on the bridge of my brow and opened up a deep cut. I felt the hot blood begin to flow.
I grabbed a hold of the offending arm before he could do anymore damage to my face and used it to flip him over onto his back.
The cleansing rain washed over my cut and I felt it begin to knit itself closed. I brought my face close to Martins so that he could see it heal.
His eyes went wide as realization set in. I wasn’t a normal man. He wasn’t going to win this fight.
I let him have it. I hammered both of my fists down on his face until it was unrecognizable. It felt good to do him damage. He deserved it for all the bad things he’d probably done in his life and all the bad things he had planned.
After his face was pummeled and his body had gone limp, I got off of him.
“Go ahead and get Kingsley and the others,” I told Dudley.
“No problem,” he answered and ran off towards the office building with Merrick hot on his heels.
Just as he went inside the door, Martin made his final move. He pulled a gun from who knows where and fired one shot at me. The bullet skimmed against my bottom rib. I felt the burn, but I was already in the motion of returning fire with my pistol.
I pumped two in his chest and Martin was dead.
Dudley and friends came out of the office building just as the bullet wound healed itself up in the rain. For some reason or another, Kingsley had a military duffel bag slung across his shoulders. All of them (except for Dudley) had the red marks left from bindings around their wrists.
I wanted to ask Kingsley why he had the duffel bag, but Dudley broke my train of thought.
“What happened?” asked Dudley.
“He pulled a gun and shot at me. I shot back.”
“Sure he did,” said Calvin.
“Go fuck yourself,” I answered.
“Kingsley found the detonator,” interrupted Dudley before Calvin said something stupid.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“I tore it into pieces and threw it in the trash,” said Dudley as he held up a radio. “But I brought their radio with me.”
“Can we leave now?” asked Jen.
“Yeah,” I answered. “Just as soon as we convince most of the zombies in the area to chase after us…it shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Well, we better get moving then,” shouted Dudley and suddenly he began firing his weapon down the street. Apparently, our shots had attracted the attention of many eager and hungry zombies.
“How many?”
It looked like at least a thousand from where I was standing. They were coming out from every alley and side road from the opposite direction of the street. Fortunately, we were headed in a direction that was still clear and I won’t even tell you how fast we made it into my Jeep.
“What about the other radio, the one that you left on the corner before you went after Martin?”
We picked it up just as we were tearing off. It almost cost us big time though. The zombies were
right on top of us.
“So your plan of playing pied piper was off to a good start?”
I would have preferred some time to map out a route to take, but yeah…I guess you could say that we were off to a good start. We certainly had a lot of company. Now all we had to do was zip around through down town and get the rest of the zombies to chase after us.
I had Kingsley crank up the Jeeps CD player just to attract more attention and what do ya know, it worked. The dead just kept on coming. They began to pour out after us from everywhere, buildings, more alleys and side roads, dumpsters…you name it.
“What were you playing on the CD player?”
Johnny Cash of course.
“I heard that you were a fan of his.”
Something cool about that man.
“Sorry to jump off subject, I just had to know.”
No problem.
So, if I really put my mind to thinking about it…I believe that the zombies had been tracking us ever since we left the courthouse. We had just changed locations so often that they were never able to pin us down. There were also some decent distractions from Martin and his men, but all in all…we were very fortunate that we hadn’t been cornered by a group of this size.
“I guess the battle outside the bank gave them enough time to pinpoint you and catch up?”
That’s my guess. We were also fortunate that the opposite end of the street was pretty empty. There was no way we would have been able to reach the Jeep if we had to go through the thousands of zombies that were now running after us.
“Well, did the plan work? Were you able to attract more zombies to follow you?” Were you able to lead them to the freeway?”
Yes, yes and yes. It wasn’t easy. I can’t even count how many times were almost drove into a dead end street or ran into a road that was just about blocked by abandoned cars.
It also wasn’t easy to maintain a decent speed in the rat maze of Downtown. We had to go fast enough to keep them at a distance (in case we ran into some sort of road block) and we had to go slow enough to keep them following.
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