Reynolds moved to point and scouted. Joel stuck by me.
A pair of jets shot overhead. They moved toward the city at high speed and a few seconds later explosions rocked the morning air. We looked up as one and Kelly whistled.
“How bad is it?” Walowitz asked the same question that was on my mind.
“Only one way to find out, and that’s to get in the fight.”
Men nodded.
“Gunny. My wife’s family was staying at a hotel near here. About a mile that way,” he said and pointed to the northeast. “I’m going to check on them.”
“Stay put, Marine.”
“I’m not in your command. Appreciate the assist, gentlemen, but I have to know.”
No one said a word as he walked away at a fast clip.
“Gunny?” Cooper asked.
“What am I supposed to do, shoot him in the back?” He looked between the men but they didn’t say a word.
Reynolds whistled from ahead and motioned. Gunny moved out and the others followed, but they strung out and kept their eyes everywhere at once.
It was less than five minutes before we ran into a real shit storm.
We slid between buildings and empty cars. Streets covered in debris. Bodies that moved and others that lay still. We moved quickly and used shops or hotels as cover when we had to.
Gunny took us to a four lane cross street that still had a couple of moving cars; they ignored us and navigated between wrecks and abandoned vehicles.
“Let’s commandeer us a few cars,” Gunny said.
That was the best idea I’d heard all day.
“Shit, Gunny. How are we gonna navigate around all these wrecks?”
“I guess we get out and push when we have to,” Walowitz said.
“Are we Marines or Triple A? We’ll find a vehicle of sufficient size and drive over anyone that gets in our way,” Cooper said.
Gunny chuckled and nodded.
The group spread out. Joel stuck by my side while I checked out a couple of trucks. There was a huge eighteen-wheeler partially on the road and partly on the shoulder. I approached and jumped up on the ladder to see if anyone was inside. A man in a faded green t-shirt threw himself at me. He clawed at the door while I tried to stuff my stomach back down my throat.
We moved away.
Cooper and Reynolds poked inside a pair of cars but shook their heads. Cooper checked three more before finding one to his liking. It was a huge SUV that could probably seat eight comfortably. He pulled a corpse out—an elderly woman with blue hair. She was clothed in a huge dress that was more of a nightgown. When he released the body she hit the ground, but her hand grabbed his arm and she pulled herself up. Teeth clamped onto skin.
Cooper turned, eyes filled with horror. He looked at the wound and then did something I thought I could never do. He dropped his assault rifle, ripped the handgun out of his holster, put it under his chin, and pulled the trigger.
I looked away, and it was a good thing I did. From the base, the mass that had tried to attack us had somehow made it through the fence. They moved toward us, arms extended in claws, mouths snarling, teeth covered in blood.
“Move!” Gunny yelled.
We angled off the road and raced toward the city.
That’s when the second mass came upon us.
It was like we were stuck between two groups of angry football fans and we were the opposing team.
We ran.
The second horde was already on us. They got one of the guys whose name I didn’t know. He went down with a scream and a few seconds later something exploded.
Bodies flew, but it wasn’t enough to stem the tide.
Gunny palmed a grenade and tossed one to Walowitz. They both pulled pins and threw at the same time.
The effect was devastating to the front lines that didn’t even know to lift their hands or drop to the ground to protect appendages. Joel and I took shelter behind a car but popped back up. I followed his lead and didn’t deviate from doing the exact same shit he was doing. If he dropped his pants and popped a squat right there, I would have been beside him doling out the toilet paper.
Gunny led the charge with Walowitz and the other two Marines behind them. They fired, moved in, fired, and when they were close enough they drew side arms and shot until the entire front line had disintegrated.
Reynolds broke away first and dashed to our side. The others followed, but they fired as they went.
Joel took aim and blasted anyone that fell under his sights. The dead dropped like flies, but still the mass advanced. At least with the first rank down, we had created enough of a mess to hang them up.
That’s when I saw the first one.
The guy crept along the ground on all fours. He didn’t really speak, he just gibbered like he was talking to himself in a shrieking laugh. It was unnerving. The worst was when he leapt off the ground and hit one of the Marines. They both went down in a heap; the Marine got the best of the engagement, but not before having part of his throat ripped out.
“Retreat!” Gunny yelled and we hauled ass.
We hit a roadblock a hundred and fifty feet later. We came up along a side street, hung a hard left to avoid a fresh horde, and hit a location that held five or six military vehicles. No one manned them, but they made a hell of a choke point because they stretched between two buildings and blocked the entire street.
Joel leapt on top of a HUMVEE and fired while we stayed behind cover. He took out a few but they were gaining on our tired asses. I was so tired I seriously considered just becoming one of them so I wouldn’t have to be scared and exhausted any more.
I scrambled up the side of a transport and swung myself onto the roof. I’d fired my last round and hefted my wrench. The first shuffler that came after me got a face full of steel.
Walowitz and Gunny dove into a transport and shut the door. The vehicle was soon surrounded. Joel and I backed up as Gunny saluted us. A few seconds later the engine roared to life and they backed up. Gunny rolled down the window an inch and shouted at us. “Try for the park in two days at eleven PM.”
His truck came to a halt as more and more of them piled on. He shrugged, saluted again, and roared into the crowd. Gunny rolled down his window a few more inches, stuck out his arm, and pounded the side of the cab. "Come on you fuckers!" he yelled.
We didn’t wait around to see how far he got.
Reynolds and another Marine joined us as we crawled on top of trucks and then slid down the other sides. The Marine – whose name may have been Jonas – slipped and fell off the side of a truck. He cried out, but before we could get him he was covered in Z’s.
They were on all sides now as we stood in the flatbed of a truck that had been used as some kind of transport. Joel tossed his gun and picked up another. I found a handgun but didn’t pay attention to the make. I just yanked it out of an unused holster, ignoring the corpse it was attached to, and shot the first dead fuck that fell under my sights.
Reynolds kicked one in the face but she latched onto his leg and her mouth darted in to bite him. I thought the fabric of his camo gear may have protected him, but he kicked her again and backed up in horror.
“We are so screwed!” Joel said.
The rest had reached the truck. A hundred clawing hands on every side.
I don’t know if it was the stress of the dying Marines, the loss of Gunny, or just the culmination of the entire day. More than likely, it was the bite. Reynolds got this wild look in his eye and told us to get ready.
I thought he meant that we should get ready to die. Reynolds grabbed a bandolier covered in green balls and slung it around his waist. He took a couple off and handed them to Joel.
Joel Kelly took them and flipped Reynolds a questioning look, then shot a Z in the face.
Reynolds ran to the end of the flat bed and leapt like he was going to crowd-surf. His fingers worked at his belt as he went, and when he came off the truck he left behind a tinkling pile of clips.
“DOWN!” Joel yelled and pushed me to the floor.
It was the most incredible act of heroism I have ever seen. Reynolds threw himself into the maelstrom and saved us.
The blast was immense. What was left wasn’t fit to bury. It would need to be scooped up and burned.
We used the explosion as cover and ran through the fresh passageway. When a pair of the dead came around a corner, Joel blasted one in half and then threw the empty assault rifle at the other. I didn’t look, but I knew Joel was close to losing it.
Joel and I ran until I was gasping for air and shaking like a leaf. We’d left the mass behind but we were in a new part of the city, somewhere I’d never seen before.
An hour later we found the partially boarded up two-story house and founded Fortress.
###
05:45 hours approximate
Undead Central, San Diego CA – Roz’s Roof
That’s enough for today. It’s early morning and I’d love to get some more shuteye, but the sun is rising. One of the shufflers keeps throwing himself at the side of the garage. I wish Joel would get up and shoot the fucker between the eyes.
Craig and Christy look miserable. They’ve already eaten the few snacks they managed to get out of the house. I didn’t say anything, but I had nothing stashed in my bag except this log, a few magazines, and my wrench.
Noise to the north. I think it’s a chopper. If it comes anywhere near us, I'm giving up the hiding technique and jumping up and down like a maniac.
This is Machinist Mate First Class Jackson Creed and I am still alive.
Free Ride
11:25 hours approximate
Location: Undead Central, San Diego CA – Roz’s Roof
Supplies:
Food: zip
Weapons: almost zip
Attitude: messy
I tried to sleep. Tried.
It was a losing battle. The moment I closed my eyes all I heard were the dead. They milled, staggered, walked into the garage wall, and every five to ten minutes a shuffler launched itself at the roof.
The truth was that I was too damn scared to sleep. If I were really tired enough I’d have dozed off hours ago. Instead, adrenalin kicked my nerves up a notch. A side effect was that I felt like shit. My muscles ached from being clenched and my mind was filled with all the horrible things I’d seen over the course of two weeks. From a narrow escape aboard the USS McClusky to fighting for our lives in the very garage we were stranded on, and all of the terrible shit in between.
Roz huddled up next to Joel Kelly. I didn’t take it as a slight, even though I’d saved her life. Joel had saved my life quite a few times and I’d saved his. I think. Yeah, I probably pulled his ass out of a few bad situations. Kinda hard to survive in this ridiculous world if you aren’t helping keep your best buddy from becoming zombie chow.
She didn’t exactly invite him she just happened to lay down next to him. Joel was snoring away and rolled onto his side. She was close and they ended up with their arms over each other. How she could sleep through his snoring was beyond me. How any of us could sleep.
I didn’t get jealous. Why should I? It’s not like she and I were together. We had that little hug and ass grab yesterday in the garage, but we both thought we were about to die. Even if we had made it back inside, I doubted I had the balls to go after her. They were too busy being shrunk up inside my gut in fear.
I rolled over again and tried to fix the lumps that made up my backpack. Then I tried to doze on my arm but it fell asleep. I rolled onto my stomach and got a face full of leaves and dirt. If I wasn’t mistaken, there was even a layer of moss up here that I was now inhaling.
“Can you eat moss?” I asked, voice low.
“Gross, dude,” Craig said.
“I’m starving, man and pretty soon a bowl of moss stew might look good to you too,” I said. “Maybe a bowl of moss stew with pork belly to add some salt.”
“Pork belly? Sounds just as gross,” he whispered back.
“It’s just another name for bacon.”
“I’d kill a guy for some bacon.”
My stomach rumbled in response.
Hours passed and I may have dozed. My ankle ached like a bitch and the rest of my body wasn’t much better. The next time I run into a fucking zombie apocalypse, I plan to bring some serious painkillers to the party. Not to mention a duffle bag filled with Twinkies and MREs. Yeah, I’d eat the hell out of some MREs right now.
We had quite a few of them. The problem? They were in a house filled with the dead, so that idea was just as fucking dead. Going back into the house wasn’t happening unless we figured out a way to go in Ironman-style, complete with metal suit and weaponry. The way these undead assholes acted, they’d probably drag us down, iron suit or not.
I don’t remember when, but I finally fell asleep and got an hour or two of REM. Good for fucking me.
###
06:00 hours approximate
Location: Undead Central, San Diego CA – Roz’s Roof
I woke up with a pounding headache. My ankle was swollen from last night’s activities. My back hurt from sleeping on the roof. My shoulder barely worked thanks to falling asleep on my own arm.
I rubbed my eyes but it didn’t help. They still felt like sand paper.
“You might have gotten uglier,” Joel observed.
I didn’t have the energy to flip him off.
“I feel like shit.”
“Dehydrated. You need water. We all do,” he said.
Joel crept to the edge of the roof and looked over the side of the building. He came back up and shook his head. Roz stayed low and stared after him. The kids were a few feet away, conferring in whispered voices.
It was overcast, and from the chill in the air I’d guess it was no later than about 0600 hours.
“Not good. We can’t get down. We can’t go back in the garage, and we can’t get in the house.”
“Still full of dead fucks?”
“Yep,” he said. “Craig reconnoitered earlier.”
“Brave kid.”
“And he’s light. Don’t want a fresh hole in the roof.”
Another helicopter thundered against the morning sky. I’d put it at a mile or two out. We could see it, but it couldn’t see us, because we were a speck in a big old pile of fuck you. Too bad we couldn’t set a home on fire to signal the chopper.
“Anyone got a flare gun?” I asked.
Joel Kelly rolled his eyes.
The chopper cut to the east and then zipped into the distance until we couldn’t hear it anymore.
The morning brought some fog and a creepy view of the world below. Where we’d seen the undead on the ground, now they seemed to be creeping out of the mist with heads and arms floating. A shuffler appeared out of the fog with a leap and then was gone, five or six feet away like some kind of fucked up zombie frog.
The nearest house was twenty or thirty feet away and no matter how fast we could run, there was no way in hell we’d make that sprint. The dead were too thick. I’d have a better chance of pogo-sticking off heads than outrunning the tightly packed horde.
“What if one of us put on a lot of clothes? Then the bites wouldn’t get through,” Christy said.
“You’d be dragged down and torn apart,” I said.
Not a good way to go. Sure they might not be able to bite, yet, but enough of those things on top of the kid and they’d have his arms and legs separated from his torso in no time.
“Uh. Yeah. Bad idea,” Christy said.
“Can we make a rope out of our clothes and hook it to the house over there?” Craig pointed at the nearest rooftop.
Poor kid. He looked worse than me. His hair was a mess but his eyes were the really sad part. He must have been rubbing at them because one was dark red and he looked as tired as anyone I’d ever seen. Craig lifted one hand to point at the house but it hung limp, almost like a Z’s hand. Even his words were slurred.
“One, I don’t want to be dangling buck ass
naked over those bastards. A shuffler would surely get us. Two, none of us can possibly James Bond the rope over there.”
“It was just a suggestion,” he said and frowned. Craig lay back down and stared in the direction of the slow rising sun.
“Yeah. It was a good one,” I said, but he didn’t acknowledge my words.
Joel looked at me but I could only shrug.
The sound of a helicopter again. I sat up and tried to get a glimpse but couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from.
“There!” Joel said. He was up on his knees pointing west of San Diego, out toward the water.
The chopper cut across my vision like a fucking messiah. If Jesus himself had risen from the ground and taken to the air, I don’t think I’d have been this excited.
The thundering grew louder. The big green military transport did a zig-zag over buildings and roads. As it moved I found myself getting up. First, one foot under a knee. Then I was up in a crouch and trying to ignore the pain in my ankle. I licked my dry lips, but it didn’t help, even though I was, for some reason, salivating.
“Is it coming this way?” Roz moved beside me and put her hand on my waist.
I looked her way and tried not to grin like a crazy man.
“Yeah. It’s coming our way.”
It was. I thought for sure it would go anywhere else but it kept doing a serpentine strut across the sky. Its general direction was still toward us.
I jumped to my feet and waved my hands in the air and started to shout.
“Hey! Hey! We’re right fucking here!”
Roz did the same and so did the kids. Craig didn’t get to his feet but he waved. His hand was nearly as listless as his body. I hoped the poor kid wasn’t sick.
Thank the fuck Christ someone was coming. I was worried about the kid. I’d just met him a day or two ago but he and his sister didn’t deserve this crazy new world. I couldn’t help but wonder if this part of the country was infected but the rest of the world was fine and dandy. Maybe families were rising even now to have breakfast together. To watch the morning news or sit through children’s cartoons. Mom and Dad rushing off to work while the kids try to stay awake in school.
Z-Risen (Book 1): Outbreak Page 12
