by Evans, Mike
Jude looked to Chuck confirming he had the list, and they went to the back door. Joanne walked up to the doctor giving him a hug. She said, “Thank you so much for watching Kayla. I promise we will be back to get her. I know when she comes around she is going to be so grateful for you taking care of her.”
The doctor patted her on the back and said, “It’s just part of the oath we take as doctors, don’t you worry about it. You four just make sure you come back now you hear? This ain’t a hotel and at some point I fear these things are going to get into this place. You guys are welcome to a few of my shotguns if you think it would help? I got slugs, that is what Chuck said you guys were using when you went into the sheriff’s office.”
Jude nodded and they went to a back room where he opened up a safe and handed out two pump action twelve gauges and gave each of the men six boxes of slugs holding five each. Jude looked out the curtain in the back and said, “Well there’s about twenty of those things and we can load in five at a time.”
Chuck was looking at his hands and Jude said, “How have you lived this long? So that leaves us ten more we need to take out. We are going to need the saw then. Not that I planned on leaving it behind.”
Chuck and Roger loaded the shotguns and put the extra boxes in their back pockets. They knew they wouldn’t be any good to them once they clicked empty on the shotgun.
Jude said, “So it looks like I take the saw huh?”
Joanne said, “So wait I'm going out there without anything?”
Jude said, “Nah you get to carry all your medical stuff we are going to need. You just make sure you stay right next to us, don’t let any of those things next to you. I’m sure that goes without saying though doesn’t it?”
Joanne said, “You make sure none of those damn things get close to me then if I'm putting my life in your hands again. I’ll go to the front and grab my gear and we can get a move on. I want to be done looking before we have to worry about it getting dark, I can’t imagine having to move around here and not being able to see with all of the dead walking around.”
Everyone in the room was okay with the thought that they also didn’t want to be out in the dark with those things. Within twenty minutes they had everyone at the door and ready to go. The doctor had packed them something to eat and given them a few bottles worth of water Jude was worried about the water but the doctor had told him it came from a well and it was so far down, there was no way the rain water had gotten into it. They stood at the door unsure when the best time to go would be. The dead were just walking around slowly in circles aimlessly the longer they waited it seemed that they were slowly forgetting they were in there. The hours it might take wouldn’t be soon enough though for them to completely forget.
Jude said, “Next time they move outside of the steps area I want you two to go out first and take out the first two and then we work our way out of the porch and toward the garage.”
Chuck said, "How do we know how many of those things are there, though?"
Roger looked out through the curtain and said, "Well that is pretty simple. We don't, we can't see anything out there man, I mean nothing, that is a big ass garage and there could be a lot of dead out there and we won't know until it is too late."
Chuck went to punch him in the arm, but Joanne already had beaten him to it. She said, "Oh for God’s sake would you shut up. I don't understand what the hell is wrong with you. How in the hell is saying something like that going to make anyone feel any better? Are you stupid? It isn't like we aren't already scared to death here man."
He opened his mouth but realized he had no rebuttal for such a dumb statement. He said, “Well what if we take out what we need to make our way there and then once we clear them out we can get the guns reloaded again for whatever is behind the garage.”
Joanne said, “Well that at least is a plan, now isn’t it?”
They shook hands with the doctor as they prepared to open the back door. Once they were ready Jude swung the wood door open. Chuck came first through the door aiming at the closest dead. He squeezed the trigger and hit it square in the back of the head sending it forward and knocking over the dead that was closest to it. It's head split open and its brains rolling out when it hit the ground. Jude walked down the steps stomping a foot repeatedly on the dead's head until he fractured its skull with his boot. He didn't stop until he could feel the brain beneath his boot.
Roger fired next missing but tearing through the dead’s neck next to it. It tore with a purpose leaving the neck dangling from the side its mouth still trying to bite anything near it. Jude used his chainsaw bringing it down and disconnecting it from the body. He kicked the head as hard as he could, sending it twenty yards away. Chuck and Roger cleared the next eight bodies walking alternating until they were both on empty. Jude took the lead after that walking toward the remaining four and slicing at their knee caps seeing it as the best way to be able to immobilize them quickly. He walked back after he had all of them taken down to the ground dragging the saw blade across their skulls and slicing them in half.
When they got to the back of the garage there was nothing there but an old pickup waiting for them. Each of them felt a huge sigh of relief one they knew probably wouldn't last too long. Jude handed the keys to Roger and he jumped in the back. They started the truck and Jude and Chuck secured the back of the truck. He drove slowly by the house and Jude and Chuck jumped back out and grabbed the other chainsaws placing them in the back. They knew they had limited shells and wanted to save them for when they were really going to count. Roger kept the engine revving and when they made it to the back again peeled out spitting gravel in the yard.
Jude and Chuck hung on for dear life with one free hand keeping their chainsaws in the other idling ready to run if need be. They went down the doctor's street or to be more accurate drove along the street that was littered with cars and crashed through wood fences as they passed through the yards. They turned down the street to head toward the town square and out of town and ran into a horde of the dead. They covered the sidewalks and the streets. There was no getting through and by the time they were far enough to see they had chosen a horrible path the dead had heard the pickup truck and circled around trying to find the noise.
Jude leaned over the window and screamed, “Drive through the goddamn things, do it, do it now!”
Roger said, “What if we crash?”
Chuck said, "Just drive, if these things get up any closer to the truck were going to have to make damn sure they don't climb in, if they can climb that is."
Roger yelled, “Hold on, it’s going to get a little bumpy!”
He floored the truck, which did little good for the old pickup, it had more miles than all the men’s pickups at home combined did. He steered toward what looked like the thinnest amount of the dead and sped full bore towards them. Roger and Joanne both screamed as the truck connected with the bodies. Both of them had thought they would knock them out of the way easily but did not give them the credit they deserved when it came to the number of bodies walking as they were one was like running into a brick wall.
The truck just barely made it through the first ten of the dead but when they got further in the truck got stuck on a pile of the dead. When they stopped moving Joanne looked to Roger screaming, “What the hell are you doing? Why are we stopped? Get this goddamn truck going and going now man go go go.”
Roger just stared at her with a blank expression shaking his head. He said, “Yes Joanne this is not where I wanted to stop. I very much want to keep going. If you haven't noticed there were a shit ton of the dead right in front of us. All of those right now I would say confidently are stuck beneath this old pickup truck.”
She said, “What the hell are we going to do?”
Roger barely having time to think about it started to roll up his window realizing that was going to become something that was a life and death matter in a moment. Joanne did the same thing seeing that it was going to be imperative the wind
ow was up as well.
The dead that had been closing in on the truck did so much quicker than Jude and Chuck had expected. Chuck said, “What the hell are we going to do now? This truck is not going to go anywhere.”
Jude stared around not liking the options and knowing his only weapon was a chainsaw. He said, “Stand back to back. I want you to follow my lead, this is going to be a messy son of a bitch.”
The two stood back to back and Chuck looked over his shoulder taking in what Jude was doing as he could hear the chainsaw making contact with something. Jude was swiping back and forth with the saw and he was not being particular about what he was chopping off. Chuck’s stomach turned as he watched Jude rip through stomachs, arms, hands, and the prize; the skulls. He was making them as immobile as possible and it did not take Chuck very long to catch on. He revved his own saw and started to bring carnage upon the dead on his side.
The one thing the two did not think of was that as they continued to cut into them they quickly realized they were slowly building a ladder of the dead. Jude said, “What are we going to do once they are able to climb into the truck?”
Jude looked over the side of the pickup and saw they already had a three-foot pile of the dead leaning up against the wheels and the side of the truck. He said, “Well we sure as fuck won't stay in this damn truck, just think of this just as a temporary fix. I don't know what the long-term answer is here man but we are going to have to get out of here and we need to make sure that as we do this that Roger and Joanne are still able to get out of that pick up. There is no way we can leave them behind. They’ll eventually break in the windows, and we both know what is going to happen after that goes down.”
Chuck said, “You know what really annoys the shit out of me is that we kicked the hell out of this place for a week making it look beautiful again, and now we got no one around to appreciate it because everybody here is fucking dead.”
Jude could have cared less about the town being torn to hell. There’s a good chance the population of the living was going to be scarce. Jude looked around Main Street trying to figure out where the best place for them to try and escape was going to be. Jude tapped on the window the dead were too thick on the sides of them to be able to move out and push their doors open. Jude motioned for them to get to the sides of the truck which neither of them were happy about since the dead were licking their blackened tongues at the windows and hitting their foreheads trying to break the glass but not having the strength or agility needed to do so. The longer they were hitting it the better they were getting. Jude used the axe’s back end to go through the glass of the truck. He took the blade around the edge of the glass and put an old tarp that was in the bed of the pickup over the glass so they could climb out without slicing themselves open.
Joanne slid her gear through the window and she followed closely behind. Chuck was trimming arms left and right making sure they were going to have the minutes they needed to get out of the inside of the pickup. Roger grabbed his saw starting it up, Jude pointed to the diner they’d recently fixed and they ran up over the roof of the truck and Jude put a foot up into the first of the dead sending it stumbling backward giving him the room he needed to jump to the pavement below. He kept a forward movement momentum keeping the saw high and slicing into heads, the top halves of them falling to the ground cut off at the nose. Chuck could see Jude wasn’t about to slow down and he followed with Joanne behind him lugging her gear and in the back was Roger keeping the circle from closing on them.
Jude cut through making a thin path and Chuck and Joanne followed closely behind. The dead moved in quicker than they could have imagined it happening and even over the roar of the chainsaws they could still hear Roger’s screams of pain and pleas for help from behind them.
They looked back over their shoulders seeing him being taken down to the ground. His chainsaw was just idling now as he died and blood squirted into the air as they fell atop of him and tore at his flesh. Roger screamed again as they gripped onto his nose ripping it back and tearing it off of his face. The next clenched tightly onto his forehead and tore away at it. The blood poured out onto the ground and soaked across the dead’s feet. Jude tried running back to help him but Chuck gripped him around the stomach screaming, “No - no Jude we can’t he’s gone brother, I don’t like it either but they are on our ass and we got nothing left we can do for him.”
Joanne watched in horror as the quick meal they had made of Roger left them still hungry. Jude took his axe off of his back and with his free arm threw it through the new pane of glass that had just been installed days before. The glass shattered and the three of them ran through the freshly cleaned diner. The dead followed in pursuit tripping over the broken window not being able to lift their knees high enough to make it through. They made it to the back of the diner hitting the back door with everything he had and bounced right off of it and back on his ass. He hit at the door seeing it was locked with a key and realized this definitely wasn’t an emergency exit. The owner knew once it was locked up no one was going to be getting in through this doorway.
Chuck yelled, “It’s not going to budge man. What the hell are we going to do now?”
Jude looked around wildly realizing his mistake could very well cost all of them their lives. He looked at the large steel door and the dead that were tumbling through the glass window and knew there would not be nearly enough time to even try to cut the door away from the frame.
Joanne pointed to another wooden door and yelled frantically shaking a finger and pointing, “Look over there, that must lead somewhere.”
Chuck said, “Well it could just be a closet.”
Joanne said, “Well if you don't get your ass over there and open it, it's going to be goddamn hard to find out what it is won't it?”
Jude was already moving for the door; to him anyway out was more than good enough for him. He twisted the handle and was rewarded with a locked door but this one did not make him nervous. He revved the engine and put the blade do the door carving around the handle and then put his foot through it sending the door wildly swinging open.
It was pitch black inside the doorway but when he peered inside and looked around he saw a thin crack of light coming from what must have been thirty feet up. He yelled over the saw, “It must be an apartment or storage room, let's get up the stairs before they come in any further.”
Chuck did as he was told, as did Joanne and they ran up the flight of steps each of them secretly wishing there would have been a way to keep the door shut. They knew there was no time to be had and especially none to waste. When Jude made it to the top of the stairs this time there was no locked door.
Jude looked around expecting to only see food and other types of restaurant supplies. He quickly realized he was standing in someone's home, possibly the diner owner's place. He could hear the faint whispering on the radio playing low with a Willie Nelson song. He walked in slowly looking around and after the shock of this being a home set in he looked down at the wood floor to see a trail of blood going back toward what looked like a living area with a bedroom and a bath.
Jude called out, “Hello, is anyone there? Do you need help?”
Chuck came through and looked around and said, “Hey, is there anyone here?”
Jude nodded his head still focused on the blood and said, “Unfortunately I think there is. Look down at the ground, it looks like somebody might have ran into one of the dead already, which means -”
Jude did not have the opportunity to finish his sentence. The owner of the diner came stumbling out of the washroom. He had the side of his white shirt painted with blood. Even in the dimly lit room the three of them could see the chunk that was missing from his side. Jude held up his hands in a friendly manner saying, “You let me know just by saying hi if you aren't one of those things already.”
The shop owner’s reply was a deafening growl moan and it ran towards the three catching the two men off guard. Jude tried to bring his saw up but he di
d not have time. He was still getting used to the ones that had been bitten in their speed, which those from the graves had not possessed. It gripped Jude grabbing his shirt and trying to lean in to bite into his flesh. Jude had his back to Chuck and Joanne leaving him all on his own. He put an elbow to the man’s face snapping it backward but since he wasn’t able to feel pain, the elbows did very little to help him.
Jude kept the man just far enough from biting him to stay momentarily safe. They slammed back and forth and Jude stumbled backward. The heavy man’s weight threw Jude off balance and then Jude and the corpse stumbled backward full force into a large window, which unfortunately was not strong enough to hold Jude and the shop owner’s weight. The window cracked then shattered and all Chuck and Joanne saw wear two pairs of feet going up into the air as they disappeared over the side of the window located on the second story building.
Chuck screamed the idea of losing his friend wasn’t something he could handle. He yelled, “Holy fuck, what the hell just happened?”
Joanne said nothing. She ran to the window, hanging out of it thinking for sure she was going to see Jude as a meal or with his head caved in from the two-story fall to the cement below. What she saw was Jude staring at her his eyes filled with rage and worry. He and the dead landed on top of a canopy that was stretched over the back door entrance. The diner owner was still trying anxiously to get his first bite of Jude.
Jude kept the saw in between the two of them. He saw no opportunity to escape without using the saw. Jude wedged a knee in between him and the dead’s chest pushing him up just far enough so that he could put it out of its misery.
He gunned the saw and sliced from the diner owner’s right ear to his left, Jude was painted in blood and gore and guts everywhere. He closed his eyes and mouth not wanting to get any of the blood inside of him. Jude jumped when the face was cut free and fell freely down hitting him on the side of the head.
