by Chris Lowry
It was bad.
“I can make it,” Rat said through clenched teeth.
As if he had a choice.
He limped forward, moving as fast as he can. The lurch is slow, his injured ankle acted more as a pivot than anything.
Taylor moved ahead, slow but steady. They could still hear the moaning, but the source was hard to locate in the concrete canyon. It could be anywhere. Heck, it was probably everywhere.
One wouldn’t be a problem. Three wouldn’t be a problem. But killing any of them would draw more, and a Rat couldn’t fight a herd.
Taylor glanced over his shoulder at Rat. He would be worthless in a firefight, because he couldn’t run.
That’s how the Z got you. Sheer numbers and they were running low. Had been running low for days, which was part of the reason he wanted to raid the condo building.
Lots of Texans had weapons, and they just needed to search a few drawers to get lucky.
Luck they needed right now, he thought as Rat hobbled up next to him.
“Keep up,” Taylor said.
Rat licked his chapped lips as his eyes darted around at the noise.
“Just do me a favor, all right? If they start coming, do me in the head before you run. Don’t leave me for them.”
“I promise,” said Taylor.
“You agreed to that a little too quick.”
“So?”
“I’m starting to think you don’t like my company.”
“Do you see that?
Rat took advantage of his stopping to prop against a car and held his injured leg out at an angle.
“Are they coming?”
He sounded more tired than scared, though his voice still held an edge to it. He was talking through gritted teeth and a frozen grimace.
Taylor pointed to an overturned black box truck in the middle of the road. It looked like it was the cause of this particular stretch of traffic jam, Taylor thought.
Something hit the back corner, at least that’s the story the crumpled metal told. The truck flipped over, blocked two and a half lanes, and the scared angry drivers of the other cars did the rest.
But what was most important were the letters printed across the black finish in white military block script.
S.W.A.T.
“Wait here,” he instructed and jogged up the road to the van.
A couple of cars were pressed against the other side, as if they tried to move it out of the way.
But instead of choosing one side to shift it over, it looked like three cars pressed against the bottom and shoved forward, right into other cars trying to pass on either side.
Panic caused people to do stupid things.
He raised his rifle and approached slowly. The doors were closed, the cars around it empty.
He waited at the edge of the truck, and whipped around, gun ready. It was empty too.
The doors closed. The windshield intact. Nothing moved.
Taylor dropped to one knee and tried to peer into the shadow cloaked interior. A shuffling noise behind him made him jump.
He fell onto his back and fought to pull his gun up.
Just as Rat limped around the edge of the truck.
“Son of a…”
Rat held up both hands and froze.
“Just me, man.”
“Make some noise or something.”
“And attract the Z?”
“Good point,” said Taylor.
He rolled over and looked inside the van again. From this angle, he could see better.
There was a door in the divider between the front cab and back section, closed, but the driver’s and passenger seats were empty.
Taylor rolled around and slammed a boot against the windshield.
“You’re giving away our position,” Rat glanced up and down the road and scrunched up against the side of the truck.
“You sound very military,” Taylor grunted as he slapped his boot against the glass again.
The top corner popped in, knocked loose by the crash and now his beating on it.
“SWAT brings that out in me. What do you think we’ll find?”
“Weapons? Maybe more gear.”
He cracked his boot against the windshield again and it popped into the cab with a loud clatter.
Rat watched him lean in slowly.
“I’ll check around back.”
Rat circled around the tumbled rig and reached for the door handle closest to him. He expected it to be locked and was surprised when it clicked open.
The weight of the door combined with the shock of it opening made him step back. He dropped the door with a loud clang.
Taylor was watching as the door popped open and flooded the rear compartment with light.
He saw a set of spindly legs lurch out of the dark corner of the box and shuffled toward Rat as he was bending down.
A zombie cop lunged under the open door, gaping jaw snapping for Rat’s face.
He grabbed the Z by the shoulder and fell backwards onto the hood of a car. Rat lost his footing as the zombie snapped for his neck, his chin. They both plopped onto the hard asphalt.
Taylor sprinted around the side of the truck and slid across the hood of the car.
He landed on top of the zombie’s head, cracking it open with a wet splotch that showered gore over Rat.
“Gross.”
“It’s dead, isn’t it.”
“Effective sure. And disgusting. Help me up.”
Taylor reached down and jerked him up to stand on one leg like a flamingo.
“Did it bite you?”
Rat examined his arms, felt his chin and neck.
“I think this is all his.”
“I wondered about the driver.”
“More warning next time.”
“Double check for wounds.”
Rat limped after him as Taylor returned to the van. He used one hand to lift the other door, and pointed the rifle in just in case there were any more surprises.
But the back of the box was Z free and his eyes lit up.
“Merry Christmas,” he sighed.
The SWAT truck was full of weapons and gear.
“They’re loaded for bear.”
Rat shuffled up beside him.
“They’re loaded for everything. You good?”
“Bite free.”
“Hold this up,” Taylor instructed.
He ducked into the back of the van while Rat propped the door open. Taylor worked fast, grabbing half full duffle bags and stuffing them with MP-5 Assault rifles, a dozen Glock 9mm pistols and ammunition.
The bags were overflowing within minutes, so he used the pockets of his cargo pants until they were full, then passed more out to Rat.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I can carry one,” Rat sniffed from behind him as Taylor struggled toward the white building a few blocks away.
“You’re slow enough as it is,” he wheezed under the double load.
They were moving slow, making a few feet at a time before one or the other had to stop and catch their breath.
Taylor knew if Rat carried one of the bags, it would be even slower, but even so he was tempted. Damn, it was heavy. He should have worked out more, before.
They heard moans around them, but so far, no Z had tilted into the street they were on.
Then they made it. The white building stretched fifteen stories into the blue Texas sky, grime and grit from smog and exhaust evident now that they were closer.
A narrow driveway curved off the road and led to a glass front lobby, and a gated off section built between the buildings for a pool and recreation area. The exterior of the building faced the street with smooth glass windows, but the condo balconies overlooked the blue water of the pool.
Or what had once been blue water. No filtration had turned it a sick shade of green as algae bloomed in the summer heat.
Taylor tried the lobby door, but it was locked. Furniture had been stacked against the glass casting the interior in a twil
ight gloom they couldn’t pierce.
“Guess it’s the back way,” Taylor said and hummed a few bars of the Door’s Backdoor Man as he led Rat to the gate.
It was locked too, but he smashed the knob with his boot and broke it open.
“Is there a back door?”
“Back way,” said Taylor. “We’re going to go up the balcony.”
Rat stopped and stared at the second floor balcony fifteen feet from the ground.
“She didn’t give you the code to the front door?”
“You saw the way the furniture was piled up. Someone was trying to keep zombies out.”
“That means someone is still in there?”
Taylor stopped. He hadn’t considered that.
“Maybe.”
“And you want to break into someone’s place, even though we don’t know if they’re home?”
Taylor shrugged.
“We have them outnumbered,” he said.
“There’s only two of us.”
Taylor patted the packs.
“Outgunned then.”
He turned and searched the balcony railings, then picked one. He moved one of the poolside tables over, then stacked a second one on top of it, raising them six feet closer.
He balanced a chair on top of the stack, then put another chair next to it.
“That won’t reach,” Rat said.
“You could help.”
“I’m injured man.”
Rat turned and studied the pool while Taylor made a set of rudimentary stairs by stacking the chairs in ascending height.
He noticed the gate was open, and thought to shut it, but one step on his leg made him reconsider. It should be okay for the time it took them to make the balcony.
Taylor examined his work and nodded in a self-satisfied sort of way.
He tried to step up on the first chair, but the two bags on his back were too much counterweight and threw him off. He fought for balance as they tipped him toward the pool, and crashed to the etched concrete around the edge.
“Oww.”
“Welcome to my life,” said Rat.
He limped a couple of steps over and helped his partner up.
Taylor dropped one of the bags next to the first chair and climbed up with the second. He set it on top of the table, then went back down for the first.
When he was on top of the table, he kept climbing onto the balcony and was able to reach the bottom rail.
Rat listened to him grunt as he pulled himself and the bag up, then wheeze as he latched a leg over the rail and slid the bag over onto the concrete floor of the balcony.
He looked inside the apartment, but it was dark and the setting sun cast back his own reflection.
“I hate going into the dark,” he called down to Rat.
“You’re telling me.”
“Don’t talk. Once we’re in, move soft.
We’ll try to sneak.”
“If anything’s in there, they’ll smell us. They always do.”
“We don’t know anything’s in there.”
“Look, I used to watch all the zombie
movies before- . . . this is where
they go,” Rat called up to him. “They hide in the dark. We’re dumb enough to go in- they get us.”
“We stay out here too long, they get us.”
Taylor debated back with him.
Rat heaved a sigh.
“So we’re pretty much screwed either way.”
He started playing with the tip of the rifle barrel, scratching his chin, under his neck.
“Hang on before you do that. I’ve got an idea. Get the umbrella and get up here.”
Rat lumbered to where Taylor discarded one of the pool umbrellas. He bent over to retrieve it and noticed something in the pool.
A body of a woman bobbed in the green water.
“I think she’s topless,” he said to Taylor.
“Quiet.”
But it was too late.
Zombies from the street heard the shout. Their moans grew louder as they started up the drive. It would take them a few moments to find the gate to the pool, but there was a dozen of them.
Enough to make it troublesome.
Plus Rat was slow, weighted down with the umbrella.
“Hurry,” Taylor hissed.
He thought about getting a rifle and shooting the Z, but that would just draw more of them.
Rat made the bottom of the stack and balanced his way up to the third step of chairs.
“Get the other bag,” Taylor whispered.
Rat glanced down at the bag, and back up to Taylor, then the umbrella in his hand.
“Shit,” he sighed.
He had to push up to the next stack to put the umbrella on the table top, then make his way back down to grab the bag.
He couldn’t lift it.
“I can’t lift it.”
“You’re not going to leave it.”
“You come down and get it. You’re faster than me.”
“I’m not coming back down. Just pick it up and bring it.”
A zombie bounced off the open gate and into the pool area.
“I’m injured man.”
A second Z followed the first, and then more began to pour through the gate following them.
Rat stared at them with wide eyes, then screamed as he powerlifted the bag up and over, sliding it down on his shoulders.
It almost tipped him over backwards, but he barely managed to right himself and stumble up the first step.
He made the third stack of chair’s when the Z hit the chairs.
It tilted over and threatened to spill him, but he jumped onto the table and grabbed the umbrella.
“Lift it up, Taylor screamed.
Rat shoved up to his knees and held the umbrella up to Taylor. He gripped the pole with white knuckles as the zombies plowed into the stack of tables and pushed them out from under him.
Rat tried not to scream as his feet dangled inches above grasping hands. He failed.
“Pull me up,” he sobbed. “Pull me up, pull me up.”
Taylor adjusted his grip on the slick pleather umbrella. It slipped a few inches.
Rat screamed again.
The weight of the man, the pack, the movement. It was too much. Taylor couldn’t hold on.
He dropped over backwards, carrying the umbrella with him, using the weight of his body on one end as the pole slammed into the railing.
Rat dangled out of reach of the Z.
“Slide down,” Taylor shouted.
The pole bent where it touched the railing, the thin design crumpling under the weight.
Rat slammed into the side of the balcony, his face next to Taylor’s through the rail openings.
Taylor reached through, grabbed him by the shirt, and held tight. Rat let go of the umbrella and gripped the narrow railings.
The two men worked together to pull, push him up to the top of the rail. Taylor grabbed him by the scruff of his collar and yanked him over onto the balcony floor.
They lay there a moment, gasping and shaking.
“Holy.”
“Shit.”
Taylor sat up and looked into the sliding glass door. A woman Z in a pink bathrobe swaggered out of the darkness and bounced off the glass.
“It’s not over yet. Stand there.”
He perched Rat against the railing, so the Z would come out straight for him.
“Don’t forget to move out of the way,” Taylor reminded him.
“I hate this.”
Taylor tried the door. It was locked.
“Who locks their balcony door?” he scoffed.
“People who are scared of people like us?”
“Guess we’ll do this the hard way.”
“This has been easy so far?”
He reached down and pulled the bags aside, then held up the butt of one of the pistols to the glass.
