Zournal (Book 5): Feeling Lucky?

by R. S. Merritt

  He nodded as they stacked up on the next door. This time the lead man had his pistol out and the one behind him had a rifle ready to back him up. The other two still had bladed weapons out in case there was a chance to take them quietly. The rest of the Indians were deployed to cover the remaining ten or so rooms in case someone came running out shooting. Ginny and Ann were covering the door we had come through to get into the hallway and Reeves was squatting down next to the door at the end of the hallway to take out anyone who decided to rush through it and be a hero.

  They went through and we heard shooting coming from the room. I figured this was the way it was going to be for most of the rest of the rooms. Three of the Indians came out of that room. I decided to call an audible.

  I gathered Catori and some of the others to me. “Ok. We can’t get through the next eight rooms losing one guy per room. The math doesn’t work out and I don’t see an upside for us. I have some grenades so I say we just open up the doors and toss those in to do the work for us. Between all of us we probably have eight of them.”

  Everyone liked that plan better than the rush into rooms and get shot plan. We went ahead and did it at the next door. Catori pushed the door open and I hurled the grenade in then we all jumped back. The grenade went off and the stacked-up Indians rushed inside. Two Koreans were bleeding out and clawing at their ears on the floor in the room. A stash of weapons had been blown all over the place. I noticed they had some grenades too so I started shoving them in my pockets.

  Out in the hallway there was a loud explosion. I heard some grunts of pain as the guys who had been standing around in the middle of the hall were hit by shrapnel. I poked my head out a little and saw another grenade come flying out of a room at the end of the hallway. I jumped back in the room. The grenade had been thrown at the other side of the corridors though. I poked my head back out and shined a light down the hallway to the other end where the stairwell door was. Located next to the useless elevator.

  The door had a chain on it. I ducked back as another grenade hit near it and blew the door off its hinges. Oh hell. Zombies started forcing there way through the door that had been blown off one of its hinges and was hanging horizontally by the chain and one twisted hinge. I wasn’t trying to stay up here and get stuck so I jumped into the hallway and started running as fast as I could for the door at the end of the hallway that we had come through. I heard the others joining me. I heard shots from behind me as some people tried to fight the coming flood of Zombies. Whoever we had cornered at the end of the hallway had been smart. They must have blocked off the upper stories and just let the people there turn to Zombies and wander around while they had the second floor and the casino proper. By blowing up the door at the end of the hallway they had let all the Zombies from all the floors come pouring in.

  That meant we had to go pouring out the other side and stop our march up the hallway. I got to the end and saw that Reeves and Ann were waiting for me. Ginny must have gone into the stairwell to make sure it stayed clear. Behind me I heard screams and more shots. We turned to try and help the Indians by covering them to give them time to get to the exit door. Only three of them made it past us before we gave up and jumped into the corridor and slammed the door shut behind us.

  There was no immediate way for us to figure out how to lock it so we just left it closed and hauled ass down the stairs. Hoping the Zombies would take a minute to figure out how to get through it. Ginny was at the bottom of the flight of the stairs. She smiled at us and waited for us to get in position to cover her and then she pushed open the doors and we all started to rush through.

  The lobby was filled with Korean soldiers pointing rifles at us.

  Entry 15: Out of the Frying Pan…

  Ginny slammed the door in their faces. A couple of shots peppered the door and we all turned and hauled ass back up the stairs we had just run down. The Zombies figured out how to open the door right as we turned on the second-floor landing and started heading for them. The Zombies started throwing themselves down the stairs at us as we cut them down by going full auto on them. We made it past the landing and started going up the next set of stairs while keeping up the brutal assault on the Zombies coming through the door.

  We were running low on ammo so I pulled out a grenade and dropped it on the landing then turned around and we ran to the next landing. We stopped there and shot the Zombies chasing us as the grenade below went off with a deafening boom in the enclosed space. I pulled out two more grenades and dropped them down the middle of the staircase so they’d hopefully make it all the way to the bottom and give the Koreans a nice surprise when they came through the doors after us. We kept hustling up the stairs, taking turns to stop and shoot at the Zombies trailing behind us. We heard shots from the ground floor now as well so it sounded like the Koreans were coming up after us too.

  Zombies didn’t care about getting tired. They’d run upstairs until their legs fell off and then they’d crawl using their hands and arms without missing a beat. We weren’t Zombies. We’d spent a lot of time on the run but not all of it had been actually running. A good bit of it had been sitting around eating canned food and doing our best not to make any noises for days at a time. Another very large portion of it had been spent in vehicles driving all day. We had not spent much time on stair climbers or jogging for fun. We were all sucking serious wind trying to make it up these god forsaken stairs. I was on the verge of giving up and just staying where I was to fight when Ann smiled at me and pointed at the little plaque on the wall.

  We’d gone up a whopping six flights total. Four more to go only. I dropped another grenade to make sure the enemy was having the kind of day I was and then started forcing my legs to drag my tired ass up the next few flights. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other while some of the people in way better shape than me focused on taking out the Zombies before they could catch and eat my fat ass. I was a puddle of sweat and pissed off when we finally made it to the roof access level. I lay on the floor and watched my sweat make a little perspiration puddle. Then I forced myself up and guzzled some warm water from my canteen while Reeves and Catori attacked the chain securing the roof access. I didn’t see how the hell they were getting that open anytime soon.

  I wish we’d known there would be a lock on the door when we got up here so we could have just died at the bottom of the stairs like civilized people. Now I was going to be eaten alive by a Zombie while tweedle-dum and tweedle-indian tried to figure out how to get the chain off the door behind us. We could have avoided that nightmare of a stair master marathon if we’d known. My mind flashed back to the guy who had blown the door off the hinges earlier to let the Zombies in the first place.

  “Reeves! You guys, get down a couple flights. I’m going to see if we can open this door with these grenades.” They both looked at me. Probably trying to figure out if I was going to have a heart attack before being able to place the grenades. Catori asked how we were going to shut the door behind us if we blew it up. Great question.

  “We’ll figure that out after we blow it up. Now get down there and kill shit!”

  I waited impatiently while they all went down a flight and started blasting away. Once they were around the corner and probably would not be hit by much of the shrapnel I pulled the pins out of two of my dwindling supply of grenades and set them both on the chain holding the door closed. I let go of them and took off running down the stairs. I made it almost to where everyone was standing when the first grenade went off. My working theory is the first grenade blew the other grenade down the stairwell a few feet before it exploded as well. Either way, I ended up with some random shrapnel pelting me in the back and throwing me on the ground.

  I got to my feet with some help from Ann and Reeves while everyone else except for Ginny and one of the Indians went up the stairs to see if they could get out the door. It better be open because I wasn’t doing that shit again. I felt the back of my head which was matted with wet blood. Great. Now I was
probably going to have a bald spot to add to my scar collection. I better make sure Ann survived all this because by the time we were done no other girl was ever going to want to even look at me. I’d have to go all Phantom of the Opera to score another chic.

  My head was spinning but I went ahead and handed a grenade to Ginny to drop down the stairwell and see if she could cause some more ruckus. Most of the Zombies must be attacking the Koreans because we had not been overwhelmed and eaten. I appreciated that and wanted to keep the Zombies focus on the attacking Asians instead of us for as long as possible. No offense intended to anyone of Asian descent who isn’t from North Korea and isn’t responsible for destroying my entire world.

  Ginny dropped our little love bomb towards the enemy and we all turned and stumbled our way towards the door. The others weren’t standing around upstairs scratching their heads so I figured my lock picking technique must have worked. We got to the top and squeezed our way through the twisted door to join the others outside on the roof. One of the Indians whose name I still can’t pronounce was covering the door while Catori and the other guy were over messing around with something on the edge of the roof.

  We worked our way over to where Catori was. In the back of my head I was wondering if it would be Zombies or Koreans who came pouring out the roof top door to finish us off.

  Entry 16: Seriously?

  Catori was busy pulling ropes and harnesses out of one of those window cleaning setups. I went and peeked over the edge and the ground was too far away to see in the darkness. We were on the back of the building which faced the mountains and the lake formed by the Hoover Dam. That would work if Catori could figure out a way to lower us all down in that rickety looking deathtrap he was messing around with. I looked back over towards the door and saw that Reeves was standing in front of the opening with his flashlight shining into the hole we had come out of. He held the flashlight and pistol while the Indian with the super difficult name and Ginny stood to either side of the hole. They were ready to try and kill whatever might come through after us.

  I assumed Reeves would start pulling the trigger if a Korean appeared in the hole versus a Zombie. I wasn’t sure how everyone else was doing but I was pretty low on ammo myself. We’d blasted through a lot of it to stay alive for the last ten minutes. We’d supplemented some with the ammo and supplies laying around in the hotel rooms but not nearly enough. I was hoping the Koreans at the bottom would take their time mopping up the Zombies having assumed we were stuck up here somewhere just waiting for them to come and finish us off. Meanwhile, we’d be sneaking out the back door.

  I went back over to where Catori was.

  “We have the lift and we have a safety harness someone could wear to get down too. We just need to move quick.” He said that then tried handing me the safety harness. No thanks. I had a few questions first.

  “Have you ever used one of these things? Do you guys do a lot of mile high window washing back home on the reservation?” I gave him a look when I was finished. He gave me a look back like I was a two-year-old.

  “We’re tour guides on the Grand Canyon. We do occasionally get to do a little bit of climbing.”

  Oh. Yeah that made sense.

  There were seven of us plus a thoroughly freaked out dog who was busy trying to bark at the hole in the door while I held her muzzle shut. She would need to be one of the first to go. We really needed to find her a nice home somewhere and drop her off until the end of this mess. Catori came towards me with the harness and I held my arms up for him to slide it on. The harness was pulled up on me and tightened. I stepped off the side of the building and the damn harness got way too tight in a very intimate location. This was going to be uncomfortable. Catori handed me Daisy who was squirming around like crazy and whimpering in complete fear. We were both covered in dog piss following the exchange. How do I get in these situations?

  One of the Indians started lowering me down while I kept a death grip on Daisy. Daisy was busy trying to wiggle out of my arms and fall to her death. I’d kind of pictured myself being lowered down with a pistol in each hand and a cigar dangling out of my mouth. Descending towards the earth like an avenging god come to smite the invaders. Instead, I found myself being lowered in complete pain as the harness tried to work its way deeper into my crotch and the dog wrestled me every inch of the way while continuously pissing on me. I hadn’t even seen her get any water in the last few hours so I don’t know where she had accumulated this much urine from.

  Lucky for me, there were neither Zombie nor Koreans waiting to snag me when I hit the ground. I put Daisy down and started petting her to calm her down while I ripped off the harness and pulled on the rope to let them know to pull it up and send the next man down. I moved out a little to provide cover for the next poor sap being lowered. I wondered if they were going to try and figure out the window cleaner lift or just do everyone via the harness. A couple of minutes later Ann joined me on the ground. She gave Daisy a quick rub and started to give me a hug until she figured out the reason I smelled like dog piss was due to being covered in it. She recoiled away from me so fast I thought she was going to hurt herself. Like it was my fault.

  Ann took up her spot covering my six so I could focus on the left side of the building. Ginny joined us next and she took the point. She also rubbed Daisy and refused to get near me since she said I smelled like a public pool port-a-potty. Reeves was next, he told me the Indians all knew what they were doing so they were planning on coming down last. He had left Catori a grenade to toss through the door before coming this way just to slow down any pursuit. The longer we kept them confused about our location the better.

  A few minutes later we were all safely standing in the weedy backlot of the run-down casino. Everyone looked over at me. I had been thinking of next steps.

  “Let’s try and make it back to the helicopters and snag one or two of them and head for Vegas.” The only other plan I had been able to come up with involved us attacking the Koreans head on right here and probably dying. We’d won against these professional soldiers before due to surprise and sowing confusion. The ones here now would not be so easily taken. If there’s one thing I hate it’s a prepared enemy.

  Everyone knew the helicopters were a long shot but since no one had any better ideas we started rolling towards the side where we had left them. There was light coming from around the corner. That wasn’t good. I took a quick peek and saw that there were several military vehicles parked in the lot. There were a couple of guys standing around guarding them. Most of the enemy forces must be in the hotel trying to fight through the Zombies in the stairwell to attack us on the roof. I toyed with grabbing a couple of Hummers instead but decided that probably would not get us very far on these narrow roads through the mountains.

  I ducked back behind the wall.

  “Ok. There are some trucks and guys in the parking lot. I counted three guys hanging back as rear guard. They don’t look super alert but they aren’t taking a nap either. They are too far away and it is too bright for us to take them out quietly. They’re going to see us if we just make a break for the helicopters. I’m leaning towards we run around the corner and just try to shoot them before they shoot us. Or, even better if we can get Ginny and Reeves to sneak up into the bushes over there and sniper them out that would probably be a lot more effective. Catori, you or these two any good with a rifle? If not, Ann is a better shot than me so she should try and get in positon as well.”

  Catori hunted a lot so he said he’d take the shot from the corner. Reeves and Ginny spent about ten minutes carefully working their way through the weeds to get in position to take a shot at the guards. Once everyone was in position and shots were lined up I blew out my breath loud enough for them all to hear. That was the signal and they all pulled the trigger within about two seconds of one another.

  We all started running towards the helicopters without waiting for confirmation of the kills. Catori was leading the pack. Ginny and Reeves were still la
ying in the dirt to cover us for a minute while we got the copters warmed up. We ran and leaped over the concrete barricades. Landing and rolling to our feet and running for the helicopters. A Korean had been stationed down here to watch in case we came this way. Or, he was just down here to take a dump or get some quiet time. I have no idea. All I know is everyone else landed and rolled and got in a helicopter. I managed to land face to face with this guy who was just as surprised to see me.

  He grabbed me under my arm and did some sort of Judo move that threw me up in the air and down on the ground painfully. He lunged for me with a knife. He missed as Daisy was holding him back by biting into his pants leg. Daisy’s efforts gave me time to fumble around and get my pistol and shoot him twice. His dead body fell on top of me. I pushed it off and ran for the helicopter that Catori was getting warmed up. We had three pilots so we were working on getting all three going. Then we’d land in a deserted area somewhere and hide all three. That way we had all of our supplies with us instead of leaving some if it behind for the Koreans to mooch off of.