by catt dahman
Kim found a huddled group of people on the floor close to the exit they used, some bleeding, almost all crying or complaining. “What’s going on?”
“We have a problem,” Bryan yelled. “They came in running, and the zeds are chasing them.”
“How many?”
“Hundreds, and the numbers are building.”
“We have protocol.” Len complained as he ran towards the men, staring at the hurt people in a heap, wondering what was wrong with them and if they were bitten.
“I fucked up, but we have a situation, Len,” Bryan told him. “We have been attacked, and they’re still coming.”
“Do we bug out?”
Len took time to tie his bootlaces and then duck out the exit to look at what the night had brought, telling Kim to be ready and checking the people who had run inside.
Bryan’s team was shooting constantly into the dark. Grabbing binoculars as he went past, Len surveyed everything around them in disbelief. The moonlight lit hundreds of zombies, lurching towards their safe holes, bodies already littering the ground, tripping those who shambled closer.
It was worse than the nightmare he had been having.
They had run out of time and might be over-taken, trapped down in the hospital, or hunted down there like rats.
“Hagan? Sitrep?”
“Not good, Len.” Hagan swept past him. “We’ll need ten times the shooters we have. They keep coming, and I think these are still the first of the big horde. We may be looking at several thousand on the way. ”
“Odds? Thurman?”
“Bad, Len,” he said. “Once they get in closer…this mass, no way we’re gonna get out.”
“We can’t get trapped inside.”
“Then you better have a hell of a plan,” Hagan yelled as he moved positions again. “We’re in some shit, Len.”
“I’m sending back-up,” Len promised as he ran back into the hospital, jumping over bricks and ducking metal that tried to snag him. Everyone was inside the door, terrified, confused, and alarmed. Len whistled sharply to get order so he could speak.
“Jules, you take Delta and lead. You get everyone from every room, door-by-door account for every person, and get everyone moving. That includes the surgical patients and the kids. Your team will be the last to leave, covered by Bravo. Go.”
Julia signaled she heard and got her people moving to take action.
“Kim, you take the kids and the injured and get them on the school bus.Pull someone who can drive to go with you all, and get the bus to the compound.
I want a second vehicle, an SUV with two of the team, to ride rear and another SUV in the middle with anyone who gets there first. Your team, Charlie, moves with them to the compound and provides guard as you load because the zeds are all over the place now.”
“Got it, Len.” Kim took off at a run to the medical area. Beth had Katie dressed and ready.
“Hannah, you are in charge of my daughter; don’t mess up,” Beth ordered.
Hannah took the smaller girl’s hand.
“Alpha will help Bravo, but they have the lead,” Len finished. Rae, Pan, Rev, Misty, Mark, and Big Bill followed him out the doors. “None of those get loaded until checked.” He pointed to the people on the floor.
“I’m on it, Len,” Andie said.
In those few minutes, more zombies had converged on the team outside and filled the parking lot. Len felt sick. It was a battleground of muzzle flashes and shamblers that lurched closer, falling and being replaced by three more behind them.
“Oh, dear, God,” Pan mumbled as he saw the number of corpses.
Kim looked over the ones who were ready to leave: children, women, men, the wounded, and Doc.
“I can shoot,” Johnny protested as she walked with the rest.
“No doubt. I expect you to if needed,” Kim told her. He, Earl, George, and Beth cleared the area around the bus, shooting quickly as they were almost on their own with the rest already engaged in battle. Kim told Johnny and Conner to load up with the kids since they both were injured and recovering.
“The SUV.” Beth pushed Hannah and Katie towards one. And Teeg helped them climb in as he shot a zed that came too close, its jaws snapping hungrily.
The children loaded slowly since they were so afraid and distracted by all the noise and activity around them even though the others tried to hurry them along. It was a time delay they couldn’t afford. Maryanne was aboard and then Toni and Donna.
“Go Johnny…Conner…inside...load up… Doc…move!” Kim shouted. Kim handed Mr. Doody into the bus with Dallas, who barked hysterically. A man who could drive joined them with a few more, and Kim slapped the door as it was closed. “Load up, Beth.”
“What? No way.”
“I don’t have time to argue. Get inside the SUV with George. Now.”
George fired a few more times and got inside the SUV, watching his friends closely for trouble.
“Kim…” Beth grabbed his sleeve.
Kim roughly took her face in his hands, kissed her, and told her to go. She stood her ground unable to move away as she realized Kim was staying, despite Len’s orders, and knowing how bad the situation was for all of them. Kim looked at Teeg and made a head motion.
“Hey…” Beth pushed Teeg back as he took her arm to pull her away. He ducked her left as she swung at his head with her fist. “I’m staying.”
“Come on, Beth,” Teeg begged.
“No.” Beth elbowed him and took a step towards Kim, but her husband was shaking his head at her, turning to shoot at a zombie who shambled too close, its mouth dripping with greenish saliva while intestines threatened to fall from its belly. It was badly shredded. Teeg reached down, took Beth in a fireman carry back over his shoulder, and ran.
Kim leveled two more corpses who reached for them. At the SUV, Earl came out of nowhere and tackled a drooling, moaning woman as she reached to grab Teeg and Beth. Rolling to his feet, Earl fired, blowing the rotted head apart, splattering the ground with gooey pinkish-grey brains and blood.
Teeg got Beth in the SUV and himself in the driver’s seat; she had stopped fighting him.
The driver of the bus pulled out, the big vehicle crunching and smashing bodies as it moved out of the parking lot. As mad and scared as Beth was, she and George both rolled the windows down to shoot as they followed, hitting a few.
“When enough pile up dead again, maybe the rest will go away,” Hannah said, as she held Katie’s face against her shoulder to spare her seeing all the gore.
Inside, Julia gave the order for Juan to get Bennie, Rita, and two more to an SUV and roll out. “Crystal and Josh, you get these others out in the next two SUVs. Go.”
Bennie and Juan tried to hold one area but were getting over whelmed as Crystal and Josh came to help. Henry and Hagan added their firepower. Three SUVs were loaded quickly, but when the first one tried to drive across the parking lot, it got only a dozen yards before it was surrounded by zeds, beating on the glass and side with violent punches. It wouldn’t be long before they broke the car glass and pulled people out.
No matter how they bled and no matter how badly their flesh tore, the zombies wouldn’t stop. They had injuries that would have healthy people on the ground, screaming in pain, but the creatures felt nothing; pain never registered with them. When hit, they didn’t even flinch.
The SUV tilted dangerously on two wheels but bumped back to all fours this time. One more rush might turn the vehicle over on its side or top.
“They’re going over,” Josh screamed, running at the Explorer and firing.
Juan, unsure what to do, slammed his vehicle forward over the few that tried to block his group, smashing them under his wheels, and spun in a circle to run more over, crushing them to a pulp.
Since most of the zeds didn’t have head injuries, they ignored their broken bones and crept forward again, or in extreme cases, they crawled down but were still deadly.
As Juan cleared a path, the third vehicle
, an Expedition, roared out of the parking lot with Bennie and Rita and others, dodging the shambling bodies, and running over the ones still on the ground that Juan had knocked down.
Juan cheered Rita on as she peeled away. Flesh and blood made a paste on the parking lot, mixing with gravel.
Josh was out of rifle rounds and began using his rifle to bash at the ones trying to turn the Explorer over, screaming at the corpses as he pounded them.
Juan swept by again, taking out several corpses, but one big man snagged Josh’s arm, and he and a woman jerked the teen closer. Josh screeched as the man’s teeth broke the skin on his upper arm and sank with hundreds of pounds of pressure.
“I’m out,” Henry yelled, falling back as Hagan covered him by a spray of gunshots.
“Reload...fall back,” Hagan yelled at the others.
“Josh?” Crystal was screaming now as she reached for him. It tickled at her mind that he was bitten, infected, and hopeless, but all she saw was someone she cared about being attacked and bitten violently. She just wanted to get him away from the monsters and help him stop screaming with pain and anger. She didn’t think of her own safety but waded into the brawl.
Josh turned to her, pulling both zombies along with him, the big man’s jaw already buried again in his arm like a dog worrying at a bone, while blood poured from both gaping holes.
The woman had Josh’s other arm in her filthy claws as she chewed at his hand, thin, bloody drool washing over her face. She crunched her jaws, chewing at the bones that stabbed tender spots in her mouth and snapping, not paying attention to the damage she did to her gums or to the teeth that cracked off in her mouth. A sharp bone punctured under her tongue, went down and bulged, before it popped right through the skin of her bottom jaw.
A third corpse was on the ground: leg bones broken, shattered, and unable to support weight, pulling himself up by clutching at Josh with broken, dirty fingernails hooked into claws. The third corpse got to a certain height on his knees, leaned forwards with his filthy jaws, and chomped down on Josh as hard as he could.
Josh shrieked over and over as the jaws clamped down and tore at his penis and testicles through his pants. The pain was white-glass-knife-pounding-crushing-enormous-burning-the-worst-in-the-history-of-all-pain. His breath whooshed out of him, and Josh couldn’t get another breath even while he tried to shriek, making only squeaking and whining noises.
To Josh, nothing else was in his world but pure pain.
Crystal ran forward, despite Hagan’s yelling at her to get back and stay back, to kick desperately at the corpse who held Josh’s private parts, shaking its head and ripping flesh free. It let go of Josh to turn to Crystal as her shoe caught on its mouth, her ankle raked painfully over its broken-off, jagged teeth. She fell on her butt.
In her shorts and tee, Crystal felt vulnerable. She kicked at the zombie again as she drew the other leg up and wiped at blood that spotted her skinned ankle. It wasn’t a bite. It was a graze. It was bleeding.
The zombie grabbed her hair and pulled her closer. Crystal swatted back, but it crunched into the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. Muzzle flashes were like a strobe light show as she screamed in fury. “Get off me.” She felt her hair rip out in clumps, but since it was short, it tore flesh from her scalp. The thing latched onto to the bloody patches, gnawing at her skull while Crystal kicked and punched.
Josh had slipped to the ground; his eyes rolled back into his head.
Rev and Pan were suddenly there, motioning Henry and Hagan to go reload. Rev took a deep breath and sighted in carefully while the rest tried to cover him. He shot Josh once in the head, and the teen’s skull popped open. He felt sick as if he had been smacked in his gut. He hesitated, watching Crystal.
The woman, chewing on Josh, stopped her assault to lean over Crystal and take a bloody chunk from her leg, the skin rubbery as she pulled it off of the bone. Crystal tried to hit the woman with her gun but fell back, wailing in pain and shock, her struggles were weaker, now.
Pan stepped in front of Rev, pulled the trigger repeatedly, making sure the zeds and Crystal all stopped moving with shots to their heads. “We need to retreat.”
Inside amid all the noise, Andie finished checking three of the people, then a fourth, finding them all unbitten and clear, but a few zeds now walked the halls of the hospital, from either outside or from the group that had poured in.
“We need to get these moved,” she yelled but didn’t know who was there to answer her call for help.
She ran outside, her four refugees in tow. Shooting wildly, she got them into an SUV and watched the driver’s seat and shotgun seat apprehensively. Her gut screamed at her to jump in and get out of this fight, but her head told her to wait, for she was needed. Mark came by, pushing Misty into the passenger seat.
Andie nodded and ran back into the building.
Jake, Kyleisha, and Natalie came to fight the zeds off of the vehicle. It was impossible as more shoved closer, shambling and moaning.
Pan whooped as Juan made a new trail, slamming zed bodies to the sides as he smashed them with the truck; the old Ford wouldn’t take much more battering though.
Rev tossed Kyleisha and Natalie toward the back of the truck, waiting for them to pull themselves up. Pan slammed into the SUV, and Rev hauled himself up into the truck, slapping the cab to tell Juan to get out of there.
“I thought we were goners,” Natalie said, reaching to help Kyleisha into the back; the chubby girl was squirming to get in, yelling as she wiggled.
Juan gunned the engine, and they took off, but to Natalie’s shock, Kyleisha fell out. Natalie flung herself to the tailgate, looking to see what had happened, but her friend fell on the ground, fighting weakly since her legs, from the knees down, were bone and blood. The zeds chewed on her flesh as she tried to climb into the truck.
The SUV swerved around the girl and followed Juan out of the parking lot toward the compound.
Mark and Jake retreated with the rest.
“We’re clear here,” Julia called out as she and Alex came outside. Andie sent two more out and then had to put two others down since they had been bitten. The parking lot was filled with dead bodies, twitching bodies, crawling zeds, people running all over and shooting; it was total chaos.
“Get your ass over here, Jules,” Len yelled. “I haven’t been keeping this Suburban safe for my own health.Get in.”
“You need help,” she said as she fired.
“I need you to mind me now and take orders.”He told the other two people to load up in the back, “Jules and Alex…inside.”
They piled into the front, leaving the middle section empty for whomever Len sent away.
Andie charged across the lot to help Kim and Earl, ignoring Len’s waves at her. Mark followed.
Len saw that Thurman was back stepping as he had run out of shells; he pulled Randy and Henry along with him. “Load up, and get out of here!” he demanded.
“We can’t leave the rest.”
“Everyone, bug out. Get out now. We’re leaving.”Len shut the door on anything else Randy and Henry might have said.
Thurman stared at Len with big, worried eyes. As zeds began to slap against the SUV, Len moved away, only protecting his area, letting them know it was either go or face the zombies who would turn the vehicle over and feast. Faintly, Julia was screaming something to Len, but he backed further away, not hearing it.
He shot at a few who stood in the way of the Suburban; however, the mass was building too fast for it to matter.In a few seconds, they would never get out.
Was Julia crying?
Len didn’t know now; he was just focusing on keeping the undead off of him. With an intense relief, he heard the engine race, and Alex plowed through the weaving bodies, slowly mashing them beneath the tires and then rolled out of the lot.
Len felt suddenly alone.
He didn’t even see any of his team left. Maybe they had gotten out like he had told them, or maybe they were re
surrecting now to come after him as zombies.Maybe the zombies had chewed them to the bone. He was so exhausted and mentally done-in that he could hardly think about it all. He had done his best.
He faced the open maws before him, seeing the filthy teeth, a sewer stench. Milky eyes looked back at him as food. His only worry was if he should let them have him or use his sidearm and cheat them out of a meal.
Several zeds from the back of the mass flew over Len’s head, and he wondered why, abstractly.
“Come on.”
Len noticed that Rae had screeched to a stop in a battered truck, close to him but didn’t exactly get why she was still there. He yelled, “Go on; get out of here.”
“Come on.” Big Bill was standing in the truck bed; he and Jake used bats to knock the zombies down, brains and blood splashing everywhere.
“Now,” Rae shouted from the window where zeds thumped the glass, trying to get to her.
Len heaved himself at the truck, knowing he couldn’t make it as Rae gunned the engine and took off across the parking lot, kicking up body parts as she drove. But Big Bill was holding on to Len who danced across the gravel, losing traction as they gathered speed. This was going to be painful.
Len felt his feet leave the ground as Jake leaned down and swung up and over to fall on top of his friends.
“Did we make it?”
“I guess we did, Boss. We made it,” Big Bill said. “You’re a big, heavy man.”
Len rolled out from under Big Bill and Jake onto his own back as he watched the moon. “Funny, ‘cause I feel small right now.”
19
Kim, Andie, Mark, and Earl
“Move.”
“Can you see them?”
“Yeh, but they aren’t looking this way; they’re moving into the hospital.”
Mark grumbled, “That means people are still alive back there then.”
“We can’t help them now,” Kim said. They had ducked behind an old red Honda Accord that was peppered by shots and without keys. The three of them had gone low on ammo and slunk to the ground to hide.
