Then I heard the zombies growls, much closer than before. Without stopping to look around at the direction they were coming from, I jumped and grabbed the third rung and hoisted myself up, my foot catching the bottom rung on the first try. There was nothing like being hunted by zombies to hasten your climb up a ladder, I tell ya.
Risa and I clambered up to the ledge on the bottom of the large, barreled, wooden structure; it was 10-12 feet up. We stood on it, we didn’t want to sit and then have our legs dangling off the end out into possible grab territory. We waited.
We didn’t have long to wait. It was less than a minute after I started up the ladder that the first zombie shambled into view. It was a female, in an old housecoat that had seen better, non-zombie, days. It walked out into the open, not sure where we were, but definitely smelling us. It was followed by two more zombies, both male, one looked to be an old man and the other a middle aged man. It was almost funny to watch, because the old man zombie appeared to have been a bit crippled by old age before being infected, turned and subsequently infused with zombie strength. So what we were watching was a crooked old zombie that look arthritic, but moving pretty fast and not appearing in pain at all. These three zombies began a zigzag pattern, using their noses to find us.
They were about twenty feet away when things got really nasty. And by really nasty I mean that a dozen or more young zombies, of varying ages, came to join the adult zombies in their hunt for us humans. Apparently, this had been a pretty large family. It looked like a grandfather, a great grandfather, a mother, and at least a dozen youths ranging in age from around ten all the way up to early twenties. I suspected the father might have been one of the two I’d killed by the barn, but I wasn’t sure. Trying to count these things was useless, plus in the end, we couldn’t know how big the family had been, how many members there were. Heck, we could try to mentally calculate the whole family only to miss the Uncle Bob zombie or the Auntie Tweedie zombie or something. In this situation you just had to assess the threat as best you could and meet the danger head on as it came to you. Deal with the zombies you knew about, and never let down your guard.
“Shoot, where’s my extra ammo?” Risa said, fumbling in her side bag.
“I put it in the back pocket, there,” I pointed. I fumbled for my own ammo - we were going to need it. I located the box of cartridges in my side pouch and checked my shotgun. I was ready.
“Okay, hold my belt,” I said, and after Risa hooked her arm around the wooden structure and grabbed hold of the back of my belt, I leaned over and shot out the ladder. Good. Now they had no way of climbing up to us, I hoped.
We watched them come, both of us calm, holding our firearms at the ready. We’d been through over five years of this so we were somewhat used to it. This wasn’t even Risa’s first situation of this type. Three other times, we’d been trapped and either holed up or treed like cats and had to pick off zombies one by one to free ourselves. But this was the first time Risa and I had done it alone. I was really counting on her. Glancing sideways I asked, “You okay?”
Risa looked at me and nodded her head, a look of calm determination on her face. “Absolutely,” she said, then looked down on the advancing horde.
___
We later learned that Jacob had heard my three shots and had begun jogging through the trees toward our location. He was almost a mile and a half away, and there was underbrush to deal with, but he made pretty good time. He had slung his shotgun over his shoulder and was trotting steadily, zigzagging through the trees, following the sound of the shots.
DeAndre had heard the shots, too, but was a bit farther away - over the low hills and south of the water tower. The shots I’d fired sounded faint, but it was closing in on midnight and the night was very quiet and peaceful. The stars were brilliant, and together with the quarter moon, they stood watch as D hiked up through the foothills toward our location.
___
Risa and I stood there, waiting for the zombies to wander closer. My shotgun needed to be fired at close range to knock one out for good. I’d shot from several dozen feet away, and you just got a wide spread. The result was a zombie with a pitted, icky, gross, dripping-with-goo face. No, I would need to wait until they had closed within about 6 feet or less. But that was okay, we were up high. I figured we could pick them off one at a time. Unless by some miracle they decided to work together. I’d heard of this happening sometimes. I hoped it didn’t happen tonight.
“Here comes the first one,” Risa said, taking aim. The zombie shambled up to the water tower and looked up, its eyes all milky and its scalp shredded where it had apparently been bitten when it was a human. It looked like it had once been a teenage girl, maybe 16 or 17. It still wore pedal pushers and a flowery sweater. Growling at us, it stretched its arms upward and jumped, trying to catch the ledge we were on. Risa steadied her .33 and shot off a round: *POP* The bullet caught the zombie right in the temple; it dropped heavily to the ground and was still.
“Good shot!” I said. And then, “uh, oh,” as three more zombies began jumping for the ledge.
POP! I knocked another zombie down. It was taller than the first and had actually been able to slap its fingers to the edge of the wood when it jumped. Now it was slumped against one of the wooden stilts that supported the water tower. It would never jump again.
Risa tried to shoot a third zombie, but it was moving around more erratically and it was harder for her to get a bead on it. It took her four shots, but she finally nailed it in the head, and it fell to the ground.
The third of the closest zombies just growled and moaned as it looked up at us. I had no pity for the thing. If we were within reach it would not hesitate to attack us. And I did not hesitate. Lowering my shotgun muzzle and sighting down at it, I pulled the trigger and blasted the thing’s face off. It fell backward onto the ground and lay still.
I looked up to get an idea of what to expect next, and my eyes found the old man zombie approaching. It moved pretty fast - it probably hadn’t moved that fast when it was alive, for several decades. But now, in its crooked, arthritic, sideways shamble-hop, it was fast. And shrewd as well. Looking up at us and staying back a ways, it seemed to study us. Its eyes had not gone completely milky yet, and apparently it could see us. It was kind of creepy in a way, almost as if it was actually sentient.
“Will you look at that,” I said softly. At the sound of my voice, its gaze focused on me, and it cocked its head.
“Whoa!” I said, nearly losing my footing in surprise. The old man zombie seemed to notice this, and then it dropped its eyes down to study the area under our feet.
“I really don’t like the looks of that one,” Risa said. “It’s giving me the creeps.” I nodded. I didn’t like the looks of it either. But my attention was drawn to another wave of zombies trying to get at us. I blew three of them away in quick succession and then leaned back to reload. Risa was getting better with her .33, which was good. That gun was not terribly accurate at greater distances, so you had to wait until you had a clear shot at a zombie no more than ten feet away to have a really good chance of hitting it in the head and stopping it.
I finished reloading and covered Risa as she also reloaded. Sighting down the muzzle of my shotgun, I picked off two more zombies, then stopped to look up. The grandfather zombie had moved back a bit and was now about a dozen feet away from the base of the water tower. As I watched him, he all of a sudden let out a huge roar that made all the zombies stop all of a sudden. Then it grunted and growled and gestured and OH MY GOD IT WAS COMMUNICATING WITH THE OTHER ZOMBIES.
“Oh, this is not good,” I said.
“Oh my God. Oh my ever-loving God, what is happening?” Risa said.
There were maybe six zombies left, including the old man zombie and, believe it or not, they were in an informal huddle, looking like an amateur football team. Those zombies were concentrating their attention on the old man zombie, and he seemed to somehow be GIVING THEM INSTRUCTIONS.
“I don’t believe this,” I said. Looking around us, I saw that we were trapped like treed cats. “Listen, Risa. If this situation starts to go south, I want you to make a break for it, okay?”
“I won’t leave you, Alyssa,” Risa said.
“I’m not planning on becoming a martyr or anything, but I have a bad feeling about this and I ...,” I said.
“Alyssa, don’t even think that way. We will come out of this alive and we will find Luke,” Risa said.
Looking around again, I once again pointed my shotgun at the sky and let off three rounds about five seconds apart. I nodded to Risa and reloaded again. Risa nudged my arm, and when I looked up she gestured to the zombies. They were breaking apart slowly and something was happening.
They seemed to be a bit confused I thought, but then the old man zombie let out another loud roar and then hobble-charged right at us!
The other zombies followed him, and all of a sudden we had a small mob of half a dozen zombies rushing at our water tower. Risa and I could only watch as they came. Our guns pointed down, we wondered what was going on. This was not a good scenario at all. When dealing with zombies, I had always preferred to be on the side making the active decisions and controlling the game. Now they were calling the shots, executing some bizarre strategy from their zombie playbook.
We fired as they ran toward us. POP! POP!! POPPOPPOP!!
Two of the zombies fell to the ground, but four others just kept charging, in fact, they ran right under our ledge.
A split-second later we felt the water tower shudder and lean slightly before righting itself again. The zombies had hit the stilts holding us up. I couldn’t believe it. They had launched a coordinated attack and were trying to knock the water tower over to get at us.
“How on earth…?” I said. I didn’t have time to finish my sentence. They were still directly under us, pushing at the stilts in an effort to finish the job.
We teetered as the zombies below us pushed at the stilts. The water tower swung back and forth several times as we hung on to the wooden planks. Then for a few seconds, it stopped moving to the side and I thought perhaps the zombies had given up. But apparently they had just stepped back to gather their strength for another push, because all of a sudden the movement started again and it was worse than before. We hung on tightly to anything we could grab, but it was no use.
“Oh! OH!!” Risa said, as the water tower leaned alarmingly to the side.
“We’re going to have to jump! Come on!” I said, as the thing began to topple over.
Luckily, the water tower fell over in almost slow motion and we were able to jump off it as it crashed to the ground. We landed side by side, and I am proud to say neither one of us rolled. In fact, we hit the ground running because we heard the growls that were coming from behind us. Sure enough, the zombies came after us almost at once - apparently well aware of the fact that pushing the tower over would make us fall to the ground. As I ran, Risa beside me, I felt unnerved. Zombies were just not supposed to be this clever.
We ran about ten feet in front of the nearest zombie, slowly pulling away from it.
“Which way?” Risa asked as she ran. Looking around me, I decided to turn right and run past the farmhouse. The front door was still standing open, almost inviting us in. But as I turned and began sprinting toward it, more zombies stepped right into our path.
“Jesus!” I mumbled under my breath, and at the same time turned a sharp left and ran up the steps onto the veranda of the big farmhouse. We both made a quick dash into the house and slammed the door behind us. I secretly said a prayer that no zombies were in that house with us. Turning quickly, I locked the deadbolt and pressed the doorknob lock. Then, standing back, we just stared at the door, not sure what was going to happen next. I glanced at the side window and noticed it was broken. “Oh, hell,” I said, and we hurriedly pushed a large chest that was next to it across the opening. A corner of the chest was already obscuring part of the window before we got there. It looked like someone had already done half the job.
“I think those people made their last stand right here in this house, unsuccessfully,” I said.
“How ironic,” Risa said dryly. She gave me a grin and then high-fived me, smiling. “We aren’t dead yet!”
“No, we aren’t!” I replied with a laugh.
Just then, our ears were filled with a loud banging sound as the zombies reached the door and began pounding on it. We heard glass shattering from somewhere nearby.
“Let’s find cover,” I said as I turned to survey the room. The stairs seemed the likeliest route to refuge, so we ran up to the second floor. The house was a three-story structure - with an attic, we later found out. Running to the front window on the second story, we opened it and looked out.
“I can’t see a thing,” Risa said. The veranda provided cover for the zombies down there on the porch. In fact, the porch cover had been made into a deck with rails.
“I have an idea,” I said, and I climbed out the window onto the second floor deck, not wanting to waste time looking for the door. Risa saw what I was doing and followed me out. Walking to the edge, I peered over. I could just see two of the zombies as they wandered about on the porch. Taking careful aim, I shot off a round *POP* and caught one of them as it turned the corner to come around again. Most of the buckshot found its mark, and the zombie fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
The other zombie looked up in surprise, just in time to take a bullet from Risa’s .33 right in the forehead. The crown of its head split off, and it fell backwards out of sight. That left at least five others that we knew of. I heard low, menacing growling coming from under my feet, and the pounding on the front door grew even louder. Then there was a huge crash as the chest fell over, and we could hear scrambling as the zombies came into the house.
We looked at each other and then back at the window we’d come through. Now I wished we had come through a door onto the deck, at least then we could’ve closed it, maybe locked it. Oh, well. I wasn’t going to start second guessing myself now. I’d survived this long on my wits; I had to trust they wouldn’t fail me now.
Fortunately, the veranda wrapped around the entire house, and the deck had been built on top of it. We hastily walked around to the side, out of sight of the window and anything that might stick its head out. Hopefully, they wouldn’t think to look out here.
We waited.
“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” I whispered. “That one old zombie was too smart. He might figure out we’re out here. I don’t like being surprised. I’m going to go look. Cover me.”
She nodded.
Holding my reloaded shotgun at the ready, I crept to the corner and peered around the wooden siding to the front of the house. Nothing. They hadn’t come through the window. Yet. I decided to come around the front again, hoping to catch one as it stuck its head out the window. Trying to be as quiet as I could, I tiptoed across the wooden deck and stopped about two feet from the edge of the window. I could hear them on the ground floor; they were not trying to be quiet at all. Then I heard several zombies start up the stairs.
Looking back at Risa, I nodded and pointed toward the window. She came up behind me, her pistol by her side. I turned back to the window and listened as the first zombie came up the stairs. It seemed to pause at the landing, unsure of where to move next. I figured that once I shot it, the others would know where I was, so why hide now? Sticking my head in front of the window, and sighting the zombie nine feet away, its side toward me, I let out a quick whistle.
It turned and I ducked back out of sight. Sure enough, within a few seconds, it poked its head out of the window and I shot it from less than a foot away. Its head came nearly off and dangled like that, its shoulder slumped on the windowsill.
Smiling, I turned to Risa, “Good. That leaves four, and now they know where we are. Let’s go around to the back.” As we quickly walked to the side of the deck, we could hear the zombies running up the first flight of s
tairs. We made our way to the rear of the house and saw the branches of a huge oak tree towering over the deck; its branches covering the back area in shadows so that everything was nearly pitch black. I switched on my flashlight for a few seconds, scanning the area and making sure the coast was clear, then shut it off and walked to the darkest part of the deck. Risa followed me, and we climbed up over the deck railing and several feet into the tree, tucking ourselves up against some thick branches to wait.
After a few minutes we heard several zombies scrambling out onto the deck. It wasn’t long before one came shambling into view. It was the smart old man zombie.
Oh, I am so going to enjoy dropping you, old zombie, I thought. We held our breath. The thing came walking closer to the tree. We were about twenty feet away, hidden. But it could smell us. As it approached, it dropped its head, and walked in a weaving pattern, sniffing. We were maybe four to five feet out from the railing and off the deck level. I lowered my shotgun muzzle slowly, leveling it at the zombie. He seemed to zero in on our location and was soon at the edge of the railing, staring straight toward us, but unable to see us. He doesn’t know we are right here, I thought. I leaned forward a bit, sited down the muzzle of my shotgun and pulled the trigger.
The shotgun exploded its buckshot outward, hitting the zombie square in the face at less than two feet away. The thing’s head flew back and its body tumbled backward, hitting the deck heavily. It was down for good. Looking beyond it, I saw another zombie had followed it out onto the deck and was moving toward us. It was about 15 feet away from us, near the wall of the house. I raised my shotgun again and waited.
All of a sudden I heard Jacob’s voice calling from the far off fields: “LU-UKE!!”
The zombie turned its head toward the sound and took several steps in that direction. Cursing under my breath, I hopped down lightly onto the deck and crept up on the thing. When I was about a yard away, I brought my muzzle up and let off a round at the back of its head: *POP*
Mad World (Book 2): Sanctuary Page 10
