“Stay here and guard.” Matt saw the disappointment in the big guy’s eyes. “If they need help then leave, but only if they ask for it. It’d be too easy for a zombie to get in there if it’s unguarded.”
With that, Matt took off.
CHAPTER 33
Paul turned around, one hand feeling in his pocket for shells, the other mindlessly holding the revolver. He lost his breath somewhere between the sight of the creature before him and the other that was stalking from the left.
The thing stood nearly a foot taller than he, almost unnatural in its height, looking down at its next victim. Its shoulders rose and fell as if the demon could actually breathe. Dried blood and chunks of gore stained its round face and its hands were covered in the stuff.
Paul found the shells and backed away to reload, heedless for the moment of the approaching horde behind him. Snapping the chamber back into place, Paul raised the gun slowly, shakily. The zombie merely looked to its right, to its undead comrade that was closing the distance. Paul too glanced at the towering pursuer. It was as if these two were related, bonded by whatever coursed through their dead bodies, unlike any of the zombies he’d seen before. They were working together, hunting their food like predatory kings in a dying jungle.
With a shaking hand, Paul brought his attention to the one in front, still unsure as to why the thing hadn’t made a move to attack. As the sights trained on this monster’s forehead, just before he was able to squeeze a round out, some sort of grunt came from the zombie on the left. The one in front grunted in what seemed to be a response.
Are they communicating?
Paul didn’t want to find out. He fired, hand still wobbly, and missed his target, trimming off a little of the zombie’s right ear. The thing didn’t notice. The echo of the shot resonated in Paul’s head, though neither zombie appeared fazed in the slightest.
The one in front took a step forward. Paul took another step back, ears ringing from his failed shot, cursing his unsteady hand, and then his back hit something hard, something big. Something that stopped him completely.
He froze, knowing this was the moment in which he would die if he didn’t do something. The zombie in front of him peeled its lips back and grunted. The one to the left was now only feet away. Glancing over his shoulder he found that these two weren’t traveling alone; he’d backed up into a third.
Paul bolted right, dropping the revolver in the process—his hands simply giving up at the realization that death was knocking on Heaven’s door, ready to bring it another faithful. His spirit and sheer determination for the rest of his family to survive lit a fire beneath his feet, and he took off in a sprint.
He felt the wind behind him as one of the zombies swiped for his flesh. Each one let out that strange form of communication as their food literally slipped from their grasp.
Paul made it to the curb, leapt to the sidewalk, and broke into a full run, passing a set of snow-covered cars which partially hid two of the demons. The other was right behind him. He knew the undead never gave up for anything less than a headshot. Without the firearm, he would have to take this fight into uneven, obstructed terrain.
He came to a junction in the street, finally nearing the edge of the neighborhood. Something in his peripheral vision caught his attention. The wooden fencing on a house up the way had been destroyed; pieces of slivered wood lay scattered here and there. Tire tracks led from the yard into the street, passing right by Paul as he turned toward the yard.
If this was what he thought it to be, he would soon be coming up on the sight of a broken-down vehicle. One that had collided with the house.
Nearly out of breath, legs on fire, Paul released an exasperated sigh as he spied the van. Fighting the urge to succumb to his legs’ pleas to lie down and give up, he picked up his pace and made for the vehicle. He read Sam’s Electric on the side and knew this was the fabled van that had supposedly caused the explosion hours ago. It sat motionless, crumpled hood and all, beckoning him. There were no signs of an explosion, he noticed.
This was the best that God would allow, and a slight smile formed on Paul’s face. Maybe, just maybe it was still functional or held some weapon with which he could fight off the three undead monsters behind.
He made it past the passenger’s side, nearly tripping while rounding the rear, and hopped inside the already open driver’s door. He slammed the door in time to see the first of the dead approaching in the side-view mirror. Clambering over the center console and into the back, Paul looked for anything that could help him fight off his pursuers.
***
“MOMMY!” Lilly cried.
Meredith held on for dear life as her daughter hung out the gable vent, unable to summon the strength to pull Lilly up through the opening. She was just too heavy.
“MOMMY, HELP ME!” Lilly looked to her right and then out in the street, eyes growing wider as she dangled feet from the ground.
Meredith wanted to let go and tell her daughter to run. But she couldn’t. The little girl was still too young to understand what must be done. Lilly would stand there until that running zombie tackled her.
Pulling with all of her might, Meredith silently prayed: Heavenly Father, in my present need, help me to believe that You are aware of my plight and will do what is best for me. Give me the strength to trust You and put the present and future in Your Hands. Grant this through Christ, our Lord. Amen.
She pulled and pulled. The sweat falling down her face felt like it was going to freeze. She pulled harder, her arms swaying left and right with her child’s shifting weight.
There was a give. A small one.
Meredith pulled some more, summoning all the strength she had left.
Maybe trying to escape the attic hadn’t been such a great idea. Meredith closed her eyes and pulled harder.
When she opened them, she saw that Lilly was smiling up at her, not crying anymore. The zombie was still running like a maniac down the street, screaming and flailing, eager to sink its rotted maw into the young girl’s warm legs.
“Mommy,” she said in a voice that was eerily calm.
“Yes, baby.” Meredith couldn’t tell if it was tears of sweat running down her cheeks.
“It’s so pretty.” Her eyes went from her mother to the sky.
The zombie was a single yard away.
“What’s… so pretty…” Meredith struggled to catch her breath. “…sweetheart?”
Lilly smiled. “Heaven, Mommy. I can see it.”
“No, no, no,” Meredith cried, “please …don’t take her from… me.” She cast a glance to God and His Throne, looking past the pale, clouded sky and whispered, “Please don’t take her from me, God.”
“It’s all right, Mommy. I want to go. I want to be with Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa.”
Meredith pulled again, and again got nowhere.
“Ahhhh!” she yelled feeling her grip loosen.
Meredith squeezed as hard as she could, not wanting to lose her hold on her daughter. She closed her eyes and pulled again. It was a fruitless effort, but Meredith would not give up.
And then something pulled back. Lilith screamed, squeezing her mommy tightly.
Meredith cried. She screamed. She pulled. Nothing helped.
She saw the pain on her daughter’s face. That thing was feasting on Lilly’s left leg as if it were a piece of chicken. It looked up, let out a wail, and yanked one last time, freeing Lilly from her mother’s hands.
The little girl fell to the ground, her screaming cut short from the impact. Meredith cried out again, reaching for her daughter as the zombie straddled her Lilly and bit her neck. The white ground, once so peaceful, was spattered with blood. Before long little Lilly quit fighting, her body going slack. The zombie still fed.
“Oh my God,” Meredith cried as she backed into the attic. She slumped down into the corner where the shotgun lay.
Everything was lost. Paul. Lilith. Everyone and everything she had ever known. All gone.
Except for the shotgun.
With a heavy heart and an empty soul, Meredith ran her fingers across the breach of the weapon. There was nothing left to live for, but there was something to die for. Without fear of punishment for suicide, Meredith picked up the loaded weapon, rested the barrel in her mouth, set the stock against a rafter, and felt for the trigger with the big toe of her right foot. When she found it, she forced it—
Meredith’s eyes opened with a start, her heart racing and breath short.
“What’s wrong, Mommy?” Lilly asked from beside her.
“Nothing. Nothing, sweetie,” she answered as she placed a hand over her heart. “Mommy had a bad dream.” She blinked hard, not realizing she had fallen asleep.
Looking through the gable vent, Meredith saw that it was dark. She must have been out for a while. She looked around for Paul, but he wasn’t here. That only meant one thing: her husband was dead.
Instead of crying, Meredith made for the opening and peered below. Nothing except an empty street. Calm rushed over her at the realization her husband had succeeded in drawing the horde away from their house. How long this would last, she didn’t know. Meredith looked up to Heaven and thanked God she still had her little daughter.
“Where’s Daddy?” Lilly asked, grabbing her arm.
Meredith turned around with a smile and sniffled. “Daddy’s with God now.”
Lilly craned her head. “But he said that he was coming back with a new teddy bear.”
“Don’t worry, baby.” Meredith grabbed her little baby and hugged her. “We’ll see him again, and I’m sure he’ll have the biggest teddy bear of them all waiting for you.”
Lilly smiled with a child’s trusting innocence.
Meredith eyed the shotgun which lay beside them and remembered the final moment of her dream. She hoped things would never reach that state, and then she remembered the prayer from her dream.
Give me strength to trust You.
***
Expecting the zombies to fight for their way in was a safe bet, Paul surmised. It was one of the reasons he’d scrambled into the back. After the first thirty minutes of watching those things circle the van instead bashing through the glass and tearing him to shreds, though, he realized they had trapped him and were now enjoying the hunt. They knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
Scratching his head in confusion, he looked out the front window between the cracks and saw the first of the creeping demons entering the yard. He glanced down to his crowbar and up to the hunting dead at the driver’s window. The thing’s lips flustered and a dark brown liquid ran down its cheeks.
Defeated, Paul found solace in knowing he drew the bastards away from his family. Now it was a matter of choice: Which door would he take to the afterlife. Each one was equally as unappealing and horrific, but the longer he stayed in here the more he’d become trapped.
Paul climbed over to the front seat and readied himself to die. Closing his eyes, he felt them water. He imagined Meredith and little Lilly laughing and playing, carrying on. A laugh escaped his mouth, a tear from his eye. To the sky, to heaven he said, “You have not failed me, and I will not fail my family. Thank you, Lord, for everything.”
As he reached for the door handle, something skimmed the top of his leg. Swatting it, he felt the cold touch and heard the soft jiggle of keys. His gaze shot to the ignition, where a set of keys dangled, bright and shiny—like beacons.
Paul’s laugh reached the tip of hysteria as he shook his head.
“All this time,” he said between hoots. “All this time you were right here.”
Not wasting another second, he tossed the crowbar in the passenger seat and turned the ignition. The engine puttered, a thick gray cloud escaping from beneath the bent hood, and then died. Paul flooded it, depressing the gas pedal a few times, and gave it another shot. He let out a roar as it turned over.
A wave of relief washed over him at the thought of possibly getting back to his family. Looking at the dead surrounding the van and the creepers approaching it, Paul said to God, “You sure do work in mysterious ways.”
He slammed the transmission to reverse and floored the pedal, while the demons turned to watch his departure. One of them grunted.
Paul glanced in the side view mirror and immediately jerked the steering wheel to his right.
“Shit,” he said as the back of the van dipped into the pool.
His head bounced off the dashboard and his vision briefly went to black. A scream boomed from one of the dead and, as the van began sinking, he felt the shift of weight and heard the crinkling of the hood. Paul blinked hard and rubbed his forehead, then reached for his crowbar.
“Oh god,” he mumbled as the dead thing punched the windshield.
Then another jumped on the hood.
Paul climbed into the back, nearly losing his footing, and drove his bludgeon into back window, but the weight of the water against rendered the blow ineffective. He hit it again and again, until the windshield shattered and hunting dead dragged him up kicking and screaming.
His body flashed in burning pain as tooth and nail peeled skin apart. The crowbar dropped from his grip as one of the thing’s mouths bit into his neck.
I’ll watch over you two in—
Paul Winston’s life ended with a snap.
Minutes later his fingers twitched, eyes opened…
CHAPTER 34
Matt had six tanks of propane teetering on his flatbed cart when he met Jay near the back door. Dead fists pounded at the bay door, and it was a sound Matt couldn’t ignore. Though the stacks of lumber would keep the zombies out, the droning beat of their desperate assault was all-encompassing.
“Great,” Jay said, unloading the first of the cans.
Matt noticed wooden stakes, duct tape, rags, and a few containers of what looked like paint stripper on Jay’s cart. Beside it were a few a two strips of PVC piping.
“So what’s the plan?” he said.
“Start taping these stakes to the tanks,” Jay answered. “I’ll be right back.”
By the time he had returned, Matt was attaching a stake to the last of the tanks.
“Here,” said Jay, handing Matt a PVC cutter. He pointed to the piping. “Cut those about ten inches in length.” He set the box of nails in his left hand down. “I’m going to get some shotgun rounds and boxes of ammo. Cap one end of each piece you cut.”
“What the hell are we doing here, Jay?”
“Pipe bombs.” His grin was contagious.
***
Thirty minutes later, after a daunting and dangerous process of filling the piping with gunpowder, nails, and buckshot, Matt stood at the edge of the roof with fifteen pipe bombs. Below, hundreds of seething hands reached up for him. He spat down and lit the rope wick and launched the first one down. A small explosion later, he leaned over to see a small gap being filled by more creepers.
“Here,” Jay said from the roof access. He set one of the staked propane tanks on the roof and lit one of the pipes soaked in paint stripper. “We’ve got more coming up too.”
Matt grabbed it. “How’s the chipper holding up?”
Jay gave him a thumbs-up and climbed back down.
Another glance of the edge revealed this side was still teeming with zombies, but a glance to the front gave him hope; the crowd was thinning. His stomach and throat burned at the sight of the ever-growing lake of blood and bits coming from hole he’d drilled, but he also felt a sense of pride building. His design, with the help of the rest, was thinning the horde much quicker and more efficient than any firing line. And he saved on ammunition.
He smiled as he lobbed the propane tank over the edge. The ground and store shook as the impact from the fall was itself enough to disperse the gas and create an explosion. Matt lit two more pipe bombs and sent them over.
He turned to see Cole and Jay walking over, each carrying two propane tanks.
“Where the hell did you learn to make pipe bombs and all this stuff?” he as
ked Jay.
Jay grinned as he set the tanks down. “Wasn’t always a mechanic.”
“This should be enough,” Cole said. “Things are winding down at the chipper.” He looked at the darkening sky. “Let’s toss these fuckers over and get home.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more,” Matt said.
The early night filled with explosions, and Matt, along with Cole and Jay, reveled at the sight of the diminishing horde.
***
Twenty minutes later, the entire group stood in front of the van.
“We’ll save this for a rainy day,” Cole said, pointing to an unused propane tank. “I think we’re almost done here.”
“Yeah,” Matt added. “And we managed to deplete our supplies instead of adding to them.”
“Well we do have these.” Jay nodded to the pipe bombs.
“I suppose we should take joy in the little things,” Cole said.
“Looks like we might just get some alone time now,” Angela said, sliding around behind Matt.
“Not before we get back home,” Cole said shortly.
“I hate to, but I have to agree with Cole. Mary’s never been the patient type.” Matt stopped beside her and wrapped an arm around her neck.
“Then the sooner we get there, the better,” Angela whispered into his ear.
“How are we gonna get out of here?” Jennifer asked after a moment.
“The same way we came in,” Cole answered. “Through the bay door.”
Dennis and Jennifer made for the forklifts.
“Are there any supplies we need to get before we leave?” Angela asked.
Matt looked to Cole, so did everyone else.
Cole shook his head. “I don’t think supplies would do us any good.” There was a hint of defeat in his tone. “I’m honestly thinking,” he looked to Matt, “that it would be best to head to Mount Airy. There’s nothing left here for us, man. The odds are just too stacked against us.”
Matt sighed, resting his hands behind his head. He looked to the ceiling then nodded.
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