Daniel was fuming. He looked around as if trying to garner support from the others, “Well, who died and made you our leader Charlie? I can think of a good number of us that are better suited for the job.”
I was telling myself to stay calm, getting into a shouting match outside of a building that was possibly filled with zombies was not going to end well.
“I’m not in charge Daniel. There is no leader. And if the job came open I am the last person who would apply for it. Trust me; I do not want to be the one responsible for leading us to safety. This was just my idea so I am giving suggestions that I think give us the best chance for success.”
Daniel stood there looking at me for a moment before walking over to a minivan and opening the back hatch. A minute later he returned carrying a tire iron that looked a lot like the one Sass had. He walked straight for me and I thought he might take a swing at my head. As he passed me by he spoke, “If you’re not in charge then I don’t have to do a damn thing you say. I’m going in there, and I’m going to kill everything I find.” After a short pause he added, “You coming?”
I was tempted to let him go alone. I thought that it would be poetic justice, but Judy was screaming “Daniel! Daniel! Charlie, do something!”
I sucked in a lungful of bitter tasting air, “Judy, Veronica, you two get in a car and stay safe.” Turning back towards the open door I began to walk towards my eminent doom.
“Let’s go.”
As we reached the door I stopped. “Is everyone ready for this? We are not going to rush in there and get torn apart just because some moron thinks he’s the hand of God. We go slow and we make sure we don’t let anything get in behind us.” Shawn and Sass nodded their agreement. Amanda looked bored. I turned back to the building and stepped through the door.
It was still as quiet as a tomb inside the strip club which surprised me. I had expected to hear Daniel screaming at the top of his lungs for the zombie bastards to show themselves. In the back of my mind I was thinking that maybe we had gotten lucky and the dead had already taken him down.
To our left was a bar and directly in front of us was the stage. Amanda had stopped moving once she had stepped out into the open area. She held up her hand and looked across the room. I edged up to her and looked around as well. There had already been a few fights in here today, and the destruction that they had wrought was impressive.
“You and Sass go right. I’ll take Shawn left.” I said.
Amanda nodded and turning around pointed to Sass and then pointed right. The two of them began to walk the edge of the room heading towards the front, stage area. I looked back at Shawn and couldn’t help but give him a big goofy smile as I pointed to him and then pointed left. He gave a short quiet laugh which made Amanda and Sass turn and look at us. Amanda smiled back at me and showed me her gun.
“Dude this is freaky. Where did Daniel go?” Shawn asked in a whisper. “You’d think we would hear him cussing the building and any zombies in it as soon as we got inside.”
“Yeah I thought about that as well. It just seems wrong, doesn’t it?” I said.
“True that, if I were you I’d be hoping that guy was already eaten. He’s got it in for you man.”
“Yeah, I noticed that.”
Shawn gave another quiet laugh, “If he comes at you I’ve got your back man. You all saved me; I owe you everything.”
I turned to look at him, “Shawn, we didn’t do anything but let you join up with us. You were doing an awesome job at not only keeping yourself alive but saving Veronica as well. I think you would have been fine if we hadn’t come along.”
“I doubt that man. I can bob and weave pretty well, but a big picture guy I’m not. I was in that fire truck thinking, what do I do now? Where do we go to be safe? I had no clue. Then you all showed up, and it was like watching the Calvary come over the hill. I thought to myself, thank God they’re here. I knew I would have ended up getting the two of us killed.”
His confession startled me.
“To tell you the truth, Shawn, I’m glad we found you and Veronica. I was beginning to think that there were no sane people left in the world.”
“Bad day so far?” Shawn said as we began walking towards the bar.
“Well first we picked up Amanda, who came walking out of the woods with every gun ever made strapped to her body. She wouldn’t tell us why she was in the woods or why she had the guns. All she would say is that she was “hunting”. Then we get Daniel and his wife and you see how well that’s going. Sass and I were really starting to question this area’s mental health.”
I felt Shawn grab my shoulder and squeeze. I stopped walking and looked over my shoulder to him. His face had gone a shade closer to white. He pointed to the edge of the bar with his bat. In the darkness I could just barely make out a figure sitting on the floor.
“Think she’s a zombie?”
I stood still and gave Shawn the “shussing” motion. I was listening to see if I could hear the figure breath or not. After just a second or two I could make out the ragged, faltering breaths of a dying person. I looked back to Shawn saying, “Go get Amanda.” Then I walked to the figure lying against the bar.
She was sitting with her legs straight out in front of her. Her arms were lying across her lap and her head was hanging down on her chest. I knelt down beside her as I heard her breathing getting more and more raspy.
“Mam, have you been bitten?”
The head moved at the sound of my voice. It rose slowly; as if it was taking every ounce of strength she had left to accomplish the task.
“He…bit…me, my…arm.” Her eyes seemed to lose focus and she wavered for a second, “…cleaning guy…bit me…”
Looking down at her arm I could see the hunk that was missing. The blood had poured across her jeans and down to the floor where it was now pooled up. Amanda had arrived as the woman was talking.
“Is this cleaning guy still here?”
She nodded her head yes.
“Do you know where he is?”
“No…he…left…not know why...”
Her eyes were starting to lose focus again. I knew that the pain this woman had to be in was tremendous. Looking at her I didn’t know what to say.
“I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve this. We will make him pay for hurting you.”
As I was about to stand up her good hand shot out and grabbed my arm so quick that it almost caused me to yell out.
“Am…am I...going…to…turn into…” there was a long pause and I thought that she had passed out when, with a large exhaling of air, she finished her sentence with “…monster…”
The question almost brought tears to my eyes. I looked back to Amanda then back to her.
“No. We won’t let you become one of them.”
Her hand let go of my arm, “Thank you…thank…” and her breathing stopped. A second later it came back but was too ragged to tell if she was trying to speak again or not. After just a few more seconds it stopped for the last time. I stood up and stepped out of the way. Amanda placed her gun against the unknown woman’s head and pulled the trigger.
I had always heard about how loud a gun shot was in a confined space. I’m here to tell you the truth of the matter. Nothing could have prepared me for that explosion of sound. I was instantly struck deaf and the ringing didn’t leave my ears for a very long time. It was so loud that it was somewhat disorienting. All four of us stood there at the corner of the bar for a few minutes as our hearing returned to us.
“My God.” I could eventually hear Shawn say to Amanda, followed by “Loud enough for you?”
“Sorry guys I should have said something to prepare you, but there wasn’t time and I wanted to put one in her head before she came back.”
“No problem.” I heard Sass say.
“Did you two find anything on the other side of the building?” I asked and Amanda shook her head no. This only left the back area of the club unexplored. The three of them began to move off, b
ut I took one last look at the poor woman who had to be Veronica’s friend known only as "T". She had seemed nice. She had deserved better than to die full of fear on the floor. The unfairness of the day began to surround me. Why was this happening? Whose fault was this? Who would eventually have to pay for each and every life that had been unfairly taken today? I knew that most likely nobody would ever be found to have set this in motion. There would be no guilty party. There would be no punishment. There would never be payback. This thought, more than any other, made my anger bloom. I wanted to scream at the sky. I wanted to vow vengeance like Daniel did in the back of the dump truck. I wanted to pray to God to provide me the information I would need to find the person responsible. I wanted to dish out a bit of Old Testament payback.
I looked away from the body and saw that the others were halfway to the dressing area. Amanda had taken the lead again, and I hurried to catch up. As we got to the doorway into the back we could see Daniel’s tire iron lying on the floor. Amanda peaked around the corner into the back.
A loud crash rolled across the back area and towards us. Amanda motioned us forward. As I got to the doorway I could see a person who I assumed was the cleaning guy and another female zombie trying to make their way towards us.
Between the two zombies and us stood Daniel. He had traded his tire iron for a long piece of pipe.
Amanda stepped into the back area and leveled her two guns at the advancing zombies.
As Amanda took aim Daniel screamed, “No! These are mine!”
Amanda yelled for him to get down but he refused to listen as he swung the pipe at the two zombies. It hit the cleaning guy zombie in the neck and rocked him, but he stayed on his feet. The far end of the pipe fell to the ground and Daniel started trying to lift its weight back up to make a second strike. The problem was that the pipe was too long, this made it too heavy to be used as an effective weapon. The two zombies were closing in on him, and he was having a hard time getting the pipe ready to take a second swing. Amanda yelled for him to duck but he stood his ground. The zombies were now no more than four feet from him. It was becoming painfully obvious that he was not going to be able to save himself. I ran forward and, grabbing him by the shoulders, I threw him into the wall as I heard the guns roar to life behind me. Instantly I was struck deaf again, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from unleashing my fury on Daniel.
“Where’s the badass now?!” I screamed at him.
“Where’s the man who’s going to kill every zombie he sees?!”
Daniel looked up at me, his face registered complete disbelief. But there was no mistake, he could hear me.
“You dumbass. This is why I wanted you outside. You have no business being in here when you have no clue how to fight these things. You’re going to get yourself killed and end up taking us down with you.”
“This is all your fault!” He yelled at me.
“My fault? How the hell is this my fault?”
Daniel glared at me, “You think you’re so damned perfect. You think you’re so much smarter than the rest of us. You led us into this death trap just so you could impress your new girlfriend. I am the only one that came in here to do the right thing. You’re just here so you can get laid!”
The anger that welled up in me at this point was the most I had felt since high school. I wanted to hit this man. But that was a luxury I couldn’t allow myself. I had to remain in control. I had to remain calm. I had to choke down my pride and use words instead of fists.
“Listen to me you sad little man. I am here for two reasons. To get clothes and to find us some shelter. It is getting late and that fire is going put even more zombies in our path. If we can barricade ourselves in here until tomorrow then our safest bet is to do so. I am not out to impress some girl and getting laid is way down on my list of priorities, far below staying alive.”
Daniel shrugged his shoulders pulling free of my grip.
“You’re a liar Charlie, and everybody in this room knows it. You are going to lead all of us into the grave. If Amanda had any brains at all she would put one in your head right now and be done with it.”
“Listen to me closely, Daniel. Understand my words. From this point on you will do as I say, when I say. Those are the rules, if you don’t want to live by those rules then you and your wife can feel free to go your own way.”
“I’ll be damned! You’re not kicking me out of my own group! Who the hell do you think you are?!”
I leaned in close, almost nose to nose with him. “I am the person that has saved your ass not once, but twice now. I am the reason you’re still breathing. This is not your group. It will never be your group. You get in a pissing match with me and my friends and you will lose.”
I stepped back from him and turned to walk away adding one last parting thought, “I’m done with you. Just stay here while the grown ups make some decisions.”
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him pull his fist up and begin a sweeping motion towards my head.
Years ago I was watching some show on how stuntmen do their thing and this one guy was talking about shooting a bar fight. He said that there was no way to believably take a punch other than to let somebody clock you upside the head. He had told the interviewer that the only thing you could do was to relax as much as possible. You had to be ready to let your whole body roll with the impact of the punch to minimize any damage to your head or neck. These are the things that I was doing as I watched the fist come at me.
To my surprise the punch never landed. I looked at Daniel and saw him standing completely still, eyes wide and focused on something just over my shoulder. Looking around I saw Amanda’s gun pointed directly at Daniels head. As her words broke upon him she never took her gaze from his.
“I am trying to think of a reason to not pull this trigger. So far I haven’t found one.”
Daniel, for once, showed he had some brains and didn’t say a word. From the other side of our little group Sass spoke. “Um, guys? Are we really doing this?”
Amanda never looked away from Daniel. “You’ve heard him. He’s just as much a danger to us as those zombies are.”
“Yes, he’s a little wacked in the head, but are we really going to kill him for that? Charlie?”
I looked over to Sass then back to Daniel. “He’s impulsive. He lets his emotions control him way too much and he thinks he knows everything. He will get others killed before it’s over.”
Amanda added, “We are only as strong as our weakest link. We need to stay strong.”
"And after he's gone, who's our weakest link then? You? Me? Who do we kill next?"
I saw the look in the eyes of the Sasquatch and I knew this had gotten way out of hand. It was time to calm down and let things be, at least for a while. I looked to Amanda and asked her to lower the gun. After a moment of consideration, she did as I asked. Daniel looked as if a very large weight had been lifted off him. I took his moment of vulnerability and put it to my advantage. I leaned in close one last time.
“You remember this and you better believe what I am about to tell you. If you ever pull a stunt like this again, we won’t come in to save you. I will happily wait outside until you’re good and dead by whatever zombies you happen to stumble upon. I will not risk myself or any of these people to save your sorry ass again. You better keep your head screwed on tight because you’re on your own from here.”
Daniel opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I hoped that he finally got the picture. I turned my back to him and spoke to the other three. “As much as I wanted a place to wait out the night, I don’t think this will work. Amanda, do you agree?”
“Yes, there are just too many points of entry for us to defend.”
“Okay. Look around and see if there is anything here we can use. I’ll take Sass and go get the others so Veronica can get her clothes.” After taking a few steps I turned and added, “Amanda…don’t shoot anybody while I’m gone.”
“I promise nothing” Am
anda said in an all business tone, but when I looked around she flashed me a smile.
As Sass and I walked back to the front door he said, “I hate to say it Crackhead, but I thought you were just coming in here to win points with the stripper as well.”
I smiled despite myself. “There is most likely more truth to that than I am willing to admit.” And after a short pause, “Don’t call me Crackhead.”
As we reached the door I saw the others were already out of the car and were walking towards us. The good news was Veronica had on shoes and a pair of sweat pants. The bad news was, following them were two men dressed in Camouflage and carrying rifles. I touched Sass on the arm and heard him say, “I’ll go get her.”
Sass disappeared into the building and I put on my best smile as I went out to meet the newest danger that the world had in store for us.
C H A P T E R E I G H T E E N
Life sometimes seems a bit unfair. If life had wanted to be fair then it would have sent me a memo that said, “Just a heads up, at some point in your life you are going to have to fight hordes of zombies and also need to know how to disarm and completely lay the SmackDown on two camo wearing hunter guys.” Had that happened then I could have spent years training for this moment. Okay, let’s be fair, I may not have trained for it even with the warning. But if that were the case then I could admit that it was totally my fault and let the blame fall squarely on my back. However, all of this happening to me with no warning at all is just not fair.
I was running through every action movie and TV show I had seen. I was analyzing every comic book I had ever read. I even attempted to remember what moves that old man taught the Karate Kid. I was coming up with nothing. I was going to have to wing this and hope somebody showed up at some point to pull my butt out of the fire.
Judy was in front, Veronica just a few paces behind. The two gunmen were at least ten feet behind the women and making no move to catch up. I was pretty sure I knew why. They were to busy watching certain areas of Veronica as she walked towards me. To be fair she was twisting and turning quite a bit more than normal.
A Good Distance From Dying Page 13
