They lingered by the back steps since it was a beautiful morning. Cardinals were hopping around and chirping in the shrubbery and chipmunks were scurrying from leaf to leaf. If there was anything unpleasant about the morning, it was the typically high Atlanta pollen count. It was beginning to coat the steps, the corridors, the cars, and everything else outside. It drove Fluffy and Ralph into sneezing.
Unfortunately, the sneezes were heard by a large number of zombies who were lurking unseen at the bottom of the ravine. Hidden behind kudzu and young trees, they started scrambling towards the people and the pup almost immediately. While the ravine was steep and appeared impassable in most places. It actually had a fairly gentle slope from the parking lot in front of the “C” building to this particular landing behind the “O” building. None of which mattered to the Zombies. The unfeeling and relentless dead didn't care about a little muddy creek, fallen logs, ticks, fleas, chiggers, or copperhead snakes. They just scrambled through the underbrush.
The dog heard them and started to bark. On the top floor breezeway near our apartment, a swarthy young Indian man named Ramesh noticed the fleeting movement under the dark canopy of trees and shrubs. A moment later, he realized that unsuspecting people were relaxing below.
"Zombie! Zombie!" He yelled as he bounded down the stairs.
Fluffy started barking. But, the old man made the mistake of looking up and back at Ramesh instead of looking at treeline. Four zombies burst out of the underbrush at once. They were only ten feet away and there wasn't much time for a seventy-two year old man to react. Impervious to all the scratches from the underbrush, the four zombies grabbed Ralph and his little dog, too.
"Run Tanya! Run!" he yelled.
Tanya didn’t have to be told. She ran up the stairs screaming for help.
Meanwhile, Ralph felt teeth sink deep into his arm. The dog yelped one last pitiful yelp. Ralph grabbed his revolver from his waist band. It was the ever reliable Smith & Wesson Model 10. He fired one ineffectual shot into the abdomen of a zombie. It didn’t stop. It didn’t flinch. It just kept coming. His second shot blew the brains out of the zombie who was biting into his arm. A third shot went right between the eyes of a zombie who was eating the dog. Yet, more zombies were emerging from the trees. Shot four from the .38 special was a miss, but shot five took down another zombie. Ralph had a half-dozen zombies tugging at him and biting him. He felt their claw-like hands dig into his stomach. He looked down at his feet and saw one of the fiends scooping up his internal organs. Ralph laid back in shock and agony for a moment. Then he made one last decision and shot six brought a permanent end to his own suffering.
Chapter 25
After an amazing dash down the stairs, Ramesh hit the side yard with an aluminum softball bat and a cricket-style swing that started low and had an upward arc more like a golf swing than a baseball swing. The first of his swings ended in the skull of a zombie, but it was a glancing blow. Ramesh tightened his grip and dropped his initial zombie with a two more smashing blows. The side yard was packed with a half dozen zombies and they were surging towards him and the building. Fortunately, Ramesh was light on his feet and could maneuver to face one zombie at the time. He dropped his next one with a series of right to left and left to right swings at the temples. Still the zombies came on. They weren't in the least bit intimidated by the bat or anything bad that had happened to other zombies. Ramesh found himself with his back to the retaining wall separating the terrace level from the first floor level above. Facing two zombies, he drove his cricket bat straight into the throat of one zombie to buy himself a little distance and then swept the knee of the second zombie. It was a temporary respite as two dozen more zombies emerged from the tree line with the single-minded idea of eating the young Indian computer programmer.
Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!
Ramesh jumped and instinctively cringed. The intense focus of hand-to-hand combat was broken by a series of shots in rapid succession as SWAT Cop emerged from the corridor with his AR-15 and engaged the zombies directly in front of Ramesh. They dropped only to be replaced by more.
"Get behind me!" He yelled to Ramesh.
Ramesh gathered himself, slid along the wall, passed behind SWAT Cop, and moved into the dark of the terrace level hallway. Larry just stuck his AR-15 in the face of the nearest zombie and pulled the trigger. That zombie dropped and was replaced by another and another.
Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! SWAT Cop was firing non-stop, shell cases were dancing all over the place, and corpses were piling up. Then, the AR went silent. Empty. Fortunately, SWAT Cop wore a tactical vest and could reload with ease. Larry told us later that we didn’t want to know how much time he spent in his apartment doing tactical reloads in his underwear. While the 5.56mm round wasn't especially powerful for a rifle round, it was perfect for holding off hordes of zombies.
At the sound of shots, those of us at the zombie funnel abandoned our position blocking the road and came running back to the building. In the meantime, Victoria came out of her apartment clutching a snub-nose .38 revolver, ran to the end of the breezeway, and looked down over the railing to see the bloody body of her husband surrounded by the now permanently dead zombies.
"No!" She cried. "Those sons of bitches. I have had with these zombies!"
As everyone came running to the fight, Victoria calmly walked inside and grabbed her car keys. While we lined up behind SWAT Cop to admire his shooting and his bravery, she took the last swig of her coffee. While Karen ran upstairs to get a sheet to cover Ralph's body, she put a box of ammunition in her purse. Then, she squared her shoulders and walked properly and deliberately out to the couple's old Mercury Grand Marquis. She slid behind the wheel and started the car.
Chapter 26
Victoria slammed her immaculate champagne Mercury Grand Marquis into reverse and roared out of their parking spot. They had gotten one of the good ones up front by the handicapped spaces and away from the door-dinging Mitsubishi bitch. But, such petty considerations were a thing of the past. She was on a mission and she slammed it into drive with a thunk before burning rubber out of the parking lot.
It was a well-preserved 1989 “grandma car” and it was cosmetically perfect in every way except for the back bumper ding where she kept banging into a dumpster in the parking lot at her part-time job. However, 302 cubic inches of stone-cold fury lurked under the hood. She was already pushing forty as she threaded her way through our failed "channelizing" barrier. The white-wall tires squealed in protest as she negotiated the tight left that led towards the pool and office area. She stayed on the gas for the straight away that ran most of the length of the complex. According to witnesses, she must have been doing sixty when she hit her first zombie and she didn't slow down. It flew threw through the air and bounced off the curb.
A larger mass of zombies had accumulated at the next stop sign which was the end of the entrance drive of the complex. She hit eight zombies at high speed. One zombie was catapulted high in the air. Another cracked the windshield and rolled over the roof. Two more were bowled over and went under the car. Their demise was marked with a thumpety-thump that Victoria found immensely satisfying. She powered straight on passed the entrance road towards the big corporate headquarters. The big Mercury continued to smack Zombies as the brakes hauled it down to about thirty and Victoria made three quick lefts and circled a short block of bungalows. Another right lined her back up on the straight away for another pass.
Victoria stopped momentarily to survey her handiwork. There was still a crowd of zombies milling around where the entrance road intersected with the straight away. But, other zombies were crumpled messes lying motionless or crawling slowly on the road. Since they had no instinct for self-preservation, they didn't have the good sense to get out of the road. Victoria plotted a course to hit the most zombies and floored it. As the big car gathered steam, it shrugged off a few straggler zombies with ease.
Then the Grand Marquis hit a mass of a half dozen zombies. The heavy
steel and chrome bumpers broke knees, and pelvises, and necks and skulls. As she passed through the intersection, she saw some of the zombies she had previously hit crawling in the road. One looked up and stared hungrily at the old lady in the Grand Marquis. His face was just at bumper height--at least until it met the bumper. Then, it went tumbling down the long, gently sloping hill that led to the curve towards the garden and the back of the complex. The body remained in conveniently lodged in the slightly twisted bumper and remnants of the front grill.
Victoria didn't go all the way to that bend. Instead she cut a sharp right--which shook off the zombie--and circle the parking lot of another large building. She clipped zombies all the way through the long straight portion of that buildings lot and then circled an island of decorative trees and shrubs. On the way back, she went thumpety-thump over the maimed zombies.
In her rage, she turned back onto the main straight away and floored it again. This time when she got to the entrance road she took a right and charged up the hill. She hit several zombies who were shuffling down from the entrance into the complex. One zombie went half way through the previously cracked windshield on the passenger side. His bloody head turned towards Victoria and snarled. The zombie struggled to get his mangled arm free of the broken windshield so that it could grab for the senior citizen. Victoria turned and looked into the black, bloodshot, eyes of the undead creature.
"Bless your heart," she said. Then she pulled her revolver and shot that zombie right between the eyes.
Her ears ringing and her lust for vengeance temporarily sated, she floored it again, drove straight up to the slightly open guest entry gate and then stomped on the brakes. The big car screeched to a halt and the dead zombie companion was flung out through the windshield and out through the gate. Then Victoria hopped out of the car, popped the trunk, and pulled out jumper cables. A zombie was moving towards the gate at a surprising pace. He got there first. A bullet from Victoria's revolver got there second, hit the zombie right in the nose and he dropped. She pushed the gate closed right over the body and then tied it shut with her jumper cables.
She turned to hop back in the car and found that eight or nine zombies were coming towards her on the driver's side. She only had three shots left in the five-shot revolver and was sure she couldn't reload fast enough to fend off all of them. Her only choice was to run. She ran around the bend only to see a few zombies coming towards her from the bottom of the hill. On her left, zombies were coming up from the tennis court. She was surrounded on all sides, but less surrounded on her right.
She needed a place to run. Her only hope was to make it to the mail boxes. They were housed in a formerly open brick and stucco structure that--thanks to mail thieves--was totally enclosed with metal bars. Four zombies were in front of it looking away from Victoria and towards the inside of the structure. She ran up on them and shot two of them in the back of the head. When the third and fourth zombie turned and charged she was ready with a shot to that took number three beneath the chin and continued up through the brain. She turned the gun on number four and pulled the trigger again only to hear a sickening click. The revolver was empty. She back-pedaled and fell before the charging zombie.
Chapter 27
The tall, powerful, male zombie towered over Victoria as she swung out the cylinder and ejected the shells. She didn't practice combat reloading. Little old ladies just didn't do that. She knew she was a goner. Then the zombies head jerked to the side in an explosion of blood and puss. Lifeless, he fell forward at Victoria's feet.
"Come on you crazy old woman!" A woman’s voice called out from the mail box hut.
A tall black teenager wearing a dark blue hoody offered a hand. His other hand was filled with a large bloody aluminum softball bat.
"Come hide with us," he said more quietly.
"Hurry! Hurry!"
A short little black woman opened the barred gate to the mail hut and Victoria hurried inside with the young man.
"Dorothy," Victoria exclaimed when she saw the lady inside. "It's good to see you!"
Usually Dorothy rolled her eyes whenever Victoria spoke, but she was just glad to see another human alive today. Victoria gave her a big hug.
"I don't think you've met my grandson Leroy."
"Thank you for saving my clutzy behind, Leroy. I met you in the nick of time."
"We're glad you have that pistol, too," he replied. "We didn't know how we were ever going to get out."
Victoria carefully reloaded her revolver. It was a Smith & Wesson snubby and she had a box of loose .38 special hollow points. As long as there weren't more than five zombies, the .38 would do the job. As she slid each round into the chamber, the bullets seemed to provide Victoria with a little more resolve. Unfortunately, she only had about a dozen rounds left and five of them were in her gun.
"What's going on on your side of the complex?" Dorothy asked getting back to business.
"We've turned the place into a fortress, but it's been terrible. My husband, Ralph, was just killed. I don't think the reality has set in yet."
"I'm so sorry."
"He was a good man. He played professional baseball in the early seventies you know."
As the story continued, Dorothy's thoughts turned to escape. Dorothy was thinking of a way to create a diversion by lighting mail on fire. Then she thought of luring the zombies into the hut and then leaving by the second door. But, Victoria and Dorothy were old enough to be grandmothers. They couldn’t run far. Victoria ran out of words and she, Dorothy, and Reggie sat quietly remember her husband
Fortunately, Preston drove his mini van right by the hut, did a quick U-turn by the entrance and trash compactor, and started back down the hill slowly. Victoria got up and shot the zombies at the door and the trio burst out of the mailbox hut just as Preston pulled up. Reggie slid open the van door and greeted the refugees with a big smile.
“Thank you, Preston,” Victoria said with sadness and relief. “It looks like the shuttle bus is right on time!”
“Buckle up, ladies and gentlemen,” Reggie replied as he ushered the passengers aboard and closed the door. “This bus is going home!”
Chapter 28
With our neighbor's death, we knew that we were going to have to secure the gate, kill every zombie in the complex, and dispose of all the corpses. If we didn't secure the complex, we'd never be able to turn our attention to getting food and water. We'd also stumble into nasty zombie surprises on a regular basis. The Battle of the Backdoor really freaked SWAT Cop Larry out. It happened right by his back door. Preston, Larry, and I had a little meeting out in the breezeway.
"We've got to kill every friggin' zombie in this complex," Larry said.
Preston was inclined to agree..
"We've got to get every zombie and make damn sure that gate is secure."
"So how do we do it?" I inquired.
"Easy," said the Preston. "Victoria showed us how."
"Yeah, we use her car as a tank."
"It's not that much of a stretch."
Finally, Larry said, "I've got something to show you guys."
About ten minutes later we emerged with plan and a strange contraption. It was a large box lined with egg crate foam. We would use it as an unwieldy makeshift silencer or more accurately sound suppressor.
We made a plan. We had had two dozen fighters. We posted eight as guards around our building. We had another eight try to get some sleep. The final eight would go on the offensive. Our first order of business would be to ready the car, next we would secure the gate, and then we would drive the complex. Every zombie visible on the grounds would be killed. Once we cleared the grounds, we could methodically clear the buildings.
Dorothy came by with two very special gift: the key to the maintenance and housekeeping garages. She also had the master maintenance key that would allow entry into any apartment in the nearly 500-unit complex. However, that key was not to leave her custody. I found the padlock and keys that we used for our last tr
uck rental. Dorothy told us where we could find chain in the maintenance garage.
The plan had come together. We were ready for the final offensive.
Karen ran me up to the front gate in our Toyota. The trip was uneventful except for some slight fish tailing on all the zombie guts left on the main drag. I climbed into the driver's seat of Victoria's Grand Marquis, turned the key, and it fired right up. Of course, I wasn't being charged by hungry zombies so I could take my time. Swearing that she wasn't going to get any more dings in our car, Karen let me lead the way and followed me back home in our Toyota Highlander. Once we got back to our building, the Morehouse Men piled into the little SUV. They were armed with a variety of bats, hammers, and knives. Preston sat in the front seat with his 9mm Beretta. In the big Mercury, SWAT cop sat in the back passenger seat and used the front seat headrest to steady one of my scoped .22 rifles. Zombie brain goop still occupied the front passenger seat.
"First stop: the car wash!"
We idled towards along the back wall of the complex to the car wash. After the battle of the backdoor, we didn't see many zombies in our back half of the complex. But, as we approached the car wash, we saw one athletically built zombie who had a leash wrapped around his hand. He wore a formerly white tee shirt, gray hoodie, and black basketball shorts. He had several small stab wounds on this chest, vast amounts of dried blood on his shirt, and huge scratches on the sides of his face. He was dragging the skeletal remains of poodle along behind him on a leash that was wrapped around his wrist. I pulled the car to put the pathetic wreck of a zombie fifteen yards ahead of us and stopped. As SWAT Cop was steadying his aim through the foam-lined cardboard box over the front passenger headrest, the zombie looked up with intense black eyes and started shuffling our way. I was glad my wife wasn't into frou-frou dogs.
Zombie Complex | Book 1 | The Battle For Chattahoochee Run Page 6
