Zombie Complex | Book 1 | The Battle For Chattahoochee Run

by Pain, Alexander

  As the zombie got closer, I wondered if all the best dressed zombies also shopped for Tee shirts at Abercrombie & Fitch. I wondered if the local mall could now be called a "Dead Mall" I started to wonder when SWAT Cop would take the shot. The zombie was getting closer and closer. When, he was about two feet off the bumper, I couldn't take it any more.

  "Dude! Shoot!"

  There was a somewhat muffled crack and the zombie dropped with a small hole right between the eyes.

  "What took you so long?"

  "Oh, he's way far off"

  "Larry, he's right friggin' here!"

  "I had the scope cranked to 9x and thought it was just working really great."

  "Where do you work again?"

  "I'm an MPF agent."

  "A what?"

  "You know - the Mall Protection Force."

  "I thought you were on the SWAT team."

  "Well, I was back home."

  "Where's home?"

  "Mount Airy, North Carolina"

  "Wasn't that the original Mayberry?” I asked. “Andy Griffith's home town?"

  "Yep, he was our most famous son."

  "Well golly!"

  I shook my head and put the car into drive. Apparently, Larry had been a SWAT Cop in a town where almost nothing happened. We idled another 50 yards and we were at the car wash. It was a carport built into a row of garage storage units. Behind the units was a large hill that sloped up towards the corporate headquarters and a highway exit. We pulled in and jumped out.

  We were anxious to hose out the car. We just opened the doors and sprayed high pressure water into the passenger seat from the driver’s side. We blasted most of the brains, blood, and skin right out of the passenger door. Then, we did a quick wipe with towels and wash cloths to clean it up as best we could. For some reason, we dumped the towels in the trash can by the vacuum cleaner that stood by the parking space beside the car wash. It would be a long while before the complex had a groundskeeper again. During the whole car wash, we could hear the moans of a large number of zombies up the hill milling around near the highway interchange. We worked fast and didn’t bother to detail the vehicle.

  Chapter 29

  It was time to put our new tank to the test. We slowly rolled passed our vehicle barrier near the garden, went up a slight incline and made a right towards the northern part of our complex. On our right was our largest building. It was four stories with a large courtyard weaving through the structure. From the road, we could see several wayward zombies milling about in the courtyard. We rolled to a stop and I pulled into a parking space that gave SWAT Cop a clear shot.

  "I see four," he said.

  He fired his suppressed .22 once, worked the bolt, fired again, and worked the bolt and fired again. Three zombies had been dropped with precision head shots. SWAT Cop worked the bolt one more time. The suppressed shot hit the fourth zombie, but he just started walking in tight fast circles. A second shot missed and careened off the brick facade of the building. A third and final shot brought him down. The courtyard was quiet. It was a sad scene.

  After a few moments, SWAT cop dropped the magazine from the rifle and inserted a fresh one. We both stared down the sidewalk that led through the courtyard.

  "There is something to that microgroove rifling."

  "Yeah, Marlin makes a damn fine .22," I replied putting the Grand Marquis into reverse.

  Karen was still behind us with the troops. We rolled onward passed the end of the big building and took a right down a slight incline into a small square parking lot that was nestled between the big building, two buildings of bungalows and the laundry/maintenance/car wash building. Since we could see a large number of zombies loitering around this isolated parking lot, we stopped to thin the horde.

  For some reason, the zombies were focused on the laundry room. This allowed SWAT cop to bring down a dozen of them using my .22. As we slowly idled into the parking lot, we could see another two dozen at the laundry room doors and windows. They had broken the glass panel of the door, but were having trouble overcoming a barricade of washing machines. We could see someone inside the laundry room poking at the zombies with a metal pole of some kind.

  I told SWAT Cop to get ready with his AR. Then I leaned on the horn. While some of the zombies remained focused on their prey inside the laundry, another dozen turned and started shuffling towards us. With his AR-15, SWAT cop was making short work of the ones in front of us. But, when we were totally focused on the laundry room zombies to our left off of our driver’s side, a half dozen zombies hit the car from passenger side. A zombie got his arm through the rear passenger-side window, knocking off SWAT Cop's baseball cap and glasses. Another reached through the front passenger-side window and knocked the box and AR-15 muzzle off target. The new target turned out to be the radio and air conditioner controls. It was scary to see a muzzle flash so close to my forearm and the un-suppressed AR-15 was deafening.

  Fortunately for SWAT Cop, the window beside him was partially up and the zombie couldn't get a bite. I floored the accelerator and left our attackers behind. The zombie that knocked off SWAT Cop's glasses left and arm behind when we took off. It dropped right in SWAT Cop's lap. With a bloody fore-arm in his lap and his glasses somewhere on the back seat, he was completely freaking out.

  My driving didn't help much. The big car barreled over several zombies and then thumped over the corpses of some of the ones we had already dispatched. We then made the first in a series of sharp left turns to navigate around the center island of the rather small parking lot. The tires squealed as they rolled onto their white sidewalls and a hub cap went flying. We slid on a slick red sea of entrails and the rear quarter panel and bumper smacked into the side of the bungalows at the bottom of the hill. SWAT Cop who had just found his glasses was thrown against his door.

  I kept on the gas and plowed into more zombies. Some rolled up onto the hood, but slid off the right as I made two sharp lefts in succession and a right to bring us up out of that lower parking lot. Karen was standing beside the Highlander with Johnny Businessman’s 9mm Glock. She had just used it to dispatch the zombies who hit us from the side. The Morehouse Men had just piled out of the Toyota and were surveying the parking lot.

  Someone said something that I didn't hear and they advanced into the parking lot with bats swinging. I helped SWAT Cop out of the car. He collected his AR and I drew my Smith & Wesson. The three of us followed the troops and fired at several Zombies who approached their flanks. By the time, we caught up to the young Morehouse Men, they had already smashed their way to the front door of the laundry room and were calling to anyone inside.

  After a few seconds, two heavily accented voice called back from within the laundry room.

  "Hello, I am Amit and I am liking very much to be rescued."

  "I am A.J. and I too am appreciating my rescue. Thank you!"

  When I returned to our apartment, I shook my pill bottle. There were only a handful of my high blood pressure pills left.

  "Hey Baby, how you doing for medicine?"

  "I could use some Advil."

  For some reason, I needed three prescriptions and my wife could get by on Advil and donuts. The complex seemed secure for the time being. We could hole up in our apartments. We could secure the fences. We could fight the zombies. There were only two problems--besides being surrounded by Zombies: we had to eat and we needed our prescriptions.

  My wife and I weren't the only ones with problems. We canvassed our building to start a list of survival needs. Our Army did the same in other buildings. We went door to door asking the living what they wanted.

  "Can you get me some sweet and lo?" The old lady on the second floor asked. "An' I'm gonna need some me some Iams for King Louis my dog."

  "Are you kidding?" we asked.

  "No," and she replied. “And don't you get me no Equal."

  "Okay, we'll try," we said retreating from her potpourri-scented apartment.

  "God damn baby boomers," Karen muttere
d as the door closed.

  There were people in the building with real needs. Several families had babies, toddlers, or young children. Formula and baby foods were also in short supply. For them, it wasn't just a matter of living with high blood pressure and zombies. Their children were going to starve.

  Some of us were going to have to venture outside of the complex to get supplies. We called a meeting to plan out exactly what we needed to get and what the priority supplies would be. Our people needed formula, pampers, baby food, blood pressure medicine, diabetes medicine, insulin, drinking water, basic first aid supplies, plywood, and as much food as we could scrounge. Sweet and lo was pretty far down the list.

  Chapter 30

  We had our shopping list. But, the actual shopping trip would take planning. We assembled in a ground floor apartment in our building to make a plan.

  "Whose car are we taking?" I asked the crowd.

  "Well," Vijay said shyly. "We were hoping that since you have an SUV you could drive us."

  "We need to have a convoy," the older Preston said. "With enough vehicles to get us all in, get is all put, and bring home some supplies."

  "Well, let's go then," Reggie replied as he walked towards the truck.

  "Not so fast," Preston warned taking a stern fatherly tone. "Let's plan this out."

  He walked to the window and surveyed the vehicles out in the parking lot.

  "I think we should take your Highlander, our Mercedes, our mini-van," he said. "And Victoria’s old Mercury."

  "That would give us three cargo carriers," I added. "Plus a tank!"

  "Before we go anywhere," Preston continued. "We need to know where we are going to go, who we're going to take, and what we are bringing with us."

  "We'll also setup who will guard this place while we are gone." Preston added.

  Preston inspected our "troops." We were a ragtag lot. We were armed with everything from an old Mauser to an AR-15 to a cricket bat. Some of us were still clean and well-dressed and others wore blood-stained golf shirts.

  “Any volunteers?” Preston asked.

  The Morehouse Men stepped forward in unison as did several of the Indians.

  “We have to go,” Vijay piped up. “We need to get things for the children.”

  Preston went down the line, and picked out a half dozen. Three were from Morehouse and three were from the Indian contingent. With me, Preston, and his son Reggie, we had a team of nine.

  "I'm driving!" Karen announced.

  "Now, we're 'Force Ten' from ‘Hooch Run," I thought. But I kept that to myself. The Millennials and Indians wouldn’t have seen the movie.

  Next, we made sure that everyone had at least a stout knife and a bat, a bottle of water, a first aid satchel, and something to eat. We also had several firearms. I had my Mauser. For communications, the front and rear cars would have “walkie-talkies.” Karen brought a brown leather cross-body purse. I don’t know what she planned to buy.

  Preston laid out a plan. First, we would leave the complex, turn right onto the main road, turn right again to cross over the interstate, and then take right to go towards the shopping complex. With a grocery store, a drugstore, and a hardware big box store, we hoped that we could find everything we would need.

  While the team got ready, Preston and I tried to get a better look at our route and our destination. First, we went up to the top floor of a building near the entrance. Looking west, we could see our route out of the complex. Looking east, we could see part of our route to the shopping center. There were dozens at least a dozen zombies that we could see on the road leading out of the complex and a couple of dozen more on the roads to the stores. We had no idea how many zombies would actually be out shopping.

  One of the more troublesome sights was a large number of abandoned vehicles on the roads we intended to use. We suspected that we might well find the roads gridlocked due to traffic accidents and empty cars. But, even with binoculars, we couldn't get a great view of the road surfaces. We just saw the rooftops of some of the cars and the legions of zombies walking around. I wasn't sure we would get through. It would be an interesting drive.

  We hugged our wives, or girlfriends, got in our vehicles, and turned our keys.

  Chapter 31

  As we slowly rolled through the complex, we worried about the road ahead and the people left behind. We were more confident in our abilities to kill zombies now. But, we lived in a metropolitan area of six million people. That would be an awful lot of undead to slay.

  Reggie’s friend, Marcus, was driving the remnants of the battle scarred Mercury, we followed in our Highlander, Preston drove his Mercedes ML 320, and Reggie followed in the family minivan. It was a convoy. SWAT Cop was serving as the gunner up in the now window-less Mercury. It was hard to believe that Preston would take the Mercedes on this mission. We had seen him washing the golden Sport Ute on so many Saturday mornings when we walked our dog. Even though it came from the end of the last millennium and looked like a van, it was still a Mercedes and it was his pride and joy.

  As we approached the gate, our neighbors come out of their watch positions on either side of the road, unchain the gates, and swing them open for us. A solitary zombie stood in the middle of the drive. He was a skinny guy with equally skinny bird legs. He was wearing shorts and a blood-stained hoody with the bold logo of an obscure comic book hero. I wasn’t surprised he was a zombie. In life, he was probably the palest of nerds. The era of cos-play was over.

  As we accelerated up the hill, Marcus deftly flicked the wheel, and bumped the Zombie aside. He went tumbling to the curb. We drove right by him and on up to the main road. Looking to our left, we could see a half-mile of road with dozens of zombies wandering aimlessly right in the middle of the street. To the right, we could see a couple of wrecked cars about two hundred yards up the road in the middle of the intersection. Fortunately, this part of the road was clear but for a few zombies milling about.

  We turned right and drove quickly. In the rear view, we could see that some of the Zombies took notice and started shuffling in our general direction. However, they were moving slowly. As our convoy picked up speed, we left them fading in the rear view mirror. It was nice to think that we could outrun them.

  We made a second right onto Mount Johnston Road. It was an overpass that crossed I-285 and then intersected with Mall Boulevard. A right would take us to our objective (the grocery store), a left would take us to the shopping mall, and straight ahead would take us up to hill that is called Mount Johnston.

  Unfortunately, the intersection of Mount Johnston and Mall Boulevard was really jammed. There had been a collision and then the drivers had abandoned their cars and fled on foot. We had to stop right in the middle of the bridge over the perimeter highway. A high chain-link fence separated us from the highway below.

  I got out to inspect the scene. As I looked down on the highway below, it was totally jammed in both directions with plenty of wrecks and hordes of hundreds—perhaps thousands--of shuffling, moaning, zombies. The smell was simply unreal. It triggered my gag reflexes, but we had a mission to accomplish. Up on the bridge, we had three cars ahead of us in each lane. One car had tried to drive around the right, but got two flat tires in the high curb. Our cars could probably climb the center divider and work our way around the crash. On the far side of the bridge, Mall Drive was jammed up with bumper-to-bumper traffic going towards the interstate exit up by the grocery store. As I surveyed the scene ahead, I also made eye contact with the black eyeballs of about a dozen zombies. They stopped and started shuffling towards me and our convoy. It was time to go.

  I jogged up to the front of our little convoy. We could probably get by going the wrong way in the opposite lane. But, we had to move fast, the zombies were gathering in front of us.

  "Marcus,” I yelled. "Go slow over the center divider, bash through the accident and go in the wrong lane towards the grocery stores."

  As I was finishing up, Reggie honked his horn back in the min
ivan. The zombies from the main road were rounding the corner and cutting off our escape. We had to go now!

  Marcus gunned it and the big old Mercury lumbered over the low concrete center divider with its belts squeeling and shocks squeeking in protest. As I crossed in front of our silver Highlander, the first of the mall road zombies blocked my path.

  The closest of the zombie stood six foot five inches tall and wore a bloody yellow Nike shirt and spandex pants. In life, he had probably been a personal trainer, now he snarled, reached forward, and grabbed my favorite "Crocodile Hunter" safari shirt with both hands. I blocked upward with both arms, but workout zombie was way too strong. He drove me backward into the front fender of the Highlander.

  I slid along the front of our truck, backpedaled, and re-oriented oriented us parallel to the convoy. Then I whirled both arms under my big dead assailant and grabbed his left arm. I took a big step back and yanked his arm, forward, and down. The aikido move actually worked and workout zombie face-planted into the pavement. I grabbed my big knife and plunged it into the back of his neck and up towards his skull. He dropped dead immediately.

  "I hate the traffic around here!" Karen yelled as I hopped in the truck.

  "Follow Preston!" I replied breathlessly.

  We watched as Preston passed us and gingerly took his baby up across the curb. Perhaps some Mercedes ML320s had raced in deserts and gone on off road adventures, but not this one. Every Saturday, it had spent an hour down at one of the carwashes. Preston totally babied it, washing it, waxing it, and detailing it. He always parked the Benz as far away from the apartments as he could and he used the family mini van to shield it from the ravages of the door-dinging Indian neighbors. Now, he was driving it through the zombie apocalypse.

  Since holding a big, sharp, bloody knife while bouncing over a curb wouldn't be smart, I dropped it quickly to the floorboards of our truck. Fortunately, I had cheap rubber floor mats that could just be washed off. Karen gently eased us over the curb and stopped at the intersection. The Mercedes SUV was just just pulled in front of us. However, the mini van was still having trouble behind us.