"Same problem with using those rubbing alcohol bottles as Molotov cocktails," Lisa said evenly, as her brow furrowed while she worked. "We didn't have enough of them. We could have also blown up my car with a misthrow or a thrown one bounced back at us by all of those zombies, and then we'd have been out there and exposed surrounded by that entire bunch with nowhere to go and probably not enough ammo to fight our way back in through all of them."
"But couldn't you have just plowed your way through them with your car, like they do on TV and in the movies?"
Lisa stopped working and looked up at Mercy, giving her a long and measured look. Mercy instinctively drew back, not understanding why Lisa was looking at her like that. When Lisa spoke her tone was even, and her words were carefully chosen. "Mercy, I'm guessing you don't know the first thing about situations like that, so let me explain. It's simple physics. If you're going to plow your way through a lot of massed bodies, you have to have a rather large mass moving at high speed to break into the clear on the other side. Otherwise their mass, as close together as they are and always piling up under and around you the farther you plow into them, will eventually stop you before you reach the other side. My HemiCuda didn't have enough mass and I didn't have enough room to even begin getting it up to speed to do that. We would have needed a big, heavy vehicle, like a panel truck or bus, or even a tractor-trailer rig, to plow our way through so many zombies."
"But they do it on TV all the time."
"They set those stunts up beforehand so it'll look like they're doing that, but it's all in the camera angles and how they set it up," Lisa explained. She turned and once again resumed working on the door lock, continuing to talk as she did. "You can't do that in real life. I know. All of us stuck on the track had to try that, once everybody began turning zombie. The others didn't make it out because they got stuck in the crowds about two-thirds of the way in, and do you want to know what happened to them?"
Mercy shuddered. "No, but go ahead and tell me."
"The zombies pulled them out of their stock cars through their open windows and ate them on the spot." She bit her lip as she made a peculiar half-jerk and half twist with her hand holding the wire in the lock, and then cursed. "Damn lock. Anyway, I got lucky and found in front of me a part of the crowd thin enough to force my way through. After that it was to my 'Cuda as quick as I could and out of there." She now began a series of half-twists and slight jerks with the wire in the lock. "That's why we didn't even try, Mercy. The odds were against us."
Mercy nodded. "Thanks for telling me. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," Lisa said. She gave a sigh and again leaned back. This time she let go of the wire and put both hands on her knees. "Nobody can know everything. Like me. I definitely do not know how to pick this damn lock." With that she reached up with her right hand, balled it into a fist, and gently hit the lock plate with its butt end. There was a clicking sound, and then the door swung silently inward, much to the surprise of both women. It swung almost all the way around to the shelving unit next to its hinges before it finally coasted to a stop. Lisa watched it swing, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. "I don't believe it," she muttered.
"Looks like you did it," Mercy said with a smile.
"Yeah," Lisa said. At once she was on her feet and inside the security cage. She ignored the boxed weapons and went straight to the ammo. After a bit, she took off both her side pouch and rucksack, then placed them on a table in the center of the security cage that seemed to be there specifically for that purpose. She picked out two groups of boxed ammo and began shoveling boxes of each, separated by size and box type, into either her side pouch or rucksack. Mercy continued to stand guard but occasionally glanced her way. "What'ch'a got?" she asked.
"Enough AK ammo to see us through the rest of this little adventure, I hope," Lisa said gleefully, as she continued to load up both of her bags. "They've also got extra of the other sizes we need. Mercy, give me your bag that doesn't have your medical stuff, and I'll load you up with 5.56 and .38."
"What about Cy?" Mercy said, as she unslung one of her shoulder bags, quickly handed it to Lisa inside the cage, and then resumed her watch.
"I'll get his ready. That way all he has to do is scoop it up once he gets back. Time check?"
Mercy looked at her wristwatch. "He's been gone about eight minutes."
"Then he'll be back anytime." Lisa had finished with her own bags, and now began to fill Mercy's. "Better listen for him, and make sure you don't shoot him, okay?"
"I won't." Mercy paused a beat, and then ventured a question. "Hey, Lisa?"
"What?"
"You like him, don't you?"
"I just met him today."
"But you like him, don't you?"
Lisa paused, looking thoughtful. "Well ... kinda ... yeah, I guess I do," she admitted, then quickly went back to work.
Mercy nodded and gave her a grin. "He's a lot like you, you know. Strong, forceful, determined, resolute."
"He's a soldier."
"And you're a stock car racer, a woman in a very competitive and usually male profession." Mercy's grin became even bigger. "As I said, you two are a lot alike."
Lisa allowed herself to smile as she worked. "Maybe we are, Mercy. Maybe we are."
It was then that they heard Cy's voice. "Mercy? I'm fixing to come back in now."
"Okay," Mercy called. Lisa straightened, and both she and Mercy turned to face the side door. Lisa gave her a sideways wink and Mercy returned it, but both remained silent as they waited.
Cy came in at a trot. He looked worried, almost jumpy, as he hurried over to them. "Oh, you got it open. That's good, because I never found the keys and everything up front has been smashed open and emptied."
Mercy let Cy slip past him and he entered the security cage. "Figures," Lisa said, as she pointed to the pile of ammo boxes on the table. "Here's yours."
"Thanks," Cy said. He quickly opened his rucksack, pulled out a shrink-wrapped three-pack of Bactine® and set it on the table, and then began to shovel ammo boxes inside in its place. "That's for Mercy. It's the only thing I found out there we could use."
"Why the rush?" Lisa asked, noting how fast Cy was stowing his new ammo. "We've still got a couple of minutes. Well, one now." She then handed off the sprays to Mercy through the door, who promptly stowed them in her own gear.
"Maybe, maybe not," Cy said as he worked. His voice was as anxious as the look on his face. "I risked going out front to see if I could find the vehicle the looters were using. I found it all right, but it was wrapped around a telephone pole and burned out. It also looks like all the ammo they had stolen exploded or went off once the fire got to it. That's not all," he added as he finished with his rucksack, quickly closed it, then looked at Lisa. "The zombies are on their way, coming up the street from the hospital where we left them."
"Then we've got to get out of here," Lisa said intently, as she followed Cy out of the security cage.
The three of them began to quickly walk down the long aisle to the other end of the storeroom, past the loading doors and to the open side doorway through which they had first entered. They stopped after taking only a half-dozen paces, however. Movement among the bodies farthest from them had caught their attention.
"Did you see anything earlier, Mercy?" Cy asked, his shotgun automatically raised and pointed down the aisle.
"No," Mercy replied, her assault rifle also raised and aimed. "No zombies came in here the whole time you were gone, Cy, I promise."
"Whatever it is, it isn't a zombie," Lisa added, her MAC-11 likewise raised and aimed. "It's too small. Must have slipped in by sticking to the shadows."
"Yeah," Cy said. He risked taking another step forward.
RRRREEEEEERRRRRRAAAAAARRRRRRWWWWW!!!
To everyone's surprise, a large and rather bedraggled looking alley cat suddenly popped up from behind one of the bodies on the floor in front of them down the aisle. It had bloody patches on its fur and an unearthly reddish
hue in its eyes. It also had its jaws clamped down on the wrist of a severed hand missing its middle finger, with the others half-curled and frozen in rigor from its former owner's final death agonies. The alley cat stared down the three armed humans on the other end of the back storeroom, and then began to make the combination half-warbling and half-growling noise that cats sometimes make whenever they are jealously guarding their food.
Rawrl-rawlr-rawlr-rawlr-rawlr-rawlr-rawlr-rawlr ....
"Oh, crap!" Mercy exclaimed under her breath. "A zombie cat!"
"Be glad there's not a pack of them," Lisa half-whispered, her own voice just as excited. "I don't think we'd survive that."
"We can't let one zombie cat stop us," Cy said urgently, keeping his shotgun aimed at it while the cat continued its seemingly demonic growling. "Those zombies in the street are less than five minutes away."
"Somebody shoot it?" Mercy suggested with a trembling voice.
"I've got a better idea," Lisa said. "Trust me?"
"Go ahead," Cy answered. All the frightened Mercy could do was nod her head.
Lisa locked eyes with the zombie cat. It continued to glare at them, still gripping the hand in its jaws and making its jealous guarding noises. Suddenly Lisa raised her right foot and then stamped on the floor as hard and fast as she could. "SCAT!" she yelled. The cat took off at once, still gripping the severed hand in its mouth, as it bounded up and back and then raced through the open outside door.
Mercy breathed a visible sigh of relief, but Cy didn't waste any time. "Come on!" he urged, as he began to run for the back door himself. Lisa was hot on his heels, and Mercy followed a half-beat later.
The trio flew out of the back door of Southwest Sporting Goods as if they had been shot from a cannon. They ran all the way to the back gate and through it in a few seconds, despite their heavy individual loads of gear, weapons, and ammo. All three came to an abrupt stop once they were in the alley, however, as soon as they heard the new growling. It was coming from both ends of the alley. It came from the fire and smoke of the burning remains of the catering truck swirling around the entrance at the hospital end, and it came from the shadows that bathed the exit at the police station end. Suddenly a new set of growls joined the first, only these were coming from behind the humans. These new growls were not coming from zombie cats. They were too deep throated for any but the biggest of felines, and there were none of those in Metro City. Cy, Lisa, and Mercy immediately formed a defensive circle with their backs to each other and their weapons facing outward, with each one of them covering a different threat zone from where the growling was coming. A few seconds later, they saw with their own eyes what was making those sounds.
Three of them leapt through the spark-filled column of smoke above the flames of the catering truck to alight on the alley paving stones on that end of the alley and stood there, facing the three humans down at the center of the alley. Three more slowly emerged from the shadows darkening the police end, with slavering jaws and mouths agape. Four more appeared on either side of the back end of Southwest Sporting Goods, two on each side of the building, slowly but surely padding their way in stalking fashion into the back lot and towards its back gate, in which the humans were perfectly framed. All were growling, and all were glaring at the three humans with undead hungry eyes. They were not alone. Perched on the power and telephone lines above was the rest of the same flock of crows that had been forced away earlier by the exploding truck. All of them had returned to the alley, and with them had come the big black raven as before. It was sitting on top of a utility pole above the others and looking down on the proceedings below as if it were an English high court judge about to pronounce a sentence of doom. It made no sound, but many of the crows cawed and flexed their wings, as if in anticipation of the potential feast that was about to be spread on the paving stones below them.
Lisa ignored both the crows and the raven. Her attention was on the threat in front of her. "Zombie dogs. Just what we need," she half-whispered, tightly gripping her MAC-11. "German Shepherds. Probably infected K-9s from the police station kennels."
"Oh, crap!" was all a frightened Mercy could get out, her assault rifle visibly quaking in her trembling hands.
Cy took in a deep breath and then let it out quickly. "This is like a Western, you know?" he said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. "We die quick, or we die slow."
"I'll die slow," Lisa said quickly.
"I don't want to die at all!" a visibly nervous Mercy said through clenched teeth.
"Then we've got to fight if we want to live," Cy stated. He drew a bead on the nearest infected K-9 coming down the alley, its claws clattering loudly on the paving stones, as it and the others began to lope and pick up speed.
"Right with you," Lisa said, as she prepared to quickly spray all four of the infected K-9s coming up the lot with her MAC-11, which were also beginning to lope as they moved quickly towards its gate.
"Me too," Mercy added, as she steadied her assault rifle by raising it to her shoulder and aiming it at the nearest infected K-9 on her end. By now it was halfway down the alley and leading the others in their charge, its claws ticking loudly as it ran.
"Eat this!" Cy declared, as he pulled the trigger and his shotgun roared.
Chapter 6
Welcome to the MCPD
The next five minutes or so found Cy, Lisa, and Mercy in the fight of their lives inside the alley with the three separate packs of infected dogs attacking them. For each of them it was a virtual frenzy of shooting, dodging and twisting, short runs while reloading, and then more of the same. It also became clear, now that they were having to get up close and personal with their frenzied foes, that not all of them had come from the police station per Lisa's initial guess. Two of them were wearing the remains of seeing eye dog harnesses, and they had been among the group that had attacked from the direction of the hospital. Two of the ones that had charged Lisa across the back lot of Southwest Sporting Goods were wearing thick heavy collars to which were attached broken chains or leashes. In the end, it didn't matter from where any of them came. They were there, they were attacking en masse, and the three humans were barely holding their own against their faster and more agile foes.
What saved the trio was the arrival of the zombies. The first zombie staggered around one side of Southwest Sporting Goods straight into Lisa's line of fire. It promptly staggered and fell. When it did, the two infected dogs Lisa had been fighting on that side of the building promptly went after it. That left Lisa only two to deal with, and one of those was already badly wounded. It got a lucky break when a second zombie came lurching through the open side door of the back storage room in search of food. It became food instead for the wounded dog, while Lisa quickly killed the other and then went to help her friends with the remaining dogs. Cy had already killed two of the three attacking him, while Mercy had only managed to wound her foes. One of them had also taken a big piece out of the back tail of her lab coat during the fight, narrowly missing biting her in the process. All of the remaining dogs in the alley regrouped once Lisa joined the fray, and shortly thereafter they promptly abandoned it when more zombies entered the Southwest Sporting Goods back lot. The change in their course of action was easy enough to understand. The humans were shooting at them. The zombies were not. Therefore, the zombies were the easier kill, and thus the surviving dogs went after them with a vengeance.
"Girls!" Cy yelled to get their attention. He motioned with his shotgun towards the police station end of the alley. "Run for it!"
They ran. The trio's escape run promptly turned into a chase, as two of the surviving infected dogs, both K-9s and both still in fair shape despite their wounds, promptly broke away from the melee caused by the zombies and ran after them. It turned out to be a close thing. Lisa was the fastest despite the weight of her gear, and made it to the end well ahead of Mercy, who was a distant second. Cy made himself the rearguard, occasionally turning and firing at the two infected dogs as he ran. Li
sa charged through the open gate at the end of the alley only to find herself having to deal with three zombie policemen who immediately lunged at her. She dived and twisted, successfully ducking away and coming back up with her MAC-11 doing her talking for her. Mercy came through the gate at the same time, stopping and swinging around so she could take it in hand and close it once Cy came through. It was almost identical in construction to the door to the security cage inside Southwest Sporting Goods, with a heavy-duty keyed lock that would engage once the gate was pushed shut. How it got open or how long ago that had been did not matter to Mercy, so long as the lock would work and hold the door once she closed it. It was now Cy's turn to come running through the gate, and Mercy slammed it shut as soon as he cleared it. The gate held as both dogs ran into it, yelping in agony as they hit hard and bounced back into the alley. One of the zombie policemen had gotten away from Lisa's counterattack at the same time this was happening and was now coming after Mercy, half-limping and half-lunging towards her on a badly wounded leg. Cy's shotgun roared as he blew its head off. Both infected German shepherds continued to snarl furiously and throw themselves helplessly at the closed gate, while Cy helped Lisa finish off her last two foes. A few seconds later more zombies began to stagger up the alley towards the gate. The infected dogs promptly turned and went after the food they could actually get, instead of the food that they could no longer reach. The sounds of fighting moved into the alley as both Lisa's MAC-11 and Cy's shotgun fell silent. It was over, and the three survivors had made it to their next goal.
The three humans now stood together again, in their ring as before and weapons at the ready, only this time they weren't fighting. They were catching their collective breaths. They were standing in the approximate center of the back parking lot of the Metro City Police Department (MCPD) substation on that side of town. There were two police cars parked there, a new one and an older one, as well as several regular automobiles and one small import pickup truck. A guard shack next to a gated entrance connecting the back lot to the one in front on that side of the building completed the picture. The gate was closed, but it did not appear to be locked. That gate, the one blocking access to the front, and the back doors of the police station were the only access points to the back parking lot other than the alley gate. Thankfully for the sake of the three survivors all were currently locked or blocked in some way, and this was what gave them their brief respite and allowed them to gather themselves once again.
Escape From Metro City Page 11
