Clickers vs Zombies (28 page)

“We’re gonna get there, Princess,” Rick said as they sped down Grape Street. “We’re gonna get there.”

Part of him was beginning to have doubts about that, though.

San Pedro, California

The moment he was off the phone, Richard immediately dived toward his friends, who were leaning against the basement door, trying to keep Sparky imprisoned down there.

“Jesus, he’s strong,” Richard grunted. He shouldered his way between Max and Paul and moved his shoulder into the door, using his legs to lean into it and give more pressure. The girls were positioned in the center of the door, lending their entire weight to it. The thing that had once been Sparky roared and shoved at the door from within the basement. The door budged open half an inch and then was slammed shut by the combined effort of Richard, Melody, Paul, Mary, and Max. Mary was crying in panic; of the five of them, she was lending the least effort in keeping the basement door shut.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Paul asked. He was looking at Richard as if Richard had all the answers.

Richard had no answers.

The speed at which everything had disintegrated in the last thirty minutes as they’d ventured out of that third floor apartment to investigate that falling sound coming from across the hall seemed like a bad nightmare now. The girls hadn’t wanted them to investigate what the sound was. Melody had clutched Richard’s arm and said, “Don’t go, Rich, please!” But Max and Sparky were already moving into the room, the older gang banger brandishing his weapon, ready to shoot anything that moved. Richard had urged the girls to stay behind in the back bedroom of the empty apartment—they were just going to check it out. They’d entered the darkened room, trying to make out the rotted furniture that had been left behind. Richard remembered their earlier trip up there yesterday; they’d done a quick sweep then, and Richard noticed this room must have been a nursery. The walls had the remnants of pink and green wallpaper with baby elephants on it. There had been a large oak dresser near the corner and an old-fashioned looking crib against another wall. The position of the sun and the drawn, heavy curtains gave the room a dark, gloomy appearance.

They’d entered the room and stood there, looking around, trying to see what had fallen. Paul had motioned to the open closet door. “It’s an old building,” he’d whispered. “Maybe it’s just the place settling.”

That’s when something had darted out from beneath the crib and launched itself at Sparky’s ankle.

Sparky had bellowed in rage and pain, flaying back, almost falling. Paul and Max had yelled in surprise and the girls had screamed. Richard didn’t realize he’d screamed until he felt his throat burn—he’d darted toward the door to the bedroom in an effort to be near Melody. It was from that position that Richard had seen what had attacked Sparky.

The baby must have only been six months old when it died. How a baby could have wound up in a condemned building was beyond Richard’s comprehension, but they’d seen evidence of squatters here. Maybe a homeless couple with a baby had sought refuge here at some point. If so, the infant had died in this room and his parents had left it, probably in the crib—that explained the falling sound; the baby had fallen to the floor as it pulled itself out of the crib. Maybe its parents had left shortly before all hell had broken loose, too emotionally traumatized to take their child with them and whatever force powered the zombies had moved in. As Richard watched in a stunned kind of horror, he noticed how the infant’s purplish-white, mottled skin was stretched thin over brittle bones. The poor thing had been malnourished. Could that have been what killed it? Could that be why it sank its infant teeth into Sparky’s ankle and bit hard, holding on with thin limbs as Sparky yelled and kicked at it, trying to shake it off.

“Get it off!” Sparky had yelled. “Get this fucking thing off me!”

Everybody had been frozen, unsure of what to do. Sparky’s attempt to shake the thing off made him lose his balance. He fell to the floor. The assault rifle clattered to the ground. Richard thought it would go off, but it hadn’t. Sparky kicked his right leg out as if trying to shake a mean little dog that had fastened itself to his ankles. The zombie baby clung stubbornly. Its baby teeth broke off from the force of its bite. Richard had seen blood well in the bite wound as the zombie gnawed at the flesh.
It’s gnawing on him with the bones of it’s jaw
, Richard had thought, fascinated.
Jesus, that’s sick!

It had been Max who’d darted forward and, like a punter racing to score a goal for his team, had launched a kick that connected solidly with the zombie baby. The creature flew across the room and crashed against the wall. Paul leaped for the rifle, brought it around, aimed, and fired a volley of shots as the creature began crawling toward them. Most of the shots missed, but the last five blasted the little creature apart in a spray of dried bones and skin. The last was a headshot; it’s skull exploded like old pottery being blown apart by an M80.

In the panic that ensued Robert had been quick thinking. “Quick!” he’d said. “We need to get him downstairs.”

Max had stepped forward and helped Sparky stand up. Sparky was stunned; he was breathing heavy, his eyes wide with shock and surprise. “Fucking shit, man, you see that? What the fuck was that?”

“Come on,” Paul said. He’d approached Sparky to help Max.

Robert sprang forward, knowing he had to act quickly. He turned to Paul. “Hang on to that,” he said, gesturing to the assault rifle. He turned to Sparky, who was more concerned with his bloody ankle than his weapons. “Let’s get some of this stuff off you and get you downstairs,” he said. He began pulling Sparky’s coat off—it was a large, blue denim coat that was loose and baggy.

As he pulled the coat off, Sparky shrugged out of it, favoring his right leg. He handed the coat to Richard and turned his attention back to his ankle. “Fuck, man, look at that shit! What the fuck was that thing?”

Richard quickly patted the coat down. There was a handgun stuffed in the inside left pocket and several clips of ammunition in the other pockets. Hoping he’d gotten them all, he urged Sparky forward. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Yeah,” Sparky said. If Sparky noticed that he no longer carried any weapons, he didn’t give any indication.

Richard, Paul, and Max herded Sparky out of the room. As they moved past the girls, who were cowering in the hallway, Richard told them, “Follow us.”

Sparky had talked on the way down. “Fucking little piece of shit bit my ankle! Did you see that? Damn!” He clearly favored his ankle, and he hobbled as quickly as he could, supported on either side by Richard and Max. Paul led the way, cradling the rifle.

When they got to the first floor Paul glanced at Richard, who nodded. Paul had been on his wavelength. It was like that with them. They’d been best friends since they were eight years old. When Richard had wanted to build a fort in his backyard it had been Paul who’d agreed with him that they would not allow Carl Guran to join their club by suggesting they build their fortress in the large oak tree in Richard’s backyard. Carl was afraid of trees. Wouldn’t go near them for some reason. What kind of moron was afraid of trees for God’s sakes? Carl annoyed both of them in other ways, though; he wiped his runny nose constantly and left smears of snot on their comic books whenever they got together; he picked his nose; he picked his butt; he also played with himself in full view of everybody, even the girls. Richard and Paul had complained to their parents about Carl, but their mothers insisted he was harmless. “He’s just slow, honey,” Richard’s mom had told them. “He’s mentally handicapped. He can’t help it. Go easy on him, okay?” So they’d been forced to go easy on him for most things, but when it came to their clubhouse Richard had put his foot down. Richard didn’t want Carl to have access to the clubhouse at all. Neither did Paul. Each of them knew the other didn’t want to have anything to do with Carl, so Paul had casually suggested that Richard build the clubhouse in his tree. Problem solved.

That simple nod was all it took. When they reached the basement door, Paul opened it and stepped aside to cover their entrance with the assault rifle. Sparky began to head down the stairs and then Richard gave him a hard shove the moment he entered the basement’s threshold. There was a startled, “What are you doing?” protest from one of the girls behind him, a startled yelp from Sparky, and then the gang-banger was crashing down the stairs and Paul shut the door and put his back to it. His eyes had been wide and panicked as they’d stared into Richard’s face.

The fall didn’t kill Sparky. If anything, it had only made him mad. After cursing the five of them loud and vehemently, he’d limped back upstairs and started pounding on the basement door, shoving against it, trying to force it open. In the three minutes it had taken Sparky to muster the strength to come upstairs, Paul had nodded at Max and told him to go upstairs and drag down the bureau that was in one of the bedrooms in the apartment. It looked pretty sturdy. By this point, all five of them were on the same wavelength—Sparky had been bitten. He was going to turn into a zombie. Therefore, they had to isolate him before he turned.

Except…Richard wasn’t so sure, When he paused to think about it. Yes, in movies and books it was the bite of a zombie that infected a person, but was that really happening in real life? Hadn’t they seen zombies outside that showed no signs of being bitten? Frowning, he decided to keep his uncertainty to himself.

“You putos,” Sparky said, his voice growing weak. “I fucked myself up going down those stairs. Look at all this fucking blood. You better open the door. I need help.”

Max and Mary had gone upstairs for the dresser. Melody had been too stunned by everything; she was still trying to process what had happened just a few minutes ago upstairs with the zombie baby. By the time Sparky had come around and was trying to shove the basement door open—why couldn’t there have been a way to lock it from the outside as well as the inside?—they had gotten the bureau down the first set of stairs and were trying to maneuver it around the landing. That was when Dad had called.

Richard had to call out to Max and Mary to help him and Paul hold the door shut while he fumbled for his cell phone. Sparky’s threats had given way to begging and pleading. Finally, his voice faltered, and he simply sobbed. Then, even that ceased.

“Think he’s dead?” Paul asked.

Richard nodded.

Max frowned. “What’s wrong with you, Richard?”

“What if we’re wrong? What if it wasn’t the bite that—”

It was at that point when Sparky’s corpse began beating the door.

“
I can smell you out there, meat!
” It cackled madly. It’s strength had seemed enormous, more so than any normal human’s. It had taken all five of them to hold the door closed as the zombie pushed at it, inching it open a bit at a time. Richard had managed to tell his dad the building they were trapped in was the third apartment building down from where the street was fenced in, then the connection was broken. He was positive he’d heard him. It sounded like Dad was on the way.

“Dad’s coming,” Richard had said as he joined them in holding the door to the basement closed.

“Oh, thank God,” Melody had said.

“What are we gonna do?” Max asked. His face was slick with sweet. His once cocky-attitude had deteriorated in the last sixteen hours or so. He looked absolutely lost at sea.

“We can’t hold him in there forever,” Mary said. She was leaned back into the door with her brother, huffing and puffing with the exertion.

“
Listen to her, meat sacks!
” the zombie cackled. Its voice was rough and gritty and not human. “
You can’t hold me in here forever. Soon, you will grow weaker. And as you weaken, I will get stronger! When I get out of here, I will dine on your bone marrow and your intestines. I will make a necklace out of your spine!
”

And just like that Richard and Paul locked eyes with each other again and knew what they had to do. They nodded. Richard took a deep breath, mentally preparing himself for what was to come. The thing down there was right—they couldn’t keep it shut down there forever. They were already starting to get tired. If Dad didn’t get here soon, it would break free and they would all become legions of the dead.

Paul shifted his weight on the door a little to the right, closer to the hinges. Melody took up the slack and he gripped the assault rifle, keeping the barrel pointed to the floor. He motioned to Richard. “Give me another clip,” he mouthed. Richard had grabbed Sparky’s jacket, which he’d set on the floor near the basement door. He pulled out a black magazine that was fully loaded and handed it to Paul.

“What’s happening?” Mary asked. She was starting to break down as the zombie grew stronger and began to hammer at the door with greater strength. The door was edging open more. Soon they wouldn’t be able to keep it closed—it would slip a hand through, giving it a greater chance of escape.

Paul ejected the clip in the rifle and slapped in the fresh one Richard had given him. For a guy who’d never handled a gun in his life, Paul was doing okay. With the fresh clip in place, Paul nodded at Richard. “Guys, on three I want you all to stop holding the door closed and get out of the way.”

The zombie cackled downstairs. “
Yes! Stop holding the door closed! Let me through!
”