Hell Bound (Book 1): A Vacation From Hell (4 page)

              “Sam, we need to pack everything up…. Samantha!”He yells at me, breaking me away from my horrible thoughts.

              Slowly looking up at his handsome face, sweat soaks his hair, drops fall from his nose to the ground; his pants are stained with brown spots. I put my hand on his face and pull our heads together.

              “Sorry, yes pack everything up,” I whisper.

              Trying to get my feet to cooperate with me and make an effort to steady them. I grab Kat by her shoulders and shake her. She must still be in shock because she keeps mumbling the same three words over and over again. 

              I shake her even harder and when that doesn’t seem to work, I slap her across the face. Her head snaps to the side, slowly she turns and faces me as if she is seeing me for the first time. She whispers,

“Zombies.”

Chapter 6

Monsters don’t sleep under your bed,

They sleep in your head

-Unknown-

             
I look between Mathew and Kat, wondering if I heard right. I repeat those god awful words in my head over and over again “
ZOMBIES
!”

              Jumping up and start packing everything I can get my hands on. Thankfully Kat has snapped out of her trance because she got up and went to the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

    From the corner of my eye, I see Mathew looking for a weapon. Mathew opens the drawers on the nightstand next to the bed and comes out empty handed.

              I crawl to my bag I was carrying and dig for my cell phone, grabbing my phone out of my bag and make a attempt to call my parents. But all I receive is a busy signal. I grab the remote control from the nightstand and switch on the Television. Flipping through all of the channels, but all I see is an emergency signal.

              I go through every single channel over and over again, but it’s still the same thing. Mathew stops in the middle of his searching and looks at the Television for a couple seconds and then goes back to looking for a weapon.

              “We have nothing to defend ourselves with,” Mathew says as he is searching through the room.

    “Can we break the legs off of the tables or chairs? Wouldn’t that be enough to get us safely to the car?”I question, as I stare at Mathew.

   “Good idea, we can use it as a bat.”

              Kat comes out of the bathroom looking a little more coherent than she did when she went in. Mathew lifts the chair over his head and throws it against the wall as hard as he can. The chair brakes apart into four pieces. Leaning down Mathew grabs three pieces and hands each of us one.

              Mathew grabs one of our bags and swings it over his shoulder “carry what you can and leave the rest if we carry too much we won’t be able to fight those things off.”

              I grab the bag that is closest to me and our car keys, holding the keys in my right hand. My left hand carry’s the broken chair leg, with the sharp side facing out. Any weapon is better than no weapon. 

              “If these zombies are anything like the ones in the movies then aim for the head,” I say looking at everyone. “Kat are you sure you don’t want to come with us?”

Hoping I can convince her to come along, I would hate to leave her behind by herself.   

     She walks to the window and lifts the curtain to the side; this must be hard for her.

    “I can’t leave my sister behind Can I try your phone Sam?”

I pull out my phone and hand it to her.

              She walks to the bed, sitting down. I can hear her dialing her sister’s number

  “We have a signal, just two bars,” she says hopefully.

              I’m so exhausted from the running earlier, I just want to roll over and sleep. Mathew gets up and walks to the bathroom, feels up a plastic cup with water.

    “No answer,” Kat says shaking her head in disappointment.

    “Want to come with us, but leave a message for your sister, you can tell her to meet us at my parent’s house in California; the address is red hill California, 2112 Apple Street. It’s a whole lot safer than staying here alone,” I try to say convincingly.

    “You two wouldn’t mind me coming with you?” Kat says relieved.

    “No of course not, you will be safer with us than by yourself, safer in numbers. In this godforsaken hotel,” Mathew answers her.

    “Ok, let me call her again and tell her where to meet us.”

    “Emily, if you get this message please meet me at red hill California, 2112 Apple Street. Don’t come to this hotel. It is crawling with zombies. If you can, could you call me back at this number, to let me know your safe,” Kat hangs up the phone and hands it back to me. She looks relieved and sad at the same time.             

              Mathew stands by the window looking outside, walking up to him I rest my head on his chest and look up into his brown eyes “I love you,” I whisper to him.               He wraps his strong arms around me, holding me tight against his chest, like if at any moment I will break into two pieces.

    “I love you too Sam. Let’s kick some zombie ass.”

     He gives me a tiny smirk and his smile fades,

   “Ok, stay behind me, Kat we have the little blue lancer part right below us, stay together and run like hell.”

              We nod our heads and hold out our makeshift weapons in our hands. Mathew opens the door and the screaming starts again. The smell of smoke and death hits me in the face.

              My eyes begin to water and my stomach tries to spill whatever fluids I have left on the floor.

   “Let’s go,” Mathew whispers.

              Quickly, running down the stairs, I keep looking around us to make sure no one is coming after us. We reach the bottom of the stairs and turn towards the direction of our lancer.  I hold the keys a little tighter hoping and praying to god that I don’t drop them.

              Reaching the door of the car, I push the button on the keyless entry to unlock the doors.  We waste no time jumping into the car. Mathew throws the bags in the back and grabs the keys from me. I’m about to shut my door when a hand grabs my arm, jumping in my seat, I scream as I turn my head towards the hand that grabbed me.              

              A zombie who was bitten on his neck tries to grab me with his free hand, but I manage to kick him off and make him lose his grip and fall on the floor. I lean over him and try grabbing the door before the zombie is able to get a hold of me again. Slamming the door shut.

              Mathew grabs my arm and looks me over “Are you ok? Did he bite you?”

    “No he didn’t bite me, yes I’m ok,” I stammer. He checks me two more times before he is convinced enough to start the car.

              The zombie that tried to bite me slam’s his body full force into the side of the car. The car shakes a little bit but before he was able to jump at the car again we speed off.

              Turning around to look out the back window and see the zombie who tried to bite me, turn his attention to someone else. We pass the lady who was on the floor and all that is left of her is broken half eaten pieces of what’s left of her. You can’t even tell that it was a woman.

              Looking away from her, and turn my attention towards Kat. “Are you ok?” I ask as I look her over.  

              “Yes, are you ok?” She questions. I nod my head and turn around to face Mathew. His mouth is crushed so tight together I’m afraid he might break a tooth.   

   “Mathew?” He looks at me for a split second and turns back to the road 

              “We need to stop and get food and water, just in case your parents don’t have enough, and we also need weapons,” he says quickly.

              I nod my head and rub his thigh, hoping that would calm him down a bit. I doubt it would help him. After all how calm can you possibly be during a zombie apocalypse?

              “There’s a Walmart two blocks away from here, and I think a bass pro shop about five blocks away from Walmart,” Kat mentions. “I have never been to the bass pro shop, I just remember my sister saying that it’s close to WalMart, she said five blocks.”     

              “Can you show us the way to WalMart?” I ask hopeful.

   “Yes,” Kat says.

     Turning my attention towards Mathew, I ask, “what happens if WalMart is crawling with zombies?” 

    “We all go in together and we come out together, we need food and lots of water, we are not going to make it far without supplies. Plus we need extra supplies for your parents and our boys.”

     I notice he dodges my question, but I leave it alone for now.

Chapter 7

While I thought that I was

Learning how to live,

  I have been learning how to die.

-Leonardo da vinci-

             
We pull into the WalMart and just like we thought it would be its pure madness. There are people running in all different directions, I see cars speeding through the parking lot and running over the curbs just to get away.

              Customers have carts full of food and other items running from the store to the safety of their vehicles. But I don’t see zombies, not yet anyways.

              Pulling into a parking space fairly close to the front of the store, but not too close where we will get hit by the cars flying by.

              We run straight for the nearest doors and each of us grabs a cart. It’s crazy in here, there is a child on the floor screaming for his mother near the front doors, I can hear glass shattering down one of the isles, and I see food scattered all over the floor. Every step I take I smash food. It’s a madhouse in here.

              Running towards the bread section, we start grabbing things and throwing them in the cart. Any other time I would get mad at Mathew because he is smashing the bread, but today I don’t care.

              I just want out of this store and on our way home to our boys.  Kat is behind me grabbing bags of bagels that she can find. Unfortunately, there is not much left. It seems like everyone has beat us to the store. 

              We head towards the canned food isle and grab anything that is left, this isle is worse than the bread isle. I reach for the last cream of corn can at the same time someone else grabs it. I look up to see whose hand it belongs to, it’s an older chubbier women. She looks like she has been crying because her eyeliner is running down her face.

              “Let go of the can now!” she says with a mean smirk on her face.

      I look toward her cart and notice she has what seems to be every can food that was on this isle.

      “No, you have a lot, let us have some?” Without a warning, she punches me across the face and laughs.

              I fall to the floor dropping the can next to me. “Owe,” I say grabbing my eye. Before I even had a chance to grab the canned corn the chubby women grabs it off the floor and walks away without another word and turns the corner.

              Mathew and Kat are by my side immediately, “are you ok?” they ask me while helping me to my feet.

    “Owe yes, my eye hurt’s badly. That woman punched me,” I say as my eyes start to water. Both of my eyes are blurry, I can’t seem to see out of them.

              “I’m sorry Sam I was looking in the back of the shelf’s for food when I looked over and saw that lady punch you.” Mathew says concerned while moving my hand to examine my eye. I can already start to feel my eye swelling up.

              “Why did that woman punch you?” Kat asked curiously.

      “Because I grabbed the last can corn from the shelf.”

   “Can you see babe?”

    I nod my head at Mathew, even though my eyes are really blurry.  It’s bad enough that there is a zombie apocalypse outside, but now I can barely see, this sucks.

              I ignore the pain from my already black and blue eye because we have more important things to take care of then to worry about me. Each aisle we go through has less and less food in them. We make it to the water Isle and we are able to find two twenty four packs of Fiji water bottles.

              Rushing towards the sports section, we find a bat, batteries and flashlights, a tent, portable camping stove, and little propane bottles for the stove. I look towards the back of the isle and see two sleeping blankets on the floor, grabbing them off the ground I through them in Kats groceries cart.

              “We need Tylenol,” I say as I rub my head near my eye. I got a major headache and I know for a fact it won’t go away unless I pop some pills. We head to the medicine isle but, unfortunately, that has been clean out as well. I reach my hand to the back of the shelf and luckily find one bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol.

         “Found one,” I say holding it up towards Mathew and Kat.

              “Let’s go,” Mathew says with a look in his eyes that gives me the shivers.               Jogging back towards the exit, we hear the loud screeching scream coming from the front of the store. The three of us look at each other and take off running towards the opposite exit from where the screaming is coming from.

              Almost reaching the exit when a customer bumps into me knocking me to the ground, he looks down at me and yells    “RUN!”

              Trying to look towards the direction that the man came from, but the blurriness still hasn’t gone away. I strain my eye to look, but all I see is a blurry man slowly coming towards me.

              Mathew grabs me by the arm and pulls me to my feet “Sam Hurry! Grab your cart and run!”

              I see Kat already running in front of us and I try to keep up with her. As I turn my head towards the screaming sound, I can see why Mathew is yelling at us to run.

              The man is about 6’2 and he’s foaming out of the mouth, his eyes are bloodshot red with puss coming out of the sides. He is slowly coming towards us, almost as if he is toying with us. An inhuman scream comes from his mouth so loud my ears are ringing.

              I run as fast as I can towards the exit of the store, when I hear Mathew scream. Kat and I stop dead in our tracks and turn around. Mathew is on the floor trying to fight the giant zombie off of him. I grab the bat and run to towards Mathew.

              Grabbing the Bat out of the cart, I swing the bat full force at the head of the giant. I hit the zombie in the head, but he doesn’t stop trying to bite Mathew. I swing again but this time I missed his head and got the side of his shoulder. I must have pissed him off because he turns around and looks at me as if I’m his next meal.

              A scream escapes my mouth, so loud I didn’t even know my voice can reach that high. Somehow Kat is behind the giant and she jumps on his back and starts to stab his head with a Sharpe object. She is holding a piece of glass; she slams it in the giants head over and over again, blood splatters everywhere, he finally goes down.

              She rolls onto the floor next to Mathew; I run to them and help them to their feet. They seem ok other than the blood that is dripping off of Kats hand; I’m not sure if she cut herself with the knife or if the blood is from the giant.

              But before I have time to ask her if she is ok, we hear another screeching sound coming from the toy aisle behind us. We scramble to our feet and grab our carts and run for the parking lot.

              The parking lot is worse than what it was when we first went into the store. The loud screeching scream is coming from everywhere. A woman standing in front of us is holding her bloody arm while another body is lying on the floor next to her.

              We take off running towards the direction of our car. My legs are burning so bad I’m surprised I can even run at all. Mathew pushes the button on the keyless entry that makes the trunk pop open.

              All three of us start throwing everything in the back of the car not caring if we are smashing bread or denting cans. Before we know it the trunk is full and we still have a cart full of groceries and other stuff.

              Kat opens the passenger door and without a word each of us just keeps throwing things in the car. Finally, we’re done loading the car. We jump in the car and surprisingly without another zombie attack; we race out of the parking lot.

              I pull down the sun visor to take a look at the damage that the chubby women did to me. My eye is black and blue and it looks like it swelled up to the size of a golf ball. I can’t open my eye and it’s hard to see with just the one good eye.

              My blurry vision subsided a little, enough where I can see what’s in front of me, my head is pounding so bad it feels like someone is playing drums against my skull. I pop open the Tylenol bottle and swallow two of them.

              Unfortunately we did not grab any meat from the meat department for fear of it going bad before we use it up, so I have nothing to help the swelling to go down.

“We will be needing gas,” Mathew says out loud to us.

              Great, with our luck today there will be a line of cars trying to get to the gas station too.  I turn around to make sure Kat is ok. The blood on her hands is already drying up and turning to crust “are you ok? Is that your blood?”

     She looks down at her hands and starts to rub off the blood on her pants. “No, it’s not my blood.”

     “Thank you Kat for saving our ass back there” she gives me a smile and I lean over and give her a half hug from the front of the car.

              “Do we even want to attempt to go into Bass Pro Shop?” I say to everyone in the car.

    “I’m not sure, If WalMart was that bad, can you imagine a place like Bass Pro shop,” Mathew says while trying to pay attention to the road.