POW! (Book 1): The Zombie Days (10 page)

Silence.
Damn, I'm good.

We began firing at the horde. It seemed to be working even in the early stages. This was good, but I thought that I could improve upon this with a little bit more organization.

"Cease fire! There are four of us. To ensure no one tries for the same deadite and avoid wasting what ammo we have left, we'll split the street into four sectors of fire. Cliff, you'll take the first quarter of the road. Kyle, you're the second quarter. After that it's me and then finally Mac. Ladies, if you wouldn't mind cracking off a few rounds into those that are approaching the gate it would be a fantastic help. RESUME THE BLOOD BATH!"

I wondered how often that sentence had been shouted in human history. It was, quite possibly, the most fitting thing I could have said. Sure there was no arterial spray—they're already dead, and therefore, have no heartbeat to push the blood around to squirt out of their many wounds. But, the rounds would rip off chunks of flesh wherever they struck and they would destroy their frail heads entirely. The zombies would then fall, and the higher the wall got the lower their heads could be below their feet. It was like watching that syrup as it poured out of the bottle and onto our pancakes. They essentially turned into gruesome Mrs. Butterworth’s Blood Bottles. I felt like sharing this image of undead pancakes with the girls, but decided they wouldn't enjoy the imagery nearly as much as I did. The street was a river of thick, old, nearly black blood. I found it rather funny to watch as some of them slipped around in it as they tried to get closer to us.

"When this is all over, I can't wait to describe this to an artist. I'm going to have a painting of this above my fireplace!" I shouted, perhaps enjoying the moment a little bit too much.

"Not if you plan on me ever being there!” cried Evelyn. “This is disgusting, and I'm pretty sure I'll never be able to unsmell this gruesome scene! The only thing keeping me from throwing up all over the place is the thought of how delicious that syrup was on those pancakes. I'd hate for all of it to go to waste."

I laughed out loud.

"What?" asked Evelyn. It looked like she was happily thinking of the syrup.

"If I told you I'm sure you'd only be more pissed at this situation. Trust me!" I laughed.

"We have to get to my dad, Pete! How the hell are we going to get down off of this roof?"

"I haven't found a way to just yet, darling. In case you hadn’t noticed, I've been a tad bit busy. Give me a second to think," I said, still shooting.

I stood and began to walk the perimeter of the roof, looking for a way to flee the over run camp. First things first, we'll need a way off of this roof. I opened the door that led back into the school.

"
BRAINS
!"

Okay, looks like the smart one escaped.
I grabbed a large barrel that was being stored on the roof as a rain catch and moved it in front of the door. That ought to hold him, but how would we get down? Clearly going back the way we came was no longer an option.

I walked around the roof to the side nearest to where we had last seen Jose. For some reason, there was one lone zombie down there standing by the fence, not far from the headless corpse of Jose. Aside from that, the street seemed clear. This would serve my plan perfectly. I ran over to the others.

"HEY!” They stopped firing and looked at me. “That's just about good enough, wouldn’t you say? Mac and Cliff, wait until you hear the cue, then come to us. There's nothing left here for you guys. Until you get the signal, just keep picking them off." I turned to my roof crew. "You three, follow me."

"What cue?" yelled Cliff. It was too late. We had already gone. He and Mac continued about business as usual.

I grabbed the rope from around Kyle’s neck.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," said Carolina.

I walked over to the roof-mounted air conditioning unit and wrapped one ends of the rope around it and securely tied it off. I then walked over to the edge of the building and dropped the slack off, watching as it fell to the ground. It was just long enough.

"I'm pretty sure you can all guess what's about to happen here,” I said. “We're going to have to climb down the rope if we want to get out of this hellhole alive."

"And then jump over the razor wire into that guy’s mouth? Great plan, Einstein." I think Carolina was reverting back to her old ways; not a fan of mine.

"Are you guys ready? Kyle, you’re going to go ahead and climb down first. Then I’ll send Carolina, Evelyn, and finally me. Let's do this. But first-"

I released my current magazine and ejected the round in the chamber, placing it back in the magazine. I then grabbed the one in my cargo pocket, inserted it, and put a fresh incendiary round in the chamber. I took aim at the single zombie down below and fired the incendiary round into his gut.

***POW***

The zombie exploded and with it a good sized chunk of both of the fences.

Kyle went over the edge immediately after the explosion.

"I'm down, send Carolina!" he shouted from the bottom.

"Just hold on tight. It'll only last a second," I said, looking Carolina in the eye and trying my best to make her feel comfortable. She grabbed the rope and hesitantly went over. Her face was painted with nervousness, but she did what was needed.

As I looked down, I saw Mac and Cliff arriving at Kyle's location. It looked like they knew what their cue after all. Carolina was now safely on the ground as the three men were there to help her land softly.

"You're up next," I said to Evelyn. I saw below that Kyle had sent the other two down the road to make sure that our path ahead would be clear.

I watched below as Evelyn reached the ground. I grabbed the rope and I slid down, wondering how my luck would go. In this situation it seemed as though the rope could either snap and I would be dead the moment I landed or I could reach the bottom to be informed that all of the zombies were dead and life would return to normal. What an odd string of luck I'd had these past few days.

I reached the bottom, which was a good sign. Everyone had made it down from the roof and out of the compound without incident.

"Let's go see how our friends are doing," I said, leading the group down to where Mac and Cliff were patiently waiting.

"What the hell is going on over here? Some kind of union mandated break? Get the hell back to work before I fire both of your asses!" I said with my best foreman voice.

"Mac, what the hell's wrong with your friend? I'm about to knock his ass the fuck out," said Cliff bowing out his chest. The last thing I wanted right here in such proximity to the zombie crowd was to throw down with a fellow living person.

"Chill out, Cliff,” said Mac. “Pete's just one of those guys that finds a joke in everything he does. If you stick around long enough you'll learn to love him. But I warn you, his humor is rather infectious, and you may end up sounding just like him after a while."

"They seem like a couple of slack-jawed faggots to me," said Cliff, clearly looking for a fight.

"Well, my boyfriend and I take that as quite a compliment, so thank you, Señor Hillbilly. And, just so you know, I've had many compliments on my jaw, thank you very much!"

“Hey, how’d I get thrown in there? What’d I do?” asked Kyle.

"Boyfriend? I thought you were all mine, now!" Evelyn chimed in beginning to stir shit up, too.

"C’mon, I've got enough Wonder to spread around for everyone. But first, we must continue on our quest! Now, let's roll on out of here, kiddies. Mac, I assume y'all are kind of in between jobs at the moment, so would you two care to join our merry band?" Cliff looked pissed, but said nothing more.

"You know I'm down for some LARPing, bro, but I've got to stop at my place and grab some supplies and shit before we get too far into this Lord of the Rings-esque journey."

"Sounds good to me. I checked over by your place when I was up top, just in case the need should arise. It looked clear, but I don't know where these turds are going to start floating off to now that the wall of the dead is in place . . . or where exactly they were coming from in the first place, actually. They must have crumbled a section of the wall over by the housing building. We'd better hurry it up if we want to play it safe."

"You know it, bro. Let's roll. You comin', Cliff?" Mac asked.

"What the fuck else do I got to do? This place turned to shit the second these ass clowns got here. So, yes. I'd love to help them fix whatever little problem they may have. Did you lose your dolly, little girl?" I guess I knew why Cliff wasn’t very happy with me. Our group was clearly responsible for bringing death and destruction upon his home.

"No, you shit for brains, backwoods asshole. I did not 'lose my dolly.' We are looking for the man who knows what's going on here and we are trying to stop him and his team from turning this little paradise, which we all know and love, into something far worse."

"Paradise?” Cliff repeated. “In case you missed it, girly, we just killed a couple hundred zombies, some of which used to be good friends of mine. The streets are so deep with blood that I could probably go catch some zombie fish in there. It looks like Venice if it died and went straight to hell. I'd like to go to my house to pack a bag too, but I'd need a goddamn skiff boat to get to it!"

"And you think that's bad?” Evelyn retorted. “If we don't get to my dad before it's too late, you'll look back at this day fondly as you bow down to your new zombie overlords! What this research team that you work for is doing, whether they know it or not, is increasing the intelligence of these dead people that already figured out how to walk and, in at least one case, even speak. And as far as I'm concerned, that puts them right in line with, if not beyond, you on the evolutionary scale!"

"Hey guys,” I interrupted. “I just realized I haven't said anything in like thirty seconds, so if you wouldn't mind leaving my girlfriend the FUCK ALONE, I might not have to end up knocking you the fuck out, Cliff. You can say whatever you want to me, I’m a pretty resilient guy, but leave her out of this. We’re all sorry for what’s happened to you and your friends here today—we get how much it fucking sucks. No one is dragging you along for the ride, but if we do end up making it through this you may wind up being a hero. And bitches love heroes. Now, if you want all the ladies to think that you're a hero, you'd better start acting like a fucking man first. If you call one of these beautiful women "girly" or any shit like that, we're going to make you out to be the biggest jerk off in history. Got it? Now let's all just re-fucking-start and make like we're all old friends, a’ight?"

"Man, that little back and forth there was almost as intense as that shoot out in the street we just had. Do you guys remember that? Shit was off the hook." Clearly, Kyle felt compelled to say something either to hide his discomfort at the situation or just to try to back me up. He gave me a grin like a dog that had just successfully rolled over on command.

Mac's building was now just a stone's throw away.

"Sure, bud. Check it out, kids. You, Mac and Cliff are going to head on up to Mac's place and grab whatever we may need. I'll wait out here with the 'little girls' and keep an eye out for more red paint to decorate the town with. And make sure you grab some pancakes if there were any leftovers!" I shouted up at them as they headed up the stairs.

"Alright ladies, go ahead and take a seat on the curb. I know I'm pretty beat. We've got a few minutes to just relax, finally, so let’s enjoy it," I said, squatting down on the red painted curb. It was nice seeing the fire hydrant and knowing that it was actual red paint coloring the curb and not bits of zombie flesh.

"What are your intentions with my daughter, Peter?" Carolina asked before I was even fully seated.

"Mom!" Evelyn shouted, blushing with embarrassment.

"Oh shit . . . for real?" I said as I settled in.

"Yes 'for real!' I'm her mother and I need to make sure you're not going to hurt my little girl! What are your intentions, Peter?"

"Uh, well,” I began, “in the short term my intentions are to make sure all of you people don't die before me. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I haven't really thought too much past that. I guess I’ve been sort of busy since I met your daughter. Once there isn't a task that involves trying to save the world, or whatever it is we may be doing, I might be able to plan something more. For right now, let's just focus on the situation at hand, okay?"

"You had better not hurt her."

"Mom, quit it!"

"Ugh! In case you haven't noticed, and in case you weren't listening to my little rant just now, I'm doing my very best to ensure that no harm comes to your daughter. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to make sure nothing bad happens to
any
of us! And, not to toot my own horn or anything, but it looks like I've done a pretty damn fine job so far. Toot fucking toot!"

"Peter, settle down. Mom, don't get him all worked up; there’s no need for that. He's in a really damn stressful situation at the moment, but I trust him and you should, too. He's been basically forced into this predicament, and he's been doing everything he can to make it suck less for all of us, and he's been doing a pretty good job so far, as he so modestly pointed out just now. Without him we wouldn't have met Mac or Jose. It looks to me that you owe him an apology and a great big 'thank you for keeping us alive while trying to find my husband' speech."