The Dead Don't Bleed: Part 2, The Aftermath (33 page)

"Shellie, you can’t imagine how much bravery it has taken you just to get to this point. I have seen grown men step into battle who curled up on the ground and cried for their mothers when the first shot rang out. You have shown me over and over that you have what it takes to keep going just a little further. That pilot is as good as dead if we don't get in there and get him out." He wasn't sure he was getting through to her in the way he had intended so he decided to try a different approach. "That pilot could be our ticket out of here. Just hold it together for a little longer and there is a good chance this is the last time you will have to stick your neck out like this."

He saw that familiar spark of hope returning to her eyes. He hated filling her with false hope, but he rationalized it with himself that even though it might be only a slim chance it was at least a chance. The hope for salvation they all needed may just very well rest with their success in rescuing this one man.

Shellie closed her eyes and took several deep breaths trying to calm herself down and mentally prepare herself to get through the next few minutes without coming apart at the seams. Garrett stepped back from her and allowed her a few seconds to pick herself back up.

Turning back to face Garrett with a renewed look of determination in her eyes she said, "Alright,
let’s get this over with."

Huntress had no idea how long she had been asleep and had not intended to close her eyes for more than a minute or two. The mental and physical stress of her flight along with her ejection had left her completely drained. The aches and pains rippling through her muscles told her that she must have reached a point of sleep that allowed her body to relax long enough for stiffness to set in. Still half in a daze from her slumber it took her several seconds to realize what it was that had ripped from sleep in the first place. Her body tensed when there came a dull knocking on the outside of the door several feet behind her. The banging came again several seconds later, two knocks, a pause and then two more. It seemed to be some kind of nonsensical pattern that she was not able to place. At first she thought it was Morse code, but there was no related sequence in the sounds that made any sense. The pattern appeared to be deliberate and her hopes were suddenly raised that the rescue team may have already arrived and were searching for her. They could be on the other side of the door cautiously knocking to try and get her attention.

Stuffing the emergency beacon and radio back into the pockets of her flight suit, she picked up her pistol and cautiously walked over to the door. With her back to the wall she called out tentatively, "This is Lieutenant Olivia Frostburg from the USS Abraham Lincoln. Please identify yourselves."

She detected a distinct sound in response to her voice from the other side of the door, but it was garbled and muffled and she was unable to pick out the words. The knocking on the outside of the door increased in intensity and volume. When a similar knocking began further down the wall on the door at the other end of the break room she started to grow alarmed. A search party would surely not be making this much racket in a hostile environment. When the door next to her actually started to crack down the middle from the relentless pounding she realized she was in trouble. Stepping back towards the middle of the room, Huntress raised her pistol and took aim at the door. Several more forceful bangs on the outside and a two foot section of wood brook free and fell to the floor in front of the door. At the same time the top hinge gave way and the door sagged into the room well on its way to breaking free of the frame completely. Through the hole in the door she could see figures moving in the darkness, hands were visible as they pounded against the outside of the door. Even in the murky light she was able to see the discolored and filthy clothing as well as the jaundice tainted skin color of hands and arms that told her exactly what she was dealing with. She had been through briefings on the symptoms and conditions that they were likely to notice with the undead population leaving her little doubt what was coming through that door after her.

She couldn't tell how many were in the hallway
, there seemed to be at least four outside the door with the hole in it and probably another two or three at the other door. With each strike against the door more cracks appeared and it was clear that it was only a matter of moments before they were inside the room with her. With shaking hands and sweat running down her back she lifted her pistol and locked her elbows taking up a shooters stance to prepare for the inevitable onslaught of decaying flesh about to rush towards her. During her escape and evasion training she had put in many hours of handgun training in a variety of different circumstances. Finishing top amongst even her male peers she had always thought she would be ready for anything. Standing there now with a loaded pistol in her hand and readying herself to use that training in an actual live situation she wasn't so sure. Any confidence she may had had in her ability to handle such a situation was swept aside at the first sight of a pair of dead eyes staring at her through the crack in the door. There was no fear in those eyes, no comprehension that the person on the other side of that door could be a threat in any way. All Huntress saw in those eyes was the sheer determination to finish breaking through that door and reach her. Sighting in on the eyes she pulled back the trigger and blasted a hole in wall three inches to the right of her target. The eyes didn't even blink and the body didn't waiver in response to the gunfire. She fired twice more, both rounds again striking wide of the zombie. Even though she was sure the bullets had punched through the wall and must have hit some part of at least one of the bodies on the other side, there was no indication that her shots had even the slightest impact on the zombies coming for her.

The ominous sound of splintering wood from the second door at the far end of the room told her that she was just about out of time. The entire door frame was knocked loose with the lock still firmly engaged into the door itself. As the zombies on the outside pushed their weight against the door
, the frame moved forward and caught on the edge of a table situated only inches from the door. If they had managed to break through the lock the door would have swung open and given them free access to come pouring into the room. As it was, the extra several inches of door frame that broke free along with the door was wedged tightly against the corner of the table. She watched as four zombies filled the gap between the broken door and wall. The collective force of their weight against the door frame was already starting to buckle the only remaining obstacle keeping them from rushing towards her.

Another piece of wood from the middle of the
first door shot halfway across the room increasing the opening enough to allow a set of shoulders to fit through. Huntress watched as the first zombie wiggled its way through the opening as wooden slivers sticking out into the gap tore through cloth and flesh but didn't slow the creature’s progress in the least. Tumbling onto the floor inside the room, the creature jumped to its feet and began rushing wildly towards her. She recognized it for what it once was in its previous life, a young girl no more than ten or eleven years old. The girl was heavily overweight for her age and height but even the extra baggage she was carrying didn't slow her advance. With an animal like growl and exposed teeth ready to sink into the first piece of flesh she could reach, she charged across the room. Huntress blocked her age from her mind, she told herself that it was nothing more than a wild animal intent on doing her harm and not a prepubescent child who should be on a playground outside of an elementary school somewhere. Centering her sights on the zombie’s nose, she squeezed the trigger repeatedly in rapid succession. Out of five shots that she sent down range, three connected with the girls face, two of those punctured the brain in just the right place and sent the fat little monster tumbling to the ground where she rolled head over heels twice before finally coming to rest underneath a table several feet away. Huntress calculated the distance that single zombie had covered across the room and compared it to her reaction time and how much room remained between its final resting place and her own position. She realized that under those exact same conditions she might be able to stop two zombies if she sped up the time it took her to aim and fire by at least several seconds. Any more than two at once and she would not stand a chance. Looking from one door to the next all she could see was a solid mass of decomposing bodies pressing forward into the room. The sound of straining and cracking wood from both doors told her that her next encounter was going to include many more than two at once.

#

Sneaking through the halls of the office building had proved more challenging than Garrett had anticipated. The three zombies in the lobby had only been the tip of the iceberg once they got inside. Despite the general rectangular appearance of the building on the outside, the inside proved to be a labyrinth of short of long hallways running off in a different directions. Many of the hallways were outside the reach of the little light that was coming in from windows scattered here and there throughout the building and they had found themselves feeling their way cautiously in the dark on several occasions. The central part of the building had one long wide hallway that they had found labeled as Broadway. Tracks running along the floor and ceiling seemed to indicate that large pieces of equipment were routinely transported from one end of the hall to the other with a miniature crane system. That main hallway also appeared too been a very attractive location for fifty or more zombies who they found packed shoulder to shoulder from one end to the other. Backing cautiously away from the central part of the building they started following one corridor after another trying to find one that ultimately led towards the loading dock. It was Shellie who solved part of their problem by ripping a fire escape plan from the wall and making use of it as a crude map to guide them through the confusing maze of halls, offices and open work areas. Garrett had been forced to use his knife to dispatch zombies on two different occasions when they stumbled on them in dark hallways. They had been lucky both times that more of the undead had not been lurking nearby.

"Look." Shellie whispered as she grasped Garrett by the arm and directed his attention towards the end of an L-shaped hallway they were
about to walk past. At the end of the hallway four zombies were just disappearing from sight into the connecting corridor. They had only seen zombies moving fast like that when they were on the trail of some form or prey and there was only one type of prey that they would be so interested in.

Looking at the fire escape plan Garrett shook his head when he compared what was on paper to their actual surroundings. "Damn. I should have realized this. This plan is twelve years old, the building must have been renovated since then. That hallway should be
an outside wall. No wonder we haven't found the loading dock yet. The path that led there when these plans were drawn up has been cut up into smaller sections to support an open office design."

As the last zombie disappeared around the corner and out of sight, Garrett led the way to that same corner where he stopped and cautiously peeked around. The hallway the zombie had disappeared into led to an exterior door with a
n exit sign directly overhead. Doors lined the hallway on both sides but it was quickly evident exactly where the pilot must have been hiding. Garrett counted nine zombies stacked up against two different doors spread apart by about forty feet. They were crowding into the doorways and pounding incessantly against the closed doors. He could only guess that those doors must open into the same room and that the pilot was inside.

"Shit." He exclaimed as he ducked back out of sight next to Shellie, "there are about nine of them trying to get into a room from two different doors.
It’s a good bet our pilot is behind those doors right now."

As he was giving Shellie an overview of the situation his eyes fell on a glassed in fire kit built into the wall at the junction of the hallways. Inside the glass enclosure were two fire extinguishers, one water and the other chemical based, and more importantly a long handled fire axe. Taking another glance around the corner at the layout of the hallway and getting a feel for the overall distance, Garrett thought he had a plan that just might work. Taking a firm grasp on the handle of the glass case he was pleased to note that it was not locked and swung open without much difficulty.
Examining the contents he saw that the extinguisher filled with water was just about empty. He figured that some prankster on the staff had probably used it during an office party to dose his coworkers. The meter on the chemical extinguisher still read completely full. Since it was an eye irritant and would not be as much fun as a party trick they had left it alone until it was needed for its intended purpose. Grabbing the chemical extinguisher and axe, Garrett pulled the safety pin free from the extinguisher and handed it to Shellie.

"Keep the nozzle pointed down the hall. When they spot me pull back on the handle and don't let go until its empty." Garrett directed as he showed her how to fire the extinguisher. "Anything that gets past me you are going to have to take out on your own. Do you think you can handle that?"

Before she could answer they both heard a bone chilling splinter of wood from down the hall as the zombies managed to break through portions of the door. Garrett peeked back around the corner and saw that the door closest to him had been knocked inward several inches. Something on the inside of the room was preventing the door and its frame from falling over completely. Even with that impediment the zombies crowding up on that one door were now able to press forward a couple more feet and would soon be able to knock that door completely free and spill into the room beyond. Just a few seconds after that door was partially broken down, a large chunk of wood from the center of the other door disappeared into the room and a single small zombie worked its way through the opening. The sound of rapid fire gunshots from inside the room told them that the pilot was standing his ground. Garrett knew that once the rest of the zombies in the hall broke through the door that pilot wouldn't have a chance in hell in holding them back on his own.

"
It’s now or never. Are you ready?" Garrett asked as he hefted the axe over his shoulder and prepared to step around the corner.

Shellie lifted the extinguisher and pointed the nozzle around the corner whi
le nodding her head in reply, "Send them all back to hell."

As soon as Garret took his first step into the hallway, Shellie pulled back on the handle and began unleashing a thick spray of chemical fog that just about reached the zombies
piled up against the first door. The chemical dispersed into a dense white cloud that filled the hall in seconds. Charging through the spreading cloud of smoke, Garrett reached to the first group of zombies and began swinging the axe with all his strength. With that door leaning into the room and barely hanging on by two remaining hinges the undead pilled against it were off balance and could not react quickly enough to Garrett's sudden emergence from the blinding cloud of chemical fog. The axe cut smoothly and effortlessly through skin and skulls and in seconds Garrett had successfully chopped through all four brains leaving behind a scene from a slasher movie. Three zombies had their heads cut completely in half across either their face or the side of their head. The fourth had been dealt a decisive blow down into its skull by the pointed back end of the axe blade, resulting in a cavern dug down into his head that allowed the remnants of its liquefied brain to slowly ooze out in a spreading pool on the floor around its lifeless body.