The Horror Squad: An Apocalyptic Tale (7 page)

“Something is outside.” Sidnie whispered.

Lisa held her hand up telling them to stay where they were and pulled a large knife from a side holster from her hip and tip toed down the hallway. She stood next to the wall and rounded her head to look out of the door window. She looked back at Kris, Karen and Sidnie standing in the middle of the hall and waved them to move to the side of the hallway. Lisa placed her hand on the long lever that covered the door and slowly pushed it open. She stepped out and turned toward the outside window of the classroom where the noise came from. She closed the door gently and walked out of sight. Lisa knew that she had to keep her group safe and was aware that there was no way for any rotters to get in. She hoped that it was one of her guys from the plant that had wandered over.

Looking down the way, she could see a man with his back to her, he blew a wad of smoke into the air. Lisa walked quietly up behind him and placed the knife to the front of his neck.

“Move and your jugular is a loss.” Lisa whispered.

The man dropped his smoke and put his hands up.

“I just came to have a smoke.” The man whispered back.

“Holsinger, what the fuck! You scared one of the kids.” Lisa removed her knife allowing him to turn around.

“I had a part of one of my cigars left, but it puts off a stench and I wanted to move away from the gate to smoke the last bit of it.” He explained.

Lisa walked with Martin back to the doors that she had snuck through and opened it to go back in the building. Martin followed and met the three girls in the hallway.

“Sorry, I was just taking a break and was taking a walk. I saw the window open and pushed it closed. That must have been what Sidnie heard. Sorry kiddo.” He told the women. “I have to get back to post, y’all keep the windows shut just in case.” He demanded of them.

Lisa smiled at the three. “I have to check on my crew at the plant. And then get some shut eye. I’ll come by and check on everyone later.”

Kris gathered her daughter as she had calmed down and took her back to the room. Karen made her way to what she called home and shut the door.

THE CALL

JUSTIN RAN
in the house and grabbed a pan that they had bought earlier in the day and came back out to grab the ribs off of the pit. Steven and I were standing over by the ice chests near the hand railing. There were three men that were staggering around on the road in front of the house. I continued to bullshit with Steven, but had a hard time pulling my eyes away from the men. It wasn’t odd to see people, especially crackheads wandering the roads around here, there was always some nut around where Tina and Gizmo lived that had squatted in one of the old abandoned houses or had made their own little abode, but there was something different about these guys than what the normal idiots that we usually saw. One looked over at us and started staggering toward us. I wasn’t that worried until he made it onto the driveway and got near my truck.

“Hey asshole, get the fuck away from my truck.” I called out.

Steven looked over and saw the man as well. “You know I’m getting too old for the whole fighting thing.”

“Just stay here.” I told him as I started down the steps toward the man.

The man kept walking up the driveway still fixated on me, but with no response.

“Hey, I’m talking to you…” I was in mid-sentence of saying when a dog ran up and bit the man’s leg.

The man reached down and grabbed the dog, he pulled it up to his face and bit into the dog’s stomach. I could hear the ribs of the dog crack as he squeezed it while he bit down and then he started pulling the guts out and eating them. I stopped dead in my tracks and started taking quick steps backwards, I almost lost my footing when I got back to the steps and tried to grasp the step with my foot. I placed my hand on the step and fell on my ass, I scrambled back to my foot and began my ascend up the steps backwards to make sure he wasn’t going to charge at me and try and take me like he just had the dog.

Gizmo walked back out to the porch. “I’ve got to get to my parent’s house, my mom said that my dad is trying to bite her.”
He half questioned.

I didn’t respond, I was still trying to stumble clumsily backwards up the steps. He walked over to the steps to try and get my attention.

“What the fuck!” He stated when he caught a glimpse of what I was looking at.

CHAPTER SIX

“
ALRIGHT GUYS
, where do you suggest we hit up today?” I asked.

“If the world had any hope to going back to normal, I’d say a goddamn bank.” Gizmo stated.

“Hell yeah, we’d be sitting fat.” Steven replied.

I laughed, but wasn’t the answer I was looking for. “Okay, well since that’s not going to help us, where else?”

“I think we should go to that big green ball restaurant. They’re bound to have food.” Justin suggested.

“I’m not sure their food would still be good. What’s that place called anyways?” I answered.

“I don’t think I’ve ever known the name of it, I have just always seen it when I passed through the city.” Justin added.

“Well, even though their food may not be any good, it may not be such a bad idea.” I added.

“What the fuck are we going for if not for food? A candle lit MRE meal?” Gizmo sarcastically asked.

“No dumb ass. It’s one of the highest points in the city. We can actually see where we may want to go.” I stated.

Gizmo was quiet for one of the first times that I could remember. Everyone else was rolling their sleeping bags up and getting their bags back into place.

“We can’t go even if we wanted to.” Steven added.

“Why is that?” Justin asked.

“Because it’s ran off an elevator and they don’t have power.” He answered.

“I’ve got a better idea. Let’s go to some of the shops.” I suggested.

“For what?” Howard asked.

“To replace some weapons, to sharpen the one’s we have or whatever else we can do there.” I answered.

“Out-Fucking-Standing!” Gizmo chimed in while brushing his thumb across his dull blade.

“Let’s get a move on the day then.” I suggested as I shoved my own sleeping bag into my backpack.

Everyone started throwing their packs over their shoulders to get ready to explore the city of all the different shops we could find.

Stepping over the young girl’s body, we made our way out of the library and back into the streets. The coast was pretty clear as we made our move. For some reason we didn’t bother getting into any kind of formation, we just stood shoulder to shoulder walking down the street, only separating to go around cars that were left on the streets. We all checked cars as we passed by them for anything that we may be able to take home with us. Gizmo had found a few things as he popped the trunks on the cars as we passed that he placed in his bag and took with him. Justin opened car doors that he was sure had no rotters in them and went through glove compartments and consoles to see what he might be able to find. The rest of us made our way ahead to make sure there was no danger in sight.

“
ARMY/NAVY SURPLUS”
was written in white lettering on a black tinted window ahead.

Looking around to see that the coast was still clear, I opened the door and walked in. I instantly heard the sound of shoes sliding across a floor. I peered over at Steven and grabbed my ear to let him know that I heard something. We started going around the counters and display cases swiftly. A beefy red headed man popped up from behind the main counter where the register was located.

“Please, take what you want and leave!” The man stated.

“Easy fella’, we’ll be out of your hair soon enough. We just need a few things.” Steven stated to the man.

I caught whiff of a stomach curdling smell from a cracked door from behind the counter. I side stepped over to it while keeping my machete in the man’s direction.

“NO! YOU CAN’T GO IN THERE!” The man screamed out and started taking steps toward me.

“Whoah! You don’t want to do that.” Gizmo suggested to the man with his blade leaned over the counter to keep space between me and the crazed man.

I used the outside of my left foot to give a gentle push to the door. It swayed open and the stench got stronger, so strong that I had to cup an arm over my nose and mouth. I looked inside. “You sick fuck!”

I took after the man, grabbing him by his throat and slamming him to the ground and bouncing his head off the tiled floor. “You sick fuck!”

“Whoah! Easy, TJ!” Justin suggested.

“Fuck that!” I called back.

Steven stepped over to look into the room as well. He fell to his knees and started blowing chunks. He tried to get out words in between the gagging sounds being made by the sickness that had overtaken him, but was continuously cut off by throwing up. Gizmo came over to see what the big deal was since no one had spit it out yet.

Stepping behind Steven, it all became clear. There were two babies, their tiny feet dangling over an old stainless boxed sink, their bodies floating in the water. They were tiny and their faces were blue. Their small arms floated in the water and swayed back and forth. The man had drown them to keep them quiet. Gizmo, took a quick pace over to a back shelf and pulled a bundle of barbed wire down. He quickly made his way to the man and started wrapping the barbed wire around the man’s feet over and over. The man was still a little disoriented, but still screamed at the barbs cutting into his legs. Gizmo’s face was turning red at the anger he felt of the man that just killed his children so he would not die, instead of saving them. His arms moved quickly as he wrapped the wire and every so many rounds Gizmo would pull tight just for good measure and I think to make himself feel better.

I let the man go and grabbed a handful of barbed wire and helped Gizmo drag his ass outside. His head bounced across the ground while he struggled to break free of the wires that secured him. There was a street light right across the street. We drug him all the way to it and threw the opposite end of the sharp wire over the top and hoisted him up by his feet. The man would scream for a few seconds and then cup his hands over his mouth like he was in and out of knowledge that he may catch the attention of nearby rotters.

I threw my bag to the side and pulled one of the bottles of liquor out. I unscrewed the top of the whiskey bottle and poured the bottle across his head soaking from the chin down to his hair and all and then set the bottle directly under the man’s swinging head. I struck a lighter and guided it across the top. A blue flame started dancing around the top of the bottle like a genie coming out of a lamp.

“STOP! We can’t do this. This makes us no better than him.” Donald stated.

“Then don’t be part of it. Go shopping.” I demanded as I pointed back to the store.

Donald was in shock as he passed his distressed look over to each of us before storming back into the store.

The bottle exploded once the glass got so hot and ignited the man’s face, the flames engulfed his head and up his torso as he hung in midair. He could no longer hold in his screams and we could start to see a few rotters that this piece of shit had caught the attention of.