The Zombie Virus (Book 1) (17 page)

Amanda was crawling toward the side window,
pushing her Saiga before her. She stuck it out the window and
Jeremy reached down and grabbed it, trying to pull the shotgun and
her out the window. She lost her grip on the butt-stock just as the
back window to the truck caved in and a clot of infected pushed in,
mobbing her.

I spun around in my seat and emptied the
magazine of my handgun into the crowd, sending blood and brains
splattering in every direction. Amanda was looking at me, her face
tight with terror as more hands reached through grasping for her.
One hand tangled in her long blonde hair and yanked her head back
toward the blood-streaked faces of the raging creatures. The sound
of shooting intensified outside and I saw the Loony who was pulling
her out arch its back and then fall limp.

My hands were shaking. I dropped the empty
mag from the pistol and slammed a new one in. More Loonies were
trying to squeeze into the back over the dead bodies that clogged
the window. Amanda screamed and fought them off frantically with
blood-streaked hands.

Frank yelled urgently for us to get out of
there now and then the sound of him jumping off the roof onto the
wall. The infected moved like a living swarm over the truck. The
driver’s window shattered inwards as I slid over to the passenger
side while simultaneously reaching back and trying to pull Amanda
free from the clutching hands of the feral humans. I had a bunch of
her shirt tight in my hand, pulling her to me. They had her by the
hair again and her tee shirt ripped loudly as the tug of war
persisted. She screamed, beating at them ferociously with her
bloody fists.

More hands grabbed for her as the bodies
outside piled up over those beneath them. The mass of infected
blotted out all light in the truck cab, I heard them on the roof
and over the din I caught my son’s voice screaming for me to hurry
and get out. With one hand on the collar of Amanda’s tee shirt I
jammed the .45 past her head and shot at the arms holding her.

More were pressing in the driver’s side
window reaching for me and I swung the gun around and shot two in
the head who were halfway through the shattered window. Amanda
whimpered, then screeched, “Please – no!”, and she was ripped from
my grip leaving me holding onto the remnants of her shirt.

She was yanked headfirst out into the
drooling, chomping mouths of those beasts that were no longer
human. Her bare chest was rent before my eyes. The clawing hands
raked over it, trying to pull her further out. The bile rose in my
stomach at the sight one of her small breasts being peeled back
like a tomato. Her slim blood-splattered legs kicked desperately as
she disappeared out the back window and her muffled screams faded
away. Her legs jerked spasmodically and then ceased moving when she
was yanked violently the rest of the way out of the truck, leaving
behind a small, bloody tennis shoe.

I kicked my body up and out of the passenger
window into a mob of infected. I shot at them until the gun was
empty, batting away their clutching arms, madly fighting my way to
the roof. Strong hands closed on my upper arms and I yelled in
relief when I was yanked up to the top of the wall above the
writhing mass just feet below me.

Darkness had settled in, making the horde of
infected look like a single living carpet of flesh. The cacophony
of their snarls and growls overwhelmed our senses.

Before I could even catch my breath Holly was
pushing us up the slope of the hill. Hands and arms were draping
over the wall as the infected tried to pull themselves off the
truck onto the hillside. Holly emptied the rest of her magazine
into the churning chaotic mob and then sped up the hill behind
me.

Through the ringing in my ears I could still
hear the scratching sounds as first one, then many more pulled
themselves to the top of the wall we had just abandoned. We were
headed toward a darkened parking lot. The power was obviously out
in this section of Virginia. Frank, Jeremy and Kera were waiting
there for us.

“Is Amanda…?” Kera asked tearfully when I
caught up to them.

I nodded then looked away, overwhelmed with
guilt at having let it happen. Frank had given Kera Amanda’s Saiga
and had taken the sawed-off double barrel from her and shoved it in
his empty leg scabbard. Kera was clinging to Frank with one arm and
the strength seemed to leave her body when I acknowledged her
question.

After a moment she let go of Frank and stood
up straight. She wiped the curtain of her dark hair away from her
face, and her eyes seemed to shine brightly, even in the darkness.
A determined look came over her pretty face and she shoved past
Holly and me.

Three of the infected topped the rise behind
us. Kera raised the Saiga and dispatched all three. “Fuck you!” she
screamed bitterly at them, trembling noticeably.

Holly put her hand on her shoulder. “Come on,
Kera, we need to get away from here.” More figures topped the rise
behind us.

“We all need to fucking move now!” Frank
urged, herding Jeremy, Holly and Kera in front of him. I loosened
my rifle and fired several rounds at the approaching silhouettes
and was rewarded with several of them dropping to the ground. Frank
fired off a couple of rounds and we both turned and ran through the
parking lot toward a building about one hundred yards away in its
center.

I fell against the wall of what looked like a
restaurant, scanning for any targets behind me.

“How are you?” Holly asked.

“Okay,” I answered tentatively. She was
quietly loading spent mags with the loose ammo from her pocket.

“This place looks deserted,” Frank said after
looking in a couple of windows. Kera was with Jeremy who stood
beside a shrub in a large concrete pot. He was looking back the way
we had come at the dark shapes up on the hill.

“I don’t want to end up trapped in no stupid
building again,” Kera said harshly looking over her shoulder at
Frank.

“Me neither,” Jeremy chimed in.

I could make out several shadows moving along
the edge of the parking lot, meandering in no general
direction.

“I don’t think they can see us here or know
where we are,” I whispered to the group. “Is the front door open?”
I asked Frank in a low voice.

He slid along the wall to the entrance and
pulled quietly on one of the double doors. “No,” he replied, barely
audible.

“We have to find someplace safe for the
night,” Holly said quietly. “We won’t make it out here in the open
against that many of those things.” She finished loading her last
mag and stuffed it in a cargo pocket.

Frank sidled up to us, looking out at the
shadows moving less than a hundred yards away. “If we bust in here
it’s going to bring them things running. I agree with the young-uns
and don’t want to be stuck in some fucking building with thousands
of them trying to get in.”

I nodded agreement. “Let’s keep moving.”

I slipped past them and around the building,
followed by Holly and the kids, with Frank bringing up the rear.
From the corner I could see that there was a road separating this
complex from another which also contained what appeared to be a
restaurant. There were no Loonies moving in the darkness that I
could spot. I was hoping that most had responded to the sounds of
our gunshots and their own dinner call when we entered the town and
were back there with the horde.

“Do you see anything?” I asked Holly as she
strained to make out details across the street.

“Huh-uh, you?”

“No,” I replied.

“Where to Papa?” Jeremy asked.

Holly and I looked at each other, quizzing
each other silently.

“You better make up your minds quick, bro,
there’s more of those motherfuckers filling up the parking lot
behind us,” Frank said urgently from behind me.

There were a couple of cars parked in the lot
across the street as opposed to the empty one surrounding this
place. I could only hope that that meant someone had had a chance
to open up the place for business before people became too
sick.

“Let’s try that building,” Holly said,
indicating the restaurant we had been watching.

We set off across the parking lot looking for
any movement in the shadows. We dropped down onto the street and
quickly ran across. Our footfalls seemed to echo too loudly in the
quiet of the night.

On the other side of the street Holly and I
both dropped to a knee and scanned the parking lot around the
restaurant with our scopes. It seemed to be empty. I got up and
continued at a fast pace through the lot to the glassed in front of
the square building. Nothing was moving. When we were all together
I pulled out my flashlight and shined it through a window around
the interior of the place. It looked empty.

“I’m going to try the door. Cover me,” I
said. I clipped the flashlight to the holder on the rifle then
flicked on the light again, scanning the immediate area on the
other side of the entryway. When I was satisfied it was clear I
reached down and pulled on the door. It silently swung open
spilling the stale smell of the interior out and around me. There
was also a faint stench of decay.

God, don’t let any Loonies be in here.

I slid quietly into the building. I shined
the light around the dining area of the restaurant, the place was a
mess, chairs and tables were overturned and shattered table
settings littered the floor.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Something had gone wrong in here. Holly slipped in behind me,
followed closely by Jeremy. Her rifle’s flashlight beam soon joined
mine in scanning the room. I could see a dark stain on the floor
back by the doors leading to what I assumed was the kitchen. My
spidey-sense was tingling like mad. Holly and I moved forward, each
choosing a separate aisle as we stealthily advanced toward the dull
stainless double doors.

I looked over my shoulder and motioned Jeremy
with my hand to stay where he was.

There were two small Plexiglas windows set at
eye level in the doors. I approached one and Holly the other, our
rifles at the ready, the light beams looking like a set of
approaching car headlights. I could see the brownish-colored smear
on the tiled floor under my feet. Something had been dragged
through the swinging doors into the kitchen. I nodded to the floor
with my chin and Holly’s eyes widened when she saw the smeared dark
stains of what was probably blood. She was gnawing at her lower lip
when she looked back up into my eyes steadily, letting me know she
was ready.

I kicked the doors hard at their juncture
sending both swinging open and exposing the dark kitchen to our
lights. The sight hit me before the smell, two bloated bodies ten
feet in front of us on the floor, one lying across the other. Holly
gasped and backed up. Then the doors rebounded, blocking the view.
The smell of putrefaction hit us like a hammer, even after the
doors were closed.

“Were they dead?” Holly asked quietly, taking
a couple of steps back from the door. Jeremy had run up and was
trying to look past us.

“Something sure smells dead,” he said,
holding a hand over his nose.

“I think they were,” I replied, trying to
will my heartbeat back into the normal range.

I tentatively stepped forward and pushed open
the door with the toe of my boot. The beam of my light fell on the
bodies and I tried not to gag on the powerful odor of rotted flesh.
They had been dead for some time by the state of their
decomposition. The head of the woman on the bottom was canted at an
obscene angle and her mottled gray legs sticking out from her blue
skirt had large sections of meat missing. The dried blood trail
ended beneath her. It looked like the lady on top had been feeding
on her when someone had taken the top of her head off with a
gunshot. Several more shots had been fired into her head and neck.
Dried gore carpeted the tile around them adding to the grisly
spectacle. I traced the light around the interior of the kitchen,
but there was no one else there.

On the other side of a large metal cook-grill
were two doors placed along a back wall. The large stainless one
was probably the walk-in freezer and the other maybe a storage
room. Both doors were closed tight. I thought to myself that I
would have to check both of those rooms out before we could settle
here for the night. I backed out of the kitchen, thankful for the
less tainted air in the dining room.

Kera and Frank had entered the place and were
with Holly and Jeremy.

“What ya got, bro?” Frank asked when I came
into the room.

“Two women long dead, at least one was
infected. Another survivor must have been in here. The Loony was
killed with a gun.”

I wanted to get away from that smell of
death, except I knew I had to get back in there and finish the
search.

“I’m going to go check out the offices and
restrooms,” Holly said. She turned to Kera. “Grab a couple of the
tablecloths to cover the bodies up with.”

Holly started toward the other doors while
Kera scrounged around the tables.

“I’ll come with you, Mama,” Jeremy said,
falling in behind her.

I looked at Frank, he shrugged his shoulders
at me. “I guess I’ll keep a watch out the front doors.”

I smiled at Kera. “Looks like you and me get
to do the dirty work, kid.”

She tossed one of the red tablecloths to me.
“I ain’t no kid,” she muttered, hefting the Saiga to her shoulder
and tucking a rolled-up tablecloth under her arm.

I grabbed a couple of large green cloth
napkins from a place setting on the table next to me and tied one
bandit style over my nose and mouth and gave the other to Kera.
Hopefully they would block some of the stench.

“After you,” she said impertinently,
motioning to the kitchen doors.

“Yes, ma’am.” I saluted and turned to enter
the stinking kitchen again. When I got to the decomposing women I
opened the tablecloth and laid it over the corpses. Kera had
entered into the darkened room behind me before I could finish
covering them up.