The Zombie Virus (Book 1) (19 page)

“I love you, Steven,” she said.

“Love you too,” I answered with both words
and a return kiss.

“None of that crap in here,” Frank said, his
eyes crinkled in amusement. “You’ll spoil my dinner.”

“Hey! How about me?” Jeremy pleaded from
across the table mockingly.

“Son, our love for you is beyond words,” I
replied seriously, reaching over and combing back his mop of dark
auburn hair with my hand.

He didn’t realize that he was the driving
force that kept Holly and I going in this post-apocalyptic
world.

Holly turned her radiant smile on our son.
“Honey, we both love you and are so proud of you this week.” Her
voice cracked, then she quickly regained control. “Just don’t grow
up too fast, okay?”

“Oh, Mama,” he replied, face reddening in
embarrassment, “I’m not a little kid anymore.” Then he smiled also,
his face revealing so many of his mother’s features. “I love you
both, too.”

“That’s it!” Frank said, standing. “This
mushiness has killed the remainder of my appetite!” He slid out of
the booth and slung his rifle over his shoulder.

“You sure it wasn’t the six sandwiches you
already devoured?” Holly asked, her eyes crinkling with her
smile.

He just grunted and walked back toward the
bathroom.

Kera came over and grabbed another of the
thin sandwiches off of the pile then went back up front to stare
out the doors while mindlessly nibbling on the food.

Frank came out of the bathroom and sat back
down at the booth and started to say something about it being dark
shortly. The explosive noise of the shotgun firing in the
restaurant sounded like someone had set off a stick of dynamite,
drowning out the rest of his sentence.

The shot was followed by two more, along with
the sounds of shattered glass hitting the floor. We were out of our
seats in an instant and running with our rifles pointed to the
front where Kera stood with the smoking shotgun in her hands. The
glass was gone from the front doors and three corpses lay out on
the sidewalk not twenty feet in front of the entryway. Jeremy
reached her first, quickly followed by the rest of us.

“What happened?” he demanded of the older
teenager.

She shifted uneasily as she looked back at
us. “I thought they saw me,” she replied apologetically, looking
back out at the bodies of the three Loonies. One was the half-naked
man we had observed earlier.

“That was a stupid move, Kera,” I admonished
her, “You just told them all where we are!”

She narrowed her eyes at me and said
nothing.

“I think we need to get out of here,” Holly
said, staring out past the manicured lawn of the restaurant. The
infected were flocking together and heading instinctively toward
the direction of the noise. The lead group was only a handful of
yards away.

“Shit!” Frank spat sourly. “I was just
starting to enjoy this place.”

Holly grabbed Jeremy by the shoulders and
turned him around, pushing him toward the back.

“See if you can get the service door open in
the stockroom, I’ll try and hold them off,” I called to her over my
shoulder.

Kera was already raising her shotgun and sent
two loads down into the approaching mob, causing several in the
lead to crumple to the ground. She quickly swapped mags for a fresh
one.

Frank positioned himself beside me and aimed
his rifle over Kera’s shoulder at the rapidly approaching pack. The
deafening sound of his rifle joined Kera’s shotgun. I added to the
earsplitting blasts with my AR. We reduced the closest group to a
writhing mass of broken bodies. Others were closing in fast. We all
completed mag changes while we had the chance before the horde
pressed closer.

Let’s get to the back!” I ordered sharply,
eyeing the increasing numbers of infected headed our way, some
moving at a stumbling shuffle while many more were at a full run. I
pulled Kera back from the door and shoved her down the aisle. She
shook off my hand but continued toward the back.

Frank fired off two more shots and was quick
on our heels on our retreat toward the kitchen. The smell of the
decomposing bodies in the stifling kitchen was nearly overwhelming,
however, the fear of those things behind me forced me to quickly
step around and past the reeking bodies. I ran to the open door of
the small stockroom where Holly and Jeremy were trying to open the
steel entrance door. They were both futilely kicking at it in an
attempt to bust it down.

“It’s locked!” Holly gasped, holding a rag
over her nose to deaden the smell.

“Let me try.” Frank pushed through, seemingly
unaffected by the sickening odor permeating the room. He kicked out
with one of his tree-trunk sized legs causing the door to
reverberate with the force of his blow, but it held.

“They’re coming in the front!” Kera screamed,
looking out through the kitchen door’s window into the dining
area.

Frank savagely kicked the doors again several
more times, nevertheless they resisted his effort.

“We need the keys,” I said, looking around
the dark kitchen for any hanging on the walls.

While Kera watched the Loonies streaming into
the restaurant, the rest of us frantically scoured the kitchen area
with our lights for the keys.

“Could they be in the office?” Holly
asked.

I looked out the window past Kera, the room
was packed with the infected rampaging through the room emitting
their rabid growls and wails. It would only be moments before they
came through this door.

“There’s no way we’re getting back to the
office now,” I said calmly. We were boxed in.

Holly walked over to the freezer, opened its
insulated door, and peered into the dark stinking interior, “We
could hide out in here until they’re gone,” she suggested. Terror
crept up my spine at the thought of being stuck in that dark,
confined room, however, I didn’t see any other options. It was
bigger and more secure than the tiny stockroom.

“Could they have the keys?” Jeremy asked,
pointing to the two covered corpses. Something banged on the
outside of the kitchen door causing Kera to duck down. Someone
pushed against them from the other side and she used her body to
block the doors from swinging open.

I raced the few feet over to the bodies,
skidding in the syrup-like muck of their leaking bodily fluids, and
dropped to my knees beside them. Trying to remain oblivious to the
ghastly sight beneath the covers, I whipped the stained tablecloths
off and rooted around in the corpses’ clothes for any keys.

More infected were piling against the outside
of the kitchen doors. Frank jumped over next to Kera and helped
hold them closed against the onslaught.

“Hurry!” Kera urged frantically as the flimsy
doors buckled.

I gagged when my hand touched cold, clammy,
decomposing flesh and sticky viscous fluid while I probed under the
bodies. Then I felt something metallic in a pocket of the woman’s
skirt. I reached in and my hands closed around a set of keys. I
almost laughed in relief. I stood up, nearly slipping in the gory
mess around the bodies, and ran through the stockroom to the exit
door.

“Hurry!” Kera cried again from out in the
kitchen.

Holly flipped her light on, illuminating the
half-dozen keys on a ring with a bright red and yellow restaurant’s
logo fob hanging on it. “Just pick one!” she urged, her voice an
octave or two above normal.

I tried the first one my fingers closed
around and it wouldn’t slide into the deadbolt’s keyhole. I fumbled
for the next one, my fingers slick with the black-red gore from the
dead woman, and slid it into the hole. There was a loud bang behind
me and Kera squealed and Frank cursed.

“They’re pushing the door off the hinges,
Papa!” Jeremy exclaimed behind me. “We gotta get out of here!” The
desperation was evident in his voice.

I jiggled the key in the lock and couldn’t
get it to turn. “Shit!” I pulled it out and slid the next key into
the lock. It wouldn’t turn either. I didn’t dare turn around and
see what was happening behind me. The sounds of Kera and Frank
struggling to hold the doors closed amongst the wails and banging
of the creatures on the other side told me that time was running
out. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my body. I tried
for the next key and was horrified when the entire ring slid from
my jittery, slime-covered fingers.

Holly caught them before they hit the floor,
pulled out the next key on the ring, and shoved it into the lock.
The oiled mechanism turned smoothly, releasing the deadbolt from
the upper frame and floor. I wiped as much of the sticky fluid off
of my hands as I could onto my pant legs and pushed the release bar
with my hip, throwing the door open and letting in the sweet, humid
air and the dwindling bright sunshine.

Two Loonies were outside near a dumpster. I
dropped them each with a single shot. Holly grabbed Jeremy, shoved
him out the door, and followed him out onto the hot pavement. I
went back into the kitchen. Kera and Frank were both crouched on
the ground with their legs braced against whatever they could get
purchase on and their shoulders against the deformed thin metal
doors.

I could see the wild rage-filled faces of the
infected through the two round Plexiglas windows, the doors where
bent in at the top and numerous arms protruded though with clawed
hands grasping at air.

I strode purposely toward the doors and
started shooting. I shot through the doors until the magazine was
empty. “Go! Go!” I yelled to them as I quickly changed mags. They
both flew by me, jumping over the dead woman and running into the
small room and out the back door. I backed up, careful not to trip
over the two decomposing corpses. The kitchen doors flew open and
the infected poured through.

I emptied another mag and watched in
satisfaction as my bullets tore through faces, skulls and chests. I
backtracked to the open service door and to the outside. Frank and
Holly slammed the door closed as soon as I was past them, shutting
out the terrifying sight of the multitude of infected fighting to
get into the tiny stockroom after me. Jeremy leaned a wooden pallet
against the door, under its large silver doorknob, jamming it
shut.

“Lock it!” I yelled to Holly when they began
pounding on the inside of the door.

“I can’t,” she reluctantly admitted. “I left
the keys in the lock on the other side.”

In my haste I probably would have done the
same.

“That won’t hold ‘em long,” Frank said,
turning around and hefting the .308 rifle. “Where to now?”

“We can’t stay here.” Stepping over the
bodies around the dumpster, I peered cautiously past its steel bulk
at the rest of the parking lot. It was swarming with ever
increasing numbers of infected. “We have to make a run for it,” I
called back over my shoulder. The Loonies inside the restaurant
were banging on the back door. Frank was correct, the pallet
wouldn’t hold them long at all.

Across the narrow back parking area was a
small berm containing a line of trees which ran beside an access
road between us and another shopping center. There were groups of
Loonies in all directions and no safe way out of where we were.

“We are in some deep shit,” Frank spat,
looking back over his shoulder at Kera and scowling at her. “Thanks
a lot girl.”

She huffed at him then turned away.

“Any plans, bro?” he asked, eyeing the groups
of infected as they closed in. “I’m down to two full mags and what
I have left in this one. I know y’all have to be low also.”

I looked him in the eye and said in a dry,
matter-of-fact tone. “We have to get to the truck and reload.
Otherwise we’re not going to make it out of this one.”

Before he could reply a half dozen Loonies
appeared around the corner of the building. They spotted us
instantly and charged, snarling like the wild animals they had
become.

I dropped to my knee and pulled the trigger
as soon as I had one in my sight. The round entered her right eye
and blew out the left side of her head in a puff of brilliant
crimson, fanning her hair out behind her like some new age afro. It
was as if a switch had turned off and she went lifeless and tumbled
to the ground.

I tried to find another target, but the rest
were down, dying or dead from gunshots inflicted by those around
me. We had the attention of all the other groups within sight now.
They were sprinting toward us across the asphalt everywhere I
looked.

“Let’s go!” I yelled. I grabbed both Jeremy
and Holly and pulled them in the direction that we had ditched the
truck. We ran flat out across the side parking lot, taking shots at
Loonies when they came too close.

They were damn fast, too fast! I fired at the
swiftest of a large group that was close on our heels. I was
rewarded with one stumbling and falling lifeless to the pavement.
The others of our group were shooting and running also. We were
encircled and there were too many. I was losing hope that we would
make it out of this alive.

“I’m out!” Frank yelled breathlessly, not
breaking stride. He slung the rifle onto his shoulder and removed
the sawed-off double-barrel shotgun from its leg holster while
pulling the revolver out of his waist strap with his other hand. He
and Jeremy were leading the charge.

We reached the street separating the two
restaurants at a dead run. Holly was firing her rifle at several
infected approaching from her right when she stumbled and fell. She
let out a cry of pain as she tumbled to the pavement. Kera was
beside her instantly and helped her to her feet while I covered
them from the rear.

Frank and Jeremy had reached the other
restaurant’s parking lot without realizing we weren’t with them.
Frank had emptied the shotgun and was down to the six shots in his
.44 magnum. They continued running up the hill.