ZOMBIES: "Chronicles of the Dead": A Zombie Novel (22 page)

Turning away once more, he briskly walked away.

"That was interesting," Gin said, pulling her blanket over her shoulders.

"Yes, informative too, I'll take the first watch as usual," I replied, as I lying on my back with my eyes wide open.

Billy was on watch when he woke us up in the early hours of the morning.

"Get up, something's going on, everyone's freaking out," he said, sounding the alarm.

The sounds of a seemingly controlled panic echoed through the cavernous building, as the assassins were running in all directions.

Amidst the confusion, Mike ran by shouting.

"Grab your guns and come with me," he ordered, not bothering to look our way.

We quickly armed ourselves and ran to catch up to Mike.

We moved to the front of the store where two large boarded up and blocked doors were located.

"Our guys on the roof say there's a huge gathering of out-breakers outside, most are here in the front of the building," Mike explained calmly. "We're going to take this door as our battle station; you people have a problem with that?"

Before any of us could answer Mike's question, the familiar sound of Jacob's 9mm carbine pierced our eardrums.

While the rest of us were busy listening to Mike queried us about our willingness to fight alongside the assassins. Jacob had seen a zombie pushing through the door blockade and exposing its arm and allowing several of the all too prevalent houseflies into the building.

Jacob's full metal jacketed lead projectile slammed into the humerus bone of the dead assaulters right arm and chipped off a large portion of the epicondyle, rendering the arm useless, but not deterring the zombie from clawing and shoving at the barricade with its left hand, allowing even more of the common pests to intrude into our sanctuary.

"Does that answer your question, Mike?" I asked, again using my best sarcastic tone.

Mike didn't answer, instead he lunged toward the open portion of the barricade, stuck the barrel of his SKS through the opening provided by the zombie and pulled the trigger, effectively blowing off the top of the eaters head and splattering its cranium juices into the faces of the surrounding undead.

As soon as that attacker fell, another one took its place at the opening and was eliminated in turn the same way. Then another took its place, each one more grotesque than the previous, having been soaked and pummeled with its predecessor's bodily fluids and the remains of their formally intact body parts.

Rushing to the barricaded door, we each found a port that allowed us to attempt to fend off the army of the undead that had congregated on the other side of the wall.

"There must be a hundred of them," Mike yelled as he fired through different gaps in the protective cover.

"At least a hundred, looks like you assassins have your work cut out for you if you're planning to rid this town of all of these eaters," I insisted, while using my sickle to cleave off the intrusive fingers of an overly aggressive zombie that had managed to stick his hand through a narrow crack.

Sondra had taken her place by the other door, joined by four other female assassins. They were struggling just as much as we were to repulse the onslaught of flesh eating brutes whose numbers were starting to influence the structural integrity of the once solid fortification.

"There's too many of them," Sondra screamed. "Our door is starting to give way."

"Ours isn't doing much better," Gin screamed back as she fired her pistol point blank into the face of a pre-teen zombie.

Little by little, the surge from the mass of post humanity inched our barricade inward. Most of the assassin's group had gone to the roof by now, and was firing down into the mob from there, leaving our small troop to defend from inside.

The surrounding walls muffled our shots that originated from the inside; however, the shots fired from the rooftop, although very effective in thinning the herd, the noise of the gunfire served to invite even more of the hungry fiends to our location.

"If they break through these doors we're through," Mike announced loudly.

"I've got an idea," I said. "I'll need a couple of your people to come with me."

"Sondra," Mike yelled. "Take Megan and go with Jack."

"Billy, you come with us. Honey, we'll be right back," I assured Gin, as if anyone could give reasonable assurance of anything.

With my new backup crew in tow, we ran to the back of the building where our Hummer was parked.

"Billy jump in the turret and warm up the mini-gun, we're going outside," I said. "Sondra, you and your friend, what's her name, open the door and shoot any of them that try to get in."

Megan, a short brown haired girl dressed in what looked like store bought urban camouflage sneered at me, and said. "It's Megan, not what's her name."

"Whatever, just shoot anything that's not human, we don't have much time," I shouted angrily, not being in the frame of mind to want to deal with some moody little bitch that seemed more intent on hearing her name pronounced correctly than doing her job.

Sondra pushed the green button that activated the electric door, and as the gap in the entrance grew, I blurted out to Billy.

"Ready Billy?"

Billy responded with a resounding.

"Ready!"

Sondra and what's her name began shooting at the few zombies that now were walking toward the doorway, and when the door was raised high enough, I floored the Hummer and out the door we went.

Retracing the route we had taken on the way in, we quickly found ourselves at the front of the building facing a considerable amount of zombies.

Acting without an order to shoot, Billy released the fury of the mini-gun on the crowd of undead citizens that were trying to force their way into the assassin's fortification.

We eased forward along the front of the building, close enough to crush some of the bodies of the zombies that we had killed or wounded earlier from inside the store.

As we inched forward, I hoped that Mike and the other assassins still inside, would hear the buzzing of our mini-gun, and would hold their fire as we passed.

We cleared a wide swath moving slowly forward, painting the front of the building red with the spattering of blood, and adding texture to the mix with pieces of brains, chips of bone, and strands of intestines and hair.

It was the usual blood and guts scenario we were growing accustom to seeing exiting from the mutilated zombie hordes as we slaughtered countless numbers of them.

Once we had made the first pass by the front of the building, killing zombies and enduring the usual putrid stench and swarming flies (yes, even at night) that seemed to always accompany the undead, I threw the Hummer into reverse. Using the path that we had just created, we backed over many of the zombies we had just put down, breaking most of their bones that had remained intact, rendering immobile those that were only wounded, as Billy laid waste to the monsters on the outlying area of the parking lot with the mini-gun.

"There's not much ammo left dad," Billy yelled.

"There's not many of
them
left either," I yelled back. "Hold your fire for a minute."

I turned the vehicle toward the parking lot exit, and we drove into the street. We could hear the mop up effort of the assassins on the rooftop as they picked off the remaining bands of zombies that were scattered throughout the parking lot.

"Where are we going?" Billy asked, concerned about Franks warning of marauding bands of humans.

"Just down the street, hold on," I answered as we turned down a dark residential street two blocks from the assassins hide out.

After passing a few houses down the gloomy street, I turned around in a driveway, pulled back up to the corner and stopped the Hummer facing the store.

"I can see the parking lot pretty good from the here," Billy whispered, as the turret sat him a good three feet higher in the Hummer than me.

"I can just barely see it from down here," I whispered back, as I pushed the barrel of my AK-47 out the driver's window and fired several shots into the air.

"No need to whisper now," I yelled, firing even more shots into the air.

"Hopefully, these shots will lure them away from the store's parking lot, that is if Frank's people will stop shooting."

After a few minutes the assassins on the rooftop had cleared the remaining zombies, and had stopped firing their weapons, leaving only the buzzing sound of a few thousand airborne flies to attract more zombies.

I fired several more shots into the air and now that the parking lot had fallen silent, the noise from our location was starting receive the attention of the zombies whose previous target was the big box store, but hadn't as yet made it to its parking lot.

"Some of them are turning toward us dad, they're coming this way," Billy yelled.

"Keep an eye out for eaters that might already be here, or that are coming from another direction, we don't want to be ambushed," I told him, this time firing my AK through the picture window of a house across the street.

"
What the hell, I might as well bust some stuff up while I'm at it.
" I thought to myself.

"It looks like all of them are coming now," Billy announced loudly.

With that, I again fired several more shots, this time into some other nearby houses, as I backed into another driveway.

"We'll go down the back street, that way we'll bypass the eaters we drew toward us and we'll get back to your mother and Jacob unscathed," I promised, whispering once again.

For a change the plan worked flawlessly, we drove slowly around the block and down the street that ran parallel with the zombie's route. We entered the parking lot and quickly sped to the back of the building once more, willfully committing two more felony hit and runs along the way. Two short beeps at the back door, and within seconds we were back inside the big box store.

"You're pretty good at killing out-breakers," Mike said, as he, Sondra, Frank, and what's her name approached, leading Jacob and Gin, and a few people from their team.

Hugging my wife, I replied. "It's one of my many gifts."

"We've got people upfront repairing and reinforcing the barrier, and on our way back here we took a vote. We decided that if you and your family want to join us, you're more than welcome to, Frank remarked.

"Like I said before, we've got places to go and people to see," I answered. "It'll be light soon, and we'll be on our way, but if we ever get back this way we'll be sure to stop in and say hello."

We all knew that the odds of us ever seeing each other again were pretty slim, but it sounded good and was reminiscent of the way things used to be. So we all pretended that it was a real possibility and carried on that way until we had parted ways with the assassins.

We spent the early hours of the morning in preparation of our departure; we used the time to organize our equipment and fill our gas tank with the generous gift of gasoline that Frank's people had siphoned out of the underground tanks that were buried beneath the gas station on their parking lot.

The assassins even donated enough of the right caliber ammo to replenish our mini-gun half way. I didn't ask were they got the ammo, or if they were sure that they could spare it, I just accepted it and kept my mouth shut. We needed the mini-gun ammo desperately, and I wasn't about to jinx the deal by asking too many questions.

I figured it this way, if they were stupid enough to give us their ammo, we were going to be stupid enough to take it.

Finally, Mike and Sondra put some of what Frank called real food into a cooler, and sat it in the back of our Hummer, we were now ready to depart.

Then an unexpected turn of events took us totally by surprise. As we were about to leave, and saying good-bye to our hosts, what's her name came sauntering up, followed by another woman about her age.

"Remember me, I'm Megan, and this is Mary," she said, pulling a skinny red headed girl in her early twenties to her side.

"Sure we remember you. What's your name?" I asked jokingly.

Tilting her head and putting her hands on her hips, Megan gave me one of those looks that women give you, and without saying anything, they're saying "really".

I couldn't help but to laugh.

"Megan," I said. "I could never forget you."

She smiled at me, and said. "That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about, I wanted to ask you. Can we come with you?"

"What? You two want to come with us?" I asked. "Why? Do you know what it's like out there?"

"We heard you and your family are on your way to Texas, both of us have family in Texas," Megan whined, protruding her lower lip.

"We want to be with them."

I looked at Gin, and she had a complacent look on her face as if the decision was up to me.

Then Jacob added.

"We can make room, it'll be tight, but there's room."

Stepping forward, Billy then added his opinion.

"There are times when we could use the backup dad," he said smiling.