Alaskan Undead Apocalypse (Book 3): Mitigation Book 3) (37 page)

Royce said gruffly, “C’mon you bastard. Come on over and see what ol’ Royce has got for ya.”

The beast in the cage became even more agitated with the introduction of more prey. It pressed its face against the fence, trying to get closer to Royce who was standing just out of reach. The stench of rot, though faded with time and the elements, was much thicker from this proximity. The odor was kin with raw sewage, animal feces, and mothballs. It was hard to remember that these things were once human.

Royce smiled at Jess and then plunged the sharpened stick into the demon’s empty eye socket. A small stream of heavy, dark, syrupy fluid spilled from the new wound as the abomination convulsed momentarily and then slid down the chain link fence. It curled itself into a twisted heap and was no more.

There was a padlock hanging on the fence, but it hadn’t been locked because no one could find the key. Royce pulled the lock out and hurled it across the basketball court. He flung open the gate which whistled and creaked like old bones. In a flash, he was through the next barrier and face to face with four very scared faces. He nodded and motioned to them with his hands.

The four children needed no more encouragement. They scurried out of the enclosure and sprinted across the basketball court to the back of the school without saying a word. Against the school wall and as far from their prison as they were able to be, they turned and huddled into a ball of scared, shivering bodies.

Looking at the children, Royce was feeling pretty good about himself and his decision. The hurried footsteps approaching from behind threatened to change all that. Ignoring the sound, he started to walk away toward the kids and Jess who was already making her way toward them as well.

The voice that caused Royce to stop dead in his tracks was that of Mel, one of the Colonel’s loyal henchmen. Mel was a believer in the Colonel’s madness which made him extremely dangerous. Royce breathed in deeply and pulled the knife from his jacket pocket. He hoped the darkness was enough to conceal his intent. He didn’t know if he was ready to do what he resolved to do or not, but he would soon.

The footsteps behind him grew ever closer, as did the volume of the questions. Royce had his eyes closed when he turned to face the much younger man. The confrontation was interrupted with frantic shouting and thunderous gunshots arising from the front of the school.

The younger Mel looked away from Royce and watched the shadowy silhouettes of his fellow soldiers head away toward the ruckus at the front of the school. Royce took the opportunity to pounce. He stabbed at Mel with the knife, hitting the young man in his stomach and chest. The blade, cutting through the man’s jacket and shirts underneath, produced a long gash across Mel’s torso. Unfortunately for Royce, the knife struck one of Mel’s ribs and was deflected away from doing any significant damage.

Regardless, Mel fell backward clutching the bleeding wound, the warm fluid spilling between his fingers in dark, flowing trails. Royce looked triumphantly over at Jess and smiled. He didn’t see Mel take the pistol from his holster and aim it at Royce’s back. There was, of course, no hesitation from the wounded warrior. From this distance, he needn’t even take aim. He simply pointed the deadly instrument at Royce and let it do its work. The crack echoed off of the school’s outer walls as Mel pulled the trigger and sent a nine millimeter bullet through Royce’s back.

Royce felt the bullet enter and exit his body. It was a sharp, hot pain that sent an uncomfortable buzz from his toes to his eyes. Like he had been punched in the gut, his breath burst forth like a storm cloud from deep within his chest. Gasping, he reached for the little hole in his belly, pulling his hand away with a dark sheen of blood covering his fingers. He tried to recapture his breath but was jolted when Mel pulled the trigger again, sending another bullet into his back.

Royce let the knife, still held in his right hand, fall to the ground. The second bullet hurt far more than the first, hitting him higher on his back and exiting this time through his chest. Jess screamed and started to run toward him but Royce held up his hand to stop her. He smiled at her, though he doubted she could see his expression in the still gathering darkness. His focus lost and his balance faltering, he began to swoon slightly.

Jess ignored Royce’s gesture and ran over to him. She caught him just as he was falling forward, his eyes rolling up into their sockets. She was sobbing and begging Royce to keep breathing, but her effort fell on deaf ears. In a blood-sputtering, violent convulsion, Royce died in Jess’ arms.

Still on the ground and holding his sliced flesh, Mel demanded, “Get me some help! I’m going to bleed to death!”

“You won’t get the chance,” Jess said defiantly and shot him in the neck twice from close range with the pistol she pulled from her pocket. Mel dropped his own pistol and brought both of his hands up to his throat in a futile attempt to stem the flow of blood from the two mortal wounds. His windpipe shredded, when he tried to speak, all that emerged was a gurgling, blood wet sound that was not unlike Royce’s final utterance. She would have shot him again, but the violent shaking in her hands made pulling the trigger nearly impossible.

Jess gently set Royce’s head on the pavement and touched his cheek. She couldn’t stop the tears, though she knew time was of the essence. She needed to get moving, but first she found Mel’s pistol on the ground next to his still struggling, kicking body. As he watched her grab his discarded firearm, Mel’s eyes filled with rage. He felt betrayed by one of the very people he had been, in his mind, protecting from the evil that had fallen upon the world. He couldn’t believe she had shot him. He wanted to strike out at her, but was afraid that if he took his hands away from the spurting wounds on his neck that he would certainly bleed to death. Jess met his stare with equal ire but she chose to say nothing. She shook her head and backed away from him, his own pistol pointed at him as a precaution.

She looked around again and saw the other gun he’d been carrying when Royce surprised him. When she hefted it from the pavement, she was expecting it to be much heavier. She thought to herself how much difference having a gun like that with her might make. She didn’t know how many bullets it held, but just the feel of it in her hands made her feel a little more secure.

By then, Mel was barely breathing and his hands had fallen away from his neck. Jess cursed him as she walked away. She had all but forgotten about the zombies in the cages when she heard one of them moan slightly. It was as if they had been watching the violence like a spectacle of blood in a Roman arena. Caught in their ravenous gaze, Jess couldn’t help the shiver that stopped her in her tracks. She had to fight her rising fear to convince her legs to move again.

She ran to the children, shouting, “We’ve only got a few minutes. We gotta get outta here.”

Danny nodded to her. “Where should we go?”

Jess didn’t know for sure where to go, but knew that they needed to get themselves away from the school which had become a prison. Another series of gunshots from the front of the school distracted both of them from their conversation. She weighed the small pistol in her right hand against the larger pistol in her left. She looked at the silver revolver and thought of Simeon for a moment. The thought was there and gone in a flash. She handed Danny the revolver and fished out the extra shells from her pocket.

She asked the boy, “Do you know how to handle one of these?”

Danny nodded and held out his hand. “Yeah, I had to learn to be able to help.”

This time Jess nodded. She said to him, “You gotta be careful with this. Okay?”

Danny knew the drill. He looked her in the eyes and nodded another reassurance to her. He slipped the pistol into his pocket and put the extra bullets in his other jacket pocket. The revolver was much bigger and heavier than the pistol Neil had entrusted to him.

Jess asked the air, “What is going on out there?”

Prior to Royce’s gallant but ultimately fateful decision, Emma and Jerry were sprinting at full steam across the bridge spanning the Kenai River. Jerry looked over his shoulder against his better judgment and lost whatever breath he had been able to retain. Fast on the heels of his retreating breath, his will melted away, wilting like a fading flower. He almost lost his balance and had to consciously guide his foot back to the ground so as not to trip. He was worried that if he did fall, he wouldn’t be able to get himself back to his feet in time to escape being today’s dinner special.

Jerry trusted Neil’s judgment, which had served them all well so far. Regardless, through Jerry’s mind paraded a stream of obscenities all directed at Neil and his mother for having had him in the first place. When he looked over at Emma he didn’t see fear or distress or even extreme exertion. She seemed preoccupied by some mundane distraction; nothing more, nothing less. Of course, it could have been a matter of concentration, but he couldn’t tell for sure.

Emma, however, was anything but distracted. She just happened to be focusing on what lay ahead instead of what was pursuing them from behind. Having those things close on their tails had become a simple fact of life. If she were to dwell on that unfortunate circumstance, she doubted she would be able to function. A waking nightmare from which she couldn’t escape by simply opening her eyes would possibly have been enough to stop her cold.

She was carrying the M4 assault rifle and was ready to use it at the first sign of danger to appear in front of them. She concentrated on the road ahead. She didn’t want to miss anything...one of those things or one of those militiamen. It didn’t matter to her. She and her rifle would deal with either in the same manner.

That thought was passing through her mind when out stepped an unsuspecting man armed with another of the assault rifles like the one she was carrying. He stopped and hesitated, his mouth opening and closing in disbelief. He hadn’t seen a group of skins this size in weeks. There were hundreds of them, all in various stages of rot. In front of the oncoming horde by a fair margin was what appeared to be two people. It dawned on him too late that one of the people, a woman, was even then aiming a gun at him. He was incapable of doing anything other than waiting to see what happened.

Emma, upon seeing the man emerge, stopped, raised the rifle, and fired. The first burst and resulting clap of sound caused her to wince reflexively. Those first few shots always did that to her; seemed to be no way to grow accustomed to it. Even so, she aimed carefully and hit her target. She wasn’t sure where the bullets struck him, but it was enough to send the sentry sprawling to his belly, yelping with surprise and fear.

Jerry had continued to run and was upon the man only heartbeats later. He grabbed the man’s dropped assault rifle and stepped back. Emma was with him by then. She took the gun, extracted the magazine, and discarded the firearm. Jerry looked at her confused.

“We need the bullets more than we need the gun,” she said. “It’s just dead weight.”

Already running again, Jerry said, “Okay. Whatever. But let’s go.”

The hurt, scared sentry begged, “You can’t leave me here. You gotta help me.” His voice trailed off as Jerry and Emma put distance between him and them. He was trying to get to his feet, but both of his legs had taken bullets. A desperate sound filled with terror emerged from his throat as he struggled to get away. He was wounded prey without any hope of escape.

The guard pulled himself painfully along on the pavement, but he was doomed from the moment Emma pulled the trigger. A crowd of perhaps twenty zombies set upon him. The first grabbed hold of his trailing legs and pulled him backward. The man kicked at his attacker, but another one only laid its hands upon his other foot. With the two of them pulling at him, his forward movement ceased. He tried to fight but it was utterly and ultimately futile.

Soon, dozens of hands were reaching, clawing, tearing at first his clothes and then his flesh. Several jagged-clawed fingers began to pull at his face, the nails gouging his skin and producing seeping, oozing wounds. When the hands found the corners of his mouth, the gruesome results defied description. Flesh, torn and bloody, was ripped from his bones and fed into hungry mouths. His tongue and eyes were literally gnawed from his skull while he still struggled.

The feast on the sentry did not distract the entire stampeding herd following Emma and Jerry, but enough of the first rank of zombies detoured to create a little more comfort for the man and woman. Emma’s shooting had alerted the defenders at the school who pierced the night with both bright lights and bullets. They shot wildly at shadows, but the bullets, coming fast and furious, were a growing danger for Emma and Jerry.

The commotion also distracted all the zombies’ attention from Emma and Jerry as well. The two of them continued to run in a wide arc around the school until they were rounding the building toward its rear. They saw the semi-circle of fortified buses transformed into battlements around the school’s main entrance, just as Steve had described. Against the sweeping arcs of floodlights and flashlights, the two spied the frantic silhouettes of militia defenders moving to and fro, both atop and inside the buses. From random points all across the rounded wall, little sparks and flashes of light erupted as guns were fired.

The parking lot in which they were running seemed to stretch on forever, like some first time marathoner’s paved nightmare. Eventually, Emma and Jerry came upon a cordon of concrete traffic barricades. As they hopped the chest high wall, Jerry looked back over his shoulder. A few of the ragged creatures continued their pursuit, but the vast majority seemed to have taken the bait. With any luck, the wall across the parking lot would end the chase for the rest of them as well, leaving Jerry and Emma to find their way into the school without that threat at their backs.