All That I See - 02 (20 page)

I stayed as still as I could and tried not to breathe. The creatures heads were tilted up, looking at Sara, and up to that point, they had not seen me. Then one tripped about ten feet away. It landed on its face then looked up and directly into the bucket. Its eyes widened when it saw me. It grinned and scrambled at me like a spider, never making it fully upright. I knew I had to move before it got to me. I would be exposed even more, but I didn’t want to get boxed in inside that bucket.

I tore out of there with my pipe wrench and headed into the approaching crowd with my eye on the rusty ladder that was bolted to the back of the Quality Glass building.  I gave the spider
-
thing a taste of my boot which slowed it down, but there were others and they were everywhere. Moaning, ghastly faces in different stages of decay surrounded me. Groping hands slapped and clawed and grabbed at my arms. I swung the wrench blindly. I was bawling like a baby. I don’t think I’d ever been closed in like that without a gun.

I heard Sara scream, but I was too occupied with beating out a path to that ladder that I wasn’t able to see if she was okay. Then I felt a dull pinch on the back of my arm. One of them was trying to take a bite through my tuxedo jacket. That ratcheted up the fear to a whole other level. I imagined myself falling under them feeling that pinch multiplied as ten or twenty undead mouths gnawed through my clothes. How long would it take? How many bites before I finally died? How consumed would I be before the pain was gone?

I realized that I was lost. I was just turning and swinging the wrench. I couldn’t tell where I was going. My eyes were blurry with tears. I couldn’t see the ladder anymore. There was another pinch on my thigh and another one on my shoulder.

I remember once, when I was a kid, I fell off my granddad’s boat. I couldn’t swim. I would go under and pop back up, screaming. I could never get my bearings. I couldn’t breathe. That was what it was like at that moment. I was drowning in a sea of demons. Only this time, my granddad wasn’t there to pull me out by my shirt collar.

Then my back was against a brick wall. All I could see were hands and faces. There was another, sharper pinch on my calf. I swung the wrench and tried to look around. I was at the corner of the building by the alley. Out of the corner of my right eye I could see the glass truck and our van. There were guns in that van….

Rotting fingers hooked down the front of my tank top. A face like a Halloween mask lunged into mine. I could feel the wetness and the coldness of its teeth scrape along my jawline until it found my right earlobe. The pain was unbelievable. I screamed and pushed it away. That made a brief, but perfect hole. I had just enough room to move, and I swung the wrench in a wide arc, crushing two skulls. I didn’t waste my opportunity; I ran for the van.

They chased me, but once I was closed up inside the vehicle, they lost interest in me. The only one that lingered around the van for a while was the one that had tasted my blood, but eventually, it stumbled away.

I took a look at my ear in the mirror. The lobe was gone, and blood was dribbling out without any indication of stopping. I took off my mask and used it to try to stop the bleeding.

Out the window, the crowd continued down the street. I didn’t see Sara anymore, but the things were starting to gather around the church, which gave me hope that she’d made it inside. The bulldozer and second truck were no longer where I could see them, likely farther down the street or trying to access the church from the other side. I moved to the back of the van and unscrewed the top on the first bottle I found—a partial of Jack Daniels we’d taken from the bar—and downed a couple of swallows. I checked the back window, but the FedEx truck was gone.

I took another drink. My makeshift bandage was soaked through. I winced in anticipation, poured s
ome of the whisky on the wound
then screamed into the crook of my arm. I needed to kill as much crud as I could so it wouldn’t get infected. The blood just kept on coming. I went back to the front of
the
van, to check my ear in the mirror again. Then I looked down and saw the silver cigarette lighter in the dash next to the radio. I looked at my ear again.

“Shit.”

I pushed in the lighter so it would charge up. Out the window, I caught a glimpse of the bucket of the second truck. It was up high, and it came into view briefly from the other side of the church then disappeared again as it was being maneuvered into place next to a second story window. The lighter popped out. I pulled it free and looked into the red, glowing swirls. This was some movie tough guy shit; regular people don’t cauterize their wounds with cigarette lighters. I took another drink and shoved that lighter against my mangled ear.

I don’t really know what happened after that. I could hear screaming, and I guess that was me. I was outside of myself, and then my world was spinning. Then darkness.

Chapter 23

When I woke up, I was in the floor between the seats. I was covered in my own vomit. I pulled myself up into the driver’s seat. There was still a lot of focus on First Baptist Church. I checked myself in the mirror. My ear wasn’t bleeding anymore, but it looked awful. As long as there were zombies surrounding the church, I thought Sara must still be inside. I couldn’t help her if I turned into one of them. I needed to get drunk.

My bottle of Jack was empty—spilled when I passed out—but I had plenty of full bottles in the back
. I retrieved a bottle of vodka
then sat in the driver’s seat to keep an eye on things.

I didn’t see any of the vehicles out there. All of the men might be inside the church, or they may be parked somewhere like me waiting for the creatures to disperse. It was possible, though I didn’t want to really consider it, that they’d already taken Sara and the creatures were just too stupid to know.

I could still hear the muffled wail of the siren I’d set off the day before. It was probably what had brought the men to us in the first place. I wondered why they hadn’t tried to find me. I wondered about the guy that had been on the roof. I wondered if I’d inflicted any real damage to the bulldozer operator.

I drank a while and watched the crowd. When I got a good buzz going, I went back into the van to assess my weapon supply. I had the 9mm pistol Sara had used to execute the three men from the road. It had four rounds left in the magazine. Then I had the loaded 12 gauge I’d taken from the back of thei
r Jeep. I took one last drink
then screwed the lid on. I put the bottle back in the box with the other bottles then moved back to the front with the two guns.

The booze continued to take me long
after I quit drinking. I had dru
nk on an empty stomach, and I had been frazzled by the escape and the pain. I still hurt, but thanks to the vodka, I didn't seem to mind too much. I hoped Sara got away, because at that moment there wasn't much I could do to help her. I'm glad I had closed the bottle before it started to give me courage; any more, and I might have staggered back into the middle of them.

So far as I knew, there was still a man above me on the roof. I had to assume that he was aware of me. While not as important as Sara, the supplies in the van needed to be kept a secret. I would need to leave it if any of the men made an appearance and lead them away from it. Sara and I had gone through too much trouble to collect the stuff to have it all stolen.

The siren stopped. All that could be heard was the lowing and moaning of the undead. I wondered if someone shut it off or if it quit on its own. In the rear view mirror, I saw
a
blue car drive by headed west--the direction of the siren. I watched the mirror for a while, but there was no more activity except a lone zombie child that walked around in circles behind my van for a few minutes then went away.

I heard three gunshots to the west. There was a pause, and there were two quick taps on a car horn. Another gunshot.

I looked over to the First Baptist Church. In the street between me and church, there was a smear of gore where the bulldozer had pushed through.  The infected had not dispersed, but I didn't notice the crowd getting any larger either. I saw no sign of the healthy men at all.

There was another gunshot to the west.

My curiosity was winning. I went into the back of the van and made myself another small supply bag. I doubled up some small plastic bags to make one bag and filled it with the 9mm,  some
jerky
, a bottle of water, and the vodka  I had been working on. I made sure no one was around, and I climbed out the back of the van. I had the plastic bag tied to my belt loop, and I was holding the wrench in one hand and the shotgun in the other. As quietly as I could, I clicked the door shut then I darted to the wall of the Quality Glass building and made my way along it to the corner where the alley let
out onto Broadway. I felt dizzy,
and I almost puked.

I looked west toward the Christian church where I had parked the fire vehicle. I didn't see anything, just a few zombies milling around. Broadway was relatively clear in front of the glass building, too. I went around the corner of the building and looked in the hole where the front windows had been. The building had been full when Sara was inside, but now there were only four of them on the ground floor, probably more on the second floor.

Three gunshots in quick succession rang out to the west. I looked that way again, but I couldn't see any activity. Everything was happening out of my field of vision. Then I heard a shot close by to the south--possibly from Sara's location. I ran back into the alley and ran to the end of the building. All I could see were the zombies around the church.

Part of me wanted to charge in there blasting until I saved her, but I wasn't foolish enough to try it. I had a wrench and seven shots and I was against a gang of healthy, armed men and an army of mindless monsters. There would be no way. I would need help.

I walked backwards to the glass truck and looked in the cab. There were no keys inside. I decided to risk it inside the building and retrieve the keys. I would try to make it out to the stables to see if the Somervilles had returned. If not, I would drive out and find Sara's shop teacher. I didn't want to leave her, but I didn't know what else to do.

I entered the building through the side door. Immediately to my right was the entrance to the stairs, and to my left was an office with two desks. The creatures inside the building didn't know I had come in.

I went in the office and searched the desks for the truck keys. I finally found them in the pocket of a coat that was hanging on the back of one of the chairs. I slipped back out to the alley without being noticed. Before I left, I decided to go back up onto the roof of Plucky's Diner one more time to see what I could see from that vantage.

Inside the diner, I got really dizzy again and had to stop on the stairs. I sat, because I thought I was going to faint. My hands were shakin
g and I felt cold. I took out some jerky
and ate it. My stomach wasn't very happy about it, but I managed to keep it down. After a while, things stopped spinning and I was able to stand and proceed to the second floor.

I couldn't carry the shotgun and wrench with me out the window and up the ladder, so I left them propped on the wall inside. On a good day, I might have been able to climb the ladder with the shotgun, but not this day. I knew if the man was still on top of the Quality Glass building, he would have the advantage; he was higher up, he had a rifle, and he wasn't struggling to stay conscious.

I got to the top of the ladder and peeked over. I didn't see anyone. After climbing all the way up, I sat on the roof and pulled the 9mm from the bag. I could see the bulldozer now; it was parked farther down the street, and there was no one manning it. I could see the front of their bucket truck poking out next to the church. I didn't see anyone in it either.

I felt dizzy again, so I lay
back on the roof and took a deep breath. I hurt all over, and I was so tired. I don't know how long I was there like that--I might have fallen asleep--but I remember being startled by cold rain drops hitting my face. I sat up, and there he was standing on my ladder staring at me over the top of the building. It was the man I'd seen on the glass building--I recognized the green hat he was wearing--only now he was on
my
building. H
is rifle was slung over his shoulder and he had his hands full of ladder. Now, he was at a disadvantage.

I could tell he was surprised to find me sitting up, and that he couldn't make up his mind whether he should come on up or go back down.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," he said.

His eyes glanced down quickly then back to me. Before he could do anything, I picked up the 9mm and pointed it at him. He started to go down.

"You won't make it," I said and he stopped.  I stood, keeping the pistol aimed at him and stepped over him.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He stared up at me but didn't speak.

"Are you with Wheeler?" I asked. He continued to stare. "How about Nathan Camp? How about Hank?" I tried to remember the name of the guy Nicholas Somerville had told me about....

"Kiss my ass," the man said.

I was about to tell him to pull his mask down so I could see his face when I had an idea.