Dying To Live & Fighting To Live-Book One and Book Two (Zombie Overload Series) (18 page)

I see her hand
twitch and my heart jumps. I watch her for at least a minute. No more
movement so I return to my search Then I finally see the barrel of my
gun sticking out from under her thigh. Being as quiet and as careful
as I can be, I get closer to her and manage to get a firm grip on the
barrel, then yank it as hard as I can. It comes loose and I am it at
her as I back up the stairs. She never moves. I get to the top and
back into the room, afraid to take my eyes off her. If she's an
undead, I shouldn't have any reason to worry about her. But if she's
not, that bitch is obviously crazy, and I'm not turning my back on
her!

I've moved into the
center of the room and finally take a look around. I can't believe
what I'm seeing! Pictures cover all four walls. Some from a camera
and some drawn by a child's hand. Each picture shows a different form
of abuse and horror. One snapshot shows a young girl maybe about the
age of six, who looks eerily similar to the young woman at the bottom
of the stairs, lying naked on a gurney. A large crudely made machine
stands next to the gurney and from it, are hundreds of different
colored rubbery tubes. Those tubes run to the girl's body and are
connect to her with long needles. Every inch of her body seems to be
covered. What is most horrifying is that she is AWAKE! Her eyes are
wide and bulging, tears frozen in the shot to forever run from her
eyes. Her mouth is wide with the screams of pain the picture is
unable to capture. The terror on her face is too much for me. I jerk
my head away. Determined not to look at another one, I keep my head
down. My mistake.

I feel a hand slam over my mouth
and an arm around my neck. I'm jerked back hard against the chest of
someone behind me. I drop my gun and they kick it across the room.
Terror overwhelms me. No, I know it's not a zombie, because a zombie
wouldn't have taken the time to cover my mouth, unless it was with
their
mouth as they bite my lips off. I can tell it's a man
from the rough, course hair on his arm, the muscles, and the
strength. My hands are scratching and pulling at his arm as it
tightens and cuts off my ability to breathe. He loosens his grip,
just barely, and then I hear a rough, gravelly, panting voice in my
ear.

"How nice of you to
volunteer to be one of my girls." I rapidly shake my head as
much as I can. I try to scream, but it's just a muffled noise filling
his hand. He jerks me tighter against him and I hear his terrifying
voice fill my ear again. "Now, Now. No need to fuss about it.
What did you think would happen when you killed my last living girl?
I need my girls. That's the only way I know if the treatments I'm
testing works. And you'd make a fine test subject. You're not all
skin and bones like the others. You will probably last longer. Yes.
You'll do just fine." And then he kisses me on my cheek! I gag
and fight even harder to get away but this guy is too strong for me.
My eyes dart around the room looking for anything I might be able to
use to help me. I look over at my gun with longing but it's too far
away.

The next thing I know, the arm is
released from my neck, the hand is gone from my mouth, and my already
tender back is slammed into the wall. The man moves in front of me
and I get my first good look at him. Wearing a long white lab coat,
covered in stains, plaid pants showing at the bottom, bottle cap
glasses, and thick, tightly curled brown hair that, with some strands
of gray along the temples, frames his head. His nose is long and
pointed on the end. His eyes are muddy brown and there is way too
much of an insane person's sparkle in those things. I'm about to
charge him and attack in any way I can, (really, what have I got to
lose. I will
not
be his experiment project!) when he holds
something up for me to see. It's a syringe. A
big
syringe,
filled with a bright green liquid.

"What the hell is that?"
My voice comes out scratchy from the abuse he put my throat through.

He jerks it at me and I jump back
tighter against the wall. As he laughs at me, I see movement past his
shoulder on the other side of the room. In terror, I realize there
are more than one of him here. I see a head peer around the door, and
I jerk my eyes back to Dr. Psycho, afraid he will turn to see what
I'm looking at.

"This,
this
is my
cure for the poor insane souls outside." The man tells me.
I
wonder if it works on insane souls right here in this room?
I
know I have to keep him talking and distracted.

"What does it do?" I
ask.

"What
it
does
, my dear, is
cure
them. I believe I
explained that already."
Oh, boy!

"Yes,
I'm sorry. You did. I guess I wasn't paying attention.
How
does it work?" I ask.

Suddenly, my head snaps to the
right as he slaps me as hard as he can. I slide against the wall to
the floor as my legs give out. My cheek is on fire and tears gush
from my eyes from the force of the slap. There's a very loud ringing
in my ear. Blood is filling my mouth and my already injured nose is
screaming in pain, and starts bleeding again. Holding my hand to my
cheek, I swing my head back to him. I'm frozen with horror as he
brings the syringe up in the air above me and then......He jerks and
falls to the side. I didn't even hear the bang of my gun go off over
the ringing in my ears.

I
look up and see Will in a shooter's stance, just bringing his hands
holding the gun down. I want to run to him and be held and comforted
by him, but I can't get up. My head feels so heavy and every movement
makes my stomach spin. I see Will point the gun at the man's head,
making certain he doesn't come back and I hear the shot this time.
Feeling nauseous, I turn my upper body away, plant my hands on the
floor, and throw up blood. I hear Will call out my name as he runs
over to me. Finally done throwing up, He holds me and I let
him....until he starts rocking me. Shoving him away, I throw up more
blood. I thought at first it was just the blood that had leaked into
my throat from the slap, but now, I'm not so sure.
Oh,
wait.
A couple bloody noses,
too.
Let's go with that.
I
really don't need any internal injuries right now. We wait a few
minutes after the vomiting stops before I try to stand. Will helps me
as I slowly and painfully get to my feet. I think the fall from the
stairs kicked my ass.

"I
told you not to come up here!"
He did?

"When?" I ask him.

"When you got out of the
Hummer. I said 'Don't come up here.' Why the hell did you come up
here?"
Uh, to save your ass, remember?

"I didn't hear you over the
guns and grenades. But I'm alive, I think, and we need to get the
hell out of here." I start toward the stairs and he steps next
to me. He puts his arm around me to help, but I yelp from his touch
on my back and jerk away from him, which hurts, too. He apologizes
but I tell him it's not his fault, he was just trying to help, after
all.

Slowly,
very, very slowly, we go down the stairs. At the bottom, we step
around the girl and Will asks me if he should shoot her, too. I look
at her, and the photos from upstairs flash in my mind. I shake my
head no, shut the door on her, and continue to the outside door of
the pharmacy. The pain is still pretty high but I'm able to move
better, which relieves me
greatly
.
Will looks out the window on the door and slowly eases it open. Then
he ducks back in and quietly shuts it. Leaning against the door, he
informs me we aren't getting out with just my gun. The undead are
swarming our Hummer.

I gasp in terror as I think of my
baby boy having to go through that alone. I want to tear out of here
and rip every one of their damn heads of with my bare hands. But I
force myself to think clearly and I whip out my cellphone. Speed
dialing Jake, I tell him our son needs help and we can't get to him
and why. He tells me not to worry and hangs up. I worry, anyway. I
run back to the door and look out. The damn dead are beating on our
Hummer. It's rocking back and forth from the assault of so many
trying to get inside. I don't really think they will get inside, but
my baby has got to be terrified. I hate myself for leaving him. I
should have thought of something else! A huge sob escapes me and I
clutch my stomach as a wave of pain from not protecting my son
overtakes me and I move away from the door so none of the zombies
outside can hear me.

Then
I hear the sound of gunshots coming from just outside. Relieved that
Jake has come to the rescue, I run back to the door, and look out the
window. But, I don't see Jake. What I
do
see,
almost makes me pass out from shock. Ash, my
baby
,
is on top of the roof and has a freakin' gun in his hand. Aiming
straight down from the top, he takes out each one he aims at. I turn
my head and look at Will in shock, and he's looking at me with the
same expression. Finally, this side of the truck is cleared enough,
so we run out the door, using my gun to take out the stragglers, and
get safely inside our vehicle. I painfully climb up the hatch to the
roof and surround Ash with my arms. Squeezing him tightly to me, I
apologize over and over for leaving him, but apparently getting to
use the gun made him forget all that. But I don't forget. I'll never
forget.

I get Ash back
inside and then I look over at Dad's side of town, then Jake's,
trying to determine who needs the most help. Considering Jake is
using the grenades and Dad isn't, I yell down for Will to take off
toward Dad. I tell him to squeeze into the space between Dad's
vehicle and the building and then I ask him to hand me up the guns
and ammo. When I get the ammo, I reload all the weapons and Will
joins me at the top with his handgun and a shotgun. I look at the
shotgun for a second in surprise then at Will.

"Found it in
the seat." He says with a shrug.

Of course. Where
else? I roll my eyes and get in position to fire.

It seems like this
has been going on for hours. Shoot, reload, shoot, change guns,
shoot, and on and on. My arms are weak and shaking from exhaustion.
My hands and arms have a weird tingly sensation from the rapid fire
of the machine gun. The adrenaline has worn off and my eyes are
drooping, not to mention the pain my body has been subjected to. I'm
so damn tired and these damn things won't stop coming! What's worse,
everyone else is starting to slow down. Mom, Greg, Sam, and even Bo
had joined in the shooting. Dad made sure Bo was on top of the truck,
of course.

At first, Bo was
excited and enthusiastic about his first time shooting a gun, but the
novelty wore off as time went by. Eventually, he crawled back in my
parent's truck and, I'm sure, is fast asleep. Last I checked on Ash
and Grace, they were both asleep, too. Ash, curled up on the floor
with a pillow and a blanket had, thankfully, left us enough room to
get down. That should tell you that I wasn't too far from the truth
over how long it's been. The shooting has become the kids' lullaby
instead of scaring them. I crawl back to the hole and almost fall
face-first to the floor, unable to find the strength to lower myself
down. But even though I'm ready to collapse, I keep going. I lean
over the open storage compartment and can't believe what I'm seeing.
I blink several times and reach my hands in, moving the three other
guns. Nothing. I check the three guns, already knowing what I will
find. I feel the panic start spreading in my chest. I fly up out of
the hole and scream to Jake that we are out of ammo. I whip around
when I hear Dad yell the same.

We watch as Jake
jumps back into the truck and the other two guys disappear inside.
The truck backs up and then whips around toward us. Jake leans out
the passenger-side window and yells at us to get inside our Hummer.
We do and, shortly after, we hear heavy footsteps on the roof of our
truck. Jake leans his head down into the hole and tells Will to hand
him the grenades when he asks for them. Jake tells me to get ready to
drive. He yells out instructions to Dad and then I see Dad motioning
me back. I move back and Dad pulls forward and then turns his wheels
and backs up so that he is now facing out of town like I am. Jake
hits the roof and about makes me shit myself. He yells for me to go
and I do.

Dad falls in behind
me, Sam (driving Jake's truck) falls in behind them. As I drive, I
try not to go too fast even though every instinct is telling me to
put the pedal to the metal. I know the grenades are going to go off
but it still takes me off-guard. Seeing the dead in front of my
headlights burst without knowing when it's going to happen is a
horrifying sight. Body parts and liquids rained down on us. I know
Jake had to be getting covered in the crap. We were constantly
running over different body parts and mostly whole corpses. Finally,
the zombies are few and we can speed up. Jake comes inside our truck
and Will hands him a towel that he had hung outside the window and
soaked with a gallon jug of water. Jake gratefully takes it and
cleans off the best he can. Jake and Will replace the back seat and
move Ash and Grace onto it. Will makes Ash comfortable with his
pillow and covers him with his blanket while Jake gets the baby
buckled in. Will throws a couple sleeping bags on the very back seat
and informs us he's taking a nap. He climbs over Ash and and the
middle seat and disappears.