Epidemic of the Undead: A Zombie Novel (24 page)

The crunch of cartilage reached Chris’ ears.  As Chris looked on in horror and disbelief, he saw the scratch on her arm; the one she had been hiding under the green jacket. Timmy, that little boy, he must have scratched her before Stephanie put him down.

“Holy shit, dude!” Steve reached down grabbing Brady’s rifle.

“Shoot her!” Stephanie shouted.

The rifle kicked hard in Steve’s grip as he pulled the trigger. The shot hit Nan in the back. Her yellow sundress tore from the bullet as it entered her. Blood ran red down her back, but she didn’t stop. She just kept feasting on Brady’s face as he cried out in horrendous pain.

Steve was clearly struggling to hold the rifle up. He dropped the rifle and gripped his wound. “Fucking hell, dude,” he wheezed.

Stephanie hysterically grabbed the rifle from the ground.

“God, what the hell, man!” Chris fired a volley of shots into Nan as she lay on the ground wrestling with Brady. Nan’s body jerked in spastic unison with each shot.

She let go of her husband and moaned an angry hiss at Chris. Brady’s nose was torn free from his face and no longer in Nan’s mouth. It could only be in one place, her stomach. His face was blood covered. He lay there convulsing and gagging. Nan turned to lunge at Chris.

Stephanie aimed the rifle and pulled the trigger. Nan’s left eye exploded. She fell to her back in the muddy grass. Nan was dead. The bullet to the head did the job. Stephanie dropped the rifle and fell to her knees. Water splashed up as she dropped to the sodden ground. She began to weep. Chris walked up to Brady who lay on the ground dying. His face was saturated with red viscera and loosely torn skin. His features were mutilated beyond recognition. If the bites and loss of blood weren’t going to do the old man in, then choking on his own blood was going to do it for him. Blood pooled from his mouth as he tried to breathe.     

“Seriously, dude. Why the hell did you have to let this happen to yourself?” Chris shouted. Looking down at Brady, Chris thought of all they had been through in such a short time. The rooftop at Stephanie’s house, that Timmy kid, the gas station. “I’m sorry old man. I really am.” Chris sighed, lifted his handgun and pulled the trigger. When the shot rang out, Chris didn’t see Brady. He saw Mark and something inside of him felt release. It was as if he had finally let Mark go. The shot was at close range. Before Brady was even able to open his eyes to see what was happening around him, his life exited his mutilated body. At least Chris was able to offer Brady a quick out. That aspect gave Chris a sense of control.

The courtyard was a mess of horror and cannibalistic carnage. There were bodies everywhere. Brady lay mutilated beside Jesse. Nan was slumped over on her back and there were several other corpses scattered elsewhere.

Chris fought back the urge to vomit and he felt lightheaded.

After a moment, the feeling subsided. Chris looked up to find Steve and Stephanie staring right back at him. Their faces were filled with fear and shock. He was feeling the same way. He just wanted to get home and check on his family. Stephanie dove into his arms, filled with grief and terror. She cried out, and Chris embraced her, coming to tears himself. Steve joined in, wrapping his arms around them both. They sobbed a horrendous release of emotion for close to a minute.

“I love you guys,” Steve said. “I’m scared.”

“I know, man. We all are.” Chris tried to smile. “We need to keep it together. There are keys in the parking lot trailer. Let’s get in a car and get the hell out of here. Is that cool with you guys?”

Stephanie looked up at Chris and clasped tighter to his shirt. He liked having her in his grip. Her eyes were swollen with tears.

She nodded. “Let’s go.”

“Steve?”

“I am down with that, bro. Let’s blitz.” Steve was struggling to breathe. His bandages were stained red from the inside.

“You going to be all right, dude?”

Steve looked down at the bandages. “I’ll be all right,” he wheezed. “The kick back on that rifle hit me pretty hard.”  

The sudden sound of an engine roaring to life out in the parking lot startled the three.

“What the hell was that?”

Chris looked down at Brady’s dead body and then looked back at Steve. “Here, take this!” Chris reached down and pulled Brady’s sidearm from his hip holster. Chris checked the magazine. There were a few bullets in it. “Better than nothing!”

“Thanks, dude.” 

The sound of the engine got louder. Suddenly, a car door had slammed out in the parking lot.

Chris checked his ammunition. The clip was low, but there was no time. He needed to see what the hell was going on. Making their way across the courtyard and toward the parking lot, what Chris and the others saw was frightening. Gil, that chicken shit bastard was at the main gate fumbling with the fence’s entrance. The headlights of a small truck illuminated the entire thing as it unfolded. The yellow belly prick was letting those things inside. As much as Chris instantly filled with rage and hatred toward Gil, the man had simply beat Chris to the punch. He was opening the main gate so that he could drive out of here. If Chris was going to do the same, he needed to make his move.

Chris heard someone scream out to get Gil’s attention. His emotion and the stress of watching the gate kick open had kept him from realizing that it was he who had screamed out. Gil looked over as he stood at the main entrance to the courtyard. Gil’s hand came up and a shot was fired. Chris, Steve and Stephanie ducked down as they watched Gil race back to the truck. With the gate unlocked, Gil didn’t even have to open it. The horde of undead on the other side did that for him. Chris fired at Gil, but the gun clicked empty, and the goateed man jumped into the safety of the truck. The dead quickly began to pour in. Unlike Nan and the zombies they had been dealing with for the last hour and a half, these zombies had been dead for quite some time. The putrid stench of rotting, maggot filled flesh permeated the air. The zombies’ skin was a dry pale color and most were decaying profusely.

The truck moved forward.

“That stupid son of a bitch stole our idea!” Steve fired two shots at the truck.

The passenger side window shattered, but that didn’t stop Gil. Giving it some more gas, the truck picked up momentum. Colliding with the mountain of torrential bodies flooding the parking lot, the truck bounced and rocked as it pushed against the massive undead horde. In a matter of seconds, the truck was engulfed with rancid bodies. The truck struggled against the bodies slowly gaining little ground. The trucks engine roared even loader as the truck tried to make up the difference, but it wasn’t working. There were too many zombies still pouring into the lot from the open gate. The truck wasn’t going to make it. As zombies swarmed the lot, several ghouls found a weakness in the truck. With the shattered side window open, two ghouls began to climb in.

“We need to help him!” Stephanie shouted.

“Fuck that, dude. He’s toast and we need to get the hell out of here!”

Steve was right. There were too many of them. The truck suddenly stopped moving, with only a small portion of the truck bed sticking out just in front of the gate. The rest of the truck had made its way outside the school grounds. With the undead legion of zombies no longer being restricted by the moving vehicle, they fanned out like a bird’s outstretched wing. In a matter of moments, the parking lot filled with over a hundred grotesque walking corpses. Aimlessly staggering about, the ghouls rambled through the parked cars and trucks. Moans filled the night air. The undead cries reverberated out in unison. Fresh meat was near and they could sense it. 

Someone screamed in agony. It was Gil. The creatures had gotten to him inside the truck.

“The roof! That’s where everyone else went,” Chris said. “Let’s go! It’s our last chance!”  

“How the hell do you know that?” Steve asked, as they ran back into the courtyard toward the buildings. “You’re only assuming that’s where everyone went!”

“I don’t actually know, Steve!” Chris shouted between heavy breaths, as he led them toward the open doorway across the courtyard. “I am all ears for some other options!”

The moaning call of an undead horde followed behind them. The dead were on the hunt, and Chris and his friends were the prey.

Chris darted into the hallway after jumping over the two immobilized zombies he had shot and killed only a short time ago. “Come on! Come on!” Chris shouted as he ushered Steve and Stephanie into the hall. 

Stephanie leaped into the room past Chris. Steve jumped in and just before Chris slammed the door shut, over a dozen ghouls came into view from the parking lot. They pushed through, briskly walking into the courtyard. A dozen turned into two dozen in seconds. The fear of being obliterated by a horde of cannibals filled Chris from head to toe. Slamming the door shut and then locking the bolt, Chris leaned against the wall, put his hands on his knees, and leaned forward. Finally, it came up. Vomit splashed across the hallway’s tile floor. He was nervous as hell. He wasn’t ready to die.

“We need to block this door!” Steve shouted.

“Here, help me with this, Steve.” Stephanie started pulling a small folding table over to the door.

Chris looked around the hall. It was dark as hell inside. It was a spitting image of the hallway across the courtyard. Several tables were lined along the narrow walls with the occasional cot and chair. There were several doors down the hall on both sides. The end veered right and Chris assumed this building was the same as the other buildings that he had been in. Around the corner should be a staircase leading upstairs to the rooftop. The only thing that kept the hallway from being a perfect replica of the other building was the stained glass mural at the end. This one was not a portrait of the mother Mary. It was of Jesus Chris himself. Crucified and drained of all life, his frail body and wounded flesh appeared to Chris as if the Son of God was himself a zombie. 

Something moaned from inside the hall. Chris looked up and saw a lone ghoul stick its head around the corridor. It shuffled out and started making its slow decent toward him.

“We have company,” Chris said, as his gripped his firearm.

“Go take care of it,” Stephanie cried. “We got this!” She called out, with a chair in her hand, trying to barricade the doorway. She and Steve had already shoved two small tables and a few chairs in front of the doorway. 

Chris nodded and then started walking toward the approaching zombie. Its chin was pressed against its chest, and its eyes not leaving the floor as it moved forward. Both arms lay slumped at its side. As it walked toward Chris, both feet never left the floor. Shuffling along, the dragging sounds of the dead feet filled the hallway. As it got closer, Chris lifted his handgun. Since it was dark, he waited, wanting the shot to count. The sudden thud of bodies at the door behind Chris startled him. He looked back to see Steve and Stephanie starting to panic. The tables were beginning to shake. Chris saw putrid, rancid hands and heads press against the door’s glass window.

“It’s not going to hold!” Steve screamed.

“There’s too many out there!” Stephanie leaned all her weight into the barricade of tables and chairs.

In front of Chris, the ghoul blocking the corridor hissed. Chris jumped, having somehow briefly forgotten about the creature. When he turned his attention away from the door, the zombie was almost right on top of him. Chris screamed as the zombie reached out and grabbed him by the elbow. The zombie snarled and lifted its head. Blood squirted out of the creature’s partially eaten throat. The ghoul’s Adam’s apple was dislodged and hanging loosely from this neck. The creature hissed a guttural call of hunger. Blood sprayed out from the open hole in its throat splashing Chris in the face. Chris pulled the trigger. The gun clicked empty. In the panic of everything, he forgot the gun was empty.

The creature leaped forward. 

“I’m out of ammunition!” Chris shouted, as he wrestled with the zombie.

Chris fell hard to the floor on his back. The zombie came down with him. He knew that he was done. Trying his best to keep the zombie from getting to his face, Chris pushed against the creature with both hands. As he lifted the living corpse into the air, a single shot rang out. The zombie instantly stopped fighting. Chris pushed the dead thing off. It fell to the floor beside him, dead. Steve had stepped away from the doorway and shot the creature in the head. The zombie had a hole in the center of its head. Blood oozed out the red reassurance that it wouldn’t be getting up again.

“You all right, dude?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Chris stood to his feet and proceeded to wipe the blood from his face and lips.

“Fuck, man. That was a close one, dude.”

“Tell me about it. I’m just ready to get the hell out of here!” Chris looked at the gun he still had in his hands. “Stupid thing!” Chris ejected the empty magazine, remembering the box of bullets in his pocket. “At least I still have these. I just need a second to reload this damn thing.”

“Cool deal, dude. We’re going to get out of here.”

Taking the box from his pocket, Chris started shoving bullets into the magazine, one at a time.

“Oh shit!” Stephanie fell to the floor away from the door.

The door pressed open some. Several hands reached in trying to get at anyone who dared to come close enough. The moans of the undead outside reached Chris’ ears. Panicked, he dropped the box of bullets and shoved the magazine back into the gun. He got at least four bullets into the clip, or maybe three.

“We need to go!”

“To the roof!”

Grabbing Stephanie up from the floor, Chris turned to run for the stairwell around the corner at the end of the hall. His eyes burned with sweat as they made their way. He had been right. The stairs were just as he had assumed. At the top of the steps was a closed door.

“Come on, we’re almost there!” Chris shouted, with Stephanie still held tight in one hand. The sounds of the dead entering the building filled the area.

Chris reached the top of the staircase. The door was locked. It wouldn’t budge.