Escape from the Damned (APEX Predator Book 2) (20 page)

Ms Hebert glanced over her shoulder.  Shane and SSgt Brown were right behind her.  The edge of the trees was about 100 yards away.  The space in between was quickly filling with a mass of undead.  She didn’t count, but she guessed there were about 100 zombies shambling across the open space behind them.

Turning ahead, she could see that Sgt Procell was leading them towards the wood line on the north side of the field.  There were only a few zombies ahead and to the right of where they were.  They were definitely past the majority of the monsters.

Sgt Procell led the group between two more small groups of zombies.  After another hundred yards, he slowed his pace.  There were no more zombies east of their location.  They were through. He glanced over his shoulder.  All accounted for and they were at least 50 meters ahead of their closest pursuers.

He made eye contact with SSgt Brown.  He pointed to the wood line and then at the eastern edge of the field, about a half mile away.  The big NCO pointed at the eastern edge of the field.  The message was clear.  Keep us out of those fucking woods.

They continued to outpace the zombies.  As they got closer to the line of trees, Sgt Procell slowed and listened.  He could hear a chorus of moans coming from behind them but nothing to their front.  He continued into the tree line.  The stand of trees was dense, but fairly small, maybe 150 meters across.  They emerged into another field in only a minute or so.  This field was devoid of zombies.  Sgt Procell turned to the right and began running south.  The rest of the group followed suit.

After a few more minutes, he led them into another line of trees.  This one was also not very big.  He led them through it.  On the other side of the trees they found a road.  It wasn’t a major thoroughfare, just a two lane road running roughly east to west.  There were no signs of anything living or dead on it.  SSgt Brown let out a soft whistle.  Sgt Procell looked back to see his boss pointing east down the road.

Near the Fire Station

The world around Jason was going black. He struggled to keep the pickup pointing in the right direction.  The sound of his tires on the road was being drowned out by the ringing in his ears.

He and Walker had been out on a run to a local grocery store.  After filling up several bags with supplies, they were leaving when a large group of zombies had walked through the parking lot.  They were almost gone when Walker let out the loudest cough Jason had ever heard.  The herd of zombies also heard the cough.  They’d had to fight their way through the steadily advancing crowd of zombies.

Walker had gone down and he wasn’t able to reach his friend to help him.  He hated to admit it, but Walker’s sacrifice had let Jason escape.  He rubbed his left forearm.  His tee-shirt was wrapped around a large bite wound.  Well, almost unscathed, he thought.

There!  There in front of him was the fire station.  He was almost home.  He took in a deep breath.  The world went black as his heart stopped.  He slumped over the steering wheel, and his right foot rested heavily on the gas pedal.

Captain Reynolds was on the roof talking to one of his firemen.  Below them was a large group of zombies.

“They been coming in all day boss,” the man reported.  “Must be fifty or so out there. “  The older man thought about it.  Could his hose crew clear fifty of these things off his front door, or was it time to come up with something new?

The sound of the gunning engine bearing in from their right made it a moot point.  The two men watched in horror as the black Ford pickup jumped the curb, mowed down several zombies, and drove right through the big garage door right below where they stood.  Before they could react, zombies began slowly pouring through the gap.

They heard gunshots from inside.  People inside were starting to defend themselves. Sam quickly descended the ladder in the rear of the building.  He was greeted at the bottom by Indira and the two pre-teens from Jen’s group.

“Get your people to the roof Captain,” the girl ordered.  “They’re inside and Jackson says we can’t stop them.  He’s sending people up now.”  The girl continued up the stairs with her charges.  Behind her several other women followed.

The gunfire continued.  Sam drew his 9mm pistol from its holster on his belt.  He hadn’t had to use it since the world had gone to hell but he figured now was as good a time as any.  He fought his way through the crowd of people.  The shooting had stopped.

When he made it past the last few people, he could see why.  Jackson, Jen, Frank and Kerry had slammed a large door and were now leaning hard against it.  The sound of moaning and bodies slamming against the door could be heard even this far down the hallway.   He began running towards the group of defenders.

“No!” Frank yelled to him.  “Get everyone up and out of the way.  This door won’t hold very long.”

Sam did as he was ordered, hustling the last of the survivors towards the stairs.  When the last was through the next door, he yelled for them to come to him.   They did.  The door behind them remained closed, but they could all see it buckling under the weight of a horde of zombies. They slammed and locked the next door as they passed through it.

As Frank, the last survivor out was mounting the ladder, he heard the sound of the door coming down inside.  He knew that they had spent their last day inside the comfort of the fire station.  It would be different from now on.

When he reached the top, he did a quick nose count.  He knew Sam would already be doing the same thing but he needed to know.  Jen and her group were standing alone on one corner of the roof.  They appeared to be there and alive.  He soon realized that there were several people missing.   Jason Martinez and Mike Walker were both missing.  They usually went out together.  So maybe they’re still out, he thought.  Trish, Taylor, and Linda were all missing.  They were part of the kitchen crew.  They would be separated from the living quarters.  They must have been cut off.

He strode to Sam.

“Who are we missing?”

“As far as I can tell,” Sam began, “we’re missing the kitchen crew, Tom Holtz, and Cindy Frazier.”

Ah, he thought.  He’d forgotten about them.   Where were they?  They shouldn’t have been separated from the group.  Well, maybe they were, he thought.  Over the past week it had become obvious that the two, both newly widowed, had begun to become close. Maybe they had found a place to be alone.  He smiled for a brief second.

“Well,” he said quietly to Sam. “If you’re going to get ate by zombies, you might as well get some before you go.”  Sam gave him a shocked look.  Then it sank in.  He smiled a crooked smile.  “I guess…”

As if on cue, they heard screaming coming from inside the garage.  It was Cindy.

“Cindy?” Sam yelled down to her.  “Can you hear me?”

“Sam?” Tom yelled back.  “That you?”

“Yeah Tom, it is.  You ok?”

“Fine, Sam.  We’re just fine.”

“You guys on top of the pump rig?”

There was a brief silence.  “Yeah.”

“How many of them are around you?”

“A bunch, Sam.  You want me to count?”

“No.  Just stay there.  We’re going to figure a way to get you guys out of there.”  He looked at Frank.  The other fireman shrugged.  He had no clue how they were going to get them off the top of that fire engine.

By this time Jen, Jackson and Kerry had come to see what all of the commotion was about.  Sam filled them in on the fact that they’d lost some people, but that two were trapped on top of the fire engine.  Kerry asked why they were on top of the fire engine.  Then she blushed when she realized the answer.

Sam looked around the roof for something they could use to help the couple.  There really wasn’t anything.  There was something like an air conditioning unit mounted to the roof, and connected by a decent sized duct.  He quickly discounted that.  The duct work would not support any weight and couldn’t be used in a rescue.

There wasn’t anything else on the roof that looked promising.  He paced the edge of the roof.  The ground around the fire station was swarming with walking corpses.  The one ladder leading off of the roof was awash in cold grey flesh.  There were a few wires leading to the building.  He guessed they were electrical wires, phone lines, and maybe even the cable feed.  But nothing else seemed to be useful at all.  Looking down the front of the building, he could see the vehicle that crashed through the giant garage door.  He could still see the chrome bumper on the rear of the black truck.  He knew the two men whom he had sent out in that truck.  They were good men.  He hoped that both died quickly.

“Tom?” he called.  “Can you get to the cab of the rig?”

A moment later, the younger man yelled up that he could not.  There were too many zombies surrounding the vehicle.  He reported he might be able to get a hose over the catwalk above the fire engine and try to climb out that way.  He told them he’d be up in a few minutes, and then began working on affecting his own escape.

Those on the roof heard a loud grunt and then the sound of metal banging on metal.  Jen could envision the business end of the fire hose banging off of a catwalk. Several more times, first a grunt then the clanging of the nozzle bouncing off of something metal.  Several times a curse word would drift up from the garage below.  Then it happened.  There was a grunt but no clanging of metal on metal.  A woman giggled below them.  Good Jen thought, Tom did it.

It was quiet for several minute.  They waited anxiously for any sign that the two had escaped.  “You guys ok down there?”  It was Sam.

“I’m on the catwalk now,” Cindy called.  “Tom’s pulling himself up now.”  Although she was correct, he wasn’t pulling himself up very effectively.  She wasn’t strong enough to pull him up, so he had tied the end of the hose around his own waist.  He basically used the other end of the hose to do a rope climb.  He never liked climbing ropes in high school, and liked it even less now as he struggled with hands and feet.

He was within a few feet of the catwalk when his hands slipped.  As gravity pulled him closer to earth, he tried one last attempt to grasp the hose.  Instead of getting a firm grasp, he was able to grip just hard enough to throw off his balance.  When he hit the back of the fire engine, he landed left foot first, then his right foot.  His momentum carried him over the side.

Cindy screamed as she watched Tom fall into the waiting crowd of decaying flesh and biting teeth.  She grasped the hose and desperately tried to pull her lover out of the mass of cold, gray flesh.  She knew it was too late but she wasn’t thinking with her brain.  She struggled against the combined weight of Tom and his attackers to no avail.

Suddenly there was no more weight on the hose and she reeled it in.  She screamed again as she dragged a mass of unidentifiable flesh, tied in the hose, onto the catwalk.  The sight of the bloody mess was more than her stomach could take.  She dropped the hose, fell to her knees and vomited her lunch onto the mass of zombies below.

After her stomach stopped retching, Cindy sat back.  She could barely see the blood soaking her hands.  A shudder rocked her body as she began to contemplate her situation.  A month ago, she’d been a wife and mother to a wonderful husband and two girls, Ashley and Sarah, 7 and 4.

She’d watched the two girls attacked by their dead father.  She cried as she was forced to shoot the one man she’d ever really loved.  Tears flowed as she thought about the worst moment in her entire life.  She walked through the front door of her house to find her husband, Trey, or the zombie that used to be Trey, kneeling over the dead bodies of her two children.  The amount of blood on the floor was staggering.

At first, she was frozen in place.  The scene was so horrific that her mind couldn’t process what it was seeing.  Then Trey turned to her and stood.  His face and camouflaged tee-shirt were covered in blood.  Whose blood, she had thought.  Then, as he advanced on her, her mind finally realized it was the blood of her daughters.  My girls, her mind finally screamed.  He killed my girls!  She pulled the .38 special that Trey had given her a few years before out of her purse.  The first shot hit him in the center of his chest, like he had taught her.  Again, it took her mind a moment to realize what she was seeing.  Trey continued to come at her, a low moan emanated from his bloody mouth.  She fired again.  Again, a center mass hit did nothing to slow down the man to whom she had once said I do.

Finally she fired the last 3 rounds from the snub nosed revolver in quick succession.  She basically just started squeezing the trigger in anger and frustration.  It wasn’t until she heard the tell tale click of the hammer falling onto an empty chamber did she realize that he had stopped and was lying on the floor, a 3 inch hole marked the place where the .38 caliber bullet had exited his skull.

She was sure that she had died on that day.  She stopped caring about anything.  She sat there in the living room of her house cradling the head of her youngest child.  Suddenly her neighbor, Sam, had come knocking on her door.  She didn’t know if it was a minute, or an hour or even a day after she killed her husband.  She just knew he came.  He held her by the hand as he helped her into his SUV.

Sam had saved her life, a life that, at the time, wasn’t worth saving.  She remained in her funk for just about a week.  A week spent curled up on the floor, sobbing. Then Tom came into her life.  He was tall and handsome, if not a little older than she was.  He had seen his wife and son killed by zombies.  He had been through the same horror.  He knew her pain.  He had been such comfort for her.