Shamblers: the zombie apocalypse (12 page)

The Preacher scrambled toward me on his hands and knees. I hastily reached out, grabbed the crowbar that stuck out between his backpack straps, and pulled him into the safety of the room.
He was just out of the doorway when two more shotgun blasts went through it (which made me realize there were two shooters outside and that we had gotten very lucky).

The first blast struck the ceiling and exploded two, old fluorescent light-bulbs. The other shot buried itself in the far wall and tore up a most-wanted poster of criminals that had to be long since zombified.

I looked at The Preacher. He was bleeding from a series of wounds. “How badly are you hit?” I asked.

“Mostly in my right shoulder and arm,” he said. I think most of the shot went wide.
I should be okay to keep fighting.”

“That little bitch!” I cursed.

From the other end of the police station, I heard a familiar voice, “Nick?” I hesitated. Could it be true?

“Becky?”

“Yes, I’m over here Nick! Marcus locked me in a cell! Thank God you came for me! I knew you would!”

I darted across the police station to where I heard Becky’s call. As I saw her, she started to cry tears of joy. I reached my hand through the cell bars and clasped hers tightly.

“I’m getting you out of here,” I told her. She leaned over and kissed my hand. I noticed her face was swollen and purple.

“That fucker has been beating on you, hasn’t he?” I demanded.

“Yes,” she told me meekly as she stared down at the floor with a look of shame and fright.

“Did he rape you?” I inquired.

She shook her head. “Not yet, but he’s getting bolder. I think he’s working up to it.”

I growled with rage.
“I’m going to kill him, don’t worry,” I vowed.

“I’m
okay for now,” she let me know as she rubbed the top of my hand, “now please get me out of here so I can help. They keep the keys in the top desk drawer over there,” she pointed across the room.

As
I ran over to the desk to get the keys, Becky continued, “Marcus doesn’t bother to keep their location a secret. He figures that no one else will dare let me out, and leaving the keys nearby makes it easier for him to send other people to bring me to him if he’s too lazy to come himself.”

By the time she finished explaining
about Marcus’ lack of judgment, I was back at her cell door and in the process of unlocking it. When if finally swung open, and I gave Becky her first taste of freedom in a long time, she threw her arms around me and kissed me.

Our joyous reunion was short-lived.

“Nick!” The Preacher yelled. “We’ve got company coming in. His yell was followed by another shotgun blast.

“Go back in your cell,” I told Becky, “and pretend the door is still locked.”

She hesitated and I could tell she was terrified of being trapped there again.

“Trust me,” I told her and
gently grabbed her shoulders. “If they think you’re still locked in there, they won’t think twice about you. We may need that advantage.”

She did as asked.
While she closed the door herself (but left it unlocked) I ran to the front of the police station to assist The Preacher.

Right as I arrived, Clod was running up the front steps with Wendy close behind. I fired
a quick shot in their direction. It struck the wooden header of the doorframe but caused them each to leap to one side of the front door, out of view. They must have figured we weren’t trying to shoot it out across the street because we had run out of ammo; they’d hesitate barging recklessly through the door now, if only for a few seconds.

Hav
ing bought myself some precious time, I picked The Preacher up off the floor and together we ran to the other side of the police station, where the cells were. When I passed Becky’s cell, I tossed her the crowbar that The Preacher had slipped between his backpack straps and his body. Next, I basically flung The Preacher down the hall and returned to the heavy desk where the keys had been located.

Using all my strength, I maneuvered it into the middle of the hall
way and hopped behind it just as Clod’s shotgun went off. Luckily for me, the desk was old, oak, and very well built, and his shotgun didn’t penetrate it.

The Preacher and I
ducked low as we hid behind the heavy desk. I only had three bullets left. It looked like I’d have to use them here. The Preacher set his girly backpack on his lap and reached into it: the first object he retrieved was his last, glass bottle full of ball-bearings. He set that beside him. After that, he drew a filet knife out of the pack. He drew a labored breath. Then, he set the hot-pink backpack next to him and took one item in each hand.

“I’m ready when you are, Nick,” he whispered to me.

While I tried to think up the best course of action, Clod taunted us, “yous’ all best come on out now, ya hear? We gots yous’ covered.”

“I still have six shots,” I lied.

“I have a grenade,” Wendy stated. “Unless you want me to make hamburger of your fucking asses, I suggest you toss your gun and your gear out here and surrender.”

I didn’t know if she was bluffing or not and wasn’t about to pop my head up to find out.

“Forgive me if I don’t trust your word on that,” I replied. “I could say that I have a laser, but that doesn’t make it true.” A second later, I added, “why don’t you humor me? Show that grenade to Becky so she can verify for us that you’re telling the truth.”

“I can do that,” Wendy stated. “If you pop your head up or try to shoot me or Clod while I do it, he’s going to make quick work of you, though.”

I heard her walking down the hallway. A second later, Becky called out, “she’s telling the truth, Nick. She certainly has a real grenade. Please just surrender.”

I prayed my trick would work and gently placed my .45 on the desk. “There’s my only weapon,” I stated.

“Put your gear up there too.” Wendy demanded.

I put my backpack atop the desk. The Preacher did the same.

“Oooh, I’m keeping that,” Wendy said as she noticed the hot-pink backpack.

“
You can thank us later,” I sardonically remarked. “Now, we’re both unarmed. We’re going to get up. I want your promise that you won’t shoot.”

“I keep my word, always,” Wendy stated.

“I promise not to shoot either of yous’ folk too,” Clod said. “We can all walk out of this here pre-dick-a-mint.”

I stood up slowly and helped the Preacher up with me. Clod and Wendy stepped forward.
As they got in front of Becky’s cell, I nodded at her and winked.

Becky
barreled forward and slammed the door of her cell into Wendy. As Wendy fell over and the grenade rolled away (thankfully, she hadn’t pulled the pin or things could have gotten very nasty) Becky brought her heavy crowbar down hard on Clod’s pump-action shotgun, which wrenched it from his hands.

Clod
turned on Becky, but before he could do anything, the Preacher heaved the bottle of ball-bearings at the dumbfounded hick. Clod took it square in the jaw. I swear I saw a tooth pop out as the bottle exploded. Clod fell into the wall. He hollered with agony and his hands went to his shattered jaw.

Simultaneously, b
all-bearings filled the hallway. They rolled every which way. Subduing Wendy and Clod would now have been an easy victory for us, were it not for the ball-bearings. Becky slipped on them as she tried to close in on Wendy. She fell over backwards with a cry and ended up on her back in the doorway of her cell.

 
At nearly the same time, as I too tried to capitalize on the opportunity that Becky had created, I hopped the desk and also slipped on the ball-bearings. I came down on my jaw. The pain was excruciating. I raised my hand to my face, much like Clod. My palm came away smeared in blood.

While I moaned in pain and worried about my split chin
, The Preacher leapt over the desk, brandishing his filet knife. Fortunately, he didn’t slip. Instead, he rammed the knife into Clod’s windpipe so hard that the blade pierced through the back of Clod’s neck. The knife’s bloodied point even scraped against the wall that Clod was propped up against.

The hick
gasped and wheezed. His checkered, blue and green flannel shirt turned crimson as it soaked up his flowing blood. His face turned white. His lips curled into a distressed grimace. He’d be dead within minutes.

I barely got to my knees when Wendy’s
sawed-off shotgun went off. It drowned out the sounds of Clod’s gurgling and nearly deafened me. The Preacher was hit square in the chest. He flew over the desk backwards. My ears were ringing so badly that I didn’t even hear him crash to the floor.

Becky came out of her cell an instant later. She moved like lightning and tackled Wendy to the ground.

The shotgun went off a second time as they struggled. This time, the blast went harmlessly into the floor at their feet. My head and jaw were throbbing.

The fifteen year old redhead was tough, and a good shot, but as Becky knocked her shotgun away, it was clear that Wendy was no match for a full-grown woman
who was more than a foot and a half taller than her with a thirty plus pound advantage.

Becky
grabbed one of Wendy’s pigtails and started to whale the vicious, little girl in the face. Wendy scratched Becky’s cheek in response. A second later, Becky put Wendy in a headlock and started to punch her face some more. Both women cried and shrieked as they fought. I was watching a full blown catfight! It would have been very exciting were our lives not on the line, and were Wendy not underage.

I clutched my injured jaw and unsteadily rose to my feet. As I recovered, Wendy bit
into Becky’s forearm as if it were a juicy sausage.

Becky
screeched loud enough that I could hear, even in my half-deafened state. She released the redhead and clutched her injured arm.

The instant
that Wendy was freed, she darted for the grenade that she’d dropped. Becky pursued her. As soon as Wendy bent down to pick the grenade up, Becky kicked it down the front steps of the police station and connected with some of Wendy’s fingers in the process. The grenade bounced down the steps and landed next to The Preacher’s wooden cross.

Wendy
ignored the pain in her fingers and tried to chase it down. As she did, she slipped on a ball bearing. With a cry, she flew forward. Her face went right into the barbed wire of The Preacher’s wooden cross.

With her face
being lacerated from many sharp, jagged barbs, Wendy screamed and thrashed. She grabbed the barbed wire with both hands and tried to extricate herself from the tangled mess. Blood poured in between her fingers as she ripped the wire from her face and tore her hands open in the process.

When she turned to face us, it was apparent through all the blood that she had lost her other eye.
Her face was badly cut up. Her screams were intolerable.

Becky silenced her w
ith a crowbar to the head: her horizontal, baseball bat swing clunked sickeningly against the top of Wendy’s skull. The impact was so ferocious that it deformed her skull and caused a large section of her brain to bulge through the opening.

Wendy twitched as she came down atop The Preacher’s cross for a second time. Her tongue lolled out of her head
. She burbled something intangible with her final breath.

Becky
stooped down and retrieved the grenade from where it had come to rest. Without giving Wendy so much as a second glance, she turned, flashed the grenade to me, and said, “we’ve got a new toy.”

Chapter Sixteen

I ran back to check on The Preacher now that Wendy was dealt with. He lay in a pool of blood, dying. Through punctured lungs, he rasped, “finish me off and then get Marcus for me.”

I nodded solemnly. We both knew what had to be done. I retrieved my own tire-iron from my backpack.

“May the Lord have mercy on your soul,” I recited sadly.
Seconds later, the tire-iron put an end to my friend. I choked back a tear as Becky came over and put an arm around me.

“I’m so sorry, Nick,” she said.

I dropped the blood-stained tire-iron to the ground with a clang. “I know.”

“If you want to wait outside, I’ll make sure to finish off Clod,” she offered.

I took her up on it after I put my backpack on and grabbed my .45 and Clod’s shotgun. As I sat on the steps of the police station, I heard the dull thwack of Clod’s head being turned to pulp. He was bad enough as a person; he would’ve been a worse zombie.

When Becky came out a second later, I looked up at her and said, “
it’s past time we burn down the town hall.”

She ran a han
d through my hair. “Sounds fun.”

Once she had gathered and reloaded Wendy’s shotgun, she grabbed a few extra shells out of Wendy’s pockets.
We then left the police station behind. It now looked more like a mortuary. The sun was almost set. The faint blue of twilight was beginning to give way to total darkness. A growl from nearby caught my attention. Zombies were now coming down the alley that I had emerged from with The Preacher just minutes before.

“We gotta move!” I yelled to Becky.

A crash from across the street caught my attention. Another zombie knocked over the trashcan that Wendy was had been previously hid behind. As that zombie tumbled out into the street, I noticed a row of additional zombies behind it. The sniper rifle fired again from the clock-tower. I heard a chilling scream from the next street over. It was followed by pistol shots. The situation had grown decidedly more desperate since we had entered the police station. All the gunfire had likely drawn even more curious undead into town.

I ran away from the zombies, down the main road. Becky kept pace with me. As we passed a number of alleys, more zombies poured out of them.
The main street was soon choked off and we could go no further.

The living dead
blocked our advance. I looked behind me. They now choked off the way we had just come from. “This way, I shouted, as I pulled Becky toward a red-shingled, two-story house. She blew the head off a zombie that got close to her and we ran up to the house. The door was ajar, so I smashed it open with the butt of my pump-action shotgun. As Becky ran inside, I took aim at two zombies which were no more that fifteen feet away. They were closing quickly. I blew them both away.

As both
their heads exploded, more creatures took their places. I fled into the house and slammed the door shut. I was now forced to hold it as I felt the growing press of undead as they banged against the other side.

A second later, Becky pushed a heavy, flower-patterned ottoman in front of
the door. It wouldn’t hold for long.

“Upstairs!” Becky yelled. She took the steps two at a time and was halfway up before I could even move.

I hastily pursued her. There was a side room at the top of the landing. It had once been some sort of guest bedroom. The white wallpaper was now cracked and faded to yellow.

“Help me with this,” Becky said as she started to take a mattress off a twin bed. We dragged it to the landing and heaved it down the stairs. The door
at the bottom was only open a crack. I could see arms poking through.

I ran back into the guest room with Becky. We tossed the box-spring down the stair
s next. Some zombies were already pushing the ottoman out of the way. We tossed the bed frame down the stairs; it knocked them over, pinned one creature against the rear wall, and slammed the door shut on the arms of the others. Altogether, the junk did a reasonable job of blocking the stairs. It would buy us a few minutes.

I poked my head out the window of the guest room, on the left side of the house. The next house was ten feet away. Half a dozen zombies wandered the alley below. There was no escaping through that window.

My next stop was the bathroom window while Becky continued to throw furniture from another bedroom down the staircase. This window overlooked the rear of the house. From the bathroom, I had a clear view of the clock-tower and downtown. Payne’s Creek was in chaos.

Z
ombies were wandering at random as they sought out the newest source of noise or scent of blood. A handful of survivors who I didn’t know were desperately trying to pick off zombies from the second floor window of a library. There was a swarm of the creatures pounding on the main door below them. This was one of the worst zombie hordes I had encountered since I left Quarantine Camp #24B. It was just my luck that this horde happened to meander by on the night when The Preacher and I decided to save the day. Fuck my timing.

Even worse, was that this window led to a sheer drop. It would prove useless. However, as I looked to my right, I noticed the roof to a farmer’s porch. Another window was right above it. It looked feasible.

“Over here,” I called to Becky as I ran into the far bedroom.

She tossed a nightstand down the now-cluttered stairs and chased after me.

The window above the porch took some elbow-grease but I got it open. As I looked outside, I planned a route.

“If we can get down, we can run up that side street,” I pointed to where I was mentioning so Becky could see. “It looks pretty clear of zombies.”

“Okay,” Becky agreed.

“The second building on the right there has a low, open window,” I continued. “You see it?”

“The little, gray building?”

“No, the brown one.”

“Okay, got you,” she confirmed.

“Let’s get inside that building and take it from there. If the coast is clear, we may be
able to run directly to the town-hall.”

“Okay.”

“After you,” I motioned, and took Becky’s hand as I helped her climb through the window and onto the porch roof. A serious of groans and scraping from downstairs indicted that the zombies were now trying to get around the furniture that Becky had tossed in their way.

I
swallowed a lump in my throat and followed her to the porch roof. Once outside, I shut the window behind me. Becky was already peering off the edge of the porch for a way to get down.

“There’s a dumpster right here,” she let me know.

“Perfect, now go!” I instructed. We climbed down one by one. Fortunately, no zombies were close by.

As we ran across the street, I watched the
mob of undead that were attacking the library smash through several windows.

“They’re in! They’re in!” I heard a survivor’s panicked voice yell.

I kept going. Soon, Becky and I were through the low window I had pointed to from the red house. This building looked like some sort of office. It was empty and dark. A row of cubicles lined each wall. Each one had a desk with an unused, dusty or broken computer atop it.

We made our way through the building with great care and met with no unpleasant surprises. Outside the main entrance, the street was basically clear with the exception of a few straggling zombies. The old town hall was now just a few hundred yards away. I could see it clearly from my position as I looked through the office door.

A crash and snarl at the rear of the building made me perk up.

“Shamblers,” Becky whispered. It was time to move.

I pushed through the main door and ran down the street to the town hall. Becky chased after me. The sniper rifle fired again, though luckily at a zombie which was about seventy yards up the road. I watched as its head disintegrated into fragments.

“Thanks for taking my bullet,” I panted as I ran quicker to get out of the sniper’s line of sight in case he
spotted me.

After
I passed a few old cars, I ducked behind a tow truck with four flat tires and waited for Becky to catch up. She was only a few paces behind me, so it didn’t take her long. The entrance to the town hall was now just across a patch of grass and a small parking lot. I was out of sight from the sniper, and I didn’t see any zombies around.

“Now what?” Becky asked.

I reached into my backpack. “Now I get to play with fire,” I told her with a devious grin on my face as I retrieved the quart of acetone, my only spare shirt, and the packet of matches. I propped my twelve gauge pump-action against the side of the tow truck and added, “please cover me and yell if we need to bug out. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

Becky nodded
and peered out over the hood of the tow truck to see if there was danger.

I ran into the town hall with my items wrapped in my spare shirt and my .45 in my shooting hand.

The bottom floor was empty. To my benefit, it was also old and dried out. I hadn’t seen Marcus yet, but if he was hiding out in here, he’d soon be extra crispy.

I emptied the quart of acetone all over the old shirt and the floor. After stepping back a safe distance, I picked the pack of matches off the floor and set down my .45.

As I prepared to light the place off, a sledgehammer hit me. I don’t mean that in the metaphorical sense, either. I mean a real sledgehammer slammed into my back.

I sprawled to the floor and cried out.
I was lucky my backpack was full of gear because it absorbed most of the shock. I still suspected I’d have one hell of a bruise. In a pained daze, I looked up at Sha’Quizz. I don’t know where his LMG was, but assumed that he’d either used up the ammo or lost it fighting zombies. I also didn’t see his companion from earlier, the man who’d been wielding the sword. Maybe he too had fallen to the zombies. Sha’Quizz was obviously by himself. It didn’t seem to bother him any: he started to laugh at me.

“Oh boy, oh boy,” he said in between chuckles, “I barely tapped you and you on your ass already.”

  “I’m not here for you,” I told him, “tell me where Marcus is.”

“I afraid I ain’t gonna do nothin’ of the sort,”
Sha’Quizz shook his head. “But,” he added a second later, “I do intend to see how many pieces I can turn your head into.”

He swung the sledge
hammer down at me and I rolled fast. It almost punched a hole through the hardwood floor.

As he lifted it again,
I kicked him hard in the balls (I wasn’t above cheating to keep my head in once piece).

Sha’Quizz
lurched over and I stumbled to my feet. He was coming at me a second later like an angry rhino. A quick backswing of the sledgehammer barely missed me. I leapt in close so he couldn’t get leverage with it again. As I tried to take the sledgehammer with one hand, I struck him hard in the side of the head with my other.

He bare
ly moved. I punched him twice more. He grunted then just used brute force to shove me backwards, off of him. I almost did an entire back-flip as I rolled. I was hardly on my feet when he tried to plow the head of the sledgehammer into my stomach. I twisted to the side to avoid the rib-breaking attack. The head of the hammer buried itself into the wall behind me.

I hit
Sha’Quizz twice more, this time with left hooks. He took the shots like a man, let go of the entrenched hammer, and slugged me in the right side with a left of his own. I gasped from the powerful punch to my recently healed rib. I was then left wide-open for a straight right to the cheek. It knocked me backwards, onto a desk.

Papers went flying everywhere as
I kicked wildly at Sha’Quizz with my right foot. I caught him once in the chin. When I tried to get him with a second good shot, he grabbed my ankle and started to twist it.

As he tried to break my foot, I reached up and
dug my fingers into his shoulder. We fell to the floor together in a heap. I kicked him a few times with my free foot and he let go.

I got to my feet, but he was faster. He caught me with a powerful
, left uppercut. It sent me backwards and I skidded across the hardwood floor. Blood started to run down my face as the cut I’d received on my chin earlier opened back up.

Sha’Quizz
reached down into his pant-leg. He drew out a narrow, boot-knife that I really had wished I’d known about. I thought I was a goner when I caught the glint of my .45 on the floor nearby.

Like the tongue of a frog darting out for a fly, my arm m
oved like lightning. I clasped the handle to the heavy pistol and fired without aiming as Sha’Quizz rushed forward to finish me off with his boot-knife.

The heavy, slow moving bullet struck his unarmed hand and took half
his fingers off. Sha’Quizz cried out and stopped in his tracks. His eyes bugged out of his head as he realized the extent of his injury. “Awww, shit man,” he said angrily. He looked more irritated than concerned.

I quickly got up and grinned at him as I trained my .45 on him. “Maybe I should see how many pieces I can turn your head into, fucker,” I told him.