Shamblers: the zombie apocalypse (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

“Are you going to undo these ties anytime soon?” Becky asked as I plopped
myself down on the thick-cushioned, leather couch that was inside the fire station living area.

“Maybe,” I said nonchalantly,” Once you’ve proven that you can be trusted.”

“You can trust me, I promise.” She smiled at me
and tried to look innocent.

“The fact that you say that proves to me I can’t. I’m not a fucking retard. Now come here and suck my dick.”

“No fucking way, you pig!” She tried to kick me. I easily knocked her foot to the side and she fell over, onto the couch next to me. She thrashed around for a second and finally got back to her feet.

“See? I knew I couldn’t trust you. You still don’t love me or want me. If you sucked my dick, maybe I’d untie you.”

“Fuck you, asshole.”

“Let me at least feel your tits.”

“No.” She turned away from me.

I was getting frustrated with this dumb slut.
“Why do you hate me so much?” I questioned, “All I’ve wanted since I saw you was to make you mine. You’re so fucking sexy. You can’t really fault me for wanting you, can you?”

She sneered
and sarcastically replied, “There might be a few reasons I hate you. Gee…. let me think- um, you killed Nick. That’s a start.”

I laughed.
“I killed for you, baby. Nick was a pussy and hardly a real man. He didn’t survive because of his skill or brains. He was lucky on many occasions. I mean, face it; Nick wasn’t exactly the best survivor. He wouldn’t have kept you safe.”

“Any you can?”

“Yes. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.”

“So because you think you’re so talented and smart, you’re a better survivor than he is, and a better person?”

I laughed again and clapped a few times. “Poor Becky,” I stated, “you just don’t see it, do you?
There are no good people left.
Don’t kid yourself. Only the strong survive. You know that. Look at that fat, dumb shit Martin. He was torn apart. What about Olivia? She thought she could fight zombies with a fucking fork! A fork!”

Becky looked ready to cry. “You really are something, you know that?” she commented.

“I know,” I beamed.

She shook her head.
In her most petulant voice she responded, “I’m going to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.” She stormed off into one of the bedrooms. I heard metal springs squeak as she sat on a bed. A moment later, I went in with some rope that I had found downstairs. I ensured that she couldn’t get up in the middle of the night to kill me in my sleep. For good measure, I also shoved an old, navy-blue sock from a bureau into her mouth.

“Night
-night hun,” I said and kissed her forehead. She mumbled something through her gag.

The next morning,
once I had untied her and removed the gag amid her cries of “fucking asshole” we made our way out of the fire station. After an uneventful morning of scavenging a few buildings, we had filled up our duffel bag. It was time to head home.

While
we walked by the restaurant where I had left Nick to die, I glanced in the front window where the fat chef shambler had smashed through. It seemed like a good time to tease Becky. “Maybe we should pay shambler Nick a visit. What do you think?” I suggested.

“You’re terrible!” Becky cried out and kicked my shin.

“Ahhh!” I yelled and moved out of her kicking range. “I really do want to make sure he’s dead, though,” I said a second later as I thought about it. “I don’t want him coming back to haunt me, and I’m not sure I trust your word on it.”

I took a few steps toward the restaurant.

“Wait!” Becky said, “do we really have time for that? I mean- come on, Marcus -haven’t you done enough?”

I started to argue, but she interrupted me, “How can you expect me to desire you if you keep taunting me with the past? You do really care about me, don’t you?”

I wasn’t sure if she was manipulating me or if we were making progress. I really wanted to wet my dick, though, so I went with the later notion, “of course I care for you baby. You’re a real doll.”

“Than let’s just go,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to see Nick’s
shambler body and I don’t like being tied up like this. I don’t feel safe here.”

I hesitated. Part of my brain told me not to listen to her. Part of it wanted me to protect and care for her
so that she’d start to want me.

“Please?”
she asked again.

“Oh, alright,” I conceded, “but I’m s
till not untying you just yet.”

“Thank you,”
she said.

I said nothing as we left the town behind.

We had only been traveling for thirty minutes when I spotted three shamblers about fifty yards away.

“I don’t think they see us,” I whispered.

“Me neither, want to keep going?” Becky asked.

The tallest one turned, cocked its head at an angle like a dog, then started to stumble toward us. The other two shamblers, both females,
proceeded to follow it. 

“Shit, they’ve seen us!” I told Becky.

“Yeah,” she answered. We both started to run.

It became quickly apparent that I had to untie Becky. She was simply too slow tied up.

“Come here,” I instructed her as I fumbled for my pocket knife.

I spun her around. With one slash, I cut th
e zip-tie that held her hands behind her back.

“Oh thank God,” she remarked
while rubbing her sore wrists. The shamblers were closing in.

“Run or fight?”
she asked.

The three shamblers
were about twenty yards from us. I couldn’t have fought them by myself a second ago, but the odds we good that we could dispatch them together.

“Let’s kill them,” I said. I set my backpack down and took out
the lead pipe. I handed it to Becky. Next, I took her claw hammer for my own use. I zipped up the backpack and stood up to face the shamblers with it in one hand and the backpack in the other.

“Let’s split up and try to lure them apart.” Becky suggested. It was a good idea.

I ran to my left and she ran in the opposite direction. The two, female shamblers followed me. The tall male went after her.

I threw my backpack into the face of the first female. It momentarily stunned her. With my hammer, I went after the other.

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK - three, hard strikes to the head and it went down for good. The second female was right near me now. I took a step backward and my foot went out from under me. Fucking leaves! I landed hard on my ass. My hammer flew out of my hand. The shambler grabbed me. Its skin was cold and decayed. Its grip was as formidable as the jaws of life. I held it back with all my might and it snapped at me. It was desperate to feed. Its breath reeked like an un-flushed toilet.

I heard a thunk.

The shambler went slack. I pushed it off me.

Becky was standing over me. She had killed the tall male while I was fighting
these two. She had now saved my life. I looked at her with surprise.

“I thought you’d just leave me to die,” I commented.

“I’m not Marcus Gray,” she told me.

I stuck my hand out to her, somewhat in need of a boost up.

She turned her back to me and started to walk back to Payne’s Creek.

Chapter Twelve

We reached the edge of Payne’s Creek around 3:00PM; at least that’
s what I figured because the sun was pretty high in the sky. I hadn’t had a watch in months, but I’d since learned to judge the approximate time of day by the sun.

Before we headed into town, I drew my .38 and pressed it against Becky’s back. “Hold on a moment,” I told her.

She froze. “I’ve been good all this time,” she stated. She was stiff as a board. She clearly expected me to shoot her outright.

“I know you have, but I need to tie you up before we go into town.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Why?”

“Not your concern
, hun. Now put your hands together behind you.”

She hesitated.

“Don’t be stupid!” I yelled in her ear. “I don’t want to bash you over the head again, but I fucking will if you make me.”

She clasped
her hands behind her; I hastily zip-tied her wrists once again. “Good,” I commented. Waving my gun toward Payne’s Creek, I added, “now get going.”

I ushered Becky into town at gun point. We were met by
a shirtless Sha’Quizz and his fucking sick LMG. Clod was standing beside him. He was wearing the same goddamned flannel shirt and suspenders that he had on the other day. I wondered if he even bothered to change his clothes, or for that matter, his underwear. The sick, dirty bastard probably didn’t. That was pretty disgusting to think about. However, as I noticed the blonde piece-of-ass, Karin, sitting on the hood of a white sedan not far away, I was really curious what her underwear looked like. She was scanning the area with an AK-47. I figured her for a thong girl.

“What yous’ gots goin’ on har?” Clod asked us.

I quickly spoke up, “after we looted everything, this bitch tried to steal all our gear. She killed Nick and tried to kill me too.”

“That’s not true!” Becky exclaimed.

“Then why yous’ all tied-up like?” Clod questioned.

“He killed Nick and kidnapped me!”

Clod laughed. “That don’t sound none too likely.”

“He tried to rape me!” she continued.

“You little fucking liar!” I shouted. I smacked her in the back of the head, which caused her to stumble forward.

“That sounds pretty likely to me,” Karin remarked as she turned her
AK-47 on me.

“No, I swear it’s not,” I appealed to her. “If I had wanted to rape her, wouldn’t I have just done it? I have her all tied up already. What was stopping me?”

The three associates of that Yates guy all paused and exchanged peculiar glances. It was clear they weren’t sure what was going on. I pressed my case to make it sound more believable, “I’ll tell you why I didn’t do it,” I told them boldly, “because Nick was my good friend. I thought she was too.” I pretended to choke back a sob and paused for dramatic effect. I looked down as I covered my eyes with a hand. “I can’t believe she did that to Nick,” I continued, “so I knocked her on the head and decided to bring her back here to answer for her crimes.”

“He lies!” Becky shouted. “All of it is a lie. He l
eft Nick to die in a basement!”

Karin looked at Becky, then at me, then back to Becky again. She sighed and answered, “we’ll have to bring you both back to Mr. Yates to sort this out.
Hand all your gear over.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said with a smile.
Sha’Quizz and Clod grabbed our equipment. Karin instructed us to head to the old police station. She ensured we complied by following us with her AK.

When we got there,
Yates was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the huge fucking Swede named Holger tossed both of us into a cell.

“You now wait. Mr. Yates do returning soon,” he said
with a thick accent as he cut the zip-tie from Becky’s wrists. I wasn’t even sure the fucker could talk until then.

Karin looked at him and said, “hey, Holger, let me get a word with you outside for a moment?”

The Swede nodded and followed her out to the front door. The instant they left us alone, Becky turned to face me. “You son of a bitch!” she cursed and started to slap at me. I grabbed her wrist after I took a stinging shot to the face and twisted her arm. She fell to one knee at the floor of the cell.

“Now listen to me, bitch,” I told her in a menacing fashion, “I had to do that. We both know you were going to turn on me the moment you had a chance, so I did it first. I’m way smarter than you’ve ever given me credit for. If you stop fighting me on this, I promise I won’t let them execute you.”

Becky grimaced as I held her arm. Through gritted teeth, she looked up at me and said, “what makes you think they won’t believe me and execute you instead?”

“Because I made friends with Wendy,
Sha’Quizz, Clod, and Larry,” I told her. “We had a meaningful lunch together. They have a few friends who are also sympathetic to my cause. I’ve already told them all about Nick.” I let go of her wrist.

“Oh really,” she said sarcastically as she stood up. She walked over to the rear wall of the cell and leaned against it. “I bet your new,
good friends
will really care what happens to you one way or the other. What did you tell them about Nick?”

I smirked widely. I had kept a very good secret hidden from her. I took a moment to bat
he in my glory before I responded, “I let them know that Nick was the reason our last camp collapsed. I let them know that he started a fight with Timothy and let all the zombies in. I also told them what a coward he is and how he hardly was able to fight for himself while we were at camp.”

Becky’s face fell.
She was livid with rage. Her face turned red as she screamed at me, “you filthy liar!”

I laughed at her. “So Becky,
” I challenged, “who do you know here that you’re even semi-friendly with? I have all my ducks in a row.”

She started to reply but it was clear that she hadn’t made a single acquaintance.

“I knew it,” I told her. “The only people you’ve associated with while here are the guys from our original camp: me, that fucking loser Raymond, and The Preacher.  Oh yeah, and Nick. We both know how he ended up. In case you haven’t realized it, our opinions don’t mean shit around here. It’s Yates’ folk who make all the decisions.”

“It’s Mr. Yates who makes the decisions,” she corrected me, “and they’ll all go along with him.”

“Not the way I see it,” I told her. “You see, it turns out that most of them aren’t too happy with Yates. He may not have as much power as you expect. In fact, I promised my new friends great things. I may very well have convinced them that a change in leadership is exactly what they need.”

“And you expect them to do what….put you in ch
arge?” she asked with incredulity.

“Something like that,” I responded. “I offered them very agreeable terms before we left on this little expedition. They seemed very happy with my offer.”

“And what of me?” she asked. “I thought you wanted to be with me?”

“I still do,” I told her, “a
nd I still think we can work something out. I just don’t think things will be exactly what either of us had hoped for.”

She eyed me warily. “What do you plan to do?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t thought it out yet.” I tapped my finger against the bars of the cell. “I’ll probably keep you in this fucking jail cell and let you out a few times a day for exercise and stuff. I’ll come in here as often as I choose to take you. None of my new friends will mind. Maybe I’ll even let that big nigger have you. You’d probably like that.”  

She flew at me in a fit and caught me unprepared. As she screeched “bastard” she slashed the side of my neck with her fingernails. I grabbed her by the throat and bounced her head of the bars of the cell. That quieted her down.

A minute later, Holger came back into the room. “Don’t mahk so much noise,” he said with his accent.

Larry and Clod entered the police station right behind him.

“How’s it going in there, Marcus?” Larry asked me.

“It’s going great,” I commented. I pointed at Becky and added, “though I’ve had some fucking problems with my woman. I had to teach her a lesson.” 

Clod guffawed like a donkey at my joke. Larry merely nodded and said, “well, what can you do?” Holger stood there like the huge, fucking meatshit that he was. “Are you ready?” Larry asked me.

I looked him in the eyes. “Yeah, do it,” I said with a voice of ice.

He turned to Holger. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“What?” Holger asked. A look of confusion crossed his face.

In the blink of an eye, using his ninja reflexes, Larry drew his revolver and shot Holger in the mid-section. Becky screamed.

The bullet would have killed any normal man or at least reduced them to a fetal position on the floor. Instead, Holger lurched forward and pushed Larry so hard that he flew back ten feet and hit the wall behind him.
His revolver clattered to the floor nearby.

Clod, being a halfwit himself and slow to react, had yet to draw his weapon. As he reached for it, Holger hit him with an uppercut that snapped his head back. He dropped to the floor, instantly unconscious.
A few teeth rattled to the floor with him. He may have been dead for all I knew.

Larry recovered from Holger’s unexpected attack but was now disarmed. Holger tried to grab Larry in a bear hug that surely would have crushed him, but Larry’s hands shot out and chopped hard against both of Holger’s forearms. An instant later, Larry’s open palms were slamming into the sides of Holger’s neck.

I think Larry was surprised when Holger hardly flinched from the dual knife-hand chops. He threw a quick kick to Holger’s left side, and the giant Swede reacted in time to secure Larry’s leg against him.

In one swift move, Holger brought his other arm down ag
ainst Larry’s straightened knee: his leg split like a piece of lumber being hit with an awl. The break was so bad that I cold see both bones jutting through Larry’s leg. He screamed one of the worst, ear-piercing screams I had heard for a long time.

With one hand around Larry’s ankle, Holger grabbed the s
leeve of Larry’s shirt with his other hand. He then ruthlessly and forcefully thrust Larry upward.

When Larry’s head slammed into the ceiling I heard his neck crack.

The wounded Swede dropped the dead man to the floor. Holger winced and braced himself against the bars of the cell. He was bleeding everywhere.

A gunshot sprayed his brains all over me.

Becky screamed again.

When I wiped the brains out of my eyes, I saw Wendy standing in place of Holger.
The little, fifteen year-old held her sawed-off shotgun in one hand. She dangled the keys to my cell in her other.  

“Catch,” she said
. I snagged the thrown keys out of mid-air. As I opened the cell door, she blasted Larry’s head to shit so he wouldn’t come back as a shambler.

The next thing I heard was the rat-tat-tat of a machine gun and the loud, resounding crack of what I could only assume was a sniper rifle from up in the clock-tower.
Various other gunshots began to ring out all over town.

As Clod started to stir, I looked at Becky. “You stay here,” I told her. I
locked the cell door behind me. My next action was to address Wendy, who was presently reloading her shotgun. “Can you cover me?” I asked.

Without looking up, she answered, “shit yeah I can. Do I look fucking stupid or something?”

“No, you’re doing great,” I told her with a pat on the back.

I reached down and procured Clod’s revolver as Wendy
finished reloading. Together, we headed outside. A quick glance around revealed that the machine-gun fire I had heard had been focused on Raymond: he was face-down in the street and dead with blood pooling around his body. I couldn’t see the clock-tower from my position but I wasn’t concerned about the sniper: he was an ex-military buddy of Sha’Quizz’s and had taken our side.

Several pistol shots rang out
from the other side of the street. They were followed by more machine-gun fire that sounded like it originated near the building to my left.  

I ran around the front of the police station and down a side alley. Wendy trailed close behind.
As we moved down the alley, the Spaniard with the sombrero turned the corner. He was wearing a bright orange hunting vest and camouflage today. He was also running in our direction with his pump-action shotgun. It was possible that he was sent by Yates.  We both fired on him.

My shot struck his left shoulder. Wendy’s blasted his right hand off.
He fell down. While he hollered some gibberish in Spanish, I put a round in his head.

Wendy and I moved to the mouth of the alley.
I turned to tell her to head right. As I did, some bullets whizzed by my head. They hit the concrete wall beside me and showered me with debris. I hit the ground and quickly scurried further back into the alley.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “T
oo close.”