The Infected (Book 3): Nightfall (6 page)

Jim dragged the bag across
the tar roof as he headed for the edge of the building. He looked down onto the
PT Cruiser. It was surrounded by sixty infected zombies.

“Where the hell did they
come from?” Jim asked no one in particular. “HEY!” he called down to the horde.
Their busted necks craned up to see where the dinner bell was ringing from.
Some of the zombies ran over to the wall, others shuffled, but one by one they
headed over to Jim.

The humans walked slowly
along the edge of the building, yelling down to their infected fans, and headed
for the far corner of the building. Jim didn’t want the car to catch fire along
with the beasts.

Jim got to what he thought
was a safe distance from their ride and opened the plastic bag. The three of
them each took a bottle out and popped the lids. As they crushed the sides of
the containers the ninety-one proof liquid shot out like they were shooting
squirt guns down onto the clamoring horde below. It took a couple of minutes to
empty the ten bottles onto the staggering creatures. They made sure to hit
every corner of the horde with the liquid. When the last shot of the last
bottle was fired Frank liberated the roll of paper towels.

Jim extracted his Zippo
and lit the first of the ballistics, “This is gonna stink,” he said as he
caught fire to the paper roll. The paper was burning pretty hot in Jim’s hand.
He was confident it wouldn’t go out on the drop. Jim tossed the yellow,
burning, death from above. The fire slowly made its descent onto the
unsuspecting monsters that clawed at the side of the brick building. Jim could
feel the seconds tick by.

One. Two. Three.

WHOOSH!

They had to duck below the
edge of the building to escape the heat blast. The nasty sounds of meat
crackling on an open flame filled the air around RS Medical. The horrible stink
of charred flesh curled up over the lip of the building and punched the three
humans in the face.

“Man, that reeks!” Sara
covered her nose with the collar of her shirt. She smelled herself and realized
after the day she had gone through she did not smell much better than the smoldering
dead. The heat was so intense that there was no way to look down on the
bonfire.   

“Let’s go!” Jim waddled
away from the wall and headed for the open hatch in the roof. They made their
way back down the ladder, gathered their supplies and headed for the front
door.

Sara peeked out to see if
the coast was clear. A couple of stragglers milled around the vehicle. Sara
signaled to the others that there were four zombies left and where they were
standing. The two men nodded at her and she opened the metal door all the way
open.

The three of them raced
out the doorway. Jim skewered the skull of the first monster outside. Sara had
Jim’s back and slaughtered a creep that was six inches from grasping his
backpack. Her bat blade nailed it right in the neck and severed its head. Frank
fired two shots. The backs of the two infected heads detonated on impact.

They dashed into the
unlocked car. Jim fired up the engine and backed out of the spot. He headed for
the exit with the pedal crushed all the way to the floor. The stack of burnt
bodies outside the RS Medical had begun to fuse into one monstrous pile of
sizzling meat. It topped the list of nastiest things the group had seen,
smelled and heard today.

Jim weaved around three
stalled cars that sat in the middle of the street. Half a minute later they
pulled into the parking lot of the gun shop. Jim backed up into a spot right
outside the front door. He hoped they would be able to load a ton of gear or
ammo in the next few minutes. He checked his side mirror. The shop had its
lights out and a gate locked at the front door. They jumped out of the PT
Cruiser and darted for the entrance. Sara took out the door with her bat and
glass exploded across the shop’s floor. Frank aimed and shot out the lock on
the gate. Jim pushed open the metal barrier and entered the shop.

A thought flashed in Jim’s
brain.

We didn’t check the
back door to this place first.

It should be okay.
We’re only going to be here for a minute.

They rushed into the
building and closed the gate behind them. Their eyes strained to adjust to the
low level lighting in the tiny little hole-in-the-wall store. Frank cruised
over to the glass display and hunted for firearms and ammo. Jim stepped farther
into the room. The dark black abyss at the back of the shop started to turn
gray as Jim’s irises opened and allowed light to pass through. It took his
brain a moment to register what he was seeing.

There’s a gun pointing
at me!

Shit! There’s a fucking
gun pointing at me!

A deep voice bellowed from
behind the barrel of the shotgun, “Drop the spear!”

Tina applied a cool cloth
to Devon’s feverish forehead. His eyes had been closed for the last ten minutes
and she was sure he was sleeping. She held his wrist with her fingertips and
counted out the beats. The young man’s heart was limping along. He was going to
need Jim’s blood before she could even attempt to clean out and stitch up his
wounds. She kept checking the time. It had been fifteen minutes since her
neighbor took off on a dangerous trip to get the supplies needed to fix this
gunshot wound.

They better get back
here soon. I can’t have him turning in our living room.

He didn’t have a lot of
time left. He would bleed out if they didn’t get his leg closed up in a hurry.
Tina used the time to look over her textbooks from nursing school. She wanted
to make sure she didn’t skip a step or forget a vital part of the surgery.

“Ah Dios mio. What have I
got myself into?” Tina talked to herself as she flipped a page. She absorb as
much info as possible before they got back with the supplies. The stress of it
was getting to her. Tina needed to stretch her legs and move around the
apartment. She wanted another beer to help calm her nerves, but that was a
horrible idea. She couldn’t get drunk or even have a slight buzz if she was
going to stitch this young man up.

An old voice giggled from
across the room. Tina flipped the cloth over on his forehead and then looked
over her shoulder to check out the giggling noise.

Morgan sat a few feet from
the flat panel TV, she nursed at her beer and had on an episode of the cartoon
Metalocalypse
.
It was a violent part in the show, and the super fans of the band,
Dethklok,
were getting melted by a volcano of boiling hot coffee.

“My god, this show is
nuts. I love it and the music is amazing. These guys are so stupid that it’s
hilarious.” Morgan slapped her hand on her knee at the next joke. It tickled
Tina how much enjoyment Morgan was getting from the crazy show. She closed her
book and got up off the floor to go check on her girls.

Tina heard them playing in
their bedroom. She waited for a moment and peeked through the doorway. Watching
her babies play together always made her feel better. They were trying to build
a fort out of blankets and pillows. Eve was doing her best to tuck the blanket
in between the mattress and box spring and then stretch the blanket over to her
sister’s bed and tuck that corner in between the other mattress and box spring.
It created a roof of cotton two feet off the ground that they played under and
called their fort. Alex and Brea laid on their backs surrounded by a mountain
of pillows. They delicately clawed at the new roof and asked each other,
“When’s the Prince coming to save us?”

“I’m almost done building
the fort. I’ll be there to save you soon.” Eve tucked a little more of the
blanket under the mattress so that the roof pulled tight.

Tina stepped into the
room, “Don’t wait for a Prince to save you. Save yourselves.” Her children
stopped playing and looked up at her. They looked so confused. Their faces
said, “Why would we do it when there is a Prince coming to save us? Duh, Mama.”

“But that’s what they do?
Remember when Daddy saved us today?” Eve itched at her nose and scrunched up
her face. The logic seemed sound in her mind.

“Don’t you remember when
Mama saved that little girl outside? I didn’t wait for Daddy or a Prince to do
the job. I saved that little girl and I saved myself.” There was no point in
going into how much Karen had been involved in saving the little girl. That
wasn’t the point. She wanted her girls to be strong and think about saving
themselves, not wait for Prince Charming to show up.  

“We’re just playing fort.”
Eve shook her head up at her Mama.

“Yeah, fort.” Alex
seconded.

“Fort.” Brea tried
explaining to her silly Mama.

Tina could see her advice
was falling on deaf ears, “Keep playing so sweetly and maybe we can have some
ice cream later, okay?”

“Yeah, ice cream!” The
children cheered in unison.

“Mama, is that boy going
to be okay?” Eve asked as she pushed the last bit of the blanket under the
mattress to lock it into place.

“Yes baby, Mama’s going to
get him all fixed up.”

“Good. He’s handsome.” Eve
giggled out the word handsome.

“He’s handsome.” Alex
covered her mouth with her hands. The admission was too much for her.

“Handsome?” Brea grabbed a
pillow and pulled it over her face. Tina smiled at her boy crazy girls and
turned to go check on her other big baby, before going back to being a doctor
out in the living room. She pushed open the door to her bedroom and found Cliff
with all of his tools tossed onto their bed.

“What are you doing?” Tina
asked as she leaned against the door frame.

Cliff had been tinkering
in his bedroom since Jim left. They didn’t own a garage so most of Cliff’s
tools stayed on his side of their walk-in-closet. He carried out a few scraps
of metal and a drill from the closet and set them on the bed next to the other
tools.

“I’m trying to make my own
bladed weapon, like Jim’s spear.” Cliff scanned over his stash of tools and
scrap metal, plotting the design.

“Just take down the wooden
dowel from the hallway closet and tape a knife to the end like his.” She made
it sound so simple. Cliff looked at her in disbelief, it was practically the same
face her girls had just given her when she told them to save themselves and not
wait for a prince.

“What?” she said with a
smile.

Cliff went back to work,
“I don’t want to copy him. I want to create my own weapon.” He picked up two
nearly identical lengths of aluminum that stood about three-feet high and two
inches wide. They were two solid, strong chunks of metal that wouldn’t bend
easily and would never corrode. If he put the two pieces together that would
make a really nice handle. That was a good start. Also on the bed was a brand
new, still in the package circular saw blade. A plan was forming.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to
your inventing,” Tina said as she stepped away from the door frame.

Men are so weird
sometimes. Why would he waste his time building a weapon when he has a cleaver
and a gun?
Tina thought as she headed
back down the hall to check on her patient.

Women are so weird
sometimes. Don’t they get how cool it is to build a sweet weapon with your own
bare hands?

Cliff shook his head as
his lady walked down the hall. Then he took the largest drill bit that he owned
and slid it into the end of his drill. He held the aluminum handles over a
trash can. He centered the tip of the drill at the end of the handle and
started to make a hole. The little slivers of aluminum fell into the can. His
three children came running into the bedroom to investigate the sudden noise.

“What are you doing
Daddy?” Eve led the charge into the room and hit him with the first question.

Cliff paused for a moment
and looked up at his three girls. He had heard them playing in the other room
and heard the comment she had made about him saving them and being like a prince.

“I’m making a weapon only
a Prince can use to save beautiful princesses.” He finished the sentence with a
big bright smile and the little girls melted over his answer.

“That’s so cool,” Eve said
with a twinkle in her eyes.

Cliff started again. The
children got bored watching their dad and they raced back out of the room. It
took him a little time to get through the metal and make a clean hole, but he
finally got it. Cliff drilled another hole at the other end of the handle he
was working on and did a matching set on the other half of his handle. With all
four holes cleaned out he opened the circular saw package and carefully set the
blade between the two handles. The teeth in the saw were so sharp that even
moving slowly with it he almost nicked his skin open. He lined up the two
halves of the handle with the hole in the blade and dropped a bolt through all
three of them. Cliff used two crescent wrenches to tighten the nut onto the
bolt. His powerful arms pulled against the handles of the wrenches until they
couldn’t move anymore.

His weapon was starting to
come together now. He had the handle and the blade but the handle had hard
edges that were very uncomfortable on his hands. He needed to soften up the
grip on this thing and give himself something better to hold on to.

About a year ago, Cliff
saw a video online about wrapping Para cord around knife handles. It looked so badass
that he wanted to do it himself. So he bought the cord, but never got around to
buying the knife. Money was tight at the time and spending fifty bucks on a
blade that would just sit in the closet was a hard sell for Tina. Cliff found
the black cord in his sock drawer and went to work trying to remember the
pattern he had seen on the video. It took a couple of tries but he finally
figured it out. He pulled the cord tightly as he covered half of the aluminum
handle in the black rope. Once he had it set he also looped a chunk of cord
through the hole he drilled at the bottom of the handle to make a lanyard to
keep the saw in his hands and not the skull of the infected. The last thing he
needed to do was dip the handle in boiling water to shrink the wrap so that it
was as solid as the rest of his new weapon.

As the saw’s handle cooled
in the kitchen sink Tina’s eyes widened as she took in his new zombie killin’
tool.

“It’s better than I
thought you were going to make,” she said with a surprised tone.

“Thanks, I guess,” Cliff
slid on his leather work gloves and lifted the metal weapon out to give it a
test run. He looped his wrist through the lanyard and held his weapon out in
front of his chest. Not only did it feel awesome in his hands but it looked
medieval. Cliff swung it around in the living room of his apartment and the
thing felt deadly. It was heavy-duty enough to hit like a bat and break bones,
but it was also sharp enough to cut that bone in half. Cliff hoped he would
never have to use it, but he was also absolutely sure that he was going to be
forced to use it in the near future.

“What’s that you got
there?” Morgan wheeled herself away from the TV to get a better look at the
hunk of metal in Cliff’s hands.

“I made it out of some old
junk I had in the closet.” Cliff pulled at the blade to make sure it didn’t
move. It looked like a heavy metal lollipop. No matter how you swung it the
weapon was deadly.

The three little ones
raced down the hall to witness their father’s version of
Excalibur
.

“Whoa, wicked!” Eve poured
praise on her Daddy’s genius.

“Is it sharp?” Alex
reached to touch it.

Cliff raised it higher out
of their reach, “Yes it’s very sharp, so don’t touch it.”

Brea backed away from her
Daddy with fear, “I no touch it! Don’t kill me Daddy!”

“I would never kill you
baby, don’t worry. It’s only to kill the bad people outside.” Cliff looked over
the saw and pride in its construction gleamed on his face.

“Boys and their toys,”
Morgan said as she wheeled herself back in front of the TV.

“Boys and their toys,”
Tina agreed.

Cliff needed a place to
store the weapon that would have easy access but keep it out of the hands of
his children. He reentered his bedroom and found a package of coat hooks they
had purchased from IKEA but never installed. Cliff tore open the package and
mounted the hooks in the hallway next to the front door.

He sunk the last screw
into place and tested the hooks. They were secure. He raised his new saw up eye
level and laid it across the hooks. It fit perfectly. The light gleamed off the
blade and aluminum handle. The weapon was a work of art. It was a pity that
someday it would have chunks of infected brains and skulls stuck in its teeth.

A gun was fired in the lot
outside.

Maybe Jim was back?

Tina joined Cliff on the
sprint back to their bedroom. Another shot was fired. Cliff opened the blinds
just enough for them to see what was happening.

A man they recognized was
standing at the bottom of the stairs in front of the building across the lot
from Cliff and Tina. They had seen him every summer at the pool with his four
children. The kids were close in age with Cliff and Tina’s youngest girls and
they always played well together. The guy had a small caliber revolver in his
hands and just gunned down another infected.

“Come on!” he yelled up
the stairs. His young wife and four children marched down the stairs behind him
and the five of them headed straight for their SUV.

“Keep running! Come on
kids get in!” The wife tried her best to keep the children out in front of her
and moving fast. The gunfire and shouting alerted a fresh horde of the infected
to this family’s escape attempt.

The man emptied his gun
into a monster that was sprinting towards him. The woman just finished getting
the last child up into the tall vehicle.

“Let’s go!” She called
after her husband.