White Ash on Bone: A Zombie Novel (9 page)

The horde of hundreds continued their advance into the headlights.

"We’re going to have to pull back to the mall,” Burgess said. “We can’t take that many."  Three gunshots from the direction of the mall punctuated Burgess' statement.

"Oh shit, they are behind us," shouted the other State Trooper.

Burgess ordered them into their cars and up to the mall.  The radio in his cruiser with crackled a plea for help from mall security.

The police cruisers sped up the mall entrance ramp and entered the parking lot. Hundreds of zombies already were scattered around the south half of the lot and several had reached the ambulance station.

If Burgess hadn’t ordered them to abandon the roadblock they would have been completely flanked by the horde. 

The lot, like the road, was a complete free for all as living struggled to flee the dead. 

The ambulance crews struggled to free themselves from the dead.  A police officer stationed to assist the EMTs fired shot after shot into one of the attackers.  Catching the zombie in the mid-section did nothing to stop it.  The bullets, however, did quite a job on the glass doors into the mall, shattering them.

Emergency personnel fell back into the perceived safety of the mall. The zombies followed them through the shattered glass.

Burgess drove his car right up on the sidewalk behind the ambulances and knocked over several blood-stained stretchers.  His car plowed into the rear-most zombie headed into the mall and crushed it under his car. 

He threw his door open and popped out of the car with his AR.  Burgess used the roof of his cruiser to steady his aim and he lined up his rifle with the zombies in the mall.  Panicked screams emanated from within the building. 

Burgess fired round after round at the dead while the other police cars took up position behind him.

To his right Burgess heard the shot of an officer dispatching a zombie thrashing on the ground.  Other officers took up positions on either side of the mall entrance preparing to make a tactical advance into the building.  Burgess slapped another magazine into his gun and then continued to rain fire on his targets. 

Behind him, other officers facing the lot began to lay down fire as other zombies closed in.

"Go, move," Burgess ordered.

The police advanced into the mall dispatching zombies in front of them as they fell back from the zombies in the lot.  They took up position in the food court as the dead funneled into the mall.

Burgess let loose with a round from his AR; he could hear people scream at the crack of his rifle throughout the mall.  Three zombies replaced the one Burgess had just downed.  He fired several more rounds and dropped more of the undead. 

Passing through the zombies, the bullets shattered yet more glass doors.  The horde poured in through the openings. 

Burgess and the other officers let loose with a hail of gunfire culling dozens of the undead.

He sighted in on another target when his gun was jerked to the left. 

A zombie that survived the initial assault into the mall grasped at Burgess. 

Burgess raised his hand to push the ghoul away only to find his fingers in its mouth.  He felt searing pain and a bone-crunching snap as finger after finger came lose in the zombie's mouth.  He fell over, and the zombie dropped on top of him.

With his other hand, Burgess tried to free his service pistol while the zombie continued to eat at his hand. More fingers came off.  Burgess screamed, and his eyes watered in pain.

His gun came loose, but he lacked the fingers on his other hand required to chamber the first round.  He pounded the gun into the side of the zombie’s head and knocked it off of him. 

He twisted to his side and tried to get up when he felt teeth bite into the back of his neck. 

Another officer shot the zombie biting into Burgess' back. 

Blood poured out of Burgess's wounds.  He could feel himself weakening.

All around them, the zombies were overrunning the police in the food court.

"Shoot me," Burgess told the officer.

The man aimed the gun at Burgess’ head and pulled the trigger; the revolver was empty.  The dead fell on both of them in the next heartbeat.

Burgess joined the horde. After getting up, he moved without direction down the mall.  At first he had no will. He moved or stood still for no reason. Burgess had no memory or rational thought or feeling.  He existed and nothing more.  Then he noticed something about the electronics store.  Inside the store was something he desperately wanted. 

Burgess, covered in blood and his shirt half torn off, tried to force his way through the store security gate.  When he pounded on the gate, blood spattered from his left palm; it lacked fingers.  Each thrust brought additional red spackle until his entire wrist got caught between the bars. 

A teenage boy saw the cop and ran up to Burgess thinking the trooper had a key to get into the protection of the store.  Burgess turned and lunged at the boy snapping with his teeth, but his caught wrist tethered him back.  The other hand managed to get a hold of the teenager’s hair and pulled him to the gate with Burgess.  The kid screamed and thrashed trying to get away but to no avail.  Two other ghouls entered the fray and fell on the teen with flashing teeth. They tore the boy apart while the group in the electronics store helplessly watched. 

"I think it would be safer in the back store room," Ted, the store employee, said.

As if in response to the comment, Burgess' head turned to face the people huddled inside.  He pushed on the gate trying to force his way into the store.

Alison and the group fled to the back of the store into the “employees’ only” section.  They locked the door behind them and secured it with a stack of boxes.  From the noise, it sounded like at least a few zombies were now trying to break down the gate.

"What the hell is going on with these people; why are they doing this?" Alison said.

"I don’t know," a blond girl wearing a Steelers jersey said, "but I get the feeling if we stay here, we’re going to end up like that kid." The blonde introduced herself as Ginger.

"Let’s not get any crazy ideas," Ted said. “If you try and leave, those things will get you.  They must be all over the mall by now, and even the police are attacking people."

"Does anyone have cell service?" Alison said.

"The circuits are busy," replied Ted.

"I'm not going to stay here and die,” Ginger said.  “Is there any other way out of here?"

"Yeah,” Ted replied.  “In the back of the store is a service corridor, it runs the entire length of the mall.  There’s an exit about two-hundred feet from here.  But if those things got into the other stores, they are bound to be back there.  Plus they’ll be in the parking lot.”

"My car is parked fairly close to here," Ginger said. "It's less than a hundred yards.  If we can make it to the car, my parents have a house a few miles away.  I have to get home to my parents and husband.  He should be there by now, and we have guns there."

"I’ll go," Alison said, "What about the rest of you?"

They looked away and remained silent, but Ted spoke up.  "Please stay, they’ll tear you two apart."

"If we stick together, we can make it," Ginger said.

Ted pushed the glasses up on his nose, "It would just mean that we would all die together."

"That may happen anyway, if we stay here," Alison said.

Alison and Ginger approached the door to the back corridor and gently opened it to peek out.  It was empty. 

"If you go out there,” Ted spoke, "you’re not going to get back in here, if you get in trouble.  I’m sorry, but I am going to have to barricade the door behind you."

With a look of disgust Alison and Ginger left the group behind.  When the door closed, they could hear boxes being piled up behind the other side.

"What a chicken-shit," Ginger said.

They made it perhaps ten feet from the door when a loud crash came from behind the door they left. 

They could hear Ted scream in panic, "The gate must have caved in." 

A crowd of zombies attracted to the noise of the gate collapse pushed their way into the store.  Ted's screams drew the dead further back into the store toward the storage room. There they confronted the cheap construction wood door that separated the living from the dead.  The weight of zombies pressed in on the door.  To its credit, the door held out, but its entire frame gave in pushing the top of the stacked boxes over.

The survivors rushed to the service entrance corridor and tried to move away Ted's newly stacked barricade of boxes.  In the scramble to the door, they fell into each other.  Behind them, the zombies were breaking the “employees’ only” barrier down, and clawing their way over the breached door frame.  Two of the creatures got through the press of the undead and rolled to the floor. Their hands reached out at Ted.

Ted tried to kick away at the one creature, but it grabbed on to his leg and sunk his teeth into Ted's shin.  Ted screamed out in pain.  One of the other survivors grabbed hold of the zombie to try and drag him off Ted only to be embraced from behind by several pairs of outstretched hands. 

In the service corridor, Alison and Ginger ran.  The noise from electronics store attracted several ambling forms from further down the passage behind the girls.

"I think we’re faster than them,” Alison said.  "Just make sure you don’t lose your keys."

"When we get outside, keep running," Ginger said. "Don’t stop for anything.  My car is a red Saturn sitting off by its self."

They burst through the door and into the dimly lit parking lot.  There were a couple of vehicles driving through the lot with figures of people chasing them.  One of the vehicles slammed into a parked minivan; glass shattered from the impact.  The undead caught up with the vehicle, and climbed their way through the window to get at the driver. 

Ginger pointed at her car sitting alone under one of the lot's light-poles, "There it is."

Behind them, the service door to the mall burst open; a dozen or more ghouls took chase after the two girls.

The girls sprinted their way to the car passing rows of vehicles.

Out from behind a parked van, a zombie stepped in front of Alison and tried to grab her.  Alison ran smack into the zombie and knocked him over with kinetic energy.  She plunged into a rolling fall to the ground, but managed to get right back up a number of feet away from the zombie.  She kept running while ignoring the sting from her hands.

Ginger reached the car and unlocked it with her remote control.  Alison opened the passenger door to the car by the time Ginger brought the engine to life. 

Out of no-where, a young teenage girl appeared in the headlights and then ran to the back passenger door.  She banged on the window desperately.  The undead from inside the mall were about to catch up with her.

"Let me in, let me in," the girl pleaded.

Ginger unlocked the door, and the girl scrambled inside to the safety of the back seat.  Ginger slammed on the gas and left the undead grasping at the moving vehicle.

More of the creatures closed in on the car from all sides.  Ginger swerved left and right trying to avoid them and other parked cars.  Bodies bounced off the sides of the car more than a couple times.  She found an empty lane and accelerated away from the mall heading north.

Driving home, they could see house after house under siege from the undead.

"My God, they’re everywhere," Alison said.

"Please Lord; don’t let them be at my parents’ house.  Let my family be safe," Ginger prayed aloud.

"What do we do, if they are there?" the teenage girl in the backseat said.

Ginger's mind tried to play out a scenario of what she would do if she found her family dead from these things.  Her mind couldn’t comprehend any kind of sane reaction.

A woman ran out into the road in front of the car waving her arms franticly. Her clothes were torn like she had been running through the woods that she emerged from.

Ginger caught the briefest glimpse of her mother’s face, and she slammed on her brakes.  The woman dove to the side of the road to avoid being hit.

A zombie emerged from the woods after its prey and limped dead center into the path of the car. The impact hurled the zombie forward twenty feet, and it continued to roll for another ten, but it started to get right back up.

Ginger's mom struggled up from the ground and limped to the car. 

"Hurry up," said the girl in the back seat while she opened the door for the woman.

Ginger turned around and looked into the back seat at her winded mother. Her mother, Vicky, worked out a lot and occasionally did marathons.  Ginger thought her mom looked worse than she did when she finished one.

"Mom, are you okay; where's Dad?"

Vicky pointed to the front of the car.  "He's right there, baby.  They got him, and he's been trying to get me ever since."

Ginger looked up to see her father walking toward the car.

"We need to move,” Alison said, "or he's going to try and get in."

Ginger pressed on the gas and maneuvered the car off the road and into a yard on the right avoiding her father.  The car plowed into a mailbox and knocked it under the vehicle.  Ginger drove the car back onto the road and the mailbox hung along for a few moments, screeching metal and throwing sparks.

Ten minutes later, Ginger's red Saturn pulled into her Mom's driveway.  The lights to the house were all on.