Zombie Fallout 8: An Old Beginning (20 page)

The rest could go unsaid. Once that steel shield was out of the way, we could drill it with as much lead as we could sling. My fear was that it wouldn’t be enough.  Did Yetis need to be shot with silver bullets? Or maybe it was platinum, I don’t know. Never really done my research on the matter. Just because I always wanted there to be proof they existed didn’t mean I necessarily wanted to count one as an adversary.

I could hear the machinations in Deneaux’s twisted brain already wheeling around. I seriously would not put it past her to put a round or two in Tommy, just enough to slow him down so that the animal could get a hold of him. While it was busy trying to kill the boy, we could take care of it. I mean it was an evilly brilliant plan. Tommy was strong enough that he could put up a viable enough fight while we surrounded and pounded the animal. None of this would portend well for Tommy, but it certainly would for the rest of us, including Deneaux—which, in reality, was all she cared about. There was an animalistic simplicity to her way of thinking. It sure did make going through life a little easier if all you were ever concerned with was your own skin.

“Do not fire until he is clear.” I was looking at Deneaux when I spoke. She didn’t say anything, but I might have seen the slightest drop to her lip as if I’d caught her. “I’ve been around you long enough, and yeah, I meant to say that part out loud.”

I turned to look over at Tommy. Our barricade was rapidly becoming a pile of rubble. The door now had a noticeable bulge, and the second hinge was holding on for its life. Well,
our
lives really, but the point made is the same. I nodded tersely to Tommy as our choices, which we really had none to begin with, were rapidly diminishing.

“I’ve got this,” James said to Tommy as he took his place trying to hold the bulker door in place.

Tommy had a look of consternation on his face. Just because he was as close to immortal as possible, that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fear for his safety. A torn off arm was a torn off arm—the bleeding would stop, and the wound would knit itself closed quickly, but the arm, well yeah, that would be gone forever. What happened next was instantaneous. (Reading it will take longer than what actually happened.) Tommy became a blur as he crossed the room. He pushed so hard on the Yeti’s door that I thought there was possibly a chance it would slam against the wall to the side and just as quickly shut again, leaving us back to square one. Although, now the monster would know our plan, or at least part of it, and I was confident it would not allow this to happen again.

Alright
…let me try to get the timing right here. Tommy had just shoved the door open, and for a flash of a second, I saw an ape. It wasn’t a Yeti, but it could have been if I was just using sheer size as a comparison. The right side of his face had suffered some serious damage from where Deneaux’s bullet had struck; a crevice easily as thick as my finger and just as long had burrowed its way from the corner of its eye socket back toward its ear. A yellowish-red pus oozed from the wound. The ape was about to throw what it had in his hands, it could have been a table leg, I’m not sure. I was still completely transfixed by the sight of an ape that was clearly a zombie, but it was more than that.

Deneaux was rattled as well, though she was still able to get a shot off. The bullet penetrated the ape’s massive brown chest, leaving a smear of blood. Another concerted attack to our rear sent James hurtling past our location; though I, along with Deneaux, soon found
ourselves being shoved along as furniture was spewed about like an erupting volcano filled with office supplies. James was impaled in the stomach with the metal desk leg as the ape fired it past me. Something struck me in the back of the head, spots danced before my eyes. I felt a stream of blood travel down my neck and follow the hollow of my spine. I twisted to see another hinge pin roll to a stop. Anything bigger and it would have made my brain into soup.

James screamed from the insertion of the foreign object. Deneaux was nowhere to be seen. Bulkers had crashed through and were forcing entry into our rapidly diminishing space. A small tsunami of compressed organs and blood were making their way toward us, splashing up against and going around every obstacle in its way. The bulkers, in their desire to get to a food source, any food source, crushed every impediment in their way, squashing them to the point where those unfortunate bastards had popped like overblown zits on a fourteen-year-old Twinkie junkie.
The ape was rushing forward, James was his only impediment. The ape seemed to war within itself in regards to destroying or eating the enemy, he seemed to satisfy both urges as he bit through James’ shoulder, taking out a chunk roughly equivalent to half a dinner plate. Impossibly large canines shredded through the meat and bone. What was still cognizant within James screamed his final hill-shrilled pitch.

‘
The ceiling, Mr. T, hurry!’
Tommy’s in the head voice threatened to complete what the hinge pin had started.

I didn’t know what he meant, but that he had an idea was enough for me. I took one stride and hopped atop a table. With one forceful jump and outstretched hands I broke through the pasty dry ceiling shingles. I dislocated two fingers as they struck a heavy metal pipe that looked like something gas or propane would travel through. I grabbed hold, wincing as my fingers wrapped around the metal. A bulker’s hand reached up to grab at my thigh, and I quickly pulled my legs up as I struggled to find a suitable enough place to cram the toes of my boots into so that I could hold on…suspended like the world’s largest bat.

“You see Deneaux?” I yelled.

Tommy, like me, was clinging to an overhead pipe. He thrust his head over his far side. I could just make out one of her legs. She was on the ground, laid out. Dead or unconscious, either way, she was about to meet one of her two
makers, I had my bet in on which one that was going to be as bulkers were within feet of her. On one side of the coin, the world—and my world specifically—would be better the moment she departed this plane. A sort of justice would be paid. On the dreaded flip side, our odds of escape had been greatly reduced, meaning I wouldn’t be able to enjoy her demise for quite as long as I would like. Can’t have it all I suppose.

The thing that was once an ape bridged the gap between Deneaux and the bulkers. He wrapped his large hand around her ankle, lifting her up effortlessly. A snarl opened up so wide I figured for a second that he was just going to swallow her whole. Instead, he swung her like a club, his goal to bash the bulkers into submission, I guess. Deneaux’s head whipped past the first line of bulkers. She narrowly missed having her skull caved in from the contact. King Konglet roared in rage that he’d come up empty. Then something happened that none of us had been prepared for. Deneaux’s shoe came off in his hand as she was at the apex of the ape’s swing.

You have got to be shitting me
was quite literally my thought as Deneaux’s unconscious body came flying through the air right at me.

Tommy asked the same question I was asking myself.
‘Are you going to catch her?’
I didn’t know the answer until I let go with my right hand and snagged her out of mid-air. There was no question I was going to regret this. I was disappointed with myself for saving her. I would have only been marginally more distraught had I let her sail on by, and I was confident I would have been able to reconcile that.

“She’s heavier than I figured she would be,” I said as I grunted to swing her around so I could keep her as high off the ground as possible. “Would have figured carcinogens didn’t weigh as much. She’s a fucking
rock-solid old lady alright, and I cannot even begin to tell you how revolting it is to be this close to her.”

“You did the right thing.”

I wanted to ask how he’d reached that conclusion, but the events immediately below us warranted our attention. The ape, deprived of his throw toy and the bulkers, denied their food, now discovered they were enemies. The ape clearly had a case of the zombies, and for some reason, the bulkers weren’t picking up on that. The ape was most definitely on their menu, and they were doing all in their power to get at him, teeth gnashing wildly and clacking together like dominoes being slammed down on a table in a particularly rowdy game of Muggins. The ape seemed more than up for the challenge as he slammed bulkers and speeders with his massive fists. If they got too close, he wasn’t squeamish in the least about biting off whatever was before him. He opened bodies wide, internal organs sloughing to the floor as he did so, intermingling with the thick layer of viscera already there.

The ape was winning; there was no doubt about that. The bulkers, for all their girth, were not nearly as big as the
beast, their advantage lay in numbers. It was a fight to the end, one the ape would finally succumb to. Either way, stuck to this ceiling like a bat or a scared cat was not going to do us any favors.

“The animal lab, Tommy!” I nodded my head over to the open door.

The ape seemed to understand my words and roared his disapproval, not that he was in any position to do anything about it. He was rapidly becoming surrounded. I felt a pang for the majestic animal he had once been, but not this man-tampered abomination. I began to move toward the door. Shifting my feet was easy enough, but I only had my left hand to grasp the pipes. When I let go with it to move, Deneaux and my upper torso came dangerously close to the fight below.

“I’ll go first and then you toss her.” Tommy had already halved the distance, a few more feet and he could drop down and run in.

There was always the chance I could just “accidently” lose my grip on Deneaux, letting her go WAY too short and right into the mix. Fucking conscience got in the way. Here I am, smack dab in the middle of a war where all the rules of a polite society are thrown out and yet I could not force myself to descend into that chaos. Well, if I’d learned anything from all this, a soul wasn’t necessarily tied to a code of ethics, I could still sense what was right and wrong.

“Throw her!” Tommy was standing like a wide receiver in football, waiting for the ball to come his way.

It was comical in a way. Come to think of it, her skin was leathery like a pigskin. This was in no shape, way, or form going to be an easy feat. My feet were pointed toward Tommy, I was upside down and I had to throw a human, well, a being at least. Calling her a human seems to send the wrong message. If I could have gripped her around the waist and thrown her like a traditional football, it would have been a lot easier. It would have been pretty cool to watch Deneaux do a spiral. Now I had to figure out where the best place was to grab her and swing her like a pendulum. I’d thought about grabbing the back of her shirt but there was a high percentage her top would come off and I’d seen enough nightmares in this lifetime that I wasn’t going to add to them.

There was her head, good possibility I’d snap it off, but oh well. I settled for under her arm. I had to swing her slightly side-armed to keep her feet from smacking into the heads of zombies below.

“One,” I grunted as I swung.

“Two.” She had a decent arc going.

“Three.” I let her sail.

She slipped a little as I released her and was going to fall short. “Fuck,” I muttered as she came within a hand span of hitting the ceiling, thus halting all of her forward momentum.

The back of her head clipped a zombie who looked up. His eyes grew wide like the heavens were dropping him gifts. It was now a race to see who would get to her first as Tommy left the relative safety of the doorway to catch her before she bounced off the floor and was sure to shatter a hip.

Tommy dove, lying out to catch her, he mostly succeeded. The zombie pounced as well, but Tommy was faster as he whisked her back and up even as he was rising. The bones that
shattered were in the zombie’s mouth as he bit down hard on tile. Deneaux had once again slipped past her due date.

“Come on!” Tommy offered.

Funny how people think others need encouragement in these situations. I wasn’t getting pumped up for a job interview or asking Becky Collins out to the prom; I was desperately trying to save my skin. This was slightly more important than the chance to feel up Becky, slightly. I mean she had really nice breasts for a sophomore. She said ‘no’ by the way, went with Dennis as a matter of fact. I would have been pissed at him longer if she hadn’t drunk so much that night that she passed out before the prom king and queen were announced. She threw up all over the interior of his parents’ car. I mean like violent expulsions. There was stomach stew from the windshield to the backseat. The car reeked of gin and bile for weeks.

A
dd to that, Dennis had to schlep her drunk-ass, passed-out self to her parents’ front door. He’d told me he’d thought about ringing the doorbell and just hauling ass. Instead, he had waited with her in his arms as more of what was in her globbed all over the front of his rented tux, which he ended up buying because they couldn’t get out the sauce stains from the spaghetti she’d eaten earlier. How could you be mad at someone who had laid out hundreds of dollars for the occasion, ended up grounded for two weeks and basically missed the entire event as he monitored her sickness most of the night? I wanted to tell him it was karma for stealing my date, but even I’m not that big of an asshole. Oh, and to top it off, the bitch had completely thrown his ass under the bus by saying he’d supplied the liquor. I saw her reasoning—she was just trying to mitigate the trouble she was in. Mr. Collins had expressly forbid that they ever date again. Not that it mattered much. At age sixteen, puppy love kind of loses its luster when it is glommed over with vomit.