ZWD: King of an Empty City (18 page)

             
The sky, as dark as it was, held thin clouds. Every time the lightning discharged it made the clouds look like dark marble with glowing white streaks in it. I heard thunder close by and the wind was just starting to pick up.

             
The thing was, we’d been living so long in the cold weather that I barely felt it on my face anymore. I used to cover my face and my hands in petroleum jelly to protect them from the cold. Now, my hands were hardly ever gloved and I never covered my face.

             
There was a long, low vibrating roll of thunder and lightning lit up the underside of the clouds. Trees complained against the wind and I decided I’d walk further down the street to see just how many homes the S.O.L. had actually tagged and how many people lived on this street. By the end of the block, there were no more tags. One house from the end of the block, I saw in the yard two discarded spray cans and an “S” painted on the corner of the house. I crossed the street and headed back. The rain had started to fall in big cold drops but you could hardly feel them, they were so far apart. But when they did hit, they stung your skin.

             
That rolling thunder had gone on for so long that when it stopped I’d forgotten that it had been thunder I was hearing. The sudden quiet startled me and I actually crouched down behind a car, expecting danger to pop out from somewhere at any moment.

T
here was a clap of thunder overhead that sounded like an explosion. I mean it shook the ground, the trees, houses, everything. I thought we were having an earthquake. I dropped to the ground and covered my head. The car next to me was rocking on its shocks. Up the street a car alarm started going off and somewhere in the neighborhood a house alarm was sounding. All the streetlights went off and it looked as if it were night. Only the faint light in the clouds kept it from total darkness.

             
I had to get that car alarm turned off or it would attract zombies from everywhere. Then, after that, I’d have to find that house and find a way to turn its alarm off. About the time I stood up, the bottom fell out and buckets of water started falling from the sky. The rain was so thick and heavy it hurt my skin through my layers of clothing. I thought I was soaked before, but now my clothing felt thirty pounds heavier. The rain was so thick I couldn’t see five feet in front of my face. I trotted as best I could over the wet ice-covered sidewalk to the car with the alarm. Its headlights were dimly flashing on and off. If I could have just left it alone, in perhaps an hour it would have run out of juice and nobody would ever have to worry about it again. But I couldn’t leave it alone.

             
The freezing rain had already formed an ice sheet on the car windows, the doors, and on me. With each of my movements, I could hear the cold layer of ice that was instantly forming crack and break off. I worked the gloves out of my pockets because the cold was now so intense I could no longer feel my fingers. My Pokémon cap was now as solid as a helmet. I decided to forget the niceties and grabbed Harold and swung it against the glass on the driver’s side. The ice sheet on the outside cracked a little but didn’t give way. It took both hands swinging to break the ice that formed a protective shell over the outside of the car before I could get to the window itself. Icicles were forming on my eyebrows, making it harder to see, but after four or five swings I finally shattered the window. It took a moment to get the door open and unlocked. I got in by climbing through the window, since the door itself was frozen shut from the outside.

             
It felt good to get in the car and out of the elements. I took a moment to catch my breath; I was exhausted. I’d scooted to the passenger’s side of the car to get away from the rain that was pouring in through the window I’d busted out. I twisted the rearview mirror to me and looked in it. I looked like some kind of demonic Santa Claus with the frozen rain coating my eyebrows, lashes, and beard. Faintly I could hear the on-board assistant saying, “We have detected a broken window, do you need assistance?” That was when I realized I really should have left this car alone and let the battery run itself down. Even the assistant wasn’t very audible.

             
I scooted over to the driver’s side and popped open the steering column. Using one of the knives from my belt I quickly stripped the wires and started the car, or tried to start it. It fought against me and the cold and the almost dead battery. It took me a while, but it finally started. Once it did, and I was able to reset the alarm, turning it off. I was fortunate that there was an obvious control on the dashboard. While I had it I cranked I set the car’s heater to high and was about to slide over to the passenger’s side of the car to get away from the open window when a lightning flash revealed I had company just outside my door.

Standing about a foot away from the window was a zombie with bloated hands, and they were reaching for me. I’ll be the first to admit I panicked. Without her there to have my back I felt a little vulnerable. I screamed and tried to scoot to the other side of the car, but the seats and the console/armrest stopped me from getting very far. I ended up spinning in my seat and I kicked the zombie in the chest through the open window. Once he was a few feet away from me I gathered my wits a little more and reached between my legs to grab the door latch. I was going to open the door and jump out to attack him, but the door was frozen shut and with each passing second that ice barrier covering the car grew thicker. I didn’t relish the thought of being trapped in a closed space being attacked by zombies, or anything else in this scenario involving this car. There was a reason small spaces were a no-fighting zone. That needs to go into the fighter’s manual, stay away from small spaces.

             
I knew the door was unlocked, just un-openable, so I kicked it as hard as I could with both feet. The first kick cracked the ice layer that covered the outside. The second kick got the door open and it swung out a little, and the third kick sent it wide open. I grabbed Harold from the passenger’s seat and slid out of the car. The rain was still coming down heavy and hard, so while I was trying to get my footing on the icy road I used Harold’s blunt end to push him away from me, not very far but far enough. He slid back like a little kid trying to walk on ice while I was trying to use the car for balance against my hip.

I scooted back along the car enough that I got my foot against the tire and braced myself there. A moment later he was back in my face and I swung Harold as hard as I could, planting it squarely in his chest. He stagger-slid backwards a few feet, taking Harold with him as it slipped out of my hand. Taking baby steps, I reached for him, his arms outstretched as he tried to grab me for balance, I think, more than for food, at least at that point. I finally got my hand on Harold’s handle and started to pull. He had his hands on my arms and was pulling me closer. Everything became a disaster when I tried to spin away from him and take Harold with me. On dry ground it would have been successful, it might even have looked like a really cool kung fu move, but on an icy road under a hard rain, not so much. My feet came out from under me. One went left, one went right, and I went down. Because the zombie was holding me and I was holding the shovel, he came down on top of me. The part of the shovel that was sticking out of his chest was driven into my lower gut and it helped to knock the wind out of me.

The zombie hit his head on the ground as he landed. I think it stunned him, if you can stun a zombie. In a fright I started to do a crocodile death roll to get from under him. Not out of any clear thinking, I was scared and just trying to get away from his mouth, and Harold hitting me in the gut also caused me to writhe around in pain. A moment later I was out from under him. A thunderclap shook the ground again as I pulled one of the knives from my belt and stabbed him in the leg. I’m sure he screamed but I couldn’t hear it over the storm. Using the knife, I pulled myself on top of him as quickly as possible. I pulled another knife from my belt and was planning on stabbing and pulling my way up to his head, but as it turned out the knife I grabbed next was a folding knife and my hands were so frozen I couldn’t flick it open with my thumb. The gloves I was wearing didn’t help either. In fact, when I tried it fell out of my hand, so I grabbed his belt instead and pulled myself up to the center of his back. Wrenching the knife from his leg, I planted it in the middle of his back and pulled again. The bastard just wouldn’t cooperate and kept trying to roll over.

I think it’s been thirty years since I took Greek wrestling in high school and what I remembered, what little I remembered, was coming in handy now. About the only thing I was ever good at in this sport was staying on top of my opponent. With my legs spread wide for a better base I moved one of my shoulders over his shoulder and kept the majority of my weight on the center of his back. I spun around on top of him once like I was taught to do in high school and found I was in a better position to suppress him, so I scrambled up to a sitting position and planted my knees, one over each shoulder, as I sat on his back.

             
I pulled a knife out of my belt and brought it down on his head. Skulls are hard, thick, and not easy to penetrate. All I managed to do was rip away some of his scalp and expose bone. He wasn’t happy about me doing that and started thrashing around as hard as he could to shake me. Dylan once tried to get me to ride bulls, and now I wished I had. I might have been able to handle this better, although I don’t know how. I grabbed this guy by the hair and tried to hold his head to the ground. When I did that I took the weight off his back and he almost threw me. In anger, with the fistful of hair, I started pounding his head into the ground, and when he turned his head so that one ear was facing me, I took the knife and shoved it into that ear. He settled down considerably after that. It still didn’t stop me from taking the knife and stabbing him in the head a dozen more times.

             
When I rolled off him, I just lay there on the ground letting the icy rain wash away the blood. When I sat up I unzipped my jacket a few inches and could feel the body heat pour off me. I gathered my knives and Harold, then went through his pockets. Nothing of value in them, so I sat down on the car hood and took a moment. I’d clean this body up another day. Lightning struck somewhere so close I could feel the tingle of electricity wash over my body as every hair stood on end. It was probably not the wisest thing to do, sitting there on the hood of the car during an electrical storm as violent as this one, but I was at that “I don’t give a fuck” moment and actually kind of welcomed being struck by lightning. It beat being bitten. In the distance, I heard the house alarm still going off as the thunder rolled away. The rain didn’t let up.

             
The best thing I could do now was to go get her and together we could clear that house and disable the alarm. Sliding from the car, I reached in my inside pocket for the cigars and pulled out a crushed carton. The two in there were crumbled and soggy. I left the carton on the ground; I’d quit anyway and didn’t need them.

Back at Ashley’s house, I went around to the sliding glass door I’d gone out of and tapped on the glass. The two women were sitting on the couch sipping from mugs and laughing. When they saw me they both jumped up and Ashley went to the back of the house to emerge moments later with a dozen towels and a laundry basket. She ordered me to strip right here and she’d dry my clothes while I took a hot shower. I refused and explained what happened at the car and how there was a house alarm going off and we needed to turn it off before every zombie for ten miles came to investigate that sound.

ZWD: King of an Empty City
Chapter 21

ZWD: Dec.
17
.

Meep, Meep, Meep went the alarm. Whoomp, whoomp, whoomp went the potato canon. Down, down, down went the dead.

             
As my girl geared up again, putting on her boots and weapons, I noticed the aroma of vanilla cocoa had filled the room. Oh, my God, it smelled delicious; it tasted delicious too. When I asked about it she gave me her cup to try. Made with hot water and creamer instead of milk, it was still fantastic. By the time she got her coat on Ashley came from the back of the house with her coat on and a pistol in her hand.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

              “I’m going with you,” she said flatly.

              “This could be dangerous, you should stay here,” I offered.

              “Nonsense, she told me what your plans are for this neighborhood and I like them, so I’m going to help.”

              “The gun will only attract more if you fire it. Have you got a silent weapon?”

             
Ashley had to think about it for a moment and she had nothing. We gave her a machete. A few minutes later she was bundled up against the rain and we were on our way to the house with the alarm going off. It took us a while to find it because of the rain; while it had slacked a little, it was still hard to hear the alarm. There were some spots where we had to wade through rivers of water where the sewers had backed up and caused flooding. It didn’t take long to find after we saw a zombie working its way to the house. We just followed it. There were seven zombies outside the house standing in a wide, scattered semicircle, all staring at the house like it was some sort of ancient temple. The
meep, meep, meep
of the alarm could be clearly heard here even with the rain, which was slowing down even more. Soon it would be gone and every zombie around would be able to hear this thing and they’d all just come a-running.

We’d taken up a spot at the corner of the house next door behind some holly bushes. We were trying to come up with a plan to get past the zombies or kill them, then go in the house and deal with the alarm. The way they were staring at the house and not us convinced us that the longer the alarm was on, the easier it would be to kill these and then go into the house and deal with whatever new zombies showed up on the way out.

             
The alarm house itself was a Craftsman one-story house that probably had a single upstairs room in the attic. Leading to the backyard was a chain link fence that started about halfway up the side of the house and probably encompassed the backyard before coming up to a similar spot on the other side. We thought that the junction box to the house was either near the back door or just inside it, so our plan was to kill these that were in the front, then hop the fence and kill the power to the house.

Not wanting to draw the zombies to our hiding place behind the holly bush, I circled around to the far side of the house behind them. We didn’t know just how good Ashley would be in a fight, so it was decided that the two girls would back me up if I needed help. I was coming up behind one of the zombies at the far side of the house. He was standing farthest back, so after crossing the street and re-crossing it to come up behind him unnoticed, I had Harold in hand ready to bring down on his head when we heard the defiant
Whoomp
of a potato cannon being fired.

             
Near the house next door, the one we were hiding by, a zombie fell face first to the ground with a stake sticking out of his head. One of the side windows was open and I saw Donny in it quickly prepping the cannon for another shot. I could see two more faces in the window with him. I brought Harold down square on the top of the zombie’s head and she dropped to her knees like a rock and fell forward face-first into the muddy ground. I had to put my boot to her neck to pull Harold out of her head. Looking around at the zombies to make certain I hadn’t been seen yet, I glanced over to the window. The girls had moved over there and were talking to Donny and the other boys.

             
As I moved to the next zombie, Ashley moved back to the cover of the holly bush and my girl came out to the killing field of the yard and readied herself with the Ice Pike. She swung it around her body and brought it in low against the legs of the zombie she was attacking, taking it legs out from under it. As it hit the ground, she already had the Ice Pike’s blade ready to drive into its neck, separating head from shoulders.

             
There was another
Whoomp
sound and one of the other zombies fell with a stake in its head. Donny was very accurate with his potato cannon. Almost as quickly as the rain had started, it stopped and the air was filled with the sound of the alarm’s
meep, meep, meep
. It had also stopped just before Donny fired his next round and all the zombies turned to see where that sound was coming from. With the rain and thunder his shots were kind of masked, but now they were as loud as the alarm, or so it seemed at that moment. The only thing lacking was the sun parting the clouds and shining on each of us, showing the zombies where we each were like a shiny new car on a showroom floor.

The sudden absence of rain did several things. First, from experience I knew rain masked the presence of living people to a zombie. You could get really close to them and they wouldn’t know it. I didn’t know why that was, I’d just used it to my advantage whenever I could. Secondly, after turning to Donny they looked around and knew where all of us were among them. Third, the
meep
of the alarm sounded a lot louder than it did before and was probably at this moment drawing a herd of random zombies right to us from miles around. And fourth, there were still a half dozen between that junction box and me.

             
You know those awkward moments when everyone looks around and realizes the same thing all at once? I don’t know if zombies can reason, but you could almost see the lights go on in their eyes all at once that lunch had been delivered. We all knew the fight was on. I wasted no time bringing Harold into action. I ran to the nearest zombie and smacked him in the face with the flat of the folding blade with a baseball swing. I was already cold and the shock of the impact sent pain throughout my fingers, which were already aching. But as he fell back and to the ground, I dropped to my knees and buried the folding shovel’s blade into his face. Next to me another zombie fell with a stake in his chest. He wasn’t dead, so I scurried over to him, and taking a knife from my belt, I drove it into his eye, then scrambled the blade around, trying to destroy as much of his brain as I quickly could.

             
Looking up, I tried to evaluate how we were doing. Donny from the window was aiming at another zombie. My girl was kneeling over another with her knee in the thing’s back and her machete whacking away at its neck. It looked like the spine wouldn’t separate. Ashley was still hiding behind the holly bush and one of the littler S.O.L. boys was standing out in the street. He pointed down the road and shouted, “More!”

Crap!

I yelled at my girl to keep them busy as I ran to the backyard. I hopped the chain link fence and found the junction box to the house right next to the back door. It had a padlock on it keeping it shut. A low rumble of thunder and the rain started again. I didn’t have my two-pound sledgehammer with me because this was supposed to be my day off. Nor did I have the ball-peen hammer. I had nothing I normally carried except Harold. I hit the lock with it a few times to no effect. Looking around, I found a paver stone from the garden and hit it with that and got nowhere. I wedged the blade against the lid of the junction box and tried prying it open so I could squeeze my hand in and kill the breaker. It didn’t budge. I’d thought of using Harold and just cutting the cables leading to the house, but I didn’t think my blade was sharp enough to do that—and besides, it was raining and I was wet, standing in a small pool of water, and cutting an electric cable was probably not a good idea. I went back around the house to the fence and called for Ashley to bring me her gun.

             
According to the kid, there were already more zombies on their way to join us, so what was the harm of bringing a few more? I shot the lock off the junction box and a moment later I hesitated as my wet hand reached for the main breaker. Like I said, I was soaked to the bone, standing in a pool of water during a downpour, and I was reaching for a highly charged electrical switch. What would you do in my shoes? I knew electronics, I knew electricity, and I knew I was probably safe flipping that switch, but it still worried me. And I’ll admit for half a second, I entertained the idea of saying to Ashley, “Why don’t you do the honors?” Hell, I didn’t know her. But as soon as that thought crossed my mind I reached up and flipped the switch. About the time I flipped the breaker switch a big crack of thunder roared overhead and I about jumped out of my skin. Ashley grabbed my arm with both hands and immediately let go. I thought for sure I was fried. As the thunder rolled away in the heavens the distinct sound of the alarm could still be heard emanating from within the house.

             
Meep, meep, meep.
The damned thing had a separate power source! At this point I was in a rage. I looked around the yard and spotted a cinder block next to the garden shed. I picked it up and threw it through one of the windows in the back of the house. I went back to the fence on the side and yelled for one of the kids to come here. In the backyard, I picked him up and helped him through the window, telling him to unlock the back door. “Ashley, you and the kid find that alarm and turn it off. I don’t care if you have to pull the wires make it stop,” I said as I shoved her through the back door. I told the kid the same thing, then went back to the front of the house.

             
Donny and two other kids had now come out of the house next door and were fighting zombies along with my girl. The two little ones were working together tackling legs and dropping the zombies on their backs. Then with a knife or a hammer the other would bash the downed zombie’s skull in.

             
Donny was hopping around like a character in a street fighter video game. He was wasting too much motion, but he had a metal pipe and a stick that he was using very effectively. He’d strike a zombie in the head with the pipe, knocking it off-balance, then with an uppercut he’d stab them under the chin. Or he’d shove the pipe into their open mouth and shove the knife in the skull from the back. I personally could have done without all his pseudo Bruce Lee sounds, but whatever works for you.

             
Zombie bodies littered the yard and there were about six still standing. Two were closing in on her when I came around the house and joined the fight again. One was on either side of her and they were getting closer. I ran over and planted Harold’s blade into the back of the nearest one’s thigh. He fell backwards and she shoved the Ice Pike into his neck, then chopped it a few more times to separate the head from the body. Her blade was getting dull and not making the cuts it needed to make. Harold‘s edges were getting dull too. I had to use more and more force to make the same cuts. We were starting to lose this battle.  Our best weapons were getting dull fast. We had two machetes and I knew my machete blade was dull except for a spot near the handle that was questionable on its sharpness. I had a belt full of knives, most of which had blades that were too short to do much good. We had three inexperienced kids who were doing their best and six zombies still to kill that I knew of.                                      

“Your blade is getting too dull,” I said to her as I readied myself to strike the other zombie.

              “I know,” she replied, out of breath. Her face was flushed and she was looking tired.

              “What about your machete?”

              “The blade broke,” she stated as she stretched her back by leaning backwards. She was watching the kids attack one of the fallen zombies. Donny was staggering backwards as the one he was dealing with started to get the better of him.

“We need to leave,” she said over her shoulder as she ran over to help Donny. I brought Harold down on my zombie’s head and lodged the blade into his skull. I couldn’t pull it out once he hit the ground, and the remaining four were getting too close. She’d grabbed a handful of hair and pulled the zombie that was on Donny off of him, then thrust one of her knives into its eye.

I pulled the shoe off the one that had Harold lodged in its brain and rushed to the next one, shoving the shoe into his mouth and keeping him from biting me. I kicked at his knee and brought him down to the ground and shoved my knife’s blade into his ear. From the corner of my eye I saw another one looming over me. The two boys, who’d grabbed his legs and pushed him backwards, tackled him. I pulled out the knife and jumped on top of him, shoving the knife into his face. He was still moving, but it was slowly. I pulled another knife from my belt and handed it to one of the kids and said, “Have at it, boys.”

I got up and looked for the next one to kill. It didn’t take long; one was about two feet away from one of the boys. He was reaching down for him when I drop-kicked him away. It was the only thing I could think of to do and I did it poorly. I landed on something hard and sharp inside my clothing and it hurt. Donny rushed over to the zombie that I had knocked off-balance and struck it with the pipe three or four times really fast. I was hurting so badly in my gut that I rolled over on my side and didn’t see what happened.