Apocalypse Atlanta (87 page)

“My parents, my brothers.” she sobbed.  “Oh God!”

“Look, you ain’t coming in here.” Darryl said when he was reasonably sure she was too busy crying to address his question.

“I need help!” Ann screamed at him.  “You’re not listening!”

“I hear you just fine.” Darryl said, making his voice hard.  He told himself she was just one more unruly customer that he had to deal with, period.  The reason, the story, the excuse . . . that never mattered.  The result did.  He was supposed to handle problems, not solve them.

“Then why won’t you help me?”

“There a lot of fucked up shit going around.” Darryl said.  “Whatever you dealing with, it your problem.”

“No, it’s not just my problem.” she screamed.  “They’re chasing me.”

“Who is?” Darryl asked, glancing automatically at the field between the fence and the road behind her.  He didn’t see anything, or on the road either.  That didn’t mean something wasn’t there, but if something was, he couldn’t spot it yet.

She took a deep breath and tried to compose herself.  Darryl could see it, could already see the story being organized before she even started speaking.  He’d seen that look hundreds, thousands, of times.  Sometimes the story was true, sometimes it wasn’t.  There was always a story, occasionally even a good one, a true one.

It didn’t matter.  It never did.

“My parents pulled us all out of school Friday afternoon when the news started talking about problems.” Ann said, her voice admirably calm compared to the anguish visible on her face.  “Alan . . . changed yesterday morning when he and Aaron were outside helping dad board up the house.  He hurt both of them before they were able to close him up in the shed.  A little while ago . . .” her resolve started disintegrating again, and Darryl almost didn’t need to hear the rest.

“They both changed too.” he said.

“Yes.” She sobbed.  “I heard screaming, but by the time I got into my parents bedroom it was too late.  They were . . . oh God, Mom!”

“Yeah.” Darryl said, deliberately using his professional tone.  The one he used to indicate it wasn’t personal, it was just the way it had to be.  “I get it.  So there two zombies chasing after you now?”

“Yes!  Please, you’ve got to help me.” Ann said desperately.  “Dad had the keys to the car in his pocket, said it was in case we all had to leave the house in a hurry.”

“The other way got people too.” Darryl said, pointing back the way she’d come from.  That direction did, in fact, lead back to the roads that allowed access to and from the lake.  There were neighborhoods that way.  Not big ones, not like in the Atlanta suburbs, but still groups of houses.  Probably four or five dozen at least within the next two or three miles.  “Why didn’t you go there, instead of back here into this dead end?”

“I don’t know!” Ann was crying again.  “I don’t know, okay.  But I’m here now, you’re here now.  Please.  I need help.”

“No.”

“Goddamnit!” She screamed, clenching her fists.  Darryl shifted the shotgun, aiming at her from the hip.  “Why–why won’t you help?”

“We trying to keep from getting sick.” Darryl said, hoping maybe a bit of an explanation might keep him from having to shoot her.  He really didn’t want to shoot her, but he was not going to let her come inside the fence.  “You got blood all over you, and you done said a bunch of your family hungry and eating people now.  You a risk we ain’t gonna take.”

“Please.” she whispered, falling to her knees and folding her hands under her chin.  Darryl had to step, very firmly, on his compassion.  She was young and blonde and almost angelic looking in the moonlight, wearing the kind of clothes the heroine in a horror movie usually was all through the final act.  Everything about her was the very picture of the modern damsel in distress.

“Please.” she repeated, barely audible.  “Please, please help me.”

“EZ.” Darryl shouted without turning.  The answer drifted back to him from the roof of the clubhouse.

“Yeah DJ?”

“You see anything back toward the road?”

“Hang on.”

Darryl waited, keeping the shotgun pointed at her.  Ann stayed on her knees, her hands clasped together, watching him hopefully through her tears.  He scanned the darkness behind her, still seeing nothing.  He felt a minute tick by.  Ann’s breathing calmed down as she finally finished catching her breath.  If she lived on the far side of the lake, then she’d run over a mile to get here.  He really wished she’d run the other way though.

“DJ?”

“What you got?”

EZ’s voice was flat, almost conversational.  “There two people coming down the road.”

“People?” Darryl asked sharply.

There was a pause, a long one, then EZ spoke again.  “Well, they on foot, and they ain’t cars or nothing.”

“How they walking?”

“Like they can barely stand bro.”

Darryl nodded.  “EZ, you keep an eye on them, let me know if they go some other direction than here.”

“Word.”

Darryl looked at the girl.  “Okay, I got a compromise for you.”

“Compromise?” she repeated like the word didn’t make sense.

“Yeah.  You stay here.  There, or whatever.  Outside the fence.  You ain’t coming in.  But you can hang out here while we see where them two zombies is going.”

“What if they’re coming here?” she asked, her lower lip quivering heavily.

“Let’s hope they is.” Darryl shrugged.

“What?”

He made a placating motion with his left hand.  “If they are, we’ll take them out.  Then you can head back and find help.  Maybe there still some cops out or something.  I dunno.”  He sort of doubted it however; the news had made it clear the police and fire departments, and the hospitals and paramedics, had taken most of the brunt of the zombie problem since Friday.  There were very few left anywhere.

“But–”

“No buts.” Darryl said firmly.  “That’s the deal.  If they come over here, we’ll kill them, and you can go find some help without being chased.  You staying on that side of the fence though.”

“I . . .” she glanced behind her, then back at him with a contorted expression of fear and a bit of anger.  “Fine.”

“Good.  So you feel free to get comfortable there if you want.  It a long walk back that way.”

She didn’t say anything, and he didn’t blame her.  Darryl wasn’t sure he’d be unable to keep from cursing up a storm if he were in her shoes.  Though, he admitted, he wasn’t so sure he’d ever actually end up in such a fucked up circumstance as she was.  He’d gone armed since Friday.  True, it had taken Bobo insisting for him to strap the gun on, but since then he’d kept it with him.  He was reasonably confident he’d be able to handle a couple of zombies so long as he was armed.

Minutes went by slowly.  Darryl stood on his side of the fence, Ann stayed kneeling on hers.  He watched the landscape behind her, searching for movement or shapes in the moonlight, but saw nothing.  Finally he heard EZ call down again.

“DJ.”

“Yeah?”

“They maybe half a minute out.”

“Where?” Darryl asked, peering through the darkness and lifting the shotgun.

“Look off to your right some.  Little more.  Yeah, that way.  They coming from there.”

“Okay.  How they look.”

“Like fucking zombies.” EZ said, clearly amused.

“So you want to take some shots at them?”

“Sure.” EZ said, still sounding amused.  There was a scraping, scuffling sound that told Darryl EZ was laying down on the roof, then a long pregnant pause.  When the rifle fired, it boomed loudly, echoing across the surrounding terrain.  Darryl saw Ann flinch violently, but she stayed on the ground and didn’t look behind her.

He heard EZ working the bolt action on the gun, levering another round into firing position, then there was silence again as the biker aimed.  EZ fired twice more, then spoke as he worked the bolt again for his fourth shot.  “Wounded one.  You see them yet?”

Darryl did.  They were only dim shapes, but clearly humanoid.  The one on the right was closer, maybe four or so steps ahead of its partner.  Darryl wondered idly if zombies even had partners, then shook his head and aimed the shotgun.  He waited, not wanting to screw EZ’s next shot up, until he heard the hunting rifle fire again.  The lead figure rocked backward but didn’t go down.  As he heard EZ working his bolt again, Darryl fired.

The Dogz hadn’t been picky when they’d cleaned out the gun and ammo section of the sporting goods store Friday night.  In fact Darryl had been mostly interested in getting in and out as fast as possible, which had led him to somewhat overload the truck they’d stolen.  Ammunition was heavy, much heavier than people who didn’t shoot understood.  The truck had been riding especially low on its shocks, and he’d been a little concerned something was going to break before they’d gotten back to the clubhouse.

About the only thing Darryl and Shooter had done with all the guns since was make sure anyone who was not confident in their shooting abilities was carrying a Glock, since they had trigger safeties that didn’t have to be operated separately, and that they had shotguns, since the spread of their shot was more forgiving to bad aim.  Mad was one of these, and Darryl had his weapon right now.  He was a little curious how well the gun was going to work.

He couldn’t see the shot as it fired, especially not in the moonlight, but he saw the lead figure stagger heavily under the impact of the pellets.  Darryl worked the slide without lowering the gun and fired a second time.  Again the figure, the zombie – it had to be, to be ignoring without apparent effects of getting shot – staggered, but stayed on its feet.

“Motherfucker.” Darryl muttered as he stepped back away from the fence.  He was slowing it down, and could probably use the gun to knock the zombie off its feet, but either his aim was worse than he thought it was or the pellets weren’t penetrating enough to be dangerous.

Against a human it wouldn’t matter so much.  People didn’t ignore a dozen or so pellets ripping into them, even if each one individually probably wasn’t going to do enough damage to kill them.  The pain alone would be enough to drop them.  The damn zombie didn’t seem to care if it was shot though.

Darryl safed the shotgun, then turned and threw it behind himself to keep it away from the fence and Ann.  He didn’t know if she’d want the gun, or want to use it on him, but it wasn’t worth the risk.  Desperate people did desperate things.

As EZ fired again, Darryl saw the front door of the clubhouse open suddenly, and several people poured out.  More than several.  Over a dozen, all of them with weapons in their hands.

“What’s going on?”

“Stay there by the house.” Darryl yelled back.  “It fine.”

“Help me!” Ann screamed.

“Fucking – everyone stay back by the damn house!” Darryl shouted as loud as he could.  “Don’t need no one to go wandering around out here in the dark and getting shot.”

He heard someone else, Big Chief maybe, start yelling at people as Darryl turned back to face the fence.  Movement on his left drew his eyes automatically as he drew the Glock, but he stopped himself from pointing the pistol when he saw it was the girl.  She was scampering away from the approaching zombies, and was audibly crying again.  But she wasn’t trying to get over the fence yet.

Darryl returned his attention to the zombies.  They were closer now, but he didn’t even think about retrieving the shotgun to try with it again.  He liked his Glock.  It was comfortable and familiar, and after Friday night he had no doubt it would be able to kill zombies.  He had thrown the shotgun away because it wasn’t working, and because he couldn’t properly shoot the pistol and hold onto the shotgun at the same time.

Bringing the pistol up in his preferred two handed grip, his feet spreading automatically for a stable stance, Darryl put the glowing dots of the sights into alignment on the nearest zombie.  He could make out features now, it was a man, pretty tall, with blood all down his face and front.  His expression was blank, but there was something hungry in the eyes.

Darryl shrugged those observations aside as well, and let his breath out quickly but evenly.  When he was as still as he was likely to get he squeezed the trigger back.  The Glock bucked in his grip, and the zombie’s head snapped back nearly simultaneously.  As the figure fell, Darryl heard EZ fire again, then swear.

“Damnit DJ, I had him that time.”

“Too bad.” Darryl muttered, shifting his sights to the second zombie.  This one was younger, still a man, but not as old as the first one.  He rushed his shot this time, flinching just a bit as he fired.  Reproving himself, Darryl reaimed, waited a moment to be sure his arms and grip were steady, then shot a third time.  The bullet took the zombie right in the middle of its face, and it toppled over backwards.

“Second one’s down.” Darryl yelled back to EZ.

“Yeah, I see that.”

“Well, there any more?”

“I’m looking.”

Darryl lowered his pistol but kept it in his hand.  “There you go, ain’t no one chasing you now.”

“Sure.” Ann said, her tone acid and bitter.

“Now go on.” Darryl said, gesturing with his left hand in a broad sweep of a shooing motion.  “Ain’t no more cause for you to be standing around here.”