El Paso Under Attack - 01 (22 page)

“I forgot the laptop,” said Jen.

“Oh shit,” said Heather. “We may need that.”

With that she was off and heading back towards our room. The General reached out for her and missed. In just a brief moment, she had rounded the corner and was out of sight.

“There’s not enough time.” The General shouted after her and then to us he added. “Stay here, don’t fucking move.”

Things happened in bright flashes of horror after that.

The General broke off at a dead run for Heather just as I heard the stairwell door give way. I could hear the zombie screams as they flooded through the remains of the shattered wood and past the hastily erected barrier.

Just as the General reached the hallway corner that Heather had taken, he was met by what looked like thousands of zombies pouring into the hallway.

He slid to a stop in slow motion. The zombies screamed that hellish scream and then they charged.

He ran back towards us with the dead hot on his heels.

He barely made it to us, they were that close.

He was closing the door when undead hands reached in through the crack and scratched at his face. The blood they drew caused them to go into an even greater frenzy.

They were screaming and pounding and shoving at the door. Jen and Thomas began to help push it closed as the General hacked at that the reaching and clawing hands with his tomahawk.

Blood began to spray in our little area before the stairs.

At last, they were able to close the door just as we heard Heather begin to scream.

The zombies had found her.

For a moment we all just stood there listening.

Thomas was the first to break the silence.

“That’s my sister,” he shouted as he reached for the door. The man clearly wasn’t thinking. If he opened that door, we’d all be goners.

I jumped on top of him and pulled him to the ground.

“Don’t open that door,” I shouted as he struggled beneath me.

The General separated us easily and held Thomas against the wall.

“It’s too late,” said the General. “I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”

Thomas began to sob and clutch at the Generals shoulders. Jen was just standing there in shock. Heather wasn’t screaming anymore.

“Let’s go,” said the General. And with that he pounded away down the stairs. We had no choice but to follow him.

We reached the ground floor in no time at all. The General paused before opening the stairwell door.

“Be ready for anything.” He said.

Slowly, he opened the door. It creaked very loudly. Anything around surely now knew where we were.

We stepped out slowly and cautiously the vagrant zombie that killed Rebecca had been waiting for us. From behind the door it shambled towards the General.

The man had no fear; he merely whipped out a knife and slammed it into the zombie’s temple as it reached for him.

“That’s the one that got Rebecca,” said Jen.

“Then I should have let one of you do it,” answered the General.

“We should take Rebecca’s body,” said Thomas. “I don’t want to leave anybody else behind.”

“Her body isn’t here anymore,” I answered.

Calvin goes quiet for a moment. I obviously know what has happened to Rebecca, yet he’s having trouble talking about it. I can’t blame him a bit.

“She had turned?
”

Yes, she turned. I had already been looking for her before Thomas suggested that we take her body with us.

I did care about her you realize. I just knew it was too late to do anything.

“Let’s go.” Said the General without any concern of the pain we were all going through. “I have a Jeep waiting outside.”

Rebecca came tearing out from behind the front counter as we headed towards the door. Most of her mid-section was missing. A few pieces of organs were trailing out of the large hole. The scream that came from her mouth was nothing that could ever have come from her when she was alive.

I froze. I didn’t know what to do. I just froze.

The tomahawk went flying past my head with tremendous force. It landed in the middle of Rebecca’s forehead with a disgusting, wet crunch.

The General had no remorse. I had just seen my girlfriend die for the second time and he merely walked by me and stuck a foot on Rebecca’s throat while he yanked the tomahawk out of her skull.

“Let’s go.” He said.

He walked out into the wet night without looking back. The rest of us were in shock. We had never seen a man kill so carelessly. I know that they were only zombies, but there wasn’t even the slightest bit of hesitation. There was also no consideration for what the three of us were going through.

“
Did you follow him outside?
”

Yes, we had no choice.

The black Jeep was waiting right in front of us. The rain had slowed down to a soft drizzle. At each corner of the street were two men keeping a lookout. Scattered about were the remains of at least ten zombies. When they saw us emerge, they came running towards us.

“Kingsley, put Merrick up with you. These three can take the backseat; I’ll balance in the trunk by the tailgate,” said the General.

“Dudley got bit,” said Kingsley in reference to the other man.

The General grabbed the young man’s arm and removed the piece of clothing that was serving as a bandage.

“Fuck,” said the General in a quiet voice. “That’s deep.”

“Yeah,” answered Dudley. “Burns like hell.”

“Keep it covered,” said the General. “I’ll take a look at it later.”

With that, they started getting into the Jeep.

“Wait a minute.” I shouted. “He’s going to turn. That’s what happens when you get bitten. He’s going to turn into one of them.”

The General went insane.

“Shut up.” He shouted as he pulled a pistol from his belt and walked towards me. “Shut your mouth. Not another fucking word.” He pushed the barrel against my forehead. “You got that, not another word.”

I put up my hands in surrender.

He walked away and started firing the weapon wildly into the front door of the hotel. All the while he was screaming profanities.

“Jax,” said Kingsley. “We need to go.”

The general seemed to calm down for a moment. We could hear screams echoing from between the buildings. His outburst was heard. The dead were coming for us.

“Alright,” said the General. “Load up.”

We didn’t wait a second. We all just hopped into the Jeep. As Dudley turned the ignition, the General walked to the back and stepped into the area between the backseat and the tailgate. He held the roll bar for support. His dog wanted to be next to him and she whined in protest as Kingsley held her to his chest.

“Find us a safe place Dudley,” said the General. “We need to talk.”

I think I’m the only one that noticed, but there were tears in the man’s eyes.

“
You saw this?
”

Yes.

“
So you can at least admit that the man cares about others?
”

I can admit that he is capable of caring about a few people. I didn’t see him shed any tears when we lost Heather.

Dudley drove around the maze that is Downtown for just a brief while when Kingsley spotted a dark looking alley. Dudley turned around and entered the shadows.

He then fell out of the Jeep. His skin was as white as a sheet. A sickly sweat was pouring from his forehead.

“It fucking burns.” He said as he ripped away his makeshift bandage and shoved his arm in the dirty water of a rain puddle.

“That water is dirty,” said the General in a concerned voice.

“But it’s cold. I need to take away some of the burn,” answered Dudley and we all sat watching the dying man soak his arm in dirty water. None of us were talking as the minutes ticked by, so it was a shock when he suddenly erupted. “Ah…fuck…it feels like the skin is ripping.”

“What?” asked the General.

“Nothing…it just hurts like hell.”

“Let me see,” said the General and he yanked Dudley’s arm out of the dirty puddle. He then began to laugh.

After looking at his wounded arm, Dudley began to laugh as well.

“What the hell?” asked Kingsley.

Dudley responded by holding his arm out. The wound had stopped bleeding.

“You’re like Jax,” said Kingsley.

“Kind of…I think. Not as fast though.”

“Who gives a shit,” said the General. “You’re gonna be fine. Keep soaking it.”

“I thought I was a goner,” said Dudley.

“Fuck no. You’re too gay to go out that way,” answered the General as he patted Dudley on the back. Kingsley began to laugh at this.

We waited around in that dark and dangerous alley for another fifteen minutes before the pain of the wound settled down. Dudley eventually pulled his arm out and the bite looked to be about a week old.

In truth, it probably was. I think…no…I believe that it was all a lie.

“
You don’t believe that he was bitten?
”

Yes, I believe that he was bitten. I just don’t think the wound was recent and no, I didn’t get to see his arm until after he had pulled it out of the puddle.

“
Do you think the wound was made by a zombie?
”

Of course not, it’s just all part of the show.

“Pull out the map Kingsley,” said the General. “I want our next location.”

“What do you mean our next location,” asked Jen. I myself wasn’t about to open my mouth just yet.

“There are two groups of mercenaries setting up explosives to blow apart the entire Downtown area,” said the General. “We need to stop them.”

“I thought you were taking us to the safe zone.”

“Just as soon as I keep all the other survivors from getting blown up,” said the General.

He then turned back to the map without another word of explanation.

“Okay,” said Kingsley. “This is where we are, so that means that the closest target for us would be in this bank.”

“Alright, let’s go,” said the General.

They loaded back up and off we drove. It took some time to get to the bank due to all the abandoned cars on the route Kingsley had chosen.

We were also rushed by a sizeable group of zombies. After the sounds of gunfire had died off, I simply couldn’t take it any longer.

“What if we just leave,” I asked. “Can we do that?”

“Of course you can,” said Dudley with a shocked look on his face. “But why would you want to? It’s pretty fucking deadly out there.”

He was right. I couldn’t leave just yet. It wasn’t safe, but as soon as it was, as soon as I found a safe place to wait it out, I planned on taking it.

“I’m not going anywhere without them,” said Jen.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. We won’t survive without them.”

I gave up on the idea immediately. She had obviously fallen too deeply for their act. Thomas was also a lost cause; he’d do whatever Jen said to do. There was no getting the two of them away from the madness. Yet, if the opportunity came, I’d certainly save myself.

“If you wanna leave now Calvin, I’d be happy to toss you out of the Jeep,” said the General with a laugh.

I ignored this; we had finally made it to the bank. There were no zombies in sight.

“I’ll take Merrick inside with me,” said the General. “Dudley, stay in the Jeep with our passengers. Kingsley, you wait outside the Jeep and keep them covered. Remember…no guns.”

I don’t know how long we waited, probably about twelve minutes or so before the General came back outside with a frown on his face. Fortunately, we hadn’t been attacked while we waited around for him, yet we did hear gunfire coming from a few streets down.

I also found it rather convenient that had to wait outside in danger of being attacked, while he was able to go inside the relative safety of a bank.

“
You don’t think it was dangerous inside a dark building where zombies could be hiding around every corner?
”

Calvin pointedly ignores my question and continues.

“There were seven survivors inside,” said the General.

“Are they going to be safe in there?” asked Dudley.

“They’re all dead now…bullet holes, it’s pretty fresh.”

“What happened?” asked Jen. Thomas was still quiet, still in shock.

“Gamma team killed the survivors to get them out of the way,” said Kingsley.

“Was this one set up by Gamma team?” asked the General.

“I think it was.”

“I was hoping that they’d still be here.”

“Well, they can’t be far. There are too many zombies around. They’d have to clear out any area before they could work and we heard shots coming from not very far away.

“Fuck it,” said Dudley. “Let’s just take them out. “That way we won’t have to chase them around for another eleven charges.”

“Now you’re talking,” said the General. “It’s not gonna be easy though. These guys are armed and trained.”

Just at this moment, more shots began to ring out in the night. The General paused to listen for a moment and then continued.

“Does the gunfire sound nearer or farther away now?” asked the General.

“Sounds about the same as it did when you were in the bank,” said Dudley.

“Alright, it sounds like they’ve been pinned down and with all the shots they’re firing off, they probably have half the undead in the city boxing them in.”

“Then we could just leave them there?” asked Kingsley.

“That might be possible,” answered the General. “I just want to make sure.”

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that these three men had just decided to kill some other human beings.

Chapter 6

Jaxon

I have to wait a while for this third meeting with the General, which takes place in a bar just outside of Tombstone, Arizona, where there have been reports of an outbreak of the undead variety. When he finally enters the room, he’s holding two beers. He offers me one of them while he takes a seat across from me at the table. He seems tired.

“I’ve just finished my interview with Calvin.”

I’m sure that was insightful. How far did he take you?

“
He took me all the way to where you come out of the bank and decide to go after Gamma team.
”

Ah, yes…I remember that.

“
Is it true that you decided to kill those men?
”

The short answer is yes. These guys were trained killers and there was no way that they were gonna just surrender because I asked them nicely. They were intent on blowing up the Downtown area. I was intent on stopping them. One way or the other they were going to be stopped.

“
Would you have taken another option if it were possible?
”

I was going to take any option available. The first thing to present itself, I was taking.

“
Is it true that you put a gun to Calvin’s face and threatened him?
”

Hell yeah, the guys a dick and a coward. There were moments when he could have saved people, instead he chose to run. He thinks only about saving himself. I have no respect for him and when he started crying about leaving my nephew behind, well, , ,I just wanted him to shut up.

“
He views you as a dangerous and violent man.
”

I am a dangerous and violent man. I make no apologies for that.

I can’t help but laugh a little at his honesty. This is a man that simply does his job. It’s not his job to impress others or try to get into their good graces and he apparently has no intentions of trying to do so.

“What were you thinking when you saw that your nephew had been bitten.
”

I don’t know that I was thinking. I just kind of went numb. There wasn’t a single part of me that was willing to believe that I was going to lose him.

“So you were ignoring the situation?”

No. I just froze. It was too much to handle. Family is family, there’s nothing thicker than blood. If it had turned out in a way that I lost a friend or a family member…well, I don’t know that I could handle that.

It’s not something I like to think about. It’s not a situation that anyone would like to see. If he had turned, there would be hell to pay.

“
So what happened after you came out of the bank?
”

We heard the gunshots; actually, the boys were hearing the gunshots before I even got out of the bank. We decided that both Gamma and Alpha team needed to be stopped.

“
Considering that you may have to fight them or kill them to stop them, why does this decision to go after them seem to have come so easily?
”

I just walked out of a bank where they massacred seven people.

“
Tell me what happened.
”

The bomb was easy enough to disarm; it was just…seeing those seven people who probably thought that help had arrived…it wasn’t easy.

I also realized the commitment to their mission that Martins entire group must have. If they could kill innocent people in a face to face encounter to achieve their goals, why are they going to stop just because we disarmed their explosives?

They aren’t. Their callousness was evident.

“
What do you mean?
”

I mean that if we chased them around and disarmed all the explosives like we had originally planned, we were just delaying them, not stopping them. They would eventually just re-arm the charges after we left the area. They weren’t going to give up just because their bombs didn’t go off when they pushed the button. They’d go see what went wrong and fix whatever wires I pulled. The only way to stop them would be to face them and force them to stop.

“
So what did you do?
”

I told everybody to wait by the Jeep and I went for a walk with Merrick.

We took the alleys for the most part. I was smart enough to bring their little radio with me. It was a heavy sucker to be lugging around, but I managed.

It didn’t take me long to pinpoint where Gamma team had holed up. They were in an auto salvage yard that had a chain link fence around the front and high buildings on either side. Inside the salvage yard they had a large military truck loaded with the same explosives that I’d been trying to disarm. Apparently, they weren’t able to accomplish much of their mission before getting themselves surrounded. I’m guessing that they had made too much noise.

There were hundreds of zombies surrounding the fence. To keep them from climbing over, they had ignited a wall of flame along the length of the fence, but the flames wouldn’t last forever.

“
So they were in trouble?
”

Possibly, it was hard to tell from my vantage point, but I could see that one guy was assembling what appeared to be one of those high powered machine guns (the kind that they use to take out aircraft) on top of a little wooden shack. The shack must have served as the office to the salvage yard and the other guy was setting himself up on a pile of wrecked vehicles with what looked like a grenade launcher.

Whatever they were planning, Mr. Grenade launcher was waiting patiently for Mr. Machine gun to get his weapon prepared. I don’t think they’d originally planned on using it, because half of the weapon was still in a crate and the half still in the crate was in pieces that needed assembled.

Every zombie around was focused on Gamma team. So it was easy enough for Merrick and I to force our way into a three story building across the street and make our way to the roof. Once there, I had a perfect view of Gamma team and the zombies surrounding them. If the guy with the grenade launcher started shooting grenades into the group of zombies and blowing them to bits, it might just be easy enough for his teammate to finish off whatever was left standing with the machine gun.

I used the radio.

“Gamma team…can you hear me?” I asked.

“I can hear you…ya bitch,” whispered Dudley.

In an effort to not look like a pussy, I can assure you that I only jumped about a foot.

“You asshole,” I snarled. “You’re lucky I didn’t kill you in a reaction.”

“You couldn’t kill me in a dream. Now what the hell are you doing?”

“I’m going to talk to Gamma team,” I said. “Why aren’t you with the others?”

“It’s boring over there and I’m getting sick of you wet nursing me.”

“Whatever, don’t cry to me if they get attacked and you start feeling bad because you were responsible for all their deaths.”

“I’m pretty sure every zombie in the neighborhood is on its way towards these noisy bastards,” said Dudley with a laugh. “Think I could get away with feeding them that little Calvin guy?”

“Not a big fan of Calvin?”

“Mother fucker wanted to leave me…and he cries too much. He was sitting there whining about how you were endangering us all. He wanted to leave you behind and head for the safe zone. To hell with all the survivors trapped here.”

“So what did you do?” I asked.

“I punched him in the face and followed you.”

“Ha-ha…good job. Now maybe he’ll…”

“This is Gamma…who is this?” We’d forgotten about the radio.

Dudley and I looked at each other as if we’d been caught doing something wrong in science class. Finally I shrugged.

“Who do you think it is?” I asked with a smile. I couldn’t help pissing the guy off.

“Is this Gerald?” asked the guy on the radio.

Dudley peered over the lip of the roof to see who we were talking to.

“It’s the guy with the machine gun.” He whispered.

This was good news, now I could delay him some more.

“Look Gerald,” Mr. Machine gun continued. “We can’t raise Martin and we’re surrounded. Nothing we can’t handle, but it’s going to take us some time.”

“Gerald’s dead ya toad sucker,” I answered. “And if you don’t agree to give up the explosives, you’re going to join him.”

There was a few seconds as my words bounced around the guys head.

“You just made my hit list pal,” he said. I guess he knew who he was talking to. A loud crack and boom of thunder echoed in the skies above us. The rain began to pick up once again. Things were certainly headed in my favor.

“Last chance Rambo,” I said. “Agree to give up the explosives or I rain down hell.”

“As soon as we’re done here, I’m coming after you.”

We tried to speak to him after that…honestly, yet we believe that he turned off the radio. I already had a plan of what to do; I was just exercising other options.

“Did you really think they were going to give up?” asked Dudley.

“Not really,” I answered.

“You got a plan?”

“Yup, see how the rain is starting to put out their fire?”

“Yeah, when that goes, they’ll be crawling in zombies,” answered Dudley.

“Not if they get that machine gun set up. The other guy on top of the cars has a grenade launcher.”

“Yeah…I see. So what’s the plan?”

“The chain link fence.”

“What about it?”

“Watch.”

I picked up my rifle which I had propped up against the lip of the wall and took aim. I fired once, and believe it or not…I missed.

Mr. Machine gun spotted our little hiding spot on the roof immediately and returned fire with an automatic weapon strapped to his chest. There was a little good in this, because he was still being delayed from assembling his big machine gun. There was also some bad in this, because we were now being shot at. I grabbed Merrick’s big fuzzy head and pulled her down under the lip of the roof with me.

“What the fuck are you doing?” shouted Dudley.

“I missed…gimmie a freakin break.” I shouted back.

“What are you Georgie now?”

“How about you go fuck yourself.”

“Hey check it out,” said Dudley. He was motioning towards Gamma team. Even from across the street I could hear the two men arguing. I chanced a peak and saw that Mr. Grenade launcher must have noticed that the flames around the fence were dying down in the heavy rain. The zombies were getting excited, they’d soon be able to climb over and Mr. Machine gun hadn’t fully assembled his weapon.

He was pretty close though. It now looked like a machine gun.

I took aim once again and fired just as Mr. Machine gun tried to take off the top of my head. This time, my aim was true. I hit the lock on the gate.

At this moment, the flames began to falter and sputter. They were going out. One zombie pushed on the gate and it swung open freely. They were swarmed in moments. The machine gun was never finished and the grenade launcher only fired once. The explosion shook our building.

Both men went down fighting, but it didn’t take them very long to go down.

“Well,” said Dudley. “You did try to warn them.”

“Yep,” I answered. I was waiting to see if I’d start feeling some remorse. I felt a little, but they never gave me much of a chance for any other options. “Let’s go find Martin.”

We grabbed the radio and headed back towards Kingsley and the Jeep. We were at a good jog when we reached the final turn and something felt wrong. I slowed to a creep and peered around the corner of a building.

I saw the Jeep, but only Thomas was inside of it. It looked like he had fallen asleep. I knew better.

“Where is everybody?” asked Dudley who was peering over my head.

Just then our radio crackled to life.

“Mr. General, can you hear me good buddy?” it was Martin.

“Be a pal and try not to irritate my Gamma team would you? I still have three of your friends left and I’d hate to have to shoot them as well. Tell me, was this Thomas a close friend of yours?”

“Don’t say anything about Gamma team,” said Dudley as I reached for the mouth piece on the radio.

“No shit,” I retorted.

“
Were you concerned? Or were you confident that you could save your friends?
”

I was totally panicking is what I was doing. I normally just react. I don’t plan too far ahead, so I never have the opportunity for confidence.

“Hey Martin,” I responded. “Do me a favor and kick that Calvin in the balls for me as hard as you can.”

To my shock, they did exactly as I asked for.

I hate to laugh at the suffering of others, but this was just too funny. The entire situation between these two guys and how much they don’t like each other wasn’t especially funny when I was hearing things from Calvin, but the way the General keeps picking on him…well it’s a little difficult not to become sadistic and join in on the fun.

I could hear Calvin moaning and crying over the radio. I felt kind of bad for the guy, but to be honest it was something we laughed about later.

“Alright Martin,” I said. “Tell me what I have to do to get my friends back…and Calvin.”

“You can have them back when you turn yourself over to me my friend.”

“And what happens when I turn myself over to you?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. There were seven victims lying in that bank that just happened to get in the way of his men. I just wanted to see if he’d lie about it. Plus…I was stalling.

“I’m afraid that I’ll have to make sure you don’t end up getting in my way again, but afterwards, I’ll let all of your friends go free providing they don’t do anything to upset me.”

“Gimmie a minute,” I replied.

This was fucked. This was about as fucked as fucked could get. I had no idea what to do. There was no way in hell I was going to let that crazy asshole put a bullet in my head, but for the life of me, I didn’t know what to do.

I thought about storming the bank, I was pretty sure that was where they were hiding. There were however, two problems with that idea. The first one was that they may not be in the bank and the second one was that even if they were in the bank, they might kill the hostages before I could bring them down…if I could bring them down.