El Paso Under Attack - 01 (7 page)

We found ourselves standing in a little girls’ room with twin beds. It was all done up in pink with flowers and rainbows drawn onto the walls. There was a desk in the far corner and a closet on the left.

“You sure this is the right room?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I saw the light under the door. Try the closet while I look under the beds.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” said Kingsley.

To be honest, I laughed at this and called him a pussy.

I went to the first bed and keeping as much distance as I could, peered underneath. Toys and dust bunnies. I was about to go to the next bed when Kingsley opened the closet door.

I jumped no less than fifteen feet when he screamed. It darted out of the closet, ran between his legs and scrambled under the second bed.

“What the hell.” I shouted as I brought my Glock up and prepared to fire through the bed.

Kingsley just about tackled my gun arm in response.

“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot. She’s alive.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yeah, she’s just a little girl.” He answered.

Well there ya have it. I once again kept my distance and peered under the bed. She was a dirty, smudged, little girl in a blue dress. A little out of fashion I imagined, but Kingsley was right, she was alive.

“
That must have been difficult for a little girl to stay alive without anyone around to help her.
”

I agree. She was certainly a survivor. I’ve seen adults cower and die when things get that kinda tense. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her, but she pulled through.

“You okay little girl,” I asked. She nodded just a tiny bit in response. Her eyes were as big as saucers. She was understandably scared to death.

“Alright honey,” I said in that weird voice that adults use for calming children down. I know you’re scared but we need to move you to a much safer place.”

“I can’t leave.” She answered. “My sister’s going to come back.”

It made sense. There were two beds in the room. The pictures on the desk showed two little girls. By the look of things, it seemed that our new found friend was part of a set.

“
Part of a set, what do you mean?
”

They were twins. The sad thing is, the poor kid thought her sister was going to come home and she wanted to wait for her. How the hell was I supposed to burst her bubble and tell her that her twin was probably dead? It looked like a job for Kingsley.

I laughed a little at this. It was by no means funny. In fact, it was terrible. It’s just that Jaxon has a way of speaking that both entertains and disarms. He was with me on the laugh at least. As soon as he heard me chuckle a big smile spread across his face.

You know how it goes. Some people aren’t very good at dealing with the emotions of others and some people aren’t very good at dealing with kids. I’m not very good at dealing with either of those. Kingsley on the hand had a much gentler soul than I did.

“It’s all you buddy.” I told him.

“Oh damn it.” He replied. Then, he went and sprawled out beside the bed.

“What’s your name sweetie?”

“Tamra,” she answered quietly.

“How old are you Tamra?”

“Nine.”

“Nine just happens to be the perfect age I’d reckon. I remember when I was nine. I used to play with those little green army men.”

“I like my dolls.”

“Like the ones on top of the bed?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what do you say we grab your favorite doll and drive over to a much safer place to wait for your sister?”

Ah. The chicken shit didn’t tell her. I approve. How the hell do we know what to say? We don’t. Better let someone more skilled with kids do that messy job.

“I don’t want to,” said Tamra.

“You don’t want to wait for her in a safe place? I’m sure she’ll be able to find you.”

“No, I don’t want to leave.”

Well, that tears it. I tried, he tried and it wasn’t exactly safe to stay here too long.

I shouldered him out of the way, reached under the bed, grabbed Tamra by the arm and pulled. Damn that little girl could put up a fight.

“
I can’t believe you did that.
”

Don’t judge me sweetheart. In the end, I was doing this kid a favor.

She didn’t just fight though. This kid had a set of lungs that were making my damn ears ring. I think her scream was probably heard throughout the entire neighborhood.

In other words, we had to boogie.

“Grab her dolly and let’s go.” I shouted to Kingsley.

He grabbed and we ran for the door.

The growl came from a room farther down the hall. We froze and I fumbled for the flashlight. Tamra’s twin came slowly out of the shadows and into the light. She wore a pink dress. Half her face had been chewed off along with most of her stomach.

Things made sense in a completely new and different sort of way. It wasn’t that Tamra was afraid of leaving her sister, Tamra was afraid of being eaten by her sister.

I’m thinking it was the gross out factor that made Kingsley freak out a little bit. Whatever it was, when Tamra’s sister charged, Kingsley jumped back and hit me. I just happened to be standing by the edge of the stairs, so the slight bump took all of us for a tumble down the staircase.

Tamra’s undead twin launched herself right after us.

The next thing I knew, there were three living breathing humans and one undead zombie all in a pile at the bottom of the stairs. Kingsley had recovered sufficiently and was holding the zombie girl by the throat and away from the rest of us. I was busy trying to untangle myself from the mass of flailing limbs, when one of the windows to the backyard burst inward with an explosion of glass.

It was the zombie we saw earlier in the backyard. The scream, the tumble down the stairs…I don’t know…take your pick, but something gave us away. He screamed into the dark room just as a loud boom of thunder sounded outside. He began to climb furiously through the broken shards around the window, gouging deep marks along his back as he did. Copious amounts of sticky black blood began to pour from his wounds hitting the wall and splattering down to the floor. I screamed, Kingsley screamed, Tamra screamed…hell even the zombies were screaming.

I finally struggled out of the pileup.

Kingsley would have to handle Tamra’s sister. I aimed and pulled off a shot just as the other zombie reached us. Luck was with me, he dropped like a rock. Unfortunately, I pulled the trigger at point blank range; our little group was covered in gore.

“
Damn, that was close. I would have gone into hysterics a long time ago. It just amazes me that you managed to keep on going after all of those horrible experiences.
”

Well, what choice did I have? What choice did any one of us have? I couldn’t just run and hide, we were running out of food.

“
There were people that did exactly that. Hundreds of people actually starved in their own homes right next their wives, husbands and children.
”

Yeah, I’m aware of that.

It bothers him. I can tell immediately. Even after all that he’s done, any loss affects him. He considers it a personal failure. It’s touching. It’s bigger than life and I’m in awe of his presence.

I was a little shocked at the gore that flew out from the zombie. So shocked, that I actually forgot where I was for a second. Then, I heard the crunching sound as Kingsley nailed Tamra’s sister in the head with a lamp. I snapped out of my stupor real quick after that, but the gunshots exploding from beyond the front door still managed to take me by complete surprise.

Dudley was in trouble.

We ran, through the front door and into a mess of zombies. I don’t know how many there were, but Dudley was already out of the Jeep and loaded down with all the weapons and gear we had left behind. He wasn’t trying to shoot anymore, there were too many of them. He was too busy running, shoving and pushing his way towards the front door. The punk didn’t even to slow down as he passed us and entered the house.

With all those zombies less than a few feet away, Kingsley and I barely paused to look at each other before we turned around and ran after him.

I grabbed my Winchester out of Dudley’s arms and ran to the back of the house. It was clear. I checked all the windows. All of them were secure, except for the one that had already been broken by the zombie whose gore now covered my clothes.

I ran to the garage next. I ransacked the place as fast as I could and found the tool chest. Hammer and nails were on the menu. I was on my way back to the broken window when I heard the scream.

A zombie was crawling through the shattered glass and just like the previous zombie, it was also gouging its back wide open on the shards.

I didn’t hesitate for even a second. I simply smacked its head with the hammer and pushed it back out the window.

It wasn’t exactly difficult, the whole smacking the head with a hammer thing; I just didn’t really understand why everyone was staring at me like I was the monster after I did it.

Whatever, I grabbed a table off the floor, shouted to Dudley for help and while he held the table in place I nailed the hell out of it to the wall. The window was barricaded.

After that, it was easy enough to board up the rest of the windows around the house. We were safe and secure as the outside walls rattled against the pounding fists of many zombies. We were lucky that Tamra’s father had plenty of tools and wood to work with.

“
Wait a minute, I’ve heard about this. I don’t remember where I heard about it, but is this the part where you were trapped inside a house?
”

Yeah, the story got out almost immediately. We were trapped there for about five days. It wasn’t much of a problem though. The house had plenty of food and water.

Tamra got sick that very first morning.

She was pale when the sun came up. She looked bad. I guess it happened before we ever got to her house. It was Dudley who found the bite mark on her shoulder. I’m guessing that it was her sister that bit her. We were all saddened by the knowledge, but there was simply nothing we could do. That little girl was going to turn…at least we thought she was.

We had talks about it as we stayed up late into the night and listened to the dead pound on the walls. What to do? None of us could shoot her. That was a fact. Besides, we didn’t even know for sure that she was going to turn. We were basing all of our information on a bunch of zombie movies and how reliable could information gathered from a bunch of movies actually be?

It was agreed, we’d sit and wait and watch. If she turned, whoever was closest would handle it. Kingsley was taking care of her. Dudley even tried to make her laugh. They were getting attached. It made me nervous, but I guess it was inevitable.

“
What were you thinking during all this? What was going on in your mind? You’re isolated from the rest of your friends and family. You’re taking care of a very sick child, and you’re trapped inside an unfamiliar house that’s surrounded by zombies.
”

I guess at first I was just able to relax. Maybe I should have been panicking, but we were in a safe place and it gave me some time to collect my thoughts.

“
What kinds of thoughts?
”

Well, I was thinking three very different things all at the same time.

The first thing that crossed my mind was how the hell I managed to heal so quickly from the injuries I received. That shouldn’t have been possible. I was in some seriously rough shape. Bad enough shape that I wasn’t counting on much of a future…and the next thing I knew, I was covered in grass and feeling a lot better. Just a little bit stiff maybe, but a hell of a lot better. And the stiffness didn’t last very long either. The next evening when I took a shower…well, let’s just say that any remaining stiffness and bruises practically melted away when the water made contact with my skin. There was no other way to explain it, that’s for sure. So I did the only thing that I could do. I ignored it.

I actually do this quite a bit in life. If I can’t explain it or figure it out, I just toss it onto the good ole ignore pile and forget it ever existed.

“
What’s the second thing that you were thinking about?
”

Making contact with Georgie, I wanted him to know that we were still alive and we’d get back with the food as soon as possible. This wasn’t exactly difficult for us to do. There was a working computer. The only problem was that I couldn’t sign into it under my own screen name. I had to use Tamra’s fathers screen name.

“
What was it?
”

The General.

“
Is that where the name came from?
”

It sure is. At the time, I had absolutely zero experience with the military. Yet, for two days, stupid Georgie wouldn’t respond to my messages on EPUA, so I kept leaving messages for him under the Generals screen name. I couldn’t remember his email address, so a direct email wasn’t an option. Finally, I started writing huge paragraphs about what had happened after we had left his house. I skipped the part about the grass growing over me, but I did include Tamra. He eventually answered and after that we spent hours going over all the little details of how we survived.

“
And people were reading this?
”

Yes.

“
They were reading about how some man named ‘the General’ not only survived numerous life threatening situations, but also saved lives along the way?
”

Yeah.

“
And what happened next?
”

I signed back on the next evening and the people were still talking about it.

“
What were they saying?
”

Some of them believed it, some of them didn’t. Some of them were telling what happened accurately, and some of them were embellishing.

“
What do you mean embellishing?
”

They were talking about me, but they were making me out to be some kind of hero. They were taking the situations we fell into and exaggerating them into tales where I fought a hundred zombies with just my axe and my knife.