LZR-1143 (Book 4): Desolation (26 page)

From the hills behind me—from where I had left Ethan and Rhi—I heard the sudden heart-stopping sound of semi-automatic weapon fire. The popping of the rounds cut through my indecisiveness.

It was time to call an audible. If they had run into zombies on the trail, they needed to move. And they needed somewhere to move to. I had to make this happen now.
 

The fire station was out the window. It was too far and time was too short. I scanned the inside of the small home. A horrid armchair was the main fixture in the room, seated triumphantly on top of a swatch of orange shag carpet.
 

A brown sofa that looked like it had survived several decades of college door rooms was pushed against the front door in a half-assed attempt to bar the entryway. To my right, a galley kitchen held rotten piles of trash and the remains of half-washed dishes, with a sponge still sitting perched on the sink. It was clear that people that had lived here had left quickly.
 

I would have to make this shit do.
 

I bolted to the couch, pulling it to the chair and throwing a cigarette-scarred end table on the top of the pile. Several pieces of old firewood made a nice addition as I scoured the hallway for linens. A few towels and a set of dingy sheets made the pile. Then I let my eyes search upward for the device I needed. Even a crappy little house like this one … ah, there it was.

My hand shot to one of my cargo pants, pulling a zippo lighter and snapping it open. I quickly lit the large pile of debris from the bottom, putting the flame against the torn and scuffed hem of the large chair and watching the fire burst into being and happily begin eating through the cheap, dry material.
 

As it burned, I flew to the kitchen, opening the back door to find the crusty grill I knew would be there. Beside it, a moldy bottle of accelerant sat staring at me with glee, as if asking “What took you so long?”

I smirked and grabbed the bottle, spraying the liquid onto the carpet with abandon.

My parents had had a carpet like this and I had always wanted to burn that shit to the ground.

The flames were high already, and I placed the smoke detector next to the conflagration and stepped to the back door. As I did so, I checked the load in my magazine. I had enough to add to the confusion.

As the alarm began to blare its intensely annoying chirp, I fired ten rounds into the air in three second bursts, careful to maintain consistency. As the flames licked into the roof, catching the supports and shingles with a bright orange and red inferno, I backed into the yard and scanned my surroundings. Low fencing on either side, backed by trees. Beyond the trees I could see nothing.
 

Suddenly eager to be anywhere but here, I vaulted the fence closest to me on the town side of the yard and slunk to a small wood shed near the rear fence in the adjoining yard, sheltering behind the rotting wood siding as the first of the creatures began to appear in the front of the house.
 

I wondered briefly if I was too exposed in the rear of the houses, but realized with some relief that the unbroken expanse of four-foot high chain link fences presented enough of a border that I could gain distance from any pursuers before I was in any real danger. Assuming, of course, that everyone along the way had left their gates closed when they left.
 

Dozens of zombies were already streaming toward the flaming home as the beeping of the alarm inside was nearly drowned out by the roaring of the flames. Dark black smoke curled into the sky, a pale mockery of the volcanoes’ wrath from the last twenty-four hours. I stared past the long grass and broken slats of the small shed into the street, watching them flock to the light and sound. They didn’t see well, but the bright flames in the gray air combined with the sound of the alarm and the smell of the smoke was sufficient to pull at least the zeds within six blocks.
 

That would have to be enough for now.
 

I rose from my crouch and, keeping my eyes on the blazing inferno, I started toward the next yard.

In the street before me, at least a hundred of the creatures had assembled already, some even attempting to enter the blazing structure. A group of six or seven approached the inferno where the wall had collapsed. They made their way as far as the edge of the carpet and turned away, realizing as they became engulfed in flame that the destruction of their muscle tissue and bones was hindering their ability to find food.
 

They streamed out of the home, into the yard and out onto the street, their eyes having long since melted away. As I spared a second glance, my hand on the fence next to me, they followed the sound of several other creatures who were scrambling to get out of a fenced yard, and stumbled together into the yard of the home across the street, where the gate had been left wide open.
 

Three of them made it through the gap, despite the flames leaping from their bodies and their lack of eyesight. Remarkably—perhaps driven by some primal instinct to hunt for humans inside houses—they simply walked up the cement walkway and collapsed on the porch of the home.
 

I watched with a mix of satisfaction and dread as their flaming bodies immediately caught the dry wood of the porch on fire, moving quickly to the structure of the home. By the time I had moved across the next yard, inching carefully toward the commercial center, the home was engulfed, and the flames were licking the side of the next home.
 

I had never considered this possibility.
 

Looking back to the small house I had set ablaze, I watched as the wind pushed flaming embers onto the roof of the neighboring home. Already, small pieces of shingle were smoldering.
 

Yes, this would work out nicely—as long as I could outpace the fire. I didn’t fancy burning to death on this run.

Lingering a moment too long near the edge of the fourth house down from where I started, I kept my eyes locked on the flames and smoke several seconds too long.
 

The pain of the bite was shocking, and I choked off a scream as I swung my arm around in a wide arc. A group of four zombies had wandered into the overgrown yard—whether intentionally or purely through happenstance I had no idea—and were nearly upon me. Even through the pain, I cursed my clumsiness. How do shambling sacks of shit sneak up on a grown-ass man?
 

Dumb shit cluster fucking asshole.

That’s the kind of shit that happens in my movies, not real life.

I took out my frustration on my new friends.

The creature that had bitten me was latched onto my shoulder like a Rotweiler, his rotten mouth sending little daggers of pain lancing through the meat of my left shoulder. His hands were scrabbling for purchase on my back, and I reached up for his head with my left hand instinctively, knowing that if he pulled back to tear the flesh off and consume it, the wound would be worse.
 

Instead, I pulled his head further into my body, and reaching across my chest for the large knife attached to my tactical harness at the chest. I undid the snap closure and pulled the blade free.
 

But as I struggled with the creature attached to my shoulder, the other three surrounded me, their hands clambering for flesh.

The knife flashed and found an eye as the grip on my shoulder loosened, then relaxed. The piercing pain was now throbbing, and I pushed the corpse to the ground and spun to meet the other threats. They had clustered together in their hunger, making it harder for them to take advantage of their larger numbers. One tripped and fell on my feet as it pushed past the other two.

I didn’t have time to draw my long blade. The first was now upon me, hands on my shoulders and mouth agape.
 

Time had not treated these creatures well.
 

They must have been among some of the first to turn—a surprise for an area far from larger cities and remote from other possible sources of infection. Only small tufts of ragged, matted hair remained on the heads, patches of diseased skin flaking off the tops of the rotten skulls. Fingers, dulled to the white bone from grubbing for flesh or pawing at doors and windows, clawed at my clothes. Jaggedly fractured teeth grinned out of lipless mouths below withered noses.
 

Pushing hard against the first creature, I sent him sprawling against the other that was still standing, both of them falling to the ground. As I bent over to end their moans, worried that they would give away my position, I groaned in frustration.

It was too late.

From the street, nearly two dozen creatures had keyed in on our little dance, and were fumbling their way away from the fire toward the house and the yard. Sparing only a kick for the larger creature that had arisen clumsily from where they lay, I sheathed the knife and pulled the machete free, bolting for the fence line.
 

This was not going to plan.

***

In one of my worst movies—and the one that my wife had never truly forgiven me for making—I played the part of a government agent, working desperately to save the world from nuclear annihilation. It had all the great stuff from spy movies—cars, secret weapons, over-the-top bad guys and, of course, girls. In what remains my favorite scene of any movie ever made, I happen upon a harem of beautiful young women in the layer of the evil mad scientist.
 

They had all been programmed to kill me by infecting me with a poisonous substance that would cause my heart to explode if my pulse topped seventy beats per minute.
 

How did they attempt to raise said pulse?
 

Intense and gratuitous make-out sessions.

With all of them.

At the same time.

Did I mention that they were all in lingerie?

Yeah.
 

So why do I mention this?
 

Because I figured I was going to die in this piece of shit house on this piece of shit block in this piece of shit town. So why not go out with a great memory or two, right?

I had made it several more yards down toward the center of town, and my only road to the dam, before the numbers were just too large. I had a group of at least a hundred behind me, and I was sure it was growing as I ran.
 

Taking the steps in a single bound, I crashed into a musty-smelling home with the decor of a hunting lodge, complete with the head of a large stag presiding over the living room, bolted down a hallway, found a basement door, and slammed it shut behind me. In the darkness, I waited.
 

They were all over the house in minutes. I could hear the creaking floorboards and the shuffling feet. The noises that they make as they hunt. Their smell quickly permeated the home, handily beating down the welcome smell of must and mildew that had controlled the air until I entered: rot and blood and dead thing. I scowled at the rankness of it as I sat on the top step of the stairwell, back against the door to hold it shut in case they tried the door.
 

I had patched my bite wound as well as possible, but in the end I simply took a huge pad of gauze and duct taped it to my shoulder. The bleeding had slowed, and a ring of greenish ooze—likely a sea of bacteria and disease—surrounded the wound. But I needed to keep it from smelling like fresh blood. If I couldn’t mask that, I might as well walk outside naked covered in barbecue sauce.
 

My options were dwindling and I was running out of time to meet Rhi and Ethan. I had thought I was being generous with my time allotments, but I had underestimated the complication of moving house to house in the daylight. I wish I had had the time to wait it out until night. They couldn’t see that well anyway, so night really …

Wait.

My feeble brain had just sent me a memory.
 

A recent memory.

I was laying on the floor of the ferry. The massively fat zombie laying on top of me as the hordes behind fell off the edge of the hallway like lemmings.
 

I had been passed over because they didn’t know I was there.

They couldn’t smell me. They couldn’t see well enough to find me.

I wonder if I could replicate that … while moving?

But to do that, I would have to …

Jesus, I hated my life.
 

Drawing a deep breath, I chanced a movement away from the doorway to search the basement quickly. I found what I needed in a large box marked “Nanna.”
 

I had never met this “Nanna” but I surmised she had been a generously endowed woman. The bathrobe I located was the size of a circus tent.
 

I wrapped it around me, covering my shouldered rifle, my gear and my clean clothes, and tying it with a fleece belt.
 

It would work.

I removed it and draped it over an old chair. Then I returned to the top of the stairs.

This part would be trickier. I considered my options for a long minute before settling on the easiest one. I stood back from the door, unlocked it, and cracked it very slightly. At least ten zombies milled about in the hallway, but none were looking at the doorway. The closest one, a terrifyingly rancid creature with exposed ribs and a torn face, was simply standing outside the door. Others crashed around the house, pushing over lamps and into walls, slamming doors and dishes, and generally making a shit-ton of noise.

Outstanding.

Reaching my arm out like a striking snake, I pulled the frail form of the closest creature back, managing to open the door just wide enough to pull the body through and throwing it to the bottom of the stairs, before closing the door slowly once again. I listened carefully as footsteps approached the door, a curious grunt reaching my ears as the creature on the other side slapped the door with a curious hand.
 

Locking the door slowly, I judged the operation ‘good enough’ and went to the bottom of the stairs to greet my patient. A low, guttural hiss escaped its lips as it lunged forward, catching a flap of skin from its torn torso on the wooden railing and tearing the flesh from its ragged form.