My Zombie Summer (Book 1): The Undead Road (23 page)

Most of them crashed through the bridge and into the flowery pit, spattering blood on the fake orange flowers. More Vectors had found the opening, and they fell in, landing on the glass bridge like limp rag dolls. Chloe’s barking gave our location away. Their sunken eyes found us, their gazes locked as they teetered for us.

We bolted to the exhibit on our right. Old artillery cannons greeted us there. Rifles and military pistols lined the walls, all locked behind glass. Another wall had a timeline of events leading up to, during and after the First World War—not that I had time to brush up on my history. I searched for a place to hide, knowing that hiding would be useless. The Vectors would sniff us out and tear us to pieces—or they would eat us alive.

A mock trench and a dangling airplane later, we found a curved room with a long table and interactive features. There had to be a restricted area in this place. Or an exit, but I couldn’t find one. As we were about to leave the circular room, an undead girl blocked our way.

She had one arm. Dry blood stained half of her pink tank top. It was time for me to test the Glock.

The reservation behind what Sam had said no longer stuck with me. There was no hope for these infected. Putting them down would do them a favor. I fired a shot at the Vector’s face. The girl’s head snapped back before she fell on and shattered a glass case. Glass shards spread across the floor. I looked at the Glock, feeling impressed. The Beretta was a better fit for my hand, but the 9mm didn’t weigh as much. It hardly had any recoil, and fired clean and straight with little effort.

Kaylynn swatted my wrist. “Make out with your gun later. Let’s go!”

We resumed our run as more Vectors entered the exhibit. Jewel struggled to keep up. We passed an old tank and a row of uniforms. I shot another Vector that nearly cut us off, this one a boy in an
Avengers
shirt.

The layout of the museum confused me, so I drew a map of the place inside my head. The far walls had a curvature. The inside had to be circular. If we kept running, we would end up where we had started, right where the Vectors were pouring—literally—into the museum. We had to find another way out, and fast!

Static blared from my waist.
“Go to the American exhibit!”

All three of us stopped while I looked down. “Who’s that?” I asked.

Jewel snatched the radio and cranked it up.

“Can you hear me?”
It wasn’t Mom or Dad.
“Hello?”

“Who’s this?” Jewel looked as puzzled as me.

“I’m here to help. Now go to the American exhibit.”

I grabbed the radio from my sister. “Who are you?”

“That’s not important,”
the voice answered.
“Head for the emergency door on your right, behind the horse carriage. Take the elevator around the corner to the observation deck.”

“What about the zombies up there?” I asked.

“Go to the door at the tower. I will meet you there.”

My fingers gripped the radio tightly. “Why should we trust you?”

“You have no choice.”
True, we didn’t.
“They’re coming!”

A new feeling shot through my bones, and my instincts screamed that our parents were with this man, whoever he was. This same instinct warned me not to trust him. I had no idea who he was, but I bet my last bag of jerky that he had cameras on us.

Grabbing Jewel’s hand, we ran to the place where the voice told us to go. I kicked the doors open. It took us a second to find the elevator. Kaylynn pressed the call button. Ten seconds later, the Vectors had figured where we had gone. They came towards us, clumsily stepping over each other. I fired two more rounds.

Jewel pulled me into the elevator, where Kaylynn was frantically pressing for the highest floor. She then used her bat—and I used one of my bullets—to push the Vectors away from the doors so they would close. The elevator jolted up. I finally had a moment to catch my breath. Chloe was shaking, but otherwise fine. We came to a stop a few seconds later where the doors opened to a large room, the walls decorated with portraits of military people from the early 20th century. The radio guy never mentioned this place. And where was the observation deck?

“Good,”
said the voice.
“Now head for the tower.”

Taking the lead, I ran to the exit and opened the door. The sun was about to set, a red glow filling the sky. Straggling Stalkers made their way to the broken skylight beyond a pair of giant sphinxlike statues. The tower stood before us, the top ornamented with carvings of people, praying. At that moment, I figured there wasn’t any harm in saying a prayer, if I knew how.

The Vectors at the broken skylight had changed their course. We ran to the tower with Chloe loping beside us. No one was at the tower to greet us. I tried my best to open the iron door, but it wouldn’t give.

I raised the radio to my mouth. “Where are you?”

“On my way. Just hold them off for a minute longer.”

Chloe growled again. Some of the Vectors were faster than others, closing in from every direction. We could’ve jumped over the wall behind us if we wanted, but it was too high. The fall would surely kill us, or break our legs at the very least. Jewel went down on one knee and balanced her rifle while Kaylynn readied her bat with a practice swing. I set down my backpack, opened the zipper and loaded the rest of the shotgun shells. Then I remembered the flash bangs. I didn’t believe they could stop Vectors, but it was worth a try.

“Cover your ears!” I pulled the pin and threw.

BANG!

Knowing how bright flash bangs are would’ve been nice. The night was falling, so the flash nearly blinded us. My eyes stung, and the explosion made my ears ring. The Vectors closest to the blast were knocked to the ground, but it didn’t do much to the rest. I threw the next bang at the horde on our left. Same result. From here on out, we had to stand our ground and fight.

“Take the Stalkers, Kaylynn!” I said. “We’ll take the Runners.”

One of them was almost on us when Kaylynn sprinted to it and clobbered the monster in the face. It stumbled to the side and fell over the stone barrier.

“I’m way ahead of you, Jay!”

Boom!

The recoil of Jewel’s rifle made her fall back, but her shot still blew a Stalker’s head clean open. Jewel readied herself again, leaned into her shot and struck another hard blow. I raised the Maverick and aimed.

Boom! Schklikt—Boom!

Every shot met their target until I ran out of shells.

I threw the 12 Gauge down and took up the Glock again. I really wanted to conserve my ammunition, but I ended up missing twice. The rest of my bullets found their marks in a Vector’s skull, but soon I had to drop the empty magazine and reload. Dad had often told me what it’s like to be in the field. Real combat doesn’t have free bullets and health kits lying on the ground. He was right. No video game could ever come close to the real deal. And this was no game. We had to win.

Between Kaylynn’s swings and our shooting, we’d hardly made a dent against the mass of decaying flesh. The toxic combination of their moaning and the horrid stench of their putrefied hands twisted my stomach in knots and chilled my spine, all at the same time.

“Crap!” Jewel searched her pockets. “I’m out!”

Crap was right. I was about done with my second magazine. Eight rounds left. Kaylynn ran back and forth to keep the faster Vectors away. She was out of breath now. We then sent Chloe out to distract them. She couldn’t hold their attention for long. With less than twenty feet to go, we’d be dinner in a matter of seconds. Grabbing the radio again, I was about to scream into it when the tower door flew open. In a thick lab coat, wearing black-rimmed glasses, was Doctor Sanders.

He raised his black smartphone and pressed his thumb on the screen. At that moment, the Vectors stopped in their tracks and flailed back in pain. Kaylynn suddenly dropped her bat on the hard concrete, her hands flying to both sides of her head. She clenched her teeth tight, as if she were in pain, too. I couldn’t tell what hurt her, or why the Vectors were turning away.

“This won’t last long,” Sanders warned. “Get in!”

Jewel threw her rifle to the floor while I grabbed Kaylynn’s bat. Even with my help, Kaylynn could barely stand up. Wrapping her arm over my shoulder, I hoisted her up and we headed for the door. Once inside the vestibule, Sanders pulled the door shut. He lowered a thick metal latch and wrapped it with a chain. Hard fists struck against the padlocked door seconds later.

Sighing in relief, Sanders wiped his forehead and turned to us with a nervous laugh. “Good thing I saw you kids on the monitor. This is highly unexpected, and very reckless of you! What are you kids doing here?”

“What was that noise?” Kaylynn asked.

Noise? I glanced at Jewel.

We hadn’t heard a thing.

Sanders held out his hand and showed us his phone. “I discovered they are sensitive to a particular frequency. I developed this short-wave transmitter.” I found that hard to believe. Since when did Sanders go from a doctor to a techno guy? Now that I had a better look at it, the phone had no clear name brand on it. “This transmits a frequency that causes an unpleasant vibration in the cerebral cortex of the infected host.” Sanders’s apologetic eyes fell on Kaylynn. “I had almost forgotten. You have the infection inside you, right?”

“My head was in a church bell,” Kaylynn uttered.

“Really?” Sanders crossed his arms and raised a hand to his chin. “Curious observation. I never had the chance to test this on someone who wasn’t trying to attack me. This is very helpful.” Fists were still hammering away at the door from the outside. With the stone frame and thick metal door, it was clear that no Vector was getting in. “I apologize for any discomfort.”

Heaving a breath, Kaylynn leaned against the wall. Was this frequency some kind of sound? I didn’t hear anything. Chloe never reacted to it, and it kept the infected away? Sanders could easily win the
Best Inventor of the Year
award.

Sanders pocketed the phone. “If only it wouldn’t drain the battery so fast.”

Then again, maybe not—he’d have to settle for
Honorable Mention
.

“You didn’t answer,” he said. “Why are you here?”

“Where’s our Mom and Dad?” Jewel blurted.

“And Cody,” I said. “I saw our car outside.”

Sanders blinked, a look of confusion washing over him. “He’s inside. He never mentioned any of you.”

“He ditched us,” Kaylynn said. “Left us for dead.”

“Did he?” Sanders said. “I can’t imagine that—”

“What about our parents?” Jewel insisted. She wasn’t going to drop the subject. “Where are they?”

The doctor let out a long sigh that caused a pit in my gut. “We caught a few bits of David City’s distress call. I’m afraid your parents went back to find you.”

The way I deal with disappointment is to always expect the worst, so it relieved me that Mom and Dad went back to David City to look for us. Jewel was clearly disappointed, holding her tears back. And Kaylynn gave me this
we-went-through-all-of-that-for-nothing
look.

Sanders loosened his collar. “They’ll be back.”

“When did they leave?” Kaylynn asked.

Sanders adjusted his glasses. “Yesterday.”

Yesterday—when we were in Lincoln and Marysville. I should’ve worried, but I knew Mom and Dad could handle anything. They were alive and probably more anxious than us. We just had to sit tight and wait for them. Kaylynn touched my shoulder and pressed herself close with a half-hug. I wasn’t sure when I’d done it, but I had my arm around her waist, not that I was making a move on her. Jewel looked to me for assurance while she was wiping her eyes dry.

“Don’t worry,” I told her. “They’ll find us.”

“They better,” Jewel said, “or I’ll disown you.”

I laughed at that. I sure needed to.

“Good luck with that.” My eyes then fell on the radio at Sander’s belt. It kept the flap of his coat from covering his leg. “Hey, that’s my dad’s radio!”

“Yes, your father left this with me, in case you came here to look for him,” Sanders explained.