Pandora 2: Death is not an Option (16 page)

Coughing from the smoke and dust, Sean sat upright on the side of the bus. The interior was a jumble of tangled bodies, smashed safety glass, and pieces of equipment and jagged masonry that had fallen through the shattered windows. Waving the particles of debris from in front of his eyes, he saw Tommy and Regina start to move.

Also coughing, Tommy said, “Is everyone okay?

Jamal moved an almost intact sheet of cracked safety glass from on top of him. “Good here, Sarge.”

Sean reached over anxiously and freed Linda from a dislodged seat. “Hon, are you hurt?”

Linda, a little dazed, sat up, looked at Sean, and said, “No…no, I think I’m good.”

Tommy was crawling along the side of the bus, which now served as the floor. He removed a large knapsack from atop Mel Gorman. Mel’s eyes were open and staring up sightlessly. From the odd angle of his head, Tommy knew that his neck must be broken. Moving on, he came to Travis, who was moaning.

“Are you all right?” Tommy asked with concern.

“It’s my arm,” Travis said, wincing. “I think it’s broken.”

Every so often, a loose brick would come down and clang against the bus. They all flinched at the sound.

Susan, Frank, Carlos, and Paul were now up and moving.

“Oh God,” gasped Sue, “Mike’s not moving.”

Sean was sitting close by, and he crawled over to check. “He’s breathing, Sue,” Sean said. “He’s just knocked out.” As they were freeing him, he started to come around.

Konrad was sitting up against the side of the seats. He had a huge gash in his head that was bleeding profusely. Malik, Carol, and Manny were working on his wound.

Manny called out to Tommy, “Come here, Sarge. It’s Jack. He’s unconscious.”

Tommy crawled to the front of the bus where they were. Manny left Konrad with Malik and Carol and then came over to him. As Manny crawled over, Tommy could see that he was a mess. His nose was bleeding down the front of his shirt, and his right eye was swollen closed.

“You okay?” asked Tommy.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing,” Manny said, shrugging the concern off. They both reached down and brought Jack up to a sitting position. When his head flopped limply, Tommy put his fingers to his neck and felt around. Relieved, he looked back at Manny and said, “He’s alive.
His pulse is good.” Looking back at his neck, he said, “He’s fine. I guess he just got conked on the head.”

Manny reached up and forced the folding bus doors open. Standing and sticking his head out, he looked around. Ducking his head back inside, he stated, “We are inside the building. No fires. No zombies. Let’s get out of here quickly.”

Manny squeezed out of the doors, reached down, and grabbed Konrad’s offered hand. He pulled the man out, and Konrad eased himself off the side of the demolished bus, landing on his feet in the restaurant’s interior.

“Danke,” he said to Manny.

Manny then pulled Carol up and out. Tommy was guiding everyone toward the doors to escape. Next were Linda, Sean, Malik, Regina, Frank, Mike, Susan, Travis, and Carlos. Paul then took Manny’s place, and with Tommy and Jamal helping, lifted him up from the inside. They guided the unconscious Jack from the inside of the bus. Once out, Sean and Malik grabbed him and brought him down to lie on the rubble-strewn tiles of La Cortina. Sean put a crumpled tablecloth under his head, but Jack was already starting to stir.

“Thank God,” mumbled Sean.

Frank and Regina were watching the outside activity. Turning to the group, Regina said, “We better get out of here fast. We have an army of them swarming outside.”

They could already hear the zombies pounding on the overturned bus and on the broken and cracked window glass. As everyone was getting to his or her feet, Tommy and Jamal handed down whatever
weapons and supplies they could quickly lay their hands on from the jumble inside the bus. Just as Tommy and Jamal jumped off and onto the floor, the first two zombies entered the large, ragged hole in the front of the structure.

Frank took out his service pistol and put both down with accurate head shots.

Tommy and Sean ran to the back of the restaurant through the kitchen and stopped at the rear exit. They both looked at each other, and then Tommy hit the push bar and opened the door. Looking out he saw that it led to an alleyway that ran the length of the block. There were no undead in the entire alley. Turning to Sean, Tommy said, “Get the rest, and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Sean ran back. Linda was right there waiting with Manny. Sean yelled out to everyone, “The back exit is clear. Come on; let’s go. We’ll—”

As Manny, Linda, and Paul passed him, an excruciatingly loud creaking and then wrenching sound came from above them. Malik yelled, “The roof’s caving in!”

With that, the entire ceiling sagged and, with a large crack, collapsed. Frank had just aimed his handgun at another entering zombie when he looked up. The last thing he saw was a steel girder and a ton of rubble coming toward his head.

The entire front of the large restaurant collapsed. Fortunately, the right side of the building had enough stability to stay intact for another ten minutes. Equally fortunate was that the majority of the survivors ran that way. Through the massive cloud of dust and debris in the air, Sean yelled into the mangled interior. “Call out. Are you all right? Yell out to me.”

He could hear several people hollering. “We’re okay.”

“We are alive.” Sean distinctly heard Mike’s voice.

The five people at the rear exit tried and tried but couldn’t find a way through the kitchen to get to the rest of the group. They were all clawing at the mountain of rubble, throwing chunks aside, and trying to dig through. The wall between the kitchen and the front dining area had come down, exposing the whole expanse to the street. The zombies were already entering, climbing around the jumble of girders, rebar, concrete, and crushed tables and chairs. Even as the five ramped up their efforts, they realized it was a futile attempt. A male zombie in a police officer’s uniform clambered into the kitchen, moaning and hissing. Paul Chen reached over to a cluttered workstation and grabbed a dusty meat cleaver. Picking it up, he turned to the oncoming ghoul and, with one mighty whack, cleaved his head open. As he turned back to his digging, he paused. Then he bent over the body and undid the holster. Ripping it off, he stood up and called to Linda. “Here, put this on. You can use this.”

She grabbed it and then buckled the heavy gun and holster around her waist. All of the bullet compartments were still full.

As more and more undead entered, Tommy stopped and, cupping his hands around his mouth, called to the trapped people, “Do you see another way out?”

“Yes,” Mike answered from behind the retaining wall. “There is a busted window in the back. I think we can fit through.”

“There are too many zombies coming in at us,” Tommy yelled. “We’ve got to go. When you get out, head to 826. We’ll try to stay there and wait for you. We’ll draw as many Zs away from here as we can. Good luck.”

The five of them then backed up toward the intact back door. Drawing their weapons, they took down ten of the undead with head shots. Still seeing many more entering the wreckage, they exited the door, leaving it propped open to draw the zombies out of the building and away from the area.

While Sean, Tommy, Linda, Manny, and Paul ran down the alleyway ahead of the zombies and Mike, Susan, Jack, Jamal, Carol, Travis, Konrad, and Carlos were quietly removing the broken window glass so they could crawl out and run in the other direction, Malik and Regina found themselves trapped under the rubble. They were standing together right next to the bus roof when the building came down on top of them. Luckily for them, the girder that crushed Frank also hit the overturned bus. It formed a cover that kept most of the large debris from landing on the two of them. Malik had just started to dig out when the first of the zombies began entering the collapsed front of the restaurant. He immediately stopped, and he and Regina backed farther into their pocket of rubble. They saw behind them that the front windshield of the bus had blown out from the girder falling on it. They entered the bus through the opening and, crawling on their bellies, squeezed through the partially crushed metal body so that they could hide in the back.

Mike and his group had finally removed all the jagged shards of glass from the side window. He stuck his head out and looked around. Not seeing any undead near, he turned back to the rest of them and said, “It looks clear out there. We’re blocked off from the zombies in the store, and I don’t think they know we’re here. Quietly, we’ll get out and make a run for it up the street. We’ll have to hurry, though. This was a corner building, and it won’t stay clear for long.”

Everyone nodded and got ready. Mike went through the opening and dropped to the sidewalk. He crouched on one knee and looked around again. The undead in front of the store were so concentrated
on getting inside that they didn’t even glance around the corner. Miraculously, the cross street was clear of zombies. Mike stood and stuck his head over the sill.

“Okay, we’re clear,” he whispered.

Susan’s body came through next. Mike grabbed her and helped her down. Carol came through after her. Then Jack, Carlos, and Konrad. It was now down to Travis and Jamal. With Travis’s arm broken, he couldn’t lift himself, even with Jamal’s help. Jamal grabbed a table in the room and dragged it over to the window. Unfortunately, the noise that effort made was heard by the massing undead on the other side of the wall of debris. Now, half of the zombies were following Sean and the rest who had gotten out the rear door and run down the alley, and the other half now started tearing at the masonry and wallboard that separated them from the group now trying to escape.

This abrupt change in demographics rippled back into the ranks of undead now on the street. The confusion on the avenue led some of the zombies to veer to the side. In doing so, they finally spotted the group of survivors huddled beneath the side window. Seeing their prey escaping their clutches, the snarling undead came up the intersection after them.

Carol grabbed Jack’s arm. Pointing toward the corner she yelled, “Oh shit, they see us. Hurry. The zombies are coming for us.”

Jamal helped Travis onto the table. After getting up, Travis bent over and swung his leg out the window. Grabbing the sill with his good hand, he guided himself out. Jack and Konrad helped him down. Travis had his broken arm tucked in close to his body to protect the appendage. Mike and Carol were shooting any zombies that got near. By the time Travis was safely down and Jamal had made it
through the window, the two shooters had more targets than they could handle.

Michael looked back and, seeing everyone now outside, yelled, “Okay, let’s get the hell out of here.”

The eight of them turned and ran down the cross street. The road was impassable to vehicular traffic because of all the abandoned and wrecked cars. The group had to snake its way through the maze of vehicles. They passed an accident where a white Jaguar had sideswiped four parked cars and then smashed into the rear of a two-seater Mazda, running halfway up the little car so that its front wheels were over the little car’s front seats. Its occupants, now under the Jaguar’s undercarriage, were reduced to a thin stream of blood that seeped its way out of the bent and half-open doors. Having been thrown, unbelted, through the windshield, the Jaguar’s driver was lying draped across the white hood.

Passing close to the wreckage, Travis heard a gurgling sound. As he turned his head to look for the source of the sound, the body lying across the hood turned its head toward him. It made another gurgling hiss. Black blood ran from its ravaged, jagged-toothed mouth and spattered onto the hood. Before Travis could react, the zombie reached out and grabbed ahold of his broken forearm. Travis screamed in agony. As the now-animated ghoul yanked his arm closer, Travis fell to his knees, screaming curses. Behind him, Carol reached into her belt and pulled out a machete she had brought. Sighting on the zombie’s outstretched arm, she raised her weapon and swiftly brought it down. As a metallic clang resonated from the white hood, the now-severed arm slid down the Jaguar and fell onto the street. Jamal bent down and, reaching under Travis’s good arm, hoisted him to his feet. The white-faced, injured soldier stumbled and then recovered his bearings, and they all continued their flight.

The once-clear road had now attracted the attention of the undead. Reaching the next intersection, they tried to turn left only to find their way blocked by two dozen zombies coming toward them. Left with no other choice and a mass of zombies still closely following them, they continued up the street. As the desperate group zigzagged its way forward, dodging vehicles and the occasional zombie emerging from open doorways and smashed storefronts, Konrad started falling behind. He had always smoked too much. His desk job back in the engineering firm in Germany coupled with a lack of any exercise took a large toll on his lung capacity. Konrad Stasser was having trouble catching his breath when a coughing fit seized him. He leaned up against the cracked glass of a shop. Jack had looked back when he heard the loud hacking noise Konrad was making.

“Konrad,” he yelled, “you can’t stop!”

Konrad stood up slightly, waving one arm up at Jack while the other was cupped to his face.

“Ja, ja,”
he said between coughs. “I come, I come.”

He looked up and saw, ironically, that he had stopped in front of a tobacco shop. An amused smile started to form on his lips until he dropped his head to gaze at eye level through the window he was leaning against.
“Mein Gott in Himmel!”
he gagged.

Two ragged zombies, one fat sporting a mustache and a missing eye, the other middle-aged with a large, ragged hole where his stomach had been, suddenly appeared out of nowhere from inside the store and rushed at him through the cracked plate glass. A loud crash sounded as the entire front window blew out, and the two zombies fell upon Konrad.

Carol was too far ahead, and Jamal was helping Travis. Jack ran back and, raising his rifle to his shoulder, took a shot that hit the fat zombie in the head. Konrad and the other creature were on the ground, rolling back and forth. Jack couldn’t get a clear shot.