Slow Burn: A Zombie Novel (16 page)

"I got ya," he said.

I spotted my bat next to me and grabbed it. Standing up to address any new threats, I saw only a few of the fuckers left.

Crack!

Sherman turned and looked at something behind him.

“
Sorry pal, you’re one of them now,” I said, stepping up and preparing to cave in the back of his skull.

* * * * * * * *

Mattie finally got the makeshift door barricade removed and stepped out into the hall.

My God
, she thought,
those two have decimated damn near every one of the flesh eaters.”
She could try and help out with the remaining ones at least.

Taking aim, she shot the rearmost subject, but it didn't bring the reaction that she hoped. Instead of falling, Sherman whipped around and stared at her with a malicious glare.

"I’m so sorry, Sherman, for what I’m about to do," she told her former coworker.

Re-adjusting her aim, she put two bullets into Sherman’s chest, causing him to stand up straight, right as Mike appeared, swinging a bat at his head. Since Sherman had stood up, his bat, which was aimed to strike Sherman’s head, instead crushed in the right side of his ribcage. The impact sent Sherman flying off of the countertop onto the floor. Sherman shot to his feet and screamed his rage at Mattie, causing her blood to run cold. Twice more she sent 9mm hollow points blasting into Sherman’s chest. Sherman just stood there as if daring her to waste more ammo.

Mattie’s heart soared when she saw Mike and Stephen come into view. She was not entirely sure Mike noticed her as he vaulted over the counter after Sherman. A massive swing of his bat crushed Sherman in the side of his head, knocking him to the floor. She could not see exactly what happened next, but Mike stopped and looked down for a moment, and then the blood-covered baseball bat he was carrying was raised high and came down hard on Sherman with a meaty whack. The ER went silent.

Mike, clearly exhausted, leaned onto the countertop, tossing his bloody bat onto it next to him.

“
Holy fuck, we did it!”

* * * * * * * *

Stephen walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. He took a deep breath and took a long look at all the carnage and gore all around us.

“
Outstanding job, Mike," he said. "I had my doubts that it would… Mattie!!!”

Stephen did a remarkable impersonation of the Heisman Trophy as he shoved me out of his way, knocking me to the floor next to the corpse of Sherman.

“
What the fuck?” I complained, pulling myself to my feet.

“
I cannot believe you guys came for me!” Mattie cried, giving Stephen a grateful hug.

“
Are you hurt?” Stephen asked her.

“
No, but I was sure I was going to die here along with everyone else. What is going on here? Why are these people eating one another?”

“
We’re not entirely sure,” Stephen answered. “We think it’s some sort of virus or something, which is spread through bite wounds. Once you’re bit, you become aggressive and apparently contagious. Almost like a fast acting form of rabies. It appears that the only way to really stop them is by major head trauma.”

“
Um, Stephen, you can put me down now,” Mattie replied.

“
What?” Stephen said sheepishly as he set her feet onto the floor. “Sorry, I just got carried away. We were worried we were gonna be too late.”

“
Don’t everyone thank me at once,” I said as I struggled to my feet.

With a huge smile, Mattie walked past Stephen. “Oh come here, you.”

She laced her arms around my head and pulled it down into a hungry kiss.

Hot damn
, I thought.
I woulda been happy with a knuckle bump!

A short time later she ended the kiss, found both of my sweaty hands gripping her ass and laid her head on my shoulder with a sigh.

I looked up at Stephen, who had a jealous look on his face, and I gave him the finger.

"To the winner go the spoils!"

"We need to get outta here now," Stephen replied. "Let’s go.”

He headed off limping towards the doors we entered from.

I felt Mattie’s arms tighten around me and she murmured, “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

Not sure what exactly she was referring to, I found out what she meant when she sank her teeth into my shoulder muscles.

“
What the hell? Was I just bit?”

As I prepared to launch her across the fucking ER, thinking she was infected, she let go, laughing and licking her lips.

“
Mmm-mmmm," she joked, "but all things considered, maybe it wasn’t the best time for that.”

My dumb ass, still sputtering and unable to say anything coherent, could only watch as she sauntered out of the ER after Stephen. I released a deep breath that I did not realize I was holding.

Women!
I grabbed my gear and headed for the door. Scratch that.
Hot women
. They might be the death of me yet.

Dan Wayne woke up on the couch in his basement with a familiar dull ache at the base of his neck. And this was not the first time.

“
God damn couch,” he cursed at the inanimate object.

After working his twelve hour midnights shift at the Minooka Police Department and getting off at 0700 hours that morning, he had managed to stay awake just long enough to throw his uniform into a crumpled heap on the floor in his closet and head downstairs to the basement. Dan was now set to be off for a couple of days and had a lot of chores to get done if he wanted to be able to participate in a competitive shooting event scheduled for that coming weekend. He headed for his equipment room which contained his gear, reloading equipment, ammo cans and gun safe. He opened a door to what looked like a walk-in closet and stepped into the darkness. Only after entering the closet and closing the first door could a person see the second door that led into the small room. In this hidden equipment room Dan found a mess.

Dan always lived by the motto “Buy it cheap and stack it deep” which led to a bit of a hoarding problem. Ammo shortages in 08’ and 12’ added to his paranoia. Boxes were strewn about the room since Dan was never able to pass up a sale on bulk ammunition or reloading supplies. Piles of gear sat on a large bench, and somewhere in the pile was Dan’s competition rig. It would take a week to clean out the room but the only thing Dan was worried about was the large order of .45 that he was sure he had made but didn’t remember signing for. Only after locating it under a pile of wool army blankets did he allow himself to exit the room and lay down on the sleeper sofa he kept in his finished basement. The sofa was placed there for just this very reason. Cool, quiet and dark, it was the perfect place for a night shift guy to sleep the day away. Only, as was usually the case, Dan had been too lazy to actually pull out the sleeper and just crashed on the couch, the stiff armrest resulting in a very sore neck. The customary two sleeper shots of Jack Daniels never helped either. Nor the beer chaser after that.

Now awake, he looked at the clock on the wall through a sleepy haze, which displayed that it was 1520hrs. What seemed like five minutes of sleep had actually been several hours.

Five or six hours of sleep was not going to cut it after the last three days at work. Dan dragged himself up and headed into the basement’s bathroom for a piss and to grab some aspirin.

Downing five tablets with a glass of water, he found his cell phone and tried to call his girlfriend Jasmine, who worked as an exotic dancer at the nearby Silver Dollar Saloon. Jasmine was also set to be off work for a couple of days, and Dan was hoping to get a private showing of his own tonight. After several rings, the phone promptly went to voicemail.

“
Typical,” Dan bitched into the phone while waiting for the beep.

Finally hearing it, he left her a message to stop by and wake him up in a few hours and grab a pizza on the way. Dan then finished up the call with his usual demand to “wear something sexy” and then managed to unfold the sleeper and quickly passed out again in a few short minutes.

After what seemed to Dan to be days later, he awoke to what he thought were gunshots, and they sounded close.

What time was it? And where was Jasmine?
He was still somewhat confused from waking up abruptly and noticed the digital clock now read 2140hrs.

“
Holy shit, I slept six more hours!” he said as he felt his belly rumble. “No wonder I’m so damn hungry.”

Picking up his phone, he was pissed to find that he had no missed calls or messages.

“
That selfish bitch,” Dan moaned. “She can’t even be bothered to return a goddamn phone call.”

Wanting to give her a tongue lashing, and not the kind she was into, he attempted to call her again. This time Dan got an automated message:

“
We’re sorry; all circuits are busy at this time. Please try your call again later
.”

Dan’s home was a split level house on a dead-end street which never got much vehicle traffic other than from his neighbors. He walked upstairs, grabbed a cold beer out of the fridge and started his oven before walking out his patio door onto his deck. The deck sat up high enough that he could see into his neighbors’ yards on both sides of his property, but it was now dark outside, and the nearest streetlight was out so he could not see much at all. He had hoped to find anything that would provide a clue to what had woken him out of a sound sleep. Everything was quiet now, though, and he only heard the low hum of the water filter to his aboveground pool. After finishing his beer, he shrugged and went back inside, leaving the patio door cracked to let in some fresh air, deciding it had probably just been some fireworks left over from the Fourth of July.

Dan’s hunger overrode his curiosity. With the oven now hot, Dan slid in a frozen pizza and set the oven timer for eighteen minutes, enough time to take a shower and get cleaned up.

Starting the shower in his master bath, he gave it a few minutes to warm up and paused as he passed the mirror and looked at his face. The scar across his left cheek reminded him again of Jasmine and the fact that she hadn’t shown up or called. Jasmine had a slight heroin problem, which Dan was trying to help her get back under control. Several months ago, he had forced her into rehab after a nasty fight coming off a three day binge that led to her slicing his face with a box cutter in that very bathroom. She had seen a text message from a female coworker and accused him of cheating on her with some whore. She then flew into a psychotic fit of rage and kindly left him a reminder of her love that took twenty-seven stitches to close. Nearly losing his left eye was a wake-up call for Dan, and sending her away for treatment instead of jail had worked up to this point. She had stayed clean all summer, and even managed to get back custody of her young son Jamal from DCFS last week. But he now was worried.

In her line of work she hung around too many bad influences. He touched the scar.
Maybe she’s falling off the wagon?

"Thirty-eight years old, and I still have to deal with this shit,” Dan said to his image in the mirror. “Oh well…crazy stripper girl sex is worth a little drama."

A good ten minutes later and with his shower complete, Dan dried off and, after locating some clothing that passed the smell test from the dirty laundry pile, headed back toward the kitchen. The smell of pepperoni pizza filled his upstairs, and Dan was starving.

He stopped abruptly in his tracks, his senses now instantly on high alert.

Someone is in my kitchen.

It was very subtle but definitely there. Dan was only able to see the shadow of what looked like possibly a human figure standing by his kitchen table reflecting off the wall of the hallway he was standing in. The shadow was distorted from the light, but there was no mistaking its human form. His mind raced, running through the possible explanations. Jasmine had a key to his house but she usually came in through the garage, and Dan would have been able to feel the vibration of the garage door opening from his bathroom. And his neighbors were way too fearful of him to walk into his house unannounced.

Dan quietly backtracked to his bedroom and made a beeline to his nightstand where his closest gun happened to be located, his grandfather’s Colt 1911A-1 from WW2. It had killed several Japanese soldiers during the war as legend had it, and Dan inherited it from his own father who’d just recently passed away. He always figured that if it was good enough to keep his grandfather alive, it was good enough to keep him alive. Opening the drawer, Dan panicked when he saw the pistol was not where he left it.

What the fuck? Of all the times for this to happen!

With no time to wonder where the pistol was, he raced for his closet and pulled his Glock 21 .45 duty pistol from his holster, which was draped over the hamper. After doing a quick press check to make sure a round was seated, Dan again entered the hallway and found that the figure was still in the kitchen, but had now shifted closer to the wall in the corner near the stove. Dan wondered if possibly the man was trying to set an ambush, thinking Dan did not know he was lying in wait. He could now hear a low, heavy breathing sound coming from just around the corner. With his heart pounding in his chest, Dan prepared to do what he had trained for all these years.