The Adventures of Steve and Terry: The Zombie Chronicles (9 page)

“We made it,” Robert said with a
sigh.

“Hey,” Dillon asked. “Where are
Steve and Terry?”

Everyone looked around, but didn’t
notice the balding overweight men.

“Should we go back?” Angela asked.

“That place has gotta be overrun
with zombies by now,” Robert said.

“That’s a hell of a way to die,
man,” Smiles said.

Everyone nodded, but still they
didn’t turn back.

“I don’t think they’re coming
back,” Terry said.

“Hmm, how odd,” Steve said.

Both men were watching as the cube
van sped off down the road.

“Assholes,” Terry said.

“Agreed.” Steve looked at the
growing horde of zombies around the store. “Uh, how we gonna get outta this one
man?”

“Same way we always do,” Terry
said, locking and loading his weapon. “Pure, unadulterated skill man.”

“Right!” Steve said, shouldering
his own weapons.

In the van Doyle remarked that if
anyone should have been left behind, it should have been the nigger.

“You son of a bitch!” Smiles
swore, pulling a pistol.

Doyle jumped to his feet and
grabbed for the gun. The two wrestled back and forth. The gun suddenly went
off, hitting Jamie, who happened to be driving, in the back of the head. The
van suddenly sped up as Jamie slumped in his seat. Dillon tried to grab the
wheel, but the van swerved, hit another car, and flipped.

The group was thrown around,
everyone dazed. Doyle lay dead, a bullet through his chest. The rest of the
group was barely moving, many injured, the rest stunned. Robert slid the back
door open and climbed out, but collapsed to the street. His vision was blurry
as blood covered his face from a head wound. He saw the zombies charging, but
couldn’t get to his feet. He heard screams as the rest of the group spotted the
undead. Gunshots went off, but no one was in any condition to fight.

Steve and Terry left the
department store behind. They skulked through the streets, looking for shelter.

“You know,” Steve said, “if that
van hadn’t crashed, we probably wouldn’t have made it outta that one.”

“Agreed,” Terry said, nodding his
head. “Too close for comfort.”

“Serves them right,” Steve said
angrily. “They were just gonna leave us, to die!” Steve said, utterly shocked.

“I know,” Terry said, spitting.
“Please, like we would go that easy.”

Steve nodded in consent. “Like a
little thing like being abandoned by those we trust is gonna get us down.”

“I know. If it didn’t work with my
mom, it’s not gonna work with some royal asses like them.”

“Your mom abandoned you?” Steve
asked, shocked.

“Well, no, but she did leave me at
the grocery store once.”

“Oh, ouch, rough, man.”

Terry nodded. “Yeah, but
experiences like that can really toughen you.”

“Prepares one for the end of the
world indeed,” Steve agreed.

“Indeed.”

And then the two disappeared into
the coming night.

VI. Lost in
the City

John and Sarah ran as fast as they
could. The eerie moan of pursuing undead followed them. The dead had an odd
shuffling run, but they never tired. John and Sarah had stumbled across a large
group almost an hour ago. They had thought they had lost them, but they heard
the group a couple of minutes ago, maybe a block behind them.

As the two ran Sarah suddenly
tripped and fell. John got a few paces ahead of her before he realized. He
quickly rushed back to her side and helped her to her feet. She tried to
continue running, but the minute she put her weight on her ankle she cried out
and fell.

“Come on babe!” John urged. “We
gotta keep going! We can’t stop!”
Sarah tried to stumble along, but she was now a slow moving target. “I—I
can’t,” she said as she stumbled again. “I’m just dead weight. Go on without
me.”

“No! I’m not leaving you.”

“There’s no sense in us both dying
John! Go!”

John helped Sarah to the side of a
building and she sat down with her back to the wall. John then hefted the
crowbar he held and took up a position in front of her.

“What are you doing, John?”

“I’m not leaving you.”

A single tear tracked down Sarah’s
cheek. Like a lot of other people, John had come to the city hopeful, having
heard of “clean zones” and “safe sites”, but all had been overrun. In the
ensuing chaos after the fall of the CDC encampment he had become lost in the
city. He had come across Sarah almost two days after the fall of camp. She had
been running from a group of two or three zombies. John had risked his neck to
get her away and they had been inseparable ever since.

“John,” Sarah said, her voice
rough. John turned back to look at her. “I . . . I—”

Whatever she was going to say was
cut off by a high-pitched scream. It didn’t sound like someone screaming in
fear though. It sounded almost like a girly war-cry. They both heard gunshots
and hacking sounds, zombie moans mixed in as well. Both waited, tense. The
sounds soon subsided. John strained to hear anything, but there was only
silence. After several moments John suggested perhaps they should investigate.
Sarah did not like the idea.

“No,” she protested. “Let’s just
keep moving.”

“But it could be others, other
survivors,” John insisted.

“It could be more walkers.”

“I don’t hear any moans.”

They argued for a few minutes, but
finally John won out. He helped Sarah to her feet and they backtracked the way
they had come. They rounded a corner and came face to face with the group of
undead that had been chasing them, or at least, what was left of it. Sarah used
a building to support herself while John checked the dead.

“Not all of these were killed with
bullets,” he told the woman as he looked at the wounds. Some looked to have
been hacked or cleaved with some sort of edged weapons. He looked around, but
there were no signs of whoever had done the killing.

“I don’t like it here John.
Please, let’s keep moving.”

John returned to Sarah and again
helped her. They were just starting to leave when John heard a boot scuff. He
spun, crowbar at the ready. His sudden movement caused Sarah to fall with a
cry. John searched the lengthening shadows. He tensed as he spotted movement.
Suddenly and old, bearded man stepped from the shadows.

“Did you see them?” the old man
asked in a raspy voice.

“Who?” John asked.

“The demons.”

John looked around at the dead
zombies. “Looks like all the demons got taken out, old man.”

“Not these vile creatures,” the
old man said. “The two demon warriors. Painted, they were, and with war-cries
they cut down the undead mercilessly. They are not human, nothing as cold and
impartial as they could be. Many in the city have seen them, sometimes at a
distance, sometimes dangerously close. Ask, and they will tell you.”

“Whatever you say, old man.” John
helped Sarah to her feet. “You alone?”

“Always,” the old man responded.

“You could come with us. It’s not
perfect, but safety in numbers.”

“I am fine alone. Be careful you
two, night breeds danger.”

“We well know,” John said.

John helped Sarah and they made
their way from the scene of carnage. They found an old office building and
holed up there for the night. They huddled close together for warmth.

“John,” Sarah said, squeezing his
arms around her.

“What?”

“We need to find a way out of the
city.”

“Agreed. But we haven’t found any
vehicles that we could take.”

John had tried to hotwire at least
one car, but had no idea what he was doing. He ended up almost electrocuting
himself.

“I don’t know why, but I have a
feeling things are about to look up,” Sarah said.

John hugged the woman tighter.
“That’s good.”

The next morning the two were
working their way through the city. John suddenly heard something he had not
heard in some time, an engine. They followed the noise, rounding a corner to
come face to face with a military hummer, the vehicle on and idling. John and Sarah
looked at each other in shock.

John was still supporting the
woman, but they rushed to the hummer as fast as they could. John helped Sarah
into the passenger seat and quickly climbed into the drivers. They both looked
at each other and then around. Sarah nodded. John did, too. He put the truck in
gear and they sped off, leaving the city behind.

Steve and Terry rushed out of the
convenience store with giggles. Each had armloads of chips, candy bars, and
Mountain Dew. They got to the street and stopped. Both looked around, then at
each other.

“We did park right here, didn’t
we?” Terry asked.

“I thought so,” Steve said, just
as confused. “But where did it go?”

“Steve?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you leave the keys in the car
again?”

Steve suddenly looked sheepish.
“Maybe.”

“Ugh, you idiot!”

“What? It’s the middle of a zombie
effing apocalypse; I didn’t think having our ride stolen would still be a
problem.”

Terry threw his collected snacks
to the ground angrily. “Now we gotta
walk
back.”

“Well, look on the bright side,”
Steve said.

“Like what?”

“At least we got more Dew.”

Mike, Sean, and Jake ran. Sean and
Jake were lean and wiry after the weeks and weeks of fleeing zombies. Mike, a
former private investigator maintained some bulk to his build. Sean held a sawed-off
shotgun, while other two carried pistols–Jake a .357 revolver and Mike a 9mm
berretta.

The pursuing dead were like
bloodhounds. If they had sight of their prey they followed relentlessly. And
their eerie moans called more and more to the hunt.

“They’re still behind us,” Jake
called from the back, glancing behind him.

They rounded a corner and Sean
stopped, spinning, the rest of the group kept running. The first walkers to
round the corner took a load of buckshot to the face. Sean unloaded all five
rounds of his shotgun before continuing on with the others. He reloaded on the
fly.

Mike suddenly veered right,
hitting a door at full tilt and shattering it from its hinges. The other two
were right on his trail. They were in an old, abandoned apartment building.
Mike led the way up a set of stairs. At the first floor all three stopped,
crouching near the railing and glancing to the floor below. They saw one walker
shamble past, quickly followed by several others. They all blew a sigh of
relief until another walker stopped at the open door. It looked inside the
building, its rotting head cocked awkwardly to one side.

“Go, just keep going,” Sean
whispered almost like a prayer.

Finally the walker turned and
followed the others. All three men blew out held breaths and collapsed to the
floor.

“Good god, that was close,” Mike
said, running his hand through his close cropped blond hair. A former marine,
he always kept his hair high and tight.

“Too many close calls, lately, if
you ask me.” Jake said.

Sean leaned against the wall of
the hallway, his shotgun braced against his leg. “Here we go again.”

“What? Maybe it’s time we leave
the city,” Jake suggested, scratching his beard.

“And go where?” Sean asked. It was
a frequent argument between the two.

“There have got to be other
survivors.”

“And what makes you think more is
better?” Mike asked. “Right now I see three men that know how to handle
themselves, warriors. We link up with another group; suddenly we got
liabilities. We got women, kids, people without weapons, just a whole lotta
fucking liabilities man.”

“It looks like a couple hours till
sun down,” Sean said. “We should have time to make it back to base.”

“Let’s just give it a little more
time,” Jake said. “Make sure those walke—”

A high-pitched war-cry cut the man
off. They heard gunshots and the moans of the dead. Mixed in with both were wet
hacking sounds.

“Dude! It sounds like other
survivors.”