Undead Fleshcrave: The Zombie Trigger (8 page)

While it was true that the majority of them, or at least those who’d neglected the beer garden banquet in favour of chasing other prey, moved with a shambling, lurching gait, not all of them did. Some of them actually progressed in a motion that bordered on running and these faster freaks were gaining rapidly.          

"Come on!" Seth hollered at the fallen woman with the twisted ankle and her two male companions, who were attempting with a surprising lack of success to get her back up on her feet.          

"They're coming!" Miranda chimed in unnecessarily; undoubtedly the hapless trio were well aware that their desperate lunge over the barrier had drawn the attention of some of the swarming cadaverous crowd and they didn't really require any reinforcement of that fact. "Hurry up!"          

One of the guys, a sandy-haired fellow in a light green polo shirt, managed to get his arm hooked under the blonde’s armpit and around her back, and with the aid of the other man hauled her up. She winced and then cried out in pain again as she attempted to put pressure on the abused foot. Clearly she’d done some damage to it, even if only a mild sprain, but all the same it was going to be enough to slow her—all of them―down immeasurably.          

Those bizarrely speedier of the zombie pursuers would be upon them in a matter of minutes, less.           The triumvirate of would-be escapees from the beer garden were managing to move at a pace slower than the most shambling of any of the zombies; there was no chance of them not being overrun and torn into chunks of meat.         

Against his better judgement, and cursing his innate need to assist, Seth released Julietta's hand and dashed towards the struggling trio.         

Feet slapped the concrete just behind him and he realised that Dax was coming too, blood flecks still flying from his murderous arm band spikes as he ran.          

Together they stooped at the feet of the pained woman and hoisted her legs up into the air.  Her floral skirt flipped up with the motion, exposing the thin black lacy strip of her underwear, but now was probably not the time to be overly concerned with modesty.          

Like an odd party of pallbearers with no coffin, but instead a live body upraised on their shoulders, the foursome began to move in an uneven, but somewhat faster, gait than the threesome were managing before.          

It obviously still wasn't fast enough for Julietta and Miranda; they yelled urgent encouragement for the group to speed up.          

Seth suspected the congregation of renegade zombies were gaining on them, the freakish faster ones leading the charge. He was glad to be at the head of the party; at least the duo of newcomers at the back would go down first if the undead caught them. It was a terrible thing to even consider, but it slipped easily into his mind as he stumbled with the left leg of the injured blonde on his shoulder, trying to fall into some sort of rhythm with his three carrying partners.          

The two at the rear would be cut down, the helpless girl would fall to the ground as further incentive to keep the marauding flesh-eaters at bay and Seth imagined he and Dax would bolt like the fucking wind to escape.           The urging and panicked exclamations from the girls and Mark grew in intensity and Seth knew without having to turn around to see that the approaching zombies could only be a whisker away.          

He couldn't exactly swivel around anyway, not without some difficulty, or relinquishing his grip on the girl’s leg. Not without completely throwing out the awkward rhythm they'd managed to cultivate.          

He resisted the overwhelming urge to just release the girl and haul ass out of there double time, expecting—
no, knowing
―that the two men hanging onto the upper portion of the woman were about to get annihilated.          

Then Black and Blizzard were there, cutting a swathe through the knot of pursuing zombies.          

Blades swished through the air, slicing and chopping with the brutal sounds of flesh being hacked, heads being separated from bodies, deadly weapon points being driven into skulls to extinguish any last vestiges of whatever might still loiter in their undead brains.          

There was now plenty of distance between them and the continuing butchery at the bar, and though a handful of undead still shuffled around the outskirts of the car park, the bulk of them were either inside the beer garden in throngs hunched over their piles of bloodied meat, feasting with a ghastly ensemble of noises, or had chased the living souls who’d fled inside, possibly through and out onto the busy street in front of the bar.          

At least five strewn bodies lay on the pavement in a wash of widely splattered blood, heads severed or with gaping holes in the craniums where Black and Blizzard thrust blades to snuff the last of their brain capacities.           The immediate danger was over, but Seth had a sinking feeling that wasn't going to be a lasting state of affairs.          

"Hey, hey! Set her down a sec," one of the guys said from behind him in a weak voice, and he and Dax obliged, lowering the blonde to a sitting position on the concrete.          

The man who made the request, the darker haired of the two, tall and thin in navy trousers and a white dress shirt fell onto his hands and knees and dry retched, coughing and choking.          

Then he spray-painted the carpark with a jet of vomit, predominantly liquid form, most likely the assemblage of drinks he'd happily consumed earlier, before his evening went terribly pear-shaped.          

"Jesus," Dax murmured, looking away.          

Seth almost felt the need to heave himself and relieve his own stomach of its contents, but after all the carnage already witnessed thus far this evening, this lot here was relatively mild in comparison. Gory and grotesque, yes, but nowhere near as bad as watching undead monsters tear screaming human prey to flesh ribbons.          

"Anyone else need to hurl?" Black asked, the sarcasm flickering in his tone barely disguised.           

"Who are you guys?" the sandy-haired man who’d managed to keep his gag reflex under control queried with wide eyes.          

"Later," Black said curtly.          

Then he pierced Seth with a dark stare.          

"Okay, Seth. Decision time. You coming with us or you taking your chances alone?"

CHAPTER SEVEN-DECISIONS

At the risk of further driving a wedge between Julietta and himself, Seth made the snap choice to stick with Black and his band of dubious cohorts. There were several reasons behind his decision, though in the precious few seconds he had to make that choice, not all of them came to him until later.          

The prime one related to what Tempest referred to earlier.
          

“Zombie apocalypse. That is what the fuck we are going to be dealing with...”
          

Only a couple of hours ago, or less, the whole concept would have seemed illogical, ludicrous, outlandish, impossible. Now it didn't seem like any of those things, there was nothing farfetched about it at all. In fact, it seemed probable, imminent…just about inevitable.          

Black and his people had sworn they needed to keep the band room of mayhem contained.          

Delays cost them the opportunity to do that and now the Quo Vadis bar was a hotbed of teeming bloodthirsty zombie activity, and while some of the facets and aspects of how a few of these particular zombies acted were a little at odds with everything Seth had been led to believe about the undead, he was willing to bet that one thing about them was going to be uniform with zombie folklore.          

Those they dined on would rise again themselves. Turned to members of the undead battalion as well.           Unless they were despatched in the manner Black and his assassins chose, nullifying their brain activity or separating heads from bodies.          

Which meant all those victims who couldn't escape the hungry wrath or weren't completely masticated into nothing but sloppy red pulp and gnawed bones were going to switch allegiances from the land of the living to that of the undead.          

Giving abundant credence to Tempest's originally inconceivable notion that an apocalypse of the zombie kind was most certainly on the cards.          

Secondary to the mind-fucking notion that Armada was going to be under threat from a very real zombie outbreak of dangerous proportions for Seth was the prime goal of keeping himself and his friends firmly in the land of the living and free of becoming either mindless flesh-munchers or chewed up edibles for the fiends.           While there were more than a few questionable things about Black and his entire crew that made them people to give a pretty wide berth under any normal circumstances, Seth had to admit that the chances of he and associates remaining alive were increased in the company of Black and his blade-brandishing companions.
How many times already had that group saved their skins?          

It was more than a one off occurrence in a relatively short expanse of time and they were some telling stats.          

The only real wielder of any weapons in their group was Dax, with the makeshift implements that were his spiked armbands, and his jumpy demeanour already had him bashing a harmless street bum to death with them.           Without Black and his lot, no matter how dangerous, questionable, or disconcerting they might be, Seth and his buddies would be zombie fodder in a shorter duration than the average run time of a Napalm Death song.          

So Seth made the choice. Other reasons for doing so came to mind later, but for now he'd made it.           He expected more opposition to arise from his circle of friends with his controversial choice, in particular from the two girls, but it didn’t.        

Not immediately anyway.          

He’d no idea how he’d gotten saddled with the de facto leader tag of the bunch or why Black presumed that he was. If Buck was still with them perhaps things would have been different, but with the mantle of responsibility in picking what they do, he opted for what he'd opted for.          

He knew Julietta was far from happy with the outcome, but she wasn’t voicing it; she’d just gone tight-lipped and quiet and Miranda followed suit.          

The threesome from the beer garden tagged along as well and now the whole lot of them were assembled around a big black Toyota Tundra Crewmax, a twin cab beast almost twenty feet in length.          

This apparently was the 'truck' Black referred to, the vehicle they'd
needed
to get to.           

"Any of you lot come by vehicle at all?" Black directed the question at Seth and co. receiving negative responses.          

"And you?" Tempest asked curtly of the trio from the bar.          

The volatile drummer of Subversion seemed distinctly unimpressed by the presence of newcomers, slightly less so at the knowledge that Seth and friends were planning to stick around. Seth could see his logic; he could visualise gears churning and working in Tempest's head, the concerns that people outside their dark mysterious circle were going to slow them down, get people killed, get themselves killed.          

"Yeah, we came in a car," Sandy Hair said. "But me and Wayne are too pissed to drive; at least I know both of us are over the limit. And well, I'm not sure Heather can drive at all."          

"You're worried about getting nailed by the cops for driving under the influence?" Dax snorted. "That's probably the least of anyone’s worries right now, including theirs. Speaking of which, shouldn't they be swarming this place by now?"          

"They will be soon enough," Tempest said. "And never mind, what car have you got? One of us can drive."          

"Hold up," Wayne put in. "Where are we driving? What's the deal? You taking us home?"          

"Here's the deal," Tempest said. "The shit is not just about to hit the fan any more than it already has, it is going to bounce, splatter and explode everywhere all over every single person in this town if things don't get sorted pronto. We needed to keep that room the band played in tonight contained and that didn't happen. Now, if we can manage to contain things to Armada, there's a slim chance of cataclysm being avoided, but otherwise I'd start thinking about forgetting you folks or any of us even have a home."          

"Are you fucking having a lend of us?"          

"Does that look like the scene of a joke over there?" Tempest pointed a stiff finger back at the Quo Vadis slaughterhouse. "Those ugly undead motherfuckers are bona fide zombies, kids, and this is shaping up as an outbreak that is going to fuck this town in the ass."          

"What do we do then?" Heather wailed, on her feet now, but hobbling between Wayne and the sandy-haired man, leaning on them for support.          

"Kill Undead Fleshcrave for a start," Black said.          

"Kill Undead Fleshcrave?" Dax resumed his idiotic fetish for repeating what was said.          

"What in the hell is Undead Fleshcrave?" Wayne wanted to know, a query backed up by nods from his towheaded friend and the moaning Heather.          

"The band who played upstairs tonight," Mark said helpfully.          

"Kill the band?" Wayne appeared to have caught Dax's contagious predilection for echoing statements.          

"The band is the reason for the zombies," Mark said, but his explanation was only met by confused blank gazes from the three newcomers.          

"Again with the standing around flapping gums and waggling tongues." This came from the same woman who'd prompted them to move earlier, the girl with the eyebrow piercing. "Where's your car?"          

"Over there.” Sandy pointed at an off-white four door sedan a couple of rows across from Black's pickup. "We all came together. It's Heather's, she was designated driver..."          

"Was," Heather affirmed. "I can barely walk now, let alone drive."          

"Yeah, like I said, that isn't a problem, one of us will drive," Tempest said. "Fit five people maximum?"          

"Yeah," Wayne said hesitantly, gazing warily around the circle of unfamiliar faces, most of whom must have looked pretty threatening to an ordinary clean cut fellow like himself. "But..."          

"Problem?" Tempest raised an eyebrow.          

"I mean...who
are
you people? Sincere thanks for saving our butts and that but...but what you're talking about...killing this band? I mean, I don't know...”          

Black was at the tray of the Tundra, busying himself with a series of long black instrument cases.
           At this juncture he turned around, his penetrating obsidian eyes honing in on Wayne's before floating across to include Heather and the as yet nameless man.          

"Time to make a choice people," he said simply, delivering the same ultimatum he’d presented to Seth. "With the amount of people we have along now we need another vehicle. If you're happy to offer the services of yours, that's fine and dandy. If you want to stick with us, by all means do so. If you want to take your chances alone, two drunks and a cripple, that's entirely your call."          

"But don't waste time mulling over it," snapped the girl with the eyebrow adornment. "Think fast and decide. Quick."          

The trio exchanged an assortment of glances, worry, bemusement, confusion and fear all jostling to occupy prime position on countenances.          

"Where...where are we going?" Heather was first to speak.          

"The music has stopped, that means the band is hauling ass out of the venue. Ready to hit the road and keep rolling. To spread this malady to another town, and so on. Catch my drift?"          

Seth caught Black's drift loud and clear.          

Undead Fleshcrave had every intention of taking their freakish stage show of scattered meat smorgasbords and turning death head fans into their own army of undead flesh-cravers all over the coast, pulling the Zombie Trigger on town after town.          

Until the aforementioned zombie apocalypse was a brutal shocking reality of townships, cities, entire states swarming with the undead.          

The rest of Seth's friends weren't slow in understanding precisely what the towering Subversion leader alluded to either. If they hadn't physically witnessed and felt what had transpired as the death metal supergroup of zombie creators performed this lethal track, they too might have found it as bizarre and unbelievable to hear that a band was responsible for the plague as these three people must have, but they’d all been enmeshed in it as it happened.          

"I can't...this is unreal, I mean this can't be happening...” Sandy stumbled over words, but the screams still resonating from over at the bar and now beyond, possibly spread out on the street at this stage, strongly suggested otherwise.          

"Okay. I'm going with them," Heather said, her voice shaky but adamant. "We can take my car."          

"Are you sure?" Wayne raised his eyebrows so high it looked as though they had eloped into his hairline. "Come on Heather, we don't know these people; they're talking crazy things, they could be rapists, anything. They're talking killing people and shit, did you see what they did...”          

The generally silent Blizzard burst out into laughter, an abrasive rasp of sound. Eyebrows still consorting in his hair somewhere, Wayne turned astonished eyes on the blonde bassist.          

"That's funny?"          

"Hilarious. I don't think anybody is going to have time to jerk off, let alone consider raping anybody. Get serious, guy. And crazy things? Tell me just how ordinary and everyday normal is it for your usual Friday night drinking hole to get overrun by undead freaks who want to rip out your intestines and dine on them? Or doesn't that qualify as crazy to you?"          

"It's
my
car, Wayne," Heather said. "Neither you nor Doug have the capabilities to drive and get us out of here safely, I just can't, full stop. What else can we do?"          

"Hail a taxi?" Doug queried hopefully.          

"Out the front? On Peaceville Street?" Tempest interjected. "That should be a breeze. Probably won't be too many others clamouring to get a taxi there."         

"Oh man," Wayne moaned, looking perilously near to sprawling on the ground and vomiting whatever little was left in the pit of his gut.          

"Come on," Heather urged and abruptly began to hop towards her car, fumbling clumsily in her handbag for her car keys. Seth was impressed she’d actually managed to escape the horde still in possession of the bag.          Reluctantly, Doug tailed after her, extending a hand of support to help her move easier.          

Wayne ran both hands through his hair, his visage a twisted wreck of emotions.          

"Shit. Okay, shit, I'm coming."          

"All right, there's space for five in their car," Black said. "The three of them and two of us. Better make it two of you ladies if that's going to make them feel any less threatened by us."          

"I'll go," Eyebrow Bar Girl volunteered. "Madeleine, you come with me."          

One of the other female members of Black's entourage stepped forward obligingly, a tall slender woman with her raven hair tied up in a high ponytail. Like her companions, she was wearing all dark clothing, from long black pants to a tight black blouse.         

Seth seemed to recall that all of the women were once armed with bladed implements of some description too, but now didn't appear to be. Perhaps that was what Black had been doing, stashing the weaponry in the bags in the tray of the truck.