Z-Burbia 7: Sisters of the Apocalypse (7 page)

"Why didn't they go down into the tunnels to get away?" Antoinette asks as she nudges a skeleton with her foot.

"Maybe the problem was the tunnel," Audrey says, looking at Froggy Girl. "Might not have been Zs that did this. Could have been people that came up from below."

"That the case?" Steph asks Froggy Girl.

"I don't know," Froggy Girl says. "Could be. Lots of bad stuff has happened since the Zs showed up."

"People killing people," I say. "Humans suck shit balls."

"It was awful in the beginning," Froggy Girl says. "I didn't leave my house for two years. Mama wouldn't let me. Then I got to go out and that's when the Inezes found us and kept us from getting taken by the Doyles."

"They've been around that long?" I ask.

"Yeah," Froggy Girl says.

"Next floor," Steph says once we clear the first floor.

We move past the heavy barricade blocking the front entrances and take the stairs to the second floor. The stairs ain't much better than everywhere else. A lot of bloodstains. And a Z.

"Got it," I say and stab it through the head with one of my blades. It was a woman before it died. Old woman, maybe. A grandma. I don't remember my grandma.

The second floor is all offices, kinda like the first floor. We sweep, we clear, we move on. The courthouse is starting to get boring. Good thing there's the third floor.

The second Steph steps through the stairwell door and into the third floor, she drops. Not because she's been hit with anything, but because she sees the axe coming at her head. She rolls herself across the hallway and comes up firing. The kid with the axe screams then falls face first onto the stained tile. Half his face is gone from Steph's shots.

"On me!" Steph yells as she takes a knee and spins in the direction the kid came from.

We hurry into the hallway and take up positions, making sure every single direction is covered. No other kids come for us, but we stay still. We wait and we listen. Froggy Girl starts to say something, but I smack her on the back of the head and she shuts up.

"I don't think there are more here," Audrey whispers after at least twenty minutes go by. "We'd know. My gut says they're gone."

"This one was a distraction," Steph says, nodding at the dead kid. "So where are the others?"

There's a clang and a shout. Then screams. All coming from outside.

Steph kicks in a door and we hurry to a window in time to see a kid get buried under a pile of Zs down on the street. They start ripping him apart, yanking out guts and tearing off his arms and legs. He lives through all of it until his throat gets shredded by two Z mouths.

"The roof," Steph says. "That one fell from the roof."

We don't need orders and we don't need directions. We hit the stairs and sprint up to the roof. The sun is starting to go down by the time we get to the edge and see a cable stretching from the courthouse building to a different building across the street. The cable is just above a window and looking out of the window is one of the deaf kids.

She points up at us and claps her hands together, letting the blind kids know where we are. Then she's gone. Lost in the shadows of the building.

"Shit!" Steph shouts. A bunch of Zs below moan and groan up at her. "Oh, fuck off!"

"We have to go," Froggy Girl says. "Those Zs. Those are Doyle Zs. They sent them here. The Doyles followed us."

"Great," Audrey says as she scans the street for signs of living humans. "We know what that means."

"They have the tunnel cut off," Marcie says. "They're going to try to drive us out into the street."

"We can take those Zs," I say after a quick undead head count. "Not a problem."

"Then we better get to it," Steph says. "Time to bug out."

"You mean we're leaving?" Antoinette asks as we sprint to the stairwell door. "Getting the Humvees and going?"

"What about the kids?" Audrey asks.

"Fuck the kids for now," Steph says. "We don't have time to play games with crazies named Doyle. We get the Humvees, get out of town, and wait. Maybe the kids will leave soon and we can catch them out in the open instead of playing hide and seek in this shitass town."

She yanks open the stairwell door and we all hear the shot as it hits her.

Steph falls back, a large hole in her forehead, blood flying everywhere.

We scream. As one, we sisters scream.

Then we hit the stairs and open fire.

Chapter Seven

With a sister dead behind us, you'd think we'd go all crazy and shit, but we don't. We hit those stairs and do what we do best: kill some shitfucking assholes. This is how sisters deal with death. We make more of it.

The Doyles have no idea what hits them.

It's like surgery. That's what John always says. Surgeons don't just hack away at a body, they have to target the exact spot for the first cut then be thinking ten steps ahead to the next cut and the next. Your mind is locked onto what you're doing in that moment, but your subconscious is planning the next step. You go on skill and let instinct guide that skill.

His words, not mine.

My words would be: you shoot the first shitfucker then shoot the next shitfucker then shoot the shitfuckers after that and don't get yourself shot while you are shooting shitfuckers. It's pretty simple.

That's what we do.

I'm on point with both pistols up and firing. I have a bead on the first shooter, probably the one that took down Steph, and I put two slugs in his chest then one between his eyes. My attention moves to the next guy, but I don't have an angle so I dive to the floor and roll out of his line of fire.

Audrey comes in after me and she takes down the next guy, moves out of the way for Antoinette, and she takes the third guy. I'm back up and leaning over the railing, my pistols searching for guy number four. He pops his head out to see what's up. Guess what? I'm up and he's down because I blow his shitfucking head off.

Fifth guy makes an appearance and this guy has a shotgun so shit gets messy. 12-gauge buckshot. Stupid in a tactical situation, but not a bad idea in a defensive situation. And this shitfucker is on the defensive since he's now all alone and has four very, very, very pissed off rage chicks coming for him with automatic weapons.

And blades. If I catch this shitfucker alive, I am so gonna use my blades on his ass. I will also use my blades on his cock and balls. Possibly his toes and fingers, but mainly on his cock and balls. Snip, snip, motherfucker.

He is firing wild, just pointing the shotgun behind him as he races down the stairs.

"There'll be more down there waiting!" Marcie shouts as we sprint down the stairs, our feet only hitting every third or fourth step.

"That means more to kill!" Audrey shouts back.

"Roger that!" Antoinette yells.

"Fuck yeah!" I scream as we keep chasing the shotgun Doyle.

I assume they're all called Doyle. If this town is fucked up enough to have a bunch of Inezes then it is gonna have a bunch of Doyles. That's how crazies work in the apocalypse. Stupid, shitfucking crazies.

Second floor door bursts open and a shirtless man that has to weigh like four hundred pounds comes out like that Rambo guy from that movie when I was a kid. He's got an M-60 machine gun in one hand and he's feeding the belt of cartridges into it with the other. The concrete around us turns into shrapnel and we all throw ourselves over the railing and fall the last few feet to the ground floor.

The fat guy stops shooting and actually says, "Huh?" before he looks over the railing to see where we've gone. He does that. He looks over the railing. Doesn't shoot at us, just looks. Hard to say which one of us fires first, but it don't matter in the end. His head turns to mist and he tumbles down after us, machine gun gripped in his dead hands.

"Dibs!" Audrey yells and slings her rifle as she yanks the M-60 from Dead Fat Boy's hands. She checks the action, makes sure the belt isn't tangled, and aims at the door to the first floor. "Ready!"

Marcie yanks the door open and Audrey opens fire. She walks slowly from the stairwell, spraying bullets everywhere. Marcie was right, they are waiting for us. Close to a dozen men, all with automatic rifles or shotguns, start to dance and scream as they are ripped apart by heavy caliber slugs.

Once there is room, we follow after Audrey, laying down some backup fire, making sure the ones that didn't go down right away for sure go down next. Blood splatters everywhere. The first floor is nothing but a pool of red by the time Audrey's M-60 clicks empty and she throws it aside.

"Where's Froggy Girl?" Audrey snaps, spinning about with her rifle back in her hands.

"Here," Froggy Girl whispers as she peeks her head out from the stairwell door. Her eyes go wide as she sees the corpses. "Oh…"

"Fucking A yeah, oh," Audrey says and points down the hall to the basement door. "How many Doyles are coming?"

"What?" Froggy Girl asks. "I don't know."

"How many Doyles are there?" Audrey snaps, her rifle pointed at Froggy Girl.

"Lots," Froggy Girl says. "More than I can count. There's always Doyles around. Can't ever get away from the Doyles."

"Fucking useless," Audrey says.

I think she's gonna shoot Froggy Girl, but she lowers her rifle and looks over at the rest of us.

"We gonna leave her here?" Audrey asks.

"Please don't!" Froggy Girl says. "You killed all the Inezes! If you leave me—!"

"Shut up!" Audrey shouts. "I'm not talking about you!"

I stop what I'm doing, which is stabbing Doyles in the brains. Just in case, you know. I look at the other sisters then we all look up at the ceiling. Up at Steph.

"If there are a ton more Doyles then her body will only slow us down," Marcie says.

"But it's Steph," Antoinette says.

"It's Steph," I say.

"It's Steph," Marcie agrees and nods at Audrey.

"Antoinette? You and Marcie go up and get her. Take the kid along," Audrey says.

She's taken over for Steph. None of us argue because it's how things work for us. One falls and another steps up. No questions. No egos. We ain't dumb guys. We don't measure dicks and puff up our chests. Shit needs to be done so shit gets done. Audrey is getting shit done.

"El? You're with me," Audrey says. "We make sure these Doyles stay down and cover the ways in and out of this floor."

Antoinette, Marcie, and a reluctant Froggy Girl, head back upstairs to get Steph's body as I continue stabbing the shit out of some Doyle skulls. Audrey falls in behind me.

"I don't like the idea of going back down into that tunnel," Audrey says.

I look up at her after jamming my blade through a Doyle's left eye and nod.

"They're waiting," I say and tap my nose. "I can feel it."

"Me too," Audrey says, her eyes locked onto the hallway that leads to the basement door. "We step one foot through there and they'll tear us apart."

"Maybe not," I say and point my blade at the bodies around us. "We're pretty good at tearing too."

"They'll have position and I'm guessing they'll have numbers," Audrey says.

"One way to find out," I say and smile. It's my Elsbeth Has Gone Crazy smile.

"El, no," Audrey says as I start walking down the hallway. "El!"

"Just gonna have a looksee," I reply and put fresh magazines in my .45s. "Not gonna start anything, just a little looksee."

"Shit," Audrey growls and follows me.

We get to the basement door and listen, each of us on one side of the door. No way we're putting our ears right to the door. That's how dumbasses get shot. Make too much noise and anyone on the other side starts in with the bang bang bang.

Audrey frowns at me and shakes her head. I don't hear shit either. I tap the butt of one of my .45s against the door and we both cringe back, ducking and covering our heads, ready for the bang bang bang. Nothing happens.

My turn to frown and shake my head. I reach for the doorknob, but Audrey grunts and I pull my hand back. She smacks the door as hard as she can with the butt of her rifle.

Oh, here comes the bang bang bang.

The door is shredded by automatic gunfire. Shredded. Shred. Ed.

We run.

The door is nothing but splinters behind us and we sprint into the lobby, getting around the corner as fast as possible as the bullets coming through the door keep on flying and tear up the hallway. I start picking up as many weapons as possible and piling them next to me as Audrey drags bodies to the head of the hallway, tossing them on top of each other like a dead flesh barricade.

A bullet whizzes past her and she cries out. Not in pain, but in rage. Audrey can get really pissed off if she wants to. It looks like she wants to.

The door to the stairwell opens and we glance over to see Antoinette giving us a What The Fuck Is Going On look.

"We knocked!" I shout at her over the gunfire. "I think they are coming in!"

She hits the ground and drags Steph's body out of the stairwell with Marcie and Froggy Girl on the ground behind her. They crawl their asses over to our flesh barricade and stay low as the bodies jump and jitter from the hundreds of bullets coming at us.

I count in my head and it's five minutes of non-stop shooting before the last shot goes quiet. My ears are ringing and I can tell by the way the sisters yawn and shake their heads that theirs are too. Froggy Girl just looks like she needs to take a shit. Her face is all bunched up and her eyes are filled with tears.

"We use theirs and save ours for the street," Audrey says as we pick up the Doyles' weapons and get ready. "Empty everything down that hall then make a break for it out the front doors."

"Steph?" Marcie asks. "We going to leave her here now?"

"No," Audrey says. "Yes."

"That's confusing," I say. "Use your words."

"We're leaving her here, but not as some corpse," Audrey says. "Decoy."

We know exactly what she means. I get to work on it and grab Steph's corpse. I sit her up, put a rifle in her hands, and then set the grenades. It's tricky to prep grenades to blow without blowing yourself up too. I'm good at it. I know how to set traps. Not because of Foster's training, but because of my years hunting people as a canny. Use what you know and move on. No guilt.

"Ready," I say.

We look up over the flesh barricade and see men start to come through the annihilated basement door. Some are dressed in fatigues, some in just normal clothes. They all have automatic rifles up and aimed at us.

We open fire.

The three men on point lose their heads right off. We drop them fast and take aim at the second row, but those guys don't wait around, they dive to the floor and roll into the empty offices along the hallway. The third wave take a knee and return fire, making us duck back behind the flesh barricade.

The barricade bodies shudder against us and some nasty fluids start pouring out onto the floor. Blood, shit, piss, whatever else. Probably stomach yucks and that crap. I think the guy right by me had burritos for lunch. Bad burritos.

When there's a break in the shooting, I'm ready. I prepped a surprise for the Doyles.

"Don't shoot!" I yell in a deep, man's voice. Kinda. It sounds like a woman doing a deep, man's voice. But that's cool. "Don't shoot!"

I have a dead Doyles' head on the end of one of my blades and I stick it up over the barricade for his bros to see.

"Put the guns down, bros!" I shout. "They's just lonely old women looking for some long-time lovin'! No threat at all! Come and get some, bros!"

"Really?" Marcie whispers at me, looking shocked.

That makes me happy. They've known me long enough that I didn't think I could shock any of them anymore. I wiggle the puppet head at her then turn it back to the Doyles.

"Come on, bros! Can't have a party if you kill all the pussy!" I shout.

"Jesus," Audrey says. "You are fucking sick in the head."

"Thanks," I whisper.

"You fucking cunts!" one of the Doyles yells down the hallway. "You're gonna pay for that!"

"No need to pay, bros! These bitches be giving it away!" I yell in my man's voice. I bob the head up and down, moving it back and forth. "Ooh, baby! Yeah, that feels good! Give it to me hard!"

"You got that backwards," Antoinette says. "He'd be giving it to you hard."

"Oh, shit, right," I reply and clear my throat. "I, uh, mean, I'm giving it to you hard!"

"You fucking whores!" another Doyle yells. "We're gonna hurt you! Hurt you right where it hurts!"

"That guy sounds like you, El," Audrey says. "Hurt you where it hurts. You two should hang out later."

"Fuck you," I laugh then flick the head off my blade and let it roll down the hallway at the Doyles. "Best head ever!"

They open fire again, but we're already crawling to the front doors. They're all boarded over and shit, but that doesn't mean a damn thing to us. If boarded-over doors were really a problem then no one could get in or out of a building in the apocalypse. We'd all just be standing in the streets and on sidewalks with our tits in our hands. Shit be boarded up everywhere.

Antoinette pulls a small pry bar from her pack and gets to work as we turn around and give her some covering fire. The hallway is at an angle to the front doors, so our bullets really just tear up the wall, but it lets the Doyles know we're still in the game. They're firing back at us and tearing up a wall a few feet from the front doors.