Z-Risen (Book 3): Poisoned Earth (12 page)

08:35 hours Approximate

Location: Just outside of Oceanside

Anna’s gun boomed again from upstairs. Then Roz opened fire. I held my handgun nice and high, ready to shoot anything else that twitched. I tried hard not to think about the man I’d just killed.

Jesus, but it had been him or us, and he hadn’t exactly wanted to sit around and sing campfire songs. This guy could have been a Reaver and wanted to kill us and take our supplies. Worse, what if he'd got ahold of Christy? I didn’t want to contemplate what crazy men might have done to her.

Joel fired a half dozen times. I ignored his advice and moved out onto the porch so I could see what he was firing at, but his form had disappeared. I backed up and kept myself in the little bit of shadow the roof provided.

Anna fired again.

“One down,” she called.

I studied the street, gun raised, looking for targets. The only thing that stood out was the body of the bad guy I’d taken out. I drifted to the other side of the unfinished porch and kept a lookout.

I glanced over my shoulder repeatedly as I waited for one of the attackers to come back.

Joel’s gun sounded a few more times.

“Another one down. Anyone left back there, just throw your gun out and run,” Joel said.

Someone returned fire.

Roz shot back and there was a scream.

I decided that I’d had enough sitting there, and hopped down off the porch. Then I hit the fucking ground as something exploded near my head and took a chunk of wood out of where I’d just been crouching. Had I not moved, I’d probably be dead.

A shape ran from the back yard. I managed to lift my gun and fire once. The man spun to the side and dropped his gun. It clattered across the sidewalk.

More shots from outside, and rounds kicked up dirt near the fleeing man. He tucked his head and ran toward me, but hugged the side of the house.

I dropped to my belly hard enough to knock the wind out of me. The shot I’d gotten off had been nothing but luck. As the man came alongside me, ten feet away, I managed to struggle to my knees. He froze in place and lifted his hands in the air. One of them dripped blood from where I’d hit him.

“Please, man. I didn’t even want to go, but they told me I had to or they’d kick me out,” he said.

The man turned out to be a kid, no more than eighteen or nineteen. He had a scraggly beard
that looked more like a bunch of pubes. Tears streamed down his face as he moved past me.

“Clear up,” Anna called.

“Clear down,” Joel said from the other side of the house.

“Please, just let me go. I swear you’ll never see me again,” the kid said. “It’s bad out there and we didn’t have a choice. You’d do the same thing, right?”

“Wrong,” I said and shot him.

He looked surprised for a split second as a red hole appeared above his eyes. He fell back in a heap and didn’t move.

I exhaled and put my back against the wall. The shakes kicked in, and that was how Joel found me.

###

08:35 hours Approximate

Location: Just outside of Oceanside

“Do I even need to say it?” Joel asked me later.

We’d dragged the bodies from the back of the house and placed them side by side in the front yard.

“I know, it was them or us.”

“You did the right thing. For all we know the kid might have gone back for reinforcements and then burned us out.”

“What makes you think there aren’t more of them waiting to move on us?”

“I don’t know, but we’re entrenched now. I thought we could stay here a few days, but I think we need to get the fuck out of here in a few hours. We should rest up after we move the bodies,” Joel said.

“Why move the bodies? There are enough corpses around as it is.”

“Don’t want someone seeing fresh dead and wondering what went down here,” Joel said.

“Yeah, no sense in telling more raiders to keep away.”

“I was thinking of shufflers,” Joel said. “We don’t want them to wonder if this is a house ripe for the picking.”

“You make a lot of sense. Let’s get them into another house,” I said.

We tossed their backpacks into the middle of the yard. Joel and I went through pockets, but there wasn’t much to find. A pocketknife, some coins; one guy had a wallet with a few dollars inside. He even had pictures of a family, but he wasn’t in any of them. For all we knew, he might have lifted the wallet from someone else.

We came up with a few guns, including a .45 without any ammo. The man I’d shot across the street hadn’t returned fire because he was out of rounds. The kid had even less on him, but we found two fifty-round boxes of 9mm in a backpack. Christy took the ammo and added it to our stash.

Roz and Anna kept watch while we took the bodies and dragged them into the house. Joel had torn off part of the tarp that was used to cover the truck. We rolled each body onto the heavy plastic, dragged them up the stairs, and tossed them in the living room. The house was much like ours: unfinished, with rolls of carpet, siding, and paint left in neat rows along the walls.

Once we had put the five in a row, Joel and I did the dirty work and put a knife through each skull except for the kid I’d shot. The bullet hole above his eyes stared back at me rudely.

They were dead, but was it possible they’d rise if they'd been bitten by Zs? None of us wanted to find out.

“Remember that TV show about zombies?” I asked.

“Yeah, I never saw it,” Joel said.

“It was all drama and zombie killing. I guess they got that part right.”

“I never cared for all that shit. Give me a good Bruce Willis or Danny Glover action flick over some weekly drama about emotions and monsters of the week. I like it when bullets are flying,” Joel replied.

“I’m getting too old for this shit,” I said, and planted the knife in a dead guy’s eyeball. It stuck, and I had to hold his face to pull the blade out. I half-expected the dude to open his good eye, unhinge his mouth, and bite off part of my hand, but he was well and truly dead.

Joel snorted. “Welcome to the party, pal.”

His blade went in and out of a head a lot easier than mine.

“There’s going to be a lot more of this, isn’t there?”

“As supplies dwindle and the Zs increase, yeah, there’s always going to be a bad guy looking to take what’s ours. We need to always be vigilant.”

“Goddamn shame. The death of humanity bringing out the worst in people. Wonder how long until someone gets the drop on us?” I thought out loud.

“Ain’t no one taking us out unless we let 'em,” Joel said.

“Right, because we’re badass action heroes,” I said.

“No, because I’m a Marine and we’re a fighting unit. Look at these assholes. Five of them and none of us got hit. I like those odds.”

“I guess I did alright,” I said.

“Yeah you did, you dumb squid, but don’t get cocky,” Joel said.

“Sure, Han Solo. I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

Joel chuckled.

We slit the plastic covering and ripped it off a roll of carpet. Joel and I rolled it out and used it to cover the dead. As far as burials went it wasn’t the best, but at least these guys were going to hell covered in light blue carpeting.

The rest of the evening was less eventful. We ate, played cards, and tried not to talk about the battle. I wanted to run for the hills, but Joel argued that we’d be better off after a night of sleep. I didn’t draw first watch, and for a wonder, I was asleep in five minutes.

###

03:35 hours Approximate

Location: Just outside of Oceanside

“Creed,” a shuffler whispered in my ear.

I shot up and reached for my wrench with one hand; my other reached out to grab anything else I could get ahold of. I’d been dreaming of mountains of chocolate and ice cream, in that order. Then a Z rose out of the mess and I was stumbling back, and that was how I came awake.

Joel grabbed my wrist before I could swing my fist into his face. He was wiry but strong, I’ll give him that. My heart pounded in my chest as I fought back panic.

“The fuck, man?” I said.

“Keep it down. We got company,” Joel said, sounding like he was in an action movie.

“Like dinner company, or fucking Zs?”

“Dinner. They want to eat us.”

I shook my head to clear away the fog, and wished I had about a gallon of coffee to slug back.

“Shit. Where?”

“Movement all around out there. It’s goddamn eerie, man,” Joel whispered.

Anna was on her feet and checking her weapons. Christy held onto Frosty and alternated between stroking her head and holding her mouth to show her that we needed silence. Roz sat next to a window and peered into the darkness. She’d moved the corner of our improvised carpet-curtain up so she had a viewport.

“Zs are eerie.”

“They are, but these guys are being quiet. It’s like they know we’re here. I haven’t seen anything like it before,” Joel said.

Anna moved next to us and dropped to a crouch. “I count five or six near the back and another dozen at the front. They’re standing around staring at the house.”

“We’re trapped,” Joel said.

“Hold the fuck up,” I said, finally shaking sleepiness from my head. “Are you saying they’re out there waiting for us? Like they
planned
this?”

“Pretty much,” Roz said as she joined us.

“We need to get the fuck out of this place and fast. Frontal assault. We go out shooting, get in the truck, and haul ass.”

“There’s more in the back. I saw them hanging around the outskirts of the yard,” Roz said. “It’s murky, so I couldn’t see them very well.”

Joel dug around in his backpack and came up with his old NVGs. He unwrapped them and pushed buttons, and slid them over his head.

“Batteries low. I’ll do a fast sweep from inside. Stay here,” he said and slipped the goggles over his head.

Joel left the kitchen and moved out. He stopped at a window facing into the backyard and stared.

We’d left most of our weapons out, having done an ammo check earlier. We'd depleted the majority of our rounds escaping the last few encounters. The few boxes I’d picked up from the old woman in town helped, but mainly Joel, since they were for his assault rifle.

Anna dug out a small stash of .357 rounds and she dumped a handful into her pocket. With an 8-round cylinder, she would be able to reload at least one more time.

Roz went over her weapons while I tucked the Springfield XDM into my belt. The wrench was always at hand and never ran out of ammo. I was likely to run out of juice swinging the damn thing before my partners ran out of bullets.

Joel returned. He put a pair of large cans down, then slid the NVGs off and tucked them into his backpack.

“Damn. Probably thirty or forty out there. I lost count.”

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the cans.

“Paint thinner. Time to light up the night so we can get the hell out of here.”

“What, Molotovs?”

“Yep,” Joel replied. “We don’t have cans and bottles, so we’ll improvise. Gather up the empty cans and fill them about halfway. Jam a piece of wadded up cloth inside so it’s good and soaked. Be careful not to sop that shit all over the side. When we light 'em, you need a few seconds to throw.”

“Is this going to work?” Roz asked.

“Better than sitting on our asses and waiting for them to wander away.”

“Dude. How are we going to keep from getting burned? The thinner’s gonna splash all over the place when we try to throw the stupid cans,” I said. “Not to mention Frosty. If she sees fire she might freak the fuck out.”

“Tape. Just a little over the top. Cover the can so the cloth hangs out, but not too tight. Frosty’s too smart to run at the sight of fire. Dog’s smarter than me,” Joel said.

“She is a keeper,” I said and rubbed her head.

We gathered half a dozen empty cans and put them near the back door. Roz ripped a shirt into big clumps while Joel poured.

“Why not wait?” Christy asked.

“What?” Joel said.

“Just wait. They’re dumb Zs, so they’ll wander off soon.”

Joel scratched his head.

“She’s right. Stay inside, chill. Wait,” I said.

More than anything I wanted to lay down and sleep for a few more hours. I rubbed grit out of my eyes and looked at my sleeping mat.

“No. We need to get the fuck out of here. Something is up. I didn’t see a shuffler, but something weird is happening. Zs don’t just hang around in clumps like that.”

Something hit the front door hard enough to shake the side of the house. We went still and waited, wide eyes staring at each other.

The door shook again.

“Right. Plan A: get-the-fuck-out sounds like a winner to me,” I said.

“You got that right, man. We get trapped in here and we’re screwed, so as they say in your branch of the military, all hands on deck,” Joel said.

“You heard the Sarge,” I said, trying to sound badass.

“I’ll crack a window and throw the first can. That should give us enough light to see what we’re up against. After that, we move to the truck. Push any slow fuckers to the ground. Don’t stand around trying to kill them all. We’re interested in speed, people.” Joel looked around our small party.

I nodded and lifted my wrench.

We assembled by the back door with gear stowed back in our packs. We’d have to leave some stuff behind, but I tossed out a few clothes and gave up my sleeping mat in favor of jamming all of our food supplies into my backpack.

Joel held his hand up for silence. I looked outside, but the moon was obscured by clouds, so making out Zs was practically impossible.

Something hit the roof. Then it happened again. A window shattered, and the sound of feet upstairs made my hair stand on end. Then more crashes, like the house was being broken into by a giant hammer.

“Fucking shufflers,” I said.

“Don’t waste ammo,” Joel whispered. “When I start shooting, you all start tossing bombs at anything moving around back there. Move fast to the truck and get it started. Don’t stop to kill. Like I said, speed is your friend.”

“Is that really the best plan? To have a bunch of burning Zs running around out there?”

“It’ll provide enough light to get out. Just don’t let one of the flamers take you down,” Joel said.

“This shit isn’t going to work,” Roz said.

“Better idea?” Joel asked.

“I got nothing,” I said.

Roz just shook her head.

Joel slipped a pair of loaded mags into his kit and moved toward the stairs.

“Joel, what are you going to do?”

“What I do best, muthafucka. Shoot the bad guys.”

Then he was gone.