Read Zombie Anthology Online

Authors: Anthology

Tags: #Horror, #Short Stories, #+IPAD, #+UNCHECKED

Zombie Anthology (6 page)

BOOK: Zombie Anthology
4.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

    
"Next time a bunch of flesh-eating crazies get loose in the base, Wade, maybe you should have a talk with'em, huh? Tell them not to get near anything important as we blow their freakin’ brains out.” Troy joked.

    
Wade popped his head out from under the hood. “Fuck you. You think I want to go out there into Hell?"

    
"Look Wade,” Geoff moved closer to the jeep, “Troy and I could do it. Just tell us what you need. You don't have to go."

    
"Yes, I do,” Wade said definitively, “Jeremy here'll be all the help I need besides the boy needs to contribute somehow. Why not this way?"

    
Geoff raised his hands, palms open, in a gesture of surrender.

    
Wade tossed Jeremy the keys to the jeep. “Get in and crank her up."

    
Jeremy did as he was told and the jeep cranked on the first try, its engine roaring to life. Troy tossed aside his smoke and moved to push the main door open for them.

    
"Catch you later guys,” Wade said, “We got some shopping to do.” Then he motioned for Jeremy to get on with it and Jeremy drove the jeep out of the complex and down the gravel road towards Canton.

    
As they rode, Wade asked, “So just how bad is it out there, really?"

    
Jeremy glanced over at the burly, little man beside him. “Everyone I saw on my way here was dead, crazy, or both. The power's off everywhere."

    
"No shit, Sherlock,” Wade chided him about the power. Wade turned his gaze away to the roadside for a moment as if collecting his thoughts then looked back at Jeremy. “There used to be one of those large, chain hardware/electronics stores just on the other side of town. Did you see it on your way up here?"

    
"No,” Jeremy answered honestly, “but I know where you're talking about."

    
"You think we can get in and out of it without getting our asses chewed off?"

    
"I don't know. Those creatures… some of them are pretty fast. If they're inside the store…"

    
Wade picked up the twelve-gauge that rested on the seat between them and pumped a round into the chamber. “Shit,” he cursed, “Just another day in paradise, huh, Jerm?"

    
On their way through town, Jeremy had to “floor it” twice as the creatures who had taken up residence in the ruins of the buildings and shops poured out into the streets at the sound of the passing jeep but he and Wade managed get by without any real close calls. When they reached the large parking lot of the store they were after, there were only two creatures milling about as they pulled in. Jeremy parked the jeep directly in front of the store's plexi-glass entrance and grabbed his UZI. He started to open fire on the creatures but Wade's hand smacked his weapon down, causing him to lower it.

    
"Don't do it. You saw how the ones in town reacted to the jeep. The noise will just bring more of them.” Wade pulled a pistol out of the jury-rigged holster on his tool belt and screwed a silencer onto its barrel as the creatures came snarling towards them. Wade dropped each of them with a single shot to their skulls. “Geoff taught me a few things,” he explained, tucking away the gun.

    
Together they shoved open the store's heavy doors and stepped into the darkness of its interior. “I'll just be a minute,” Wade said reaching for a buggy. “You stay here. Only shoot the fuckers if they get too close and you have to, okay?"

    
Wade cocked his head to the side. “And keep the damn jeep running."

    
An eternity seemed to pass before he returned with a buggy full of circuit boards that looked as if they had been ripped out of PCs and other odds and ends that Jeremy couldn't even begin to guess as to their function. About a seven or eight of the creatures were in lot but they seemed to be hanging back rather than charging the pair's position. It was really creeping Jeremy out, almost as if they were waiting for something. Wade tossed the last of his “shopping” into the back of the jeep and hopped in. “Let's get the Hell out of here before they decide they're hungry."

    
"No argument here,” Jeremy said switching the jeep into drive. He peeled out and tried to avoid the creatures as he made for the road. As the jeep neared the exit to the interstate, a second pack of creatures came bounding out the woods to their right, making straight for the jeep. They were much closer than the first group. Wade cursed and snatched Jeremy's UZI up from the seat opening fire into them. Several of the attackers fell from the rain of bullets but the other creatures were now charging across the lot at them too from the other side as if trying to block them in. “Fuck!” Jeremy yelled thrusting the gas pedal all the way down with his foot. “Hold on!” The jeep struck the curb and bounced out of the lot onto the road. Wade looked back behind them at the shrinking figures still giving chase. “That was too fucking close,” he muttered.

    
Amy opened her eyes. She didn't feel completely rested but some sleep was better than none. Eighteen hours had passed since her flight from the docks. She sat up in the backseat of the Toyota she'd finally found after an hour of searching and one nasty encounter with a creature on the interstate.

She had used the car to flee the city proper. Now she was in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. She'd driven for hours until she had found this place. There was nothing around but the road and its surrounding trees for miles and miles.

When she arrived here, she had locked the cars doors up tight and stretched out to get some rest hoping the sound of any creatures who stumbled across her trying to get into the car would wake her in time to deal with them. It had been worth the risk. She felt much better physically but she was haunted by the horror of her situation.

She was alone.

The car was nearly out of fuel and she was down to only five rounds left in her.45.

She missed Katherine.

Hell, she missed the world.

The worst of it all was that she still had no long-term plan of how she was going to survive on her own or where she was headed.

Her flight had taken her south but she didn't know how far, Virginia maybe? She wasn't sure.

Amy figured it didn't matter. One state was just as dead as the next one. She needed to find others like herself who'd made it through the night of the wave without being driven crazy.

She wondered though if she were the last sane woman left on Earth. The thought terrified her. And the creatures… If the cops who'd almost killed her were any indication, some of those things out there were getting smart.

Not normal but thinking. They'd eat you alive in their rage, intelligent or not. The fact made them a hundred times more dangerous. It was one thing to outrun or hide from a pack of mindless monsters and another altogether when they started shooting back and driving cars. What else were the things capable of now? Amy shuddered and pushed the thought from her mind.

She reached up and tenderly touched the wound on her forehead. It wasn't serious but she was worried about infection. She had no water or food much less medical supplies and driving into a city or town to try to locate some was out of the question. Even if she'd been well armed, she wouldn't have tried it on her own.

The big question sat before her unanswered: What do I do now? Using the car was dangerous. It attracted the mindless creatures like a light draws moths and it made her more noticeable to those of them that could think as well.

Going it on foot seemed like a bad idea as well though. On foot, she had no way to outrun the creatures and she certainly couldn't stand her ground and fight. What the hell was she going to do?

    
She unlocked one of the car's doors and got out leaving it behind. Water had been the deciding factor in her choice. Using the car would have given her no way to find the things she required so badly to stay alive other than stopping at a gas station or something of the sort as she drove.

The way she reasoned it, on foot, she might be able to find a stream or some kind of berries or something growing in the wild amongst the trees. She walked off the road and headed into the woods feeling her way carefully in the newly fallen night.

    
Geoff met Jeremy and Wade on the road home about two miles outside the complex. “You done good kid,” he told Jeremy when he saw they were alive and had returned with the parts they had gone after. He ushered them on towards the base. He was staying behind to take care of any of the creatures that might have followed them back. He promised to meet up with them later in the mess and then disappeared into the trees seeming to become a part of the woods themselves.

    
The inhabitants of Def-Con all sat in the meeting room. Currently Wade stood at in the
centre
of the room informing everyone that the base's air system problems were fully repaired and updating the group on the life expectancy of the base's power core. Sheena had already been allowed her rant on how important it was to determine the various trajectories of the wave's fragments before it was too late, not that Def Con had the resources to change anything should it be discovered that a piece of the wave was indeed aimed for the sun.

Finally, Wade finished and Toni took over the meeting. Jeremy had not formally met the communications officer yet so he watched her intently. She was tall and thin, in her later twenties, maybe early thirties, he guessed from her appearance. Her eyes were a bright green and brown hair touched the tops of her shoulders. She spoke softly in a controlled though almost shy voice. Her efforts to reach anyone else in the government, military, or even on civilian channels and the small band frequencies continued to meet with failure. Toni had no answer as to whether that meant they were truly alone in the world or if the after effects of the wave touching the atmosphere simply hadn't cleared enough yet to get out a good signal.

    
Geoff was the last member of the staff to speak. Despite the bleakness of the others’ reports, his was the most unsettling. The number of infected, for lack of a better term for the poor souls turned into mindless, hungry monsters by the wave's secondary radiation, who were wandering close the base was steadily increasing at an alarming rate. Geoff hadn't realized just how much until today.

No one blamed Jeremy's arrival or Wade's “shopping” trip yet it was clear that Geoff thought there factors contributed to the problem. Geoff was not concerned about running out of ammo in the near future or the creatures penetrating the complex, his worries came from the fact that the numbers of the infected could potential reach a point where there would be no way out of Def Con without a bloody fight through the mob gathering around its fencing. Geoff did not suggest abandoning the complex as no one present knew of anywhere remotely safe to set out for yet he made sure that everyone understood the threat of being trapped here for the rest of their lives.

    
When the meeting was over, everyone broke up into their own little clusters to continue private arguments over what should be being done or to share in other ways of coping. Jeremy found himself pulled along with Geoff and Troy, soon finding himself on his way outside to the garage. The night sky was clear and the stars sparkled in the blackness above. There were two of the creatures straining against the fence. They howled and fought harder to get inside, when they saw the trio, shredding and slashing their flesh on the barbed wire.

    
"Didn't you just tell everyone to limit their trips up here?” Jeremy whispered.

    
"Yeah, but there are times and there are times,” Geoff said walking to the fence as he drew his pistol.

    
"Come on,” Troy slid the heavy garage door open and led Jeremy inside. “Forget about them. They're not why we're up here.” Jeremy heard two faint popping noises in the darkness behind him. When Geoff caught up with them, Troy closed the door and hit the interior lights. He waved his arm around like a game show host showing off a prize. “Welcome to paradise."

    
"The garage?” Jeremy said flatly.

    
"It's not the place but what's in it, kid,” Geoff added trying to rub something red and wet off the front of his uniform. Jeremy pretended not to notice.

    
"T-dah!” Troy shouted returning from the rear of the garage with a large jug in his hand. “This is Wade's special home brew."

    
"It'll knock you on your ass that's for sure,” Geoff grunted.

    
"But you could drink in the complex. Why come up here?"

    
"There's nothing like this down there,” Troy turned up the jug to his lips and took a long swig, coughing as it burned down his throat like liquid fire. “And hell, Geoff here would go crazy if he couldn't see the stars. Mankind wasn't made to live in the Earth."

    
"What he means is…” Geoff grabbed the jug from Troy's hands, “is that we'd go crazy if we were cooped up with those suits much longer. All of them except Wade are educated people. Me and Troy here are the last of the grunts if you take my meaning. None of them take him seriously at all and they only listen to me because I saved their asses when the shit went down in there and they know I am the only one who can do it again if the things get in."

BOOK: Zombie Anthology
4.31Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Company of the Dead by Kowalski, David
The Conductor by Sarah Quigley
The Forger by Paul Watkins
The Escape Artist by Diane Chamberlain