Zombie Rush 2 (12 page)

She walked over to Skit after a pickup truck came and collected the brother and sister. Skit sat on the curb, looking out on the blacktop with a dog on either side of him sitting peacefully.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Oh hey,” he replied.

“Is something bothering you?”

He shook his head side to side. “Naw.” Then he nodded up and down before saying, “Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Well … there’s a group of people here clearing zombies out of apartment buildings. Also there are people over there clearing out apartment buildings and office buildings down the street.”

“Yeah, so … isn’t that a good thing?” Lisa asked, not really getting where he was going with this.

“All of these people are accessible to … to him.”

“I know, Skit, but there isn’t much we can do about him right now.”

“So where is he?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not getting you.”

“The only time he is not scheming and setting something up is when he is talking to you. He’s planning something and we’re out here in the open,” Skit said visibly shaken.

“Relax, Skit. He hasn’t had time to set anything up.”

“I think you are selling him short. I’m not going to feel safe until we are back in that compound.”

***

“Re-load, then hold fire; I got these few,” Dean said as he kept mumbling,
god damn son of a fucking bitches who st…
He stabbed out with Shaaka up under the chin of a former postman, visibly bulging the eyeballs from the heavy steel blade entering the brain. He quickly yanked it back to strike out in a roundhouse style swing that plunged the blade through the temple of the one behind the zombie that hadn’t finished his journey to the ground.

He let the blade rest in the skull as he shoved chest high with the buckler, sending another falling back into a third as he swung the club into the skull of a runner who was trying to sneak around from behind the one he had shoved. Crushing his cranium, he sent him flying to the right only to have his place filled by another shuffler. The main group of zombies was still thirty yards back but there were five in front of him that he had to take care of in order to make a break for it. He jerked the blade of Shaaka out of the head he had roundhoused and fallen to its knees.

Chicken shit bastard and his slut who stole my truck and left me out here with two kids and no guns,
Dean continued to mumble as he slammed the buckler back into the zombie at his feet. Just like a jackhammer, Dean plunged his spearhead into one, two, then three more skulls.

He stepped back, releasing the one he had pinned, to snap the knee on the Z coming in from behind. Reversing the spear, he plunged it through its eye socket as he fell while simultaneously hitting so hard across the face it snapped the Z’s neck, paralyzing him.

“Over there!” Dean said and pointed at a hardware store that looked as if it had been raided. There wasn’t an inch of glass in the frames, having been shattered and spread all over the floor. The inside of the store was a chaos of tipped-over shelving, displays and merchandise everywhere, causing them to slow down and pick their way through.

Charlie was the first to get to the back door, opening it in a rush only to slam it shut again. He looked at his dad with big eyes.

“Zombies, lots of zombies,” Charlie said just as a few runners hit the first of the debris behind them.

“Fucking A, where do they keep coming from? This way,” Dean said and directed them down a long storage room filled with shelves of nuts, bolts, pipefittings, and other assorted brick-a-brack. Pulling out every box he could get his hand on without stopping, Dean knocked them to the floor, making it hard for anything to come at them fast from behind. They heard the success of this maneuver as two or three runners hit the small debris, sending their feet out from under them and crashing into the shelf-lined wall.

A set of wooden hand-railed steps leading up to a platform where a door sat unopened came into view. They headed for it and pushed each other up and out the door where Dean slammed it shut behind him. The door opened out on to a flat roof above a garage where they worked on small engines. There was no lock on the outside nor was there anything that they could shove in front of it.

“Dad! Kick it,” Charlie shouted as he held a wooden wedge meant to block the door open when they were out servicing things on the roof. Dean brought his size-twelve steel toe down on the wedge, knowing that it would only slow them down for a second or two but it should also prevent them from opening the door completely so he waited, ready to kill them one at a time as they came through.

He heard the first one hit the door, slamming it hard and struggling against it without the presence of mind to operate the doorknob. On impulse, he brought the sheath of Shaaka down on the handle, breaking it off. He then used his finger to push the turn rod through and out on to the floor behind the door, making it inoperable and keeping the dead inside for a little while longer.

By the time he turned around, Charlie was already being lowered to the roof of a van by Jonah. Dean looked over the edge and saw Charlie take point with his shotgun and four remaining shells. Dean smiled with pride; he was a good boy and tougher than he had ever given him credit for.

They crossed the alley and found the door to the opposing building locked; their only option was to head out onto the main street where the zombies were still filing into the hardware store. They all knew that their survival depended on quick thought and action, so they didn’t hesitate when Dean pointed at a consignment store across the street. He readied Shaaka before they made a dash for it, knowing they’d be spotted by runners almost immediately.

Halfway across the street, Dean stutter-stepped in order to get a runner who had leaped to come down in front of him. He slammed the buckler on its head as it fell while using the butt end of the spear to sweep two more out of the way while he continued to run. It was only seconds until they were up and running hot on his trail. He could almost feel their breath on the back of his neck as he tried to pour more energy into his feet.

Dean had never been one who was considered to be a runner; in fact, his stocky shape led people to believe that he was anything but a runner. He could move when he had to and though he might not be all that fast, he ran powerfully. So when two popped up in front of him just feet from the store and still had two others on his back, it didn’t slow him in the least. He lowered his shoulders and barreled through the corpses in his way, sending them sprawling.

The two behind him were gaining on him but he couldn’t stand and fight without slowing to the point where others would have him, so he just kept running. Charlie jumped out from behind a car as Dean passed and spent two of their remaining four shells on the runners, giving them some much-needed space.

Dean never slowed as he blew through the wood and glass door in the older, brick and mortar building. “Find the back door," he said to the boys as they ran by. He threw an entire shelf with everything from stuffed animals to playschool toys onto its side and pushed it in front of the door. Charlie started throwing strollers and cribs and anything he could lift on top of the shelf before Dean dragged another shelving unit over. He tipped it onto the pile just as two runners hit it full speed, causing the pile to shudder but hold in place. They drew back and hit it again, slightly moving it some more, before Dean and Charlie turned to look for Jonah. They had already made it a habit to check a building first, but there was no time for it; any zombies inside would have to be dealt with as they went along. Since the door had been locked, Dean felt the place was free from marauders and zombies up to this point. Where the present owners were was a mystery they didn’t have time to contemplate.

“Where’s the back door?” Dean asked Jonah.

“There isn’t one. There’s a door to the basement but there are no lights and I can hear something banging around down there.

“Fuck!” Dean said, not caring that the boys heard him swear. He had never been sensitive to that and was even less so now.

“Dad,” Charlie said and pointed toward the ceiling off in the corner. A steel ladder led up to a steel trapdoor leading to the roof.

“Great, another fucking roof,” Dean replied as he headed over to the ladder. Looking up, he could see where a paddle lock was set to lock it but the lock itself was missing.

“Charlie, you first,” he said anxiously as he watched the runners struggling with the debris in front of the door. They only had a couple of seconds before they were in and would be directly between them and the basement—which would be their next option regardless of what was banging around down there. Charlie turned the handle and the door opened to the relief of all of them.

“Come on, Jonah, don’t lollygag.” Dean checked the ladder top when he went through and saw that it was merely a hook over a lip. He let Charlie take care of the surroundings as he grabbed the top of the ladder and pulled it up with them.

“Oh shit,” he said when he closed the door and saw Charlie locked in a Mexican standoff with a woman who held a large pump-action shotgun.

“You might as well put that ladder back and get the hell out of here. This roof is private property,” the woman said nervously.

Dean believed that she would shoot them if too much went wrong. “Just relax, okay? Nobody needs to shoot anyone. Lower you gun, Charlie.”

“Yeah, lay it on the ground right over there,” the woman said, indicating a spot with her barrel.

“No, just lower the barrel, son. Look, the truth is that we would rather be shot by you than eaten by zombies so if you’re going to shoot, go ahead,” Dean said as he scanned the scene behind the woman. It was obvious that they had been living up there since the beginning. They had a bright orange tent set up where another woman sat next to a Weber grill, drinking a cup of what he thought might be coffee. A pile of broken furniture and other wood items sat to the side looking as if they had sacrificed product in order to cook food.

He looked back at the woman with the gun before he said, “I would like to debate things with you but that smell is driving me nuts; what do you have cooking over there?”

“That’s none of your business, mister; it is time for yo—”

“Knock it off, June. Put the damn gun down and let them come over here and get something to eat for Christ’s sake,” said the woman by the grill. June reluctantly lowered her gun. To say the couple screamed lesbian would have been an understatement but Dean didn’t care and was curious to find out if Charlie and Jonah would pick up on it.

“Hi, I’m Mabel; this is my wife, June. So I guess you boys have had quite a time of things? We would like to hear about it.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you. I’m Dean Solomon and this is my son, Charlie, and his friend, Jonah.” Each boy nodded in turn, not showing any reaction to June being called Mabel’s wife.

“So tell us, Dean, what’s going on in the world?”

“Not much to tell other than run and hide. Rescue this person only to see them killed later by a horde and then you get to scavenge and run and hide some more.”

“Hmmm, I was hoping that you would have more news on what is really going on. Have you heard anything about Hot Springs?” Mabel asked.

“Hot Springs? No, we haven’t seen news or heard a radio since an hour after it all started,” Dean said and looked to Jonah in case he had heard anything; Jonah shook his head in reply.

“Oh, well, we heard on the first day a garbled broadcast that some construction workers and cops were trying to set up a stronghold at the Sam’s Club there, but then our batteries died and we don’t sell those so we’ve just been watching the streets ever since.”

“The Sam’s club, huh? Well, if they don’t have tons of guns and a few tanks, I doubt they made it. I haven’t seen any military the whole time we have been running."

“Same here. We were hoping that our orange tent would attract the military, but we’ve only seen a couple of private planes flying by,” June said, jumping into the conversation.

“The only military or cops we have seen want to eat us. I haven’t seen a radio or TV since it started and our smart phones aren’t picking anything up.”

“Yeah, it looks like a truck or something smashed into the tower. We saw it crumble right away and something burned for almost a full twenty-four hours. Hordes of undead went toward the blaze on day one, but they have come back since.”

“Well, that explains why it was easier to move around the first day. I just didn’t think there were that many zombies at that point.”

“There are more every day,” June said. “We saw several people get away the first day—or so we thought—but then on the second day only a couple got away from the zombies. Now you’ve brought them to our door.”

“It was only a matter of time before they found you; even up here. They’re slow and dumb but they’re also tenacious. We have people waiting on us, so we can’t stick around. You’re welcome to come with us if you like.”

“Naw, I think we’ll be good here,” June replied.

“You’re kidding, right? There's nothing here for you except a flat roof,” Charlie said.

“Well, we got the Scooby van down in the garage. We will take that when we get a chance.”

“It is not the Scooby van. The Scooby van was a Chevy—not a V.W.,” Mabel whined. It was obviously a familiar argument between the two. “We have to go with them, June.”