Zombie Rush 2 (14 page)

***

By the time they reached the road that led to the facility, they had lost three more but gained five, which was how it had been since the day it all started. Solomon started with Charlie, Lester, and three of his coworkers. Now he only knew Charlie and Lester, but they were thirty strong and each looked to them as the leaders. The parking lot was designed to hold twenty cars. The rest was cleared, open field. He went up to the gate and looked down the lane, seeing a guard lying fried to a crisp inside the fence. He must have been infected the first night and touched the fence. Another active zombie was trapped in the guard booth at the gate and was starting to stink like decomposition, but his lust to feed never waned as he moaned and thrashed about inside.

Solomon saw the camera track his progress as he approached the gate. When he was six feet from it, a red light came on with a mechanical warning.

“Caution, this fence is electrified to fifty thousand volts. Anyone touching or trying to break through will be killed instantly.”

“I can see you watching me. Why don’t you just talk to us like human beings?” Solomon said.

“I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to leave this facility immediately, or I will call the authorities,” the human guard’s voice spoke over the speaker.

“There aren’t any authorities for you to call, boy. It’s all gone. Cops, the courts, your job, my wife … all gone. There’s only us. We are the new force in town so let us in and we’ll see how we can help each other.”

***

Jesse was distraught and didn’t know what he should do. No one showed up for scheduled delivery or even to fill the sandwich machine, which was contracted to be switched out every day. It was a union demand on their last contract. He watched as Tony fried himself on the fence and sadly, he was glad. He didn’t need to see these zombies up close. His Internet was down as of the first day when the company server somewhere around Little Rock went offline. He had never been to the main office, so he didn’t know for sure. He was supposed to hear from the main office every four hours but hadn’t heard from them for the last two days.

What he feared would happen—correct that—what he
knew
would happen came to fruition on the third day … the day when the sandwich machine ran out of sandwiches, the glass broken the day before. A gang of rough-looking men and women came from the city. It wasn’t like they were trying to sneak up on him; it was more like they didn’t want to make noise just for the sake of making noise.

Jesse didn’t know what was going on out in the world. No TVs were allowed at work and he wasn’t allowed to bring his cell phone in from the car. All he had was a basic email program built in to their emergency system, and an AM/FM radio.

He followed the goings on in Hot Springs on the small radio and tried to contact them through email since the outgoing seemed to work. But of course, the main office screened all incoming messages before they got to the staff. All he could tell anyone was that he was alone in an environmentally controlled security storage facility. There was not much more to tell other than that. He had a map of quadrants but had no idea what was stored in those quadrants. He wasn’t allowed out of the shack until his shift was done, which was when the door opened. Everybody thought there was someone in Little Rock controlling the door, but Jesse now suspected the door lock was tied directly to the time clock. When his relief checked in, the door would unlock. The only other time would be a fire or natural disaster.

The day the man with the walking stick showed up was a day from his worst nightmares. A part of him wanted to surrender, but he couldn’t even if he tried because of the security of the enclosure.

***

“Come on, bud; come out and talk to us for a couple of minutes. That’s all, just talk. Man, you know me. You told me to get back into the cab of my truck just the other day. No smoking, right?” Solomon pleaded with the man in the guardhouse, trying to appeal to his humanity.

“I remember you. You’re the one who gave me attitude. I reported you to my superiors, and they said you would not be back here again. Yet here you are, off duty, trying to break into a secure facility,” the guard replied.

“Look …” Solomon started, his temper long past lost, but still trying to not make it evident. “We’re not trying to break in to steal things. We’re trying to break in so that we can hide. You don’t know what it’s like out here, bro. The whole city has turned into flesh-eating zombies.”

Jesse paused for a long time, soaking it in. A part of him wanted to let them in, but another part knew that they would run roughshod all over the place and there could be dangerous things inside. He typed out a quick email to Tasha at the radio station. He hoped it would help even though he’d never get a reply. Then he leaned down to the speaker with a one-word reply.

“No.”

“No? What do you mean ‘no’? I’m going to have a car run right through this fucking fence, asshole.” Solomon’s anger-filled shout forced Jesse to push another button labeled “high alert.” He didn’t know what this button did because the complex had everything pre-programmed into it.

Solomon jumped to the side as tire-slashing blades snapped into place, completely surrounding the fenced-in structure in staggered patterns up to thirty feet out.

“I wouldn’t recommend that. I have notified authorities as to your presence, so please just leave.

“Good! We could use some authorities around here. We ain’t leaving, chump, so just get that through your head.” Solomon was so heated he started snapping out orders. “Get some people out in the woods there, Lester, and make sure no zombies are sneaking up on us. And put someone down on that road too. I already see one stumbler coming this way. God damn it, what the fuck, people? Am I the only one paying attention here?”

His eyes landed on Kodiak. Kodiak was obviously her dancer name, but she was unwilling to give up the moniker, so he went with it. Out of the six gained from the club where they originally held up; only three remained. A girl named Candy and a bouncer named Stanley was still with them, and Kodiak; all of whom stayed pretty close to each other.

“Kodiak, have someone take that cube van up that slope so it can get enough speed to pop a hole in this fence.”

“How is it going to get to the fence with all of these tire blades in the way?”

“I don’t fucking know, Kodi; just do as I ask, will you please?”

“All right, I’ll do it. Just back off a bit, will ya, Dean?”

“
Back off a bit
? Are you fucking serious? This is the last place in Benton where we have a chance to survive this shit and some fucking Boy Scout is standing in our way. So I am a little pissed about that right now, okay?”

On any other day, he would have been throwing dollar bills at the tall raven-haired woman just to see a little more skin. Today was not that day. She did, however, have a good head on her shoulders, and he could use some insights. He calmed himself a bit before saying, “Hey, when you get that done, come see me, all right?”

“All right, but remember, cash doesn’t count anymore,” she replied, thinking that he was interested in something totally different than he was.

“Naw, girlie. Not talking about that, at least not until we get through that gate. I need to pick your brain.”

She put her hands on her hips and tilted her head. “That would be new, now wouldn’t it, Dean?”

With that, she turned away, leaving Dean with a view of her retreating backside.

After Kodiak found a driver and set the cube van up the slope from the main gate, she returned to Solomon. “So, what are you thinking?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I’m stumped. It’s just a chain-fucking-link fence; we should be able to get through that without any issues. If we had a grenade launcher or some dynamite we could blow the gate off of its hinges, but we don’t have that.”

Kodiak scanned the fence as her mind worked.

“What are you thinking?” Dean asked.

“I’m thinking through the fence, over the fence, under the fence. Helicopter … which we don’t have. Hang glider, which we also don’t have. Battering ram or explosives, which we don’t have; shovel … we have a couple of shovels.” She held up the one she had been using as a weapon.

“There’s concrete footing surrounding the property. We can’t dig through that,” Solomon said, impressed with her train of thought.

“How deep can that go? Four feet, six feet, maybe eight? I would dig eight feet to avoid zombies. All we need to do is get a couple of us in there, and the guard is toast.”

“Yeah, the little prick deserves to die for putting us through this shit,” Solomon added.

“We’re probably going to need him to explain the facility to us, Dean.”

“Damn, you are smart. Why aren’t you leading us?”

“I don’t know; something about me talking to a group of men vacates their brains of all intelligible thought.” Kodiak then smiled; the same one that always cost Dean an extra twenty at the end of the night.

“I guess there is that, isn’t there? Let’s keep the van thing working in hopes that it distracts boy wonder in there, and we’ll get some diggers on the far side … down where the fence comes close to the woods.”

              “Sounds good, boss,” she said with a smile that suddenly put their relationship on a level he never expected from a woman, let alone this woman.

Chapter Eleven

Ed and Cat

Cat was heading back to a bunk after spending the last few hours up on a lift picking off zombies when she saw the man who was always with Lisa rush through the gate. He was out of breath and with two dogs who looked just as ragged.

“Where is the lieutenant?” she asked.

Skit recognized her and remembered that her dad was a cop that he knew pretty well from back in the real world. “Where is your dad?”

“Dad? He’s over here—c’mon, I’ll take you to him.” She started leading the way, even before she finished the sentence.

Cat stood back to the side and listened as Skit relayed the story of snipers and zombies being released. His friend needed help, but he couldn’t go back out there alone. He was so winded that he didn’t know if he could go back out there at all.

Fifteen minutes later, Krupp made his way to the gate in the same garb he had salvaged from his storage locker the day before. The gear he could find in camp was sufficient, but his own gear was high end and customized to fit him. He snapped his fingers and Tonka, who Krupp had known while he was an active-duty officer, joined his side.

“You stay here and get some rest, Skit. I need to move light, and you look as if you could use some food.”

“Nope, comin’ with ya. I’m reloaded and had a sandwich, so I’m good to go. Besides, you need me to show you the way.”

Krupp shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

He then looked beyond Skit and started shaking his head. “Nope. No way in hell are you coming with us. It’s dangerous out there,” he said to his daughter, who showed up fully loaded, carrying the .22 magnum that Lisa had given her and a couple of Glocks in holsters.

“The hell you say, old man. I either go with you or follow you; that’s the deal.”

“Cat, it’s dangerous out there.”

“I made it to this compound with nothing but a baseball bat and there were a lot more Z’s running around then than now. Besides, I stopped listening to you two years ago when I moved out, remember?”

“I remember,” he said with a barely subdued rage. “And look what happened.”

“The zombie apocalypse didn’t happen because I stopped listening to you, Dad.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see. If you’re coming, then you had better start listening to me again or I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Yah, right, sure you will. But I’ll listen.”

Three living humans and a dog left the compound as Sedge lay sleeping by the chow line set up for canines. Being a bigger dog, he was spent and never really cared for the human events of the world; however, there was a very familiar smell within the compound … very faint, yet still there. He would investigate it later, after sleep and more food.

It took them over forty-five minutes to get back to where Skit could show them the blood-filled enclosures belonging to the equipment operators. Krupp felt his own blood begin to boil as he crawled into the cabs to shut the machines down. These men had sacrificed so much already and risked their own lives in a cause, only to have them snuffed out by some yahoo with a high-powered rifle was many levels of wrong. It still hadn’t dawned on them who was behind this, so they simply started searching and found that all of the buildings’ doors had been barricaded or locked.

Most of the zombies had cleared out, gravitating toward the shots they could hear in the distance. Krupp’s small crew also went toward the gunfire, creeping to within a half block, where they saw a swarm gathered around the barricaded front door of a tenement building. They figured that Lisa would also gravitate toward gunfire. The majority of the zombies clustered by the door where the action was, but their numbers spread out down the street and around the corner.

Krupp keyed his mic, called in their location, and waited for some operators to arrive. He figured Lisa was holed up with the group of survivors who had been caught in the middle of clearing buildings.

“Do you see her?” Cat asked Skit, who was scanning the crowd in the building as well as the zombies to see if maybe she had been bitten and had already turned.

“No, I don’t think she could have gotten back to that group. We had already run across them and helped them clear out a building, but they were too far behind us for her to get to.”

“No, I don’t see her,” Krupp added. “She’s too damn ornery for grouping up like that. She would have people in the upper windows and the roof to clear out more Z’s.”

“Good point, Dad. Now that you say it, I know she isn’t in there.”

The sounds of diesel engines filled the air as the operators Krupp called in arrived. He flagged one down and explained about the snipers, even though there was not much they could do about it. When a sniper had a person in their sights, there was only one result. The operator scanned the buildings anyway before closing his door and heading into the mass of Z’s with his bucket spinning. Blood sprays and the sound of bones crunching filled up the next few minutes as the mass destruction of multiple layers of dead were laid out before them. Cheers from the fighters accompanied the arrival of the operators, and soon Krupp and his group were walking safely up a blood-covered street while a front-end loader pushed bodies into a pile around the corner.

“Not one bullet wasted,” Krupp said with a smile, to which he got no reaction.

They confirmed that Lisa was not among the group of survivors, but they began their search anew. Skit asked, “Hey, where’s Tonka?”

As if on cue, they heard the deep bark of the large canine from a couple of blocks away.

“Damn it, we should have followed the dog,” Cat said.

Krupp shook his head, knowing that he should have known better. He had always been told that a K9 handler had to be trained as much as the dogs were; he just never realized how true that statement was.

***

“You really shouldn’t feel anything, so be careful not to move or we might damage something. You see, people are like their own personal pantry if you do it right. I was never allowed to do it right in the past because of the risk of getting caught and losing my practice. Now I can take my time and do things how they should have been done all along.”

“Like Ally?” Lisa asked as the scalpel slowly parted the skin along her side.

“No, Ally is still too young. Though her fear was delicious, I am not into veal. You, by the way, are doing a remarkable job of controlling your fear because I am sure that you must be absolutely terrified.”

“This is just like when I was hanging out with the boys in the neighborhood on weekends.”

“Ha ha!” Web replied with glee. “I did my research and know that you never lived anywhere long enough to have a group of childhood friends, Lisa. That's what we have most in common. So I think it’s a beautiful thing that we found each other.” His words came out strained as he struggled to fold her skin back over her ribcage.

“I’m just biding my time until the opportunity to rip your throat out arises," Lisa replied. "Don’t consider yourself my friend, or confidant, or anything more than the object that will someday house my bullet.”

“Let’s hope that never comes to pass, Lisa. I want our friendship to last. I left you sober so I can watch as fear breaks you. Most go insane at about this point of the procedure; very impressive, Lisa. Back to Ally; she’s a delightful girl and I will make a point of showering my attentions upon her but not for a couple of years yet. Children scare too easily. We have to let her toughen up. It’s like curing meat; skip one step, and you have nothing but garbage and wasted time.”

“You’re not going to survive a couple of years, Web.”

“Don’t interrupt, Lisa. That’s rude. Now, her mother was a fucking bitch. A plastic whore with a painted-on face. I ate her raw, and to be honest, the meat was a little sour and fatty. You, I am going to be a lot more delicate with,” the doctor said as his bloodied hand reached for a vibration saw that he put to her side.

It wasn’t until the saw hit the marrow that she actually felt some pain, but she wouldn’t show it other than a slight unstoppable flinch. Lisa was going to get out of this mess and when she did, she was going to kill him. She would remain sane until that day and then all bets were off.

She gasped as a rush of cool air filled the inner cavity of her body, causing her to shiver. She saw Web straighten with one of her ribs still surrounded with skin and muscle. He set it gently on an electric grill as his other hand remained at the newly created wound on her side. It only took a couple of minutes before she heard the meat start to sizzle as it rested on the grill above the burner.

“I fashioned a prosthetic just for you. Hopefully it is the right size. I even fashioned these little sponges, which will keep the bones from clicking together. That can be very painful and seems to happen at the most inopportune times. This will also stabilize the rib for proper knitting.”

Lisa tuned him out and stared at the ceiling, hoping for an opportunity to present itself. She wasn’t able to factor in that she was now wounded as the acupuncture needle had blocked all of her pain. It was several minutes before the smell of her own flesh on the grill brought her back to the present to find Web looking at her as if he had asked a question.

“I asked if you knew what people taste like.” She ignored him. “Most will say it tastes like chicken, and the very young ones do. I am expecting you to be more like lamb. Lamb or mutton is closer to the truth. I like to leave the fat on while cooking, it adds flavor and seems to tenderize the meat,” Web said as he portioned out the meat.

“You can’t tell me that you're not curious; I just won’t believe it. My god, you truly are succulent.”

He picked up another piece and started to walk toward her. Ally tried to pull further away, sensing what he was going to do, but her numbed and bound extremities wouldn’t allow it.

“Now open wide,” he said and laughed as Lisa clenched her mouth tight and pulled her face away from the approaching morsel. He grabbed her face with one hand and pinched the hinge in her jawbone, forcing her mouth open, and set the small chunk of meat on her tongue. She started to gag and the small amount of food that was in her stomach rushed out, causing her to choke and cough as she tried to turn her head to the side.

The next few second were a blur; he was suddenly pulling away from her, cursing about a dog. She spit bile from her mouth and looked at the doctor as he grabbed his rifle. Then she heard it.

“Run, Tonka, run!” she shouted, not knowing how he found her or how long he had been out there.

The doctor struck at her with the butt of his rifle, but she managed to pull her head to the side and spit some remaining bile up into his face.

He looked down at her, his mask off, and she saw the hatred he had for her. She realized then, at that very moment, that he wasn’t nearly in as control as he made out to be, and everything she had done made his life more difficult. She laughed and then she screamed and laughed some more.

He raised the gun to try to slam it down into her face again, but the glass on the door was suddenly spraying into the room under a hail of gunfire. The doctor turned and ran. A boot cleared out the rest of the glass and Tonka was hot on the doctor’s trail.

“Oh fuck,” Krupp, who came into the room first, said as he saw her tied to the table.

“The fucking bastard went that way. Kill him, Krupp!”

Krupp nodded and followed Tonka, his rifle in the ready position.

“Bring me his fucking head!” Lisa screamed as she saw Cat follow her dad’s lead. Then her face was filled with the concerned eyes of Skit as he looked down at her, and she started to weep. Skit put his jacket over her and hugged her with genuine regret that he wasn’t there for her. He started to untie her hands.

“I have needles in my back.”

“What?” he replied, not picking up what she was saying.

“I have needles in my spine. Get them out!”

“Okay.” He rolled her over and grabbed the highest one that he saw and slowly pulled it out. She screamed as the pain of surgery rushed through the fog. Another needle lower down caused her to grimace and clench every muscle in her body, the pain increasing with every needle removed.

Lisa forced herself to relax as the next one was slowly extracted, and she shuddered, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. Cat came to her side and grabbed an arm, which Lisa clutched desperately. Her ribs throbbed with her heartbeat and she began to sweat from the pain. Her shaved head dripped water and spittle drained from her mouth.

“Do it!”

Skit pulled the second-to-the-last needle and she felt urine escape and run down her leg. The words of the doctor came back to her.
It must be performed properly or your bowels will release.

“Find me a bathroom, hopefully with a shower.”

Skit went to look, leading with his .45, leaving the last needle in for the moment. He went through a couple of sterile exam rooms and he noticed silicone implant displays and gels as well as Botox advertisements on the wall; he knew what kind of clinic it was and it wasn’t free. The third door down produced a large single hospital bed with a shower-toilet combination. Cat was with Lisa by the time he got back.

Cat wheeled Lisa’s gurney down the hall, and Skit helped her get Lisa into shower/toilet.