Zombie Rush 2 (18 page)

Like a gopher in its den, a head suddenly popped up from an unseen hole in the ground. It was Tim, the National Guard sergeant. He was up providing covering fire and was soon followed by three more soldiers doing the same.

Lisa tried to pull in next to them so she could cover their retreat back into the hole but was shoved from the man with the spear into the hole as more shooters lined up at the fence and started covering fire for the soldiers that came to her rescue.

“Crawl!” he shouted at Lisa. She did as he was already shoving a soldier into the hole on top of her. Tim was thrown in after that, leaving the man with the spear and two still out there when the mass of zombies hit the remaining three. He moved to push another into the hole but stopped when a zombie latched on to the man’s shoulder with its teeth. He kept firing as more swarmed. A similar scene was unfolding on the last remaining soldier, and the man with the spear dove for the hole, yanking his feet through as hands latched on from behind.

Lisa, with a reloaded Rhino, put a bullet through the heads of the two who had sacrificed for her as the man with the spear worked on clogging the hole with twice-dead zombie bodies.

“Fence!” someone shouted, and the hum of electricity was heard as power was restored to the chain link. It looked like an old-school bug zapper as several Z’s fell on to the fence, their rotted flesh cooking in the last streams of twilight. The air smelled like sour bacon cooking on a low-temp grill.

Chapter Fourteen

Potty Mouths

Skit signaled for Lin Su to bring their truck forward, and then he forced Lisa to sit on the tail end and opened her shirt to look at the wound where her rib had been removed. She was wearing her Under Amour cropped sports bra, but she still felt uncomfortable as everyone watched. The wound had split and a couple of stitches were broken. A Guardsman with a med kit stepped up and started pulling out gloves and gauze as Skit cleaned around the wound.

“That is a little high for an appendectomy scar. What happened?” the man with the spear said as he was walking by.

“Not much, really; just met a cannibal yesterday who likes to store his food on the hoof, so to speak,” she said with a false chuckle. The truth was that
was
how she felt. She was just meat walking around, waiting for him to come and take another bite.

The doctor hadn’t stolen her pride or her self-respect. He didn’t cause her to walk around trapped within her own fear, afraid of the world and everyone in it. Worse, he made her feel like cattle. He made her feel like a lesser being allowed to walk around freely until he was hungry again.

She was going to kill him for that. It wasn’t going to be a quick bullet to the head, either, though she would take that. His was going to be a long, slow arduous task that made him feel as every one of his victims felt, and he would know pain—extreme pain.

“Hey!” she said, stopping the man in his tracks. “Lisa Reynolds, Hot Springs PD. Thanks for backing me up out there.” She held her hand out to be shaken.

He stepped forward and grabbed her hand gently in a paw that completely enveloped hers.

“Dean Solomon. Glad you showed up when you did or we would have been in trouble, pinned up against an electric fence that way.”

“Well, your people got us in here with that hole. That was smart thinking.”

“Wish I could take credit for it. That was all Kodiak. I thought she was crazy, but it worked. Kodiak!” he shouted and signaled to one of the most stunning women Lisa had ever seen. Even through three days’ worth of grime and the distance between them, Lisa could see how incredible this woman was. She moved like a cat as she made her way to the vehicle, all eyes watching her. She wore tight, worn Levis under stained, black, leather chaps. Those matched a leather halter-type top that threatened to gap at just the right moment for anyone who was watching—and everyone was. Her hair was raven black and her features looked to be a mish-mosh of nationalities, marking her as uniquely American. Green eyes so startling they could be contacts made Lisa gasped at the intelligence behind those stunning orbs.

“Hi, I’m Kodiak.”

“Lisa Reynolds, Hot Springs PD. Kodiak, huh? Is that your real name?”

“Real enough for the world we are now in. I figure if I could die at any given moment, I’m at least going to be called what I want to be called. You look familiar,” she said to Skit, who was still working on Lisa, trying to pull the skin so the guardsman could get a stitch in her side.

“Oh, hey, you worked at Bernie’s, right? I was a great admirer of your work there.”

“Oh yeah, I remember. I quit Bernie’s over a year ago and was dancing at the Emporium ever since.”

“Dancer? You were an exotic dancer?” Lisa asked, trying not to show how stereotypically she had typecast dancers.

“Still am—or would be if we figure out what replaces cash. Canned goods won’t fit into a garter, if you know what I mean,” Kodiak said in an obvious attempt at a joke.

“We could use you all in Hot Springs when we are done with this run to Little Rock.”

“Hot Springs! What the hell am I gonna do in Hot Springs or Little Rock?” Solomon interrupted. “We fought for this and we’re staying here.”

“Sorry, not gonna happen. We’re trying to hang on to what’s left of society, and I need you with me,” Lisa said. Instead of reciting her typical mantra, she approached it more casually. “I know you have been out of the loop for a while, so we’ll let some things slide but you all have just been brought under the protection of the US Military.”

“Military? But you’re just a cop who’s trapped here just like us,” Solomon replied, knowing that they didn’t have enough soldiers to break free of the zombies that now surrounded them.

“Only until morning, my friend. Then we’ll clear out this field and be on our way. I’m grateful that you brought most of the zombies from Benton out here to a nice, open area where we can take care of them. The recovery effort is going to require the assistance of everyone who has survived. We might leave a few here to guard whatever is here, but for the most part, you have all been drafted into the service. Welcome to the Army,” Lisa said and waited for the backlash. None came and everyone just stared at her, stunned by her words. Her radio came to life.

“Reynolds, what’s your twenty?” Krupp’s voice came through the speaker.

“We are inside the acclimatized security storage center. The gang of marauders turned out to be most of the surviving populace of Benton, and the non-surviving populace has us surrounded. Over.”

“Are you safe for twelve? Over.”

“Roger that. We’ll get everyone out of sight, and the Z’s should calm down for the night. Over.”

“We lost a few taking over the National Guard Armory. Any potential fighters in the group of survivors you found? Over.”

“We lost two of Tim’s men too. Affirmative on the fighters. They have been beating them to death with clubs up to this point, so it will be a nice change for them to get a new M4 to replace their Louisville’s. Do you have some showers and a chow line set they can use? Over.”

“Yeah, we have a couple at the armory and more in the housing development. You should have enough rations with you to get through the night. Over.”

“Roger that. I’ll touch base at O six hundred. Out.”

“Out.”

She stowed the radio away and looked back to Kodiak and Solomon. She could tell that the mention of a shower had her salivating, but Solomon not so much.

“You can’t just come in here telling us what to do!” Solomon yelled, causing Lisa to put a hand up and turn her head to the side for a second before answering.

“Whoa, Dean. You’re going to have to stand a little bit closer to a toothbrush before you get in my face like that again, I mean … seriously.”

Solomon stepped back, amazed by her casual, cocky nature and looked at Kodiak.

“She’s kind of right, Dean. I mean, we all are in need of some hygiene, but those garlic-stuffed olives you hoarded are not going to win you any close friends, if you know what I mean,” Kodiak said, much to Lisa’s delight.

“Seriously, Dean. I would love to explain things to you in detail when we have time and can tolerate each other’s fragrance. We have some inside info that has let us know that this is more than just your state or country needing you. This is humanity itself who needs you. To our knowledge, you can go two states in any direction and we in Hot Springs are the only sizable force of survivors. I can’t let you go. If you’re not with us, then you are against us. You can guess what happens then, can’t you?” Lisa held his eye the whole time. She never wavered or showed self-doubt, she couldn’t afford to.

“That’s not right!” Solomon couldn’t help but shout.

“No, it isn’t. Nothing is right; it’s all very, very wrong, and I hate myself for being this way, but I have no choice.” Lisa stood and pulled the Rhino out of its holster and pointed it right at Dean’s head. “Make your decision, Dean. I don’t have all night.

Rustling to the side caught her attention, and Lisa found herself staring into the sawed off barrels of an over/under twelve-gauge shotgun. Dean started to laugh loudly.

“Have you met my son, Charlie?” he asked. “You’re a good son, Charlie, I appreciate that. Stand down now though, son. We’re going to hook up with them for a bit.”

Kodiak smiled and Charlie lowered his shotgun.

“Well played, kid. I mean that … good job with everything you did today,” Lisa said with a smile. “Now let’s go find that guard and see what we have here in this facility …”

Thank you for taking the time to read Zombie Rush. I am almost done with ZR3 and hope to have it out in January 2016. If you want more of this story, you can go to my H.J. Harry alter ego and pick up Splinter. Splinter is where this all started and it is also where it will all end if there is such a thing as an ending.

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About the author:

Not much to say really. I am a guy who goes to work every day and has been married to an incredible woman for over thirty years and has always had a passion for the written word. I love to fish and shoot guns as well as work with wood and build things. I was a certified Architectural Technologist but would have gone insane working in an office so I sacrificed the good pay for work that would keep me outside as much as possible. If you wish to know more about me, join me on Facebook at [email protected] . Until we meet again, thanks for reading as much as you are possibly able to and if you read something really good by another author I want to know about it. Friends always recommend the best books.

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