Zombie Theorem (Book 1): The Culling (15 page)

“Let’s skip some floors and go to 35, we’ve been locked in this building way too long and I want out faster.” I answered and Maggie agreed.

We took our positions and slowly made our way down the stairs. As we came upon bodies we pulped their brains to give us security. Maggie made a point that she needed to help more and took a couple herself. On her first one Brian stood guard as I walked her through the process.

She was reluctant at first but sucked up the will and shoved home the spike. I told her to push harder, and she leaned into it till she felt something give way. She stirred her weapon and then pulled it out and wiped it on the remaining clothes of the dead body. I noticed she didn’t show any emotion but this had to have eaten a little part of her soul. I know because my soul seemed a little bruised from the things I had to do. I patted her shoulder and gave her a thumbs up.

She gave a little smile and we moved on. We ignored most floors and continued to move on. We had yet to run into anything alive or a zombie trying to attack us. Once we got to the 35
th
floor we stacked up and prepared to enter.

Maggie walked up and took the latch but it would not open. Brian then reached out and gave it a shot. “Locked up tight, let’s move on.”

Floors 34, 33, and 32 were also locked up tight. I checked my watch and noticed it was late and the dark would be encroaching soon, making it difficult to clear floors.

“It’s getting late we may need to move on faster. Floor clearing is about to become hard with just a flashlight.” Brian grunted his agreement and we picked up the speed to the 31
st
floor. Brian reached out and the door latch moved.

He opened the door quickly and moved in. We were lucky this floor was also under construction. We piled in and secured the door quickly and cleared the space. Which was not hard since it had just been demolished and only one wall was left standing. There was a man’s urinal only with no concealment.

“Well a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do. Why don’t you fellas go first.” Brian and I took care of business and walked away to give Maggie some privacy.

We found a stack of sheetrock on the floor and a couple of bags of insulation. We moved them around to make our new little haven just that much more comfortable. Maggie came back looking a little sheepish. She sat down on our new little nest and gave us a smile. “So what do you think we should do next?”

I opened my bag and handed out some food to everyone. Brian disappeared and came back with a case of bottled water. “Found this when we first came in. Union rules for construction says water has to be present on job sites.”

Maggie grabbed one and drained half of it quickly. We all sat down and rested our weapons in a pile nearby. Brian put the gun down and I was shocked, I had forgot we had it. “You guys have a gun? Why aren’t you using it? It’s gotta be easier than using these spikes and bats.” Maggie enquired.

Brian smiled at her. “A gun is very loud and would be like a zombie dinner bell. Plus, we only have 21 bullets so we don’t have much.”

Maggie blushed. “Yeah ok, I got it. Sorry I’m not really into guns.”

I burst out laughing and punched her lightly in the shoulder. “Maggie after what you have done, I would not call you a little girl. You got that Linda Hamilton from the Terminator kinda thing going on.” I gave her a compliment and she took it as what it was.

She raised her arms and showed off her biceps. “I do work out, and am blonde.”

Brian laughed and shook his head at us. It was getting dark fast and, as soon as we finished our meal, we found a place in our nest to bed down.  We turned the flashlight off to save the batteries.   I used my back pack as a lumpy crappy pillow and soon was sound asleep.

This time I didn’t dream, I was very grateful to say the least. When I woke up Brian and Maggie where both fast asleep. I rose and found my way to the urinal. I relieved myself and walked over to a window near our nest. I placed my head against the window and watched the city below. From our floor I could see more of the street finally. It was covered in rescue and police vehicles. Hope blossomed in my chest.

I ran back over and tapped Brian’s foot. He came awake instantly. He looked over at me, questions in his eyes. I motioned for him to follow me. He did and we made our way to the windows. I pointed down. His eyes widened and the biggest smile I have ever seen lightened his face.

“Holy fuck, that is what I was hoping to see. Should we wake Maggie and show her?”

A voice made us both jump slightly. “Show me what?” A sweet melodious voice came out of the dark.

I walked over and took her hand and led her to the windows. I pointed down and she cupped her hands on the window looking to the direction I indicated. “Oh god finally!” She jumped up and down doing a little happy dance.

“We’re not saved yet. We have no idea how long the responders have been here already, or how long it will take them to get to us.” Brian informed her. No matter what he said Maggie kept hanging onto her joy and hope. I on the other hand agreed with Brian. Why haven’t they made contact? What kind of roadblocks are they facing? Too many questions not enough answers.

“Let’s go sit down and have something to eat and drink. Maybe we can keep going down until we run into help.” I suggested and hurried everyone over to the nest we had built.

We all ate breakfast and enjoyed some water. We stayed quiet and in our own heads until Brian spoke up. “So what does the group want to do? Stay put and hope we get rescued soon or get our shit together and rescue ourselves?”

The sun had just broken the horizon and its rays started shining onto the floor.

Chapter 19

Reynolds stopped me at that point of my story. “You keep talking about this person Maggie, but I have nothing in my files or reports about her. What happened to her?”
I stayed quiet for a bit staring at the table, unshed tears coming to my eyes. “That is in my story, I’m getting to it. Can you tell me though what’s the status of Brian?”

Reynolds picked up his cellphone and made another call. “What’s your ETA with Mr. Leeder?” Reynolds listened for a while and got a thoughtful look on his face. “Understood swing west then north and get here, run the sirens.” He turned off the cell and placed it on the table. “Another 20 minutes or so. The streets are becoming hard to drive on. Seems this riot on Folsom may be growing and spilling out on to other streets. This is sounding eerily like one of your dreams. Let’s just hope it doesn’t end the same way.” He looked at me over his glasses.

“I am afraid all of this is going to get worse and worse.” I looked Reynolds in the eye and asked the question that was on my mind. “If this does happen, the way I’m sure it’s going to happen, do you have any plans to get us out of here? Or do Brian and I need to find our own way out of this city as it falls down around our ears?”

Reynolds did what he always did when I confronted him. He put all of his stuff on the table, took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Dan, I don’t have an answer for you right now. But if things go down I will do what I can to help.”

“Like weapons?” I pushed.

“I’m not supposed to give out weapons to civilians but if things get as bad as you say, we will look into it then.” Reynolds stared at me for a while making me uncomfortable.

Chapter 20

“My choice is to keep making our way to rescue. If they have been here for a while, and still haven’t gotten to us I suggest we keep going.” I drank some water and looked over our little party.

“I’m new to this group so I will follow you guys, but it seems safe here on this floor and we could just hang tough.” She said and hid her look behind her water bottle.

We both looked over to Brian. “You know how I feel. The sun is up let’s stop being lazy little rotten crotch Susie’s and get a move on.” He stood and geared up.

While I geared up, Maggie took off to the urinal to take care of business. I stretched out my back and shoulders and met Brian’s eyes. He said a lot with that look. I read fear, something I hadn’t seen before. “What’s bugging you big man?” I asked.

“The more we go down the more we are going to run into zombies and maybe other people. That means something can go wrong. Just keep a sharp eye out and let’s move slowly.” He answered before Maggie came back.

She walked up and I whistled out loud smiling. She had wet and brushed her hair out using her fingers and a piece of string, she found, to put it in a ponytail. She was also wearing a pair of old work boots she must’ve found, which looked silly since she was wearing a blue skirt that rested just above her knee.

“Thank you Dan, I’ll take that as a compliment. Oh and someone here has small feet like mine so I have new boots.” She kissed my cheek and giggled.

I shook my head and started toward the door. Maggie caught up to me and showed me her new weapon to add to her spike. It was a big iron claw hammer.

“Now I can go all smashie on these things too.” She winked and stepped back. I shook my head and rolled my eyes at her.

We lined up and I opened the door and Brian shot past me into the stairway. A zombie male had been standing right there and was about to take a bite out of me before I could react. Brian booted it in its chest so hard it flew back and landed on the stairs going up. Brian moved quickly and bashed its head in easily using his handy bat.

              I stepped out and guarded the down stairs access and waited for Brian to come over so we could form up. Maggie snapped on her light and Brian took my position as I stepped back. Maggie moved in front of me and we took our assigned shoulders. We moved down the stairs a little faster than I thought was smart. We walked through another killing ground and we all took our time taking out the 15 dead bodies. Maggie even took a couple out by herself.

We reformed and worked our way down the stairs. We stopped in front of the door on the next floor. Brian put his back to the wall and brought us in so we could talk quietly. “I say we keep going as fast and as far as we can, 30 more floors. I say we stop on the 20
th
and see if we can take a break there.”

I nodded yes and Maggie shrugged her shoulders saying sure. We reformed and walked further down. When we arrived on the 25
th
floor I could hear growling and moaning coming from below us. I reached forward and tapped Brian. He nodded his head agreeing with my unspoken word. We went to the door on this floor and made our way into the offices.

We cleared the lobby, but the floor looked so different than the rest we had visited. No lobby doors and looked like a cube farm with maybe two offices at the far end. Time to change our rules of clearing the floor. This has got to be a call center I thought. Brian stood tall and could see over the first couple of rows of cubes. “I’m going to take the left side; you and Maggie go over to the right by the windows and clear that area. We can meet up over there by the offices. The doors are closed so let’s assume someone or thing is in there.”

Maggie and I nodded our understanding and Brian cut left walking away from us. I gestured Maggie to get behind me. I walked to the right and walked down the last aisle. I stopped in mid step and whispered to Maggie. “I’m going to be looking down the rows I want you to keep looking forward so you can warn me if something comes at us.” She squeezed my shoulder in understanding.

Each row we went past I stopped and paused for a second to verify nothing was on the floor or hiding under the desks. We would then move on and cleared each one the same. We came to the middle row and I put a hand out to stop Maggie. There was a body lying on the ground face down in a puddle of blood. I made my way over slowly and when reaching the body, poked it in the head with my bat. It was a woman in a short black skirt and a tan tank top. She didn’t move or twitch. I stuck my bat under and tried to roll her over but was having a hard time moving her. I dropped my shoulders handed my bat to Maggie and reach down grabbing the woman by her shoulders and slowly rolled her over. Her eyes popped open and a scream exploded from her open mouth. She reached up quick and grabbed my shoulders trying to pull me down to her mouth. I couldn’t grab my weapons and knew I wasn’t strong enough to fight back. Suddenly a spike appeared and jammed it into the zombie’s eye. I closed my mouth and eyes and turned my head to stop any fluids from getting in my face. Suddenly the zombie let go and fell to the floor. I reached down and pulled the bottom of my polo shirt up and wiped the side of my face clear of any fluids. Suddenly a bottle of water was being poured down my face.

“Thank you but you need to make sure we are ok I got this.” There was a sweater on the back of the chair and I used it to clean my face completely. I looked down and saw the zombie was missing its nose and one cheek.

Once my face was completely cleaned I stood and took my bat back from Maggie. I nodded my thanks and Maggie offered me a beaming smile. So lesson learned, no rolling bodies over. Just go all bashie on the head with the bat. We slowly started walking again down the aisle. I looked up and saw Brian was way ahead of us. Everything else was clear and we met up with Brian who was leaning against a wall.

“How many did you have to take out?” He asked while staring at my face.