Zombies and Chainsaws (Book 2): Dark Roads (10 page)

Leslie patted her on the shoulder. “Oh, don’t worry, sweetheart, I'm on the crazy train right there next to you. You know what, I’d rather be immune than staring death in the eyes in a daze and getting my damn face ripped off.”

Charlie yelled, “Remember the ride, get your asses moving! Come on!”

They walked down the stairs, and Charlie made quick work of the dead in his path. Each one that came in for a bite got a chainsaw across the face. Once, his gas can slipped too far back, knocking him forward. Losing his balance, he almost fell straight into the dead, thinking quickly, he pushed off the dead with his foot—it was the only thing that saved him.

Joann and Leslie caught him and kept a grip on him when he almost lost his balance yet again. Joann screamed at him, “Would you stand up straight, for the love of God? We aren’t losing anyone else. You need someone to run with? Well, you aren’t going with us if you get bitten, so be careful, would you?”

"I'm not doing it on purpose! Holding all this shit at once and taking out these things at the same time, while they're trying to rip my skin off, is just a
little bit
difficult!"

When they made it to the final few steps, Charlie gunned the saw, taking it left, then right, and then left again, leaving nothing but half heads atop the deads' shoulders. They finally stumbled and lay still, where they would for quite some time to come.

They rounded the corner and headed back toward the entrance, keeping their pace steady so they could take care of the dead, who could come from anywhere without notice.

Chapter 7

Jude stepped back from the window, shaking his head. His legs were trembling, and he was going through a violent set of emotions.

Chuck said, “Are you okay, Jude?”

“No, Chuck. No, I am not okay. I am sick of these damn things. I can’t believe how many people we've lost. Every single damn person we meet, we lose. I mean everyone, it doesn’t matter who."

"So what do we do next?”

“We get the fuck out of here, Chuck, and we head home. We don’t stop until we get there. I mean it: we don’t stop. We don’t pick anyone up, we just go home. We get Maria and Patrick, and then we find somewhere way the hell out in the middle of nowhere.”

“You're singing my song, brother. Get us the hell out of here.” Chuck held up his bad hand and continued, “I think you better drive us out of here, though; my hand isn’t worth a shit.”

Jude looked at the white cloth, which was already turning dark red beneath the duct tape. “You're going to need a doctor, at some point, if that thing doesn’t stop bleeding. Last thing we need is you passing out because you don’t have enough blood." Jude ran back to the kitchenette area and filled up a bag with all the water bottles and snacks they had scrounged. He found extra towels they could use for the hand if the bleeding didn’t stop on its own.

As he came back, he walked by the phone on the floor and heard screaming. He rubbed at his face, shaking his head, and bent down to pick up the phone. Maria was screaming his name over and over again. Jude said, “Whoa, whoa, Maria. Maria, I’m fine. I’m sorry, it’s a long story and I’m not going to get into it right now.”

“Oh, my God, I'm glad you're okay. I thought you were dead when I heard a crash and a bunch of noise, and then heard you and Chuck both screaming at the top of your lungs. It was horrible! Don’t you ever do that again, do you hear me, Jude? Don’t ever, ever, ever do it again!”

“Yeah, okay, whatever. I'll try and keep that in mind the next time we're fighting off zombies. The crash was my ride home
—
we had a helicopter lined up and were going to be there in no time, but unless we can find someone else around here, there won’t be any flying anywhere. We have a truck downstairs, but I don’t know how we're going to get through the horde of the dead surrounding every exit and each hallway in the building.”

“Wait, you have a helicopter? Where the hell did you get one of those at?”

“I didn’t get it anywhere, the news station I'm at had one for their on-scene coverage. The pilot took the rest of our crew up to the chopper and something went to hell in a handbag, because it came down out of nowhere, shattering the windows. The shards of glass would have killed us if it hadn’t been for this table we hid behind. Chuck got a shit-ton of glass in his hand. I was able to pull it out, but it doesn’t look very pretty and it’s going to seriously screw with his range of motion.”

“Well, if y'all find a ride with any other helicopter pilots, you go on ahead and take it. You just make sure he doesn’t crash.”

Jude was about to respond when he heard the echo of a chainsaw in the distance. Jude said, “Look, Maria, I promise you that if it is the last thing I do, I will make it home to you and Patrick. I want you to stay there for as long as you can. If it hits the fan, you get out of there, and we'll go from there. I promise you that I will find you. If you need to leave the house, you just try and get out of town, and stay out. I can drive dirt roads until we find you.”

“You get home, Jude. I’m scared to death
—
these things are just as creepy as hell and I don’t know if I have it in me to be able to take them out in front of Patrick.”

“You do what you need to, tell Patrick that I love him, and I will see you soon.”

Jude hung the phone up, looking back at Chuck, and said, “You ready?”

“Do I have a choice?” Chuck asked.

“Yeah, Chuck. Yeah you do, as long as you don’t have any issues about becoming a fucking zombie.”

“I’m ready, then,” Chuck said.

A scream came from the hallway, along with more growls from a chainsaw
—
a sound Jude would know anywhere. He opened the door, thinking of the possibility of one of his friends still being alive. He looked down the hallway, seeing only ten of the dead in the hallway—not as bad as he had figured it would be. Half of them changed direction, coming for the open door.

Jude backed up, letting them through. Three came for him and two for Chuck. Jude brought up his saw, taking it down through the first man, and threw the chain on his saw. Sparks flew off, and he squinted to keep them out of his eyes. Jude looked at the zombie's head, seeing a metal plate under his scalp. When the man kept coming, Jude grabbed for his axe, but could not reach it, and gripped his machete and hatchet instead.

The dead reached for Jude, and he kicked it back a foot, bringing his machete across the man’s neck, cutting across the first inch of it. Keeping it in front of the other two, Jude brought the hatchet down on the side of the man’s neck until he had chopped through, and only a chomping head lay on the floor.

Jude pushed the body into the other two. It landed on one of them, knocking the dead to the ground, and Jude took the moment to drop the hatchet and arm himself with the axe. When the dead tried rising back up, he brought down the blunt end into its head once, then twice, until he crushed its skull. The third one gripped Jude’s shoulder and he spun around quickly, smashing it in the jaw with the top of the axe and knocking it off-balance to the side. When it righted itself, Jude swung the axe like a bat, connecting the blade end with its jaw and decimating it. Its neck spun enough that it should have snapped.

When it turned its head back around, blood was pooling at its feet from the blow. The dead’s jaw hung loosely when it tried to growl, and swayed from side to side. Jude brought the axe down one more time, lodging it until the blade disappeared into its skull. Jude swung it around in a circle, smashing it up against the wall, and then turned the axe handle until it lost its balance and fell to the floor. He ripped the axe head from its place and brought down the top of the axe to split open the skull, putting it out of its misery.

Chuck said, “Jesus, could you take a lil' longer there, princess?” Chuck brought up his saw, smiling, walking backwards, baiting them. When they started to run for him, Chuck moved out of the way of the first of the dead, putting a foot into its ass and sending it out the window. When the second one reached out to grip him, he brought the blade up, cutting through its arm, and stepped past, bringing the blade back from behind and slicing sloppily through its neck. It fell to the ground, still trying to bite him, and Chuck booted it out of the window to the street below.

Jude said, “You ready?”

Chuck said, “You know, all this chopping we're doing...we need to get us some ninja swords. We could slice and dice right through these motherfuckers.”

“We aren’t ninjas, Chuck.”

“But we could slice their heads right off.”

“Again, we aren’t ninjas, Chuck. We are white boys from Iowa. I’m confident you’d end up cutting something off that you very much want to keep attached to yourself.”

“So you’re saying if, like, we end up going by an office or a business that sells Asian stuff, you’d be upset if I went in and just snatched me one?”

“If we end up finding an Asian store that has legit ninja swords and you really, really want one, Chuck, you knock yourself out. Just don’t forget I'm gonna feel real bad when I need to go and chop zombie Chuck’s head off.”

“Noted, but you're going to feel really dumb when I save your ass with it.”

Jude realized they could do this song and dance back and forth all day long. He grabbed the water and snacks and hung his chainsaw so it wouldn't bounce up against his back. He knew it wasn’t more than a bloody paperweight right now, but still refused to leave it behind. He could fix it at some point, but would have to be patient until they were on the road, or out of this building, at least.

Chuck followed closely behind as they moved through the doorway and back to the hall.

When Jude saw a chainsaw up in the air and coming down quickly, his heart rose in his chest. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but it seemed that at least someone from their group still had to be alive. He ran forward, bringing the axe down into the back of one of the dead, swinging it around, its chomping teeth almost getting a taste of Chuck, who was doing his best to get out of the way.

Chuck yelled, “Jesus, man, watch out! Last thing I need is a chunk out of me because you ain’t paying attention, man.”

Jude was crazy-eyed and in auto mode. Chuck could have said anything and he wouldn’t have cared. Jude was on a mission to find out who was still alive, and would kill every one of the dead in his path. Jude let the dead he had secured with his axe fling around and into the wall. Jude pulled back hard on the blade, ripping it out, and then brought it back around, cutting away a big enough chunk of brain to drop the dead permanently. Jude went for the last one, but was too late
—
Charlie brought his saw down, taking the dead out before Jude could do anything.

Jude met Joann’s eyes and he felt a heat which he had not experienced in years—not since his wife. He dropped everything, running to her. He didn’t think about rejection or her saying no. He picked her up off of the ground, gripping her as tightly as he could, burying his face in her breasts, hugging her tightly. He brought her down to the ground, giving her a long, wet kiss that gave both of them goose bumps. Jude said, “I thought you were gone. I thought that you
—
“

“We never got a chance to get on the helicopter, Jude—thank God,” Joann said.

Chuck ran to Leslie, full of optimism, and tried to pick her up, but was slapped on the chest for his trouble. She said, “You didn’t come up after us. You saw that big-ass helicopter go down, and you just wrote me off for dead? You assume every time something bad happens, I'm going to just curl up and die? Who does that, really? You don’t have any faith in us, then I'm sure as hell not going to be dating you anytime soon.”

Chuck nodded slowly, trying to think of what to say, but nothing came to him. “You know, in my mind that totally went different. Like, I thought you were going to be a little bit happier to see me. We would have come to the roof, but Jude was talking to his sister-in-law and then the helicopter came down
—
that’s how my hand got all fucked up, you see. From there, we heard that chainsaw revving up in the hallway and when we opened the door, we had us some dead to deal with. So we didn’t write you off for shit, we just didn’t have a chance to get back out there and help you. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot we could’ve done until we cleared out the dead. Jude’s saw went to shit in the process, so he’s going to need to get that fixed.”

Leslie tilted her head a little to the side, warming back up. “So you're saying you didn't give up on us? Just that the two of you were trapped because you were too busy trying to call home?”

Chuck said, “I wasn’t calling anybody. Everyone I care about in this world is right here, with the exception of Jude’s son, Patrick, and Maria. I would have been up there immediately if there hadn't been a bunch of the dead to deal with first. You want to be my girl, then you need to have a little bit more confidence in me.”

When Leslie tried to say something, Chuck threw a Hail Mary, pulling her in for a deep kiss of his own.

Jude, who was busy looking down the hallway to see if the coast was clear, yelled, “Come on, we need to get going.”

“Oh, I see, asshole, all the time in the world for you to rub your head in her boobies, but God forbid poor ol' Chuck tries to give his lady a kiss.”