that last hit. He knew this was all his fault, that guy Norm got tagged nine steps out of the building, screaming, “Mommy, oh mommy! Help me! It hurts, it hurts mommy!” in a way that would haunt Max for the rest of his, probably very short, life.
Then that woman from accounting, Ann something? Ole whats-er-name, anyway, had gotten pulled under her car, she died like a trooper cursing like a sailor and fighting until the bitter end, even breaking free after killing the zombie with her feet and hobbling along with Max and the other three until they were mobbed outside of, whose? Fred’s car? 'Jesus', thought Max, 'I don’t even know the names of the people who are dying with me? Which means they probably don’t know mine!'
Anyway the Jason guy, he got away clean, even gave that other woman a ride to her car and she got away, then Ann got caught and the five in their group made their Alamo between a newer vw bug and an older Chevy Astro van, it took Max some mighty hefty swinging before he and a man named Alan managed to get over the bug and run the gamut of the lot towards Max’s truck. All because Max felt parking at the edge of the lot burned off a few extra calories each day. Anyway it was soon after that when Max cracked his bat on one of the undead that just seemed to spring up out of the ground all around them. Alan had been bitten a couple times before scrambling over the bug to safety and apparently the blood loss caught up to him about right after Max cracked his bat on what seemed like the twentieth zombie. Some of them were fast and seemed smart, actually ducking out of Max’s reach, one had a metal pipe in it's hands and actually clipped Max on the shoulder before succumbing to the mighty fury of Steve Garvey’s bat. 'Fuck, this is it.' Thought Max as he swung his half bat ineffectively at the five zombies surrounding him, the decision to bring his rag tag group to parking lot now looked like a bad mistake.
Before he had left it had seemed like such a good, simple plan.
“Okay”said Stewart, “We have all had a few minutes to drain the coffee pots and think our options over, I think it is fairly clear some of us want to try and leave now and some of the rest of use will attempt to create a distraction to let them get away clean. Everyone who wants to stay move over to that side of the room, everyone else move over there.” Stewart gestured broadly with her hand at both sides of the room, while walking towards the ‘wait’ side herself.
When everyone had sorted themselves out they had nine people, including Max who wanted to make a break for the cars and eleven people including officer Stewart and Steve, who were electing to wait for the military to move in, or at least wait for a few hours and see if something better came up. The people who were going to make a break for it discussed whose cars were where, the idea had been to make for the closest two cars and then ferry everyone else to their cars out in the parking lot before everyone left to get back to their families. Those who were staying would create a distraction on the other side of the building for a few minutes before the others left.
Of course it has not worked out that well. Max found himself in the group being led by Norm, whose car was parked closest of anyone to the building, which was why he had to take five people in his group. Everything had gone smoothly until they got nine steps out of the door when a zombie came running at the speed of a racehorse seemingly from nowhere, knocking Norm to the ground and sending the police flashlight Stewart had given him spinning through the air. After that all thoughts of staying in their own groups was forgotten and everyone herded together, a few more steps and a wild combat later and Max’s group got separated from three others, leaving a group of five and a group of three. The threesome actually made it to their car, and spun through the lot, running down quite a few of the zombies after Max and his group. Then Ann got grabbed from under the car. While they were fighting to get her out, the other guy dropped off the first lady, unfortunately for her as soon as the car sped away, leaving her next to her car door, she got mobbed and brought down, however the other passenger made it into her car and both of them tried to pick up Max’s group before they became trapped in between the van and the vw. The lady just drove away at that point, the guy, Jason, had rammed his car into one end of the vw and then the Astro, smashing a few zombies, but not killing them however this distraction allowed Max and Alan to make a break over the bug towards Max’s car.
Max looked around the parking lot for a weapon of some kind, a stick, a rock anything, but the zombies had him pretty well hemmed in, all of them seemed to be holding back, none of them were moving as slow as Fred had been this morning, maybe the sunlight made them quicker or something, they all seemed to be following the lead of the guy in the green jogging suit, and Max swore that fat bastard was smiling, smiling, like he knew what he was doing!
“Alright lard ass, what do you think is so funny? Got me cornered, broke my bat, is that it? Well funny ha-ha, but I know karate you lame, foul smelling fuck, so bring it on!”
The zombie darted forward in a feint and Max could swear he heard him say, “Karate. Fuck.” Before a loud crack sounded and the zombie to one side of jogging suit staggered and fell to the ground. Another crack and green jogging suit zombie fell over, his shoulder a mess of spraying blood and bone. Max ran through the opening the two downed zombies made in the circle surrounding him, throwing his bat shard at one of the other three zombies as a distraction. As he ran back towards the office building Max heard Stewart yelling to him and several other shots went off, most of what Max would regard as suppressing fire as they did not seem as well aimed as some of Stewart’s earlier shots. He saw that she was making her way towards the parking lot, angling for her squad car while giving him some covering fire. She was yelling for him to get her flashlight. Everything again seemed to slow down for Max, as if his body had finally had enough punishment, his vision tunneled his hearing dimmed and he dumbly followed Stewart’s finger pointing to see the flashlight Norm had dropped laying about two feet away from his right foot. He bent down to get it at the same time that something flung itself over his bent back. Suddenly time sped up again with a vengeance, Max whipped the flashlight up and into the rib cage of the very fast and agile zombie that had just tried to jump him, it looked like the same zombie that had gotten Norm. Only now it seemed almost healthy, if that were possible. The flashlight caved in a rib and probably would have been stuck if Max had not kept a firm grip on it, the zombie's velocity separated it from the flashlight in one quick motion and Max was ready to pounce. He was going for a killing blow when Stewart screamed at him, “Get your fucking dumbass over here! Run asshole! Run, they are coming!”
Max looked around and saw that sure enough a mob of zombies were coming around the building running towards him, and in fact it looked like they could cut him off from the door, which Steve was holding open with one hand while gesturing with the other for Max to hurry up. Stewart had given up her movement towards her car and was hot footing back to the doorway. Max followed suit and while he swore that he could feel the zombies breathing down his neck, in reality he had enough time to get in the door, stop and then brace the door with Steve and Stewart. After holding it long enough for the lock to re-engage they all three cautiously backed off to see if it would hold.
It did.
“Fuck that was…” Max collapsed onto his knees between Steve and Stewart, “…close.”
“Hey Max, you okay, not bitten are you? Max? Maaaxxx?” was the last thing that Max heard as he passed out.
Chapter 15
They had a light lunch; an elderly couple and a teenage boy they found stranded in a mobile home on Orchard Street. Then for dinner Nancy spotted a middle aged man and two younger women, all dressed in business attire, creeping along a side street. The plan had remained pretty much the same, Nancy would pretend to be one of the living and lure their prey into a trap and then the chomping began. Nancy made the decision to completely destroy the grandparents and the teenage boy, she needed to repair the damage from Paul’s blade and while Veronica was in decent shape Jim was a wreck. Nancy couldn’t justify taking on two old people and a boy that they would have to share food with and likewise she didn’t want them out there eating food they could take later themselves, so she had Veronica finish them off with her blade.
Nancy now faced a similar decision. As normal, she had been the first to feed on the man and two women. When she had had her fill she then let Veronica and Jim take what was left. She stood there watching the two of them feed and the energy bleed out of their victims when she noticed something. Veronica was nearly back to one
