hallway. Stewart was screaming something, Steve was screaming and even Tom was yelling as he pumped the shotgun for a third shot. The zombie on Stewart, V? No the other one, Max thought, had taken a gut shot from the side and was struggling to rise to her feet, she appeared to be watching Tom and while this was distracting Max the girl he was fighting took the opportunity to rush him. He bashed her with the trash can, maybe breaking her arm, probably not, it was not a good enough shot, it did make her scramble around defensively, it was enough that Max was no longer on the defense and he swung the trash can around and around trying to keep her at bay. The shotgun went off again and Max heard Stewart say, “For fuck’s sake Tom shoot her in the head!”
By this time the cries started coming from Kirkpatrick’s office, the door was shut and the screams were something Max knew he would never forget. Stewart was back on her feet and yelling more at Tom, then came to stand by Max, pointing her pistol at the mini-skirt girl number three, who promptly ducked into an open cube, Stewart did not fire, but turned and took three steps up to Steve, saying, “Gimme that!”, as she jerked her secondary pistol out of his hands, she held it up in front of his face and said, “Safety! Off!” While sliding the safety to the off position, then handed the gun back and said, “Now go make yourself useful while I track down Max’s new girl friend. Tom, go clean up the mess in the office, save who you can.”
Max and Stewart headed to the open cube when Max saw the girl climb over the walls to the next cube down the row, then the next, Stewart took a shot at her when she was making the second jump, and Max thought she had winged her, but the girl kept going, a few steps further and Tom was calling out, “Stewart! Is this a five shot or three shot? I think I am out!” The door to Kirkpatrick’s office opened and Tom immediately fired towards the head of whomever was there, yelling “Fooled ya! You dumb fuck!” the body toppled backward and the door was slammed shut again. Tom fired through it near where a woman’s head might be and leaned over to Steve and quietly said, “I am out, I gotta reload, they open the door you hold em off with that little twenty five.”
Meanwhile seeing the zombie girl fleeing back towards the stairs, Stewart said to Max, “She is running, we gotta go help the others if we can. C’mon.” Max followed her as she reversed course and headed back to the reception area. Tom was reloading shells into the bottom of the shotgun and Steve was watching the door. Occasionally a head would peek through the opening of the door, but Steve did not fire at it. The screaming had turned to groaning inside the office. Max heard a woman’s voice call out, “Throw down your weapons, and you won’t be hurt!” from inside the office.
Stewart replied, “Hell no honey, you just step out here and we will end your unnatural life for you. Nice and quick.”
Laughter greeted her words, “Not a chance, sweetheart! Max you out there?”
“Yeah, who am I talking to?”
“So you survived so far, eh Max? That guy Steve too? Better than I would have thought, or was it just luck so far?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Max called back.
“Oh just little ole Nancy, you remember me, right? Marketing.”
“Yeah, yeah, you tried to take a bite out of me yesterday, how could I forget?”
“Bingo, Maxo! Right in one, you guys gonna blow or end up like the other norms in here?”
“Let them go Nancy, let them go, I know you can, you don’t need them!”
“Oh but I do need them Max, oh but I do. This is powerful Max, like meth to an ice-head, only worse. I can’t give you back your buddies, they are all dead, my crew got a little too ‘over-zealous’, there was one still alive before your friend did that very naughty trick with the shotgun. So it is his fault she died, what a bad man he is!”
Tom looked sick in the pale light, but Stewart was quick to say, “Tom, they were probably dead anyway, you heard her, ‘meth to an ice-head’.” Then to the others she asked, “Do we believe her or blow this joint? We have at least one behind us and what if they left a door open somewhere when they came in?”
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck. I don’t know if she is telling the truth, maybe they have hostages?”stated Max. Calling out he said, “Nancy, prop open the door so we can see if you have any others still alive in there!”
“Oh Maxy, that is just a ploy to try and blow my fucking head off, and you know it! I would rather you came in after them, it will make my job easier if it comes to fighting.”
“Fuck, don’t believe that bitch Max, she was in marketing!” whispered Steve.
“I know, I know, I know. How can we leave if there is a chance any of them are still alive? I know Dave is dead, and it does not look too good for Walt either, but all the others? I mean could they kill that many people that quickly?”
“They were sleepy Max, it wouldn't have been much of a fight. We gotta decide man, the door behind us could be wide open.” said Stewart.
“Fuck, why do I have to decide?” complained Max
Stewart just looked at him, as if reading the hopelessness on his face, then said, “We leave. Now. It is not worth one of us getting chowed by fucking superwoman zombie in there. Lets go.”
Max just looked at Stewart, noting that no one was actually leaving yet, not even Stewart, then chocked out, “Not worth the risk, lets go.” Feeling a strange mix of relief and cowardice at the same time.
With that they started easing backward, Stewart made Tom give her the reloaded shot gun and whispered to him to lead the group back towards the stairway, to watch out for the girl who got away, and that she was going to try to take a shot at the woman in the office, by waiting for fifteen or twenty seconds after everyone else had gone out of sight. Stewart hid in a crouched position in the cube opening and aimed the shot gun at the hole in the door. In the poor light she was pretty hard to see and Maxed wished Nancy a violent, sudden end as he backed off towards the stairs. About halfway down towards the stairs they came across a lot of blood, but no body of Dave, the other 'naughty night pisser' whose blood they assumed it was. No zombie girl and no Jimbo either. Max warned the others that he had seen a male zombie run off this way too, and that Dave was now possibly a third zombie they would have to deal with.
“Shit this just gets better and better. How long do we wait for Stewart before we go back?” asked Steve.
“About three minutes or if we hear anything.” replied Max. They waited in grim silence waiting, for anything. After about two minutes Stewart came down the hallway to them, she was coated in blood, and smelled like road kill that had been laying in the hot sun. Noticing Max’s wrinkled nose she shrugged, “You have been worse, in fact you are not all that clean now, but I wasn’t bit, you weren’t either, right?” Max shook his head ‘no’, Stewart shrugged and continued, “So everything will be okay.”
“Not for the rest of the crew in the office.” said Tom
They all turned to look at him, and one by one, gave him a ‘what can we do?’ sort of look. “I think they were all dead already.” said Steve, “Lets get to the cars and get out of here.”
Chapter 21
They were not all dead.
From Nancy’s point of view the raid went far worse than expected, she had lost a couple of girls, and Jim, no real loss, for the gain of what? A meal? And the need to build her gang back up? And no fucking Fred. This was it, no more “Mrs fucking nice zombie gal”as soon as possible she was going to get her hands on some guns and learn, the hard way if necessary, how to shoot them.
The next time she ran into some police or hillbillies she would be prepared. Hell, where could she get bullet proof vests? She watched through the doorway as the one they called Stewart slowly departed. Obviously the living did not know she could see them with a sort of zombie vision that did not require light, and just as obviously they had been hoping she would stick her head out to a more favorable location, like where it could get blown off.
'Fucking Jimbo, what the hell happened to him? Max must have brained him, but where did Max come from? It is an office' Nancy rationalized 'he could have been hiding anywhere.' Something nagged at her thoughts, how could Max have sprinted up the corridor to bash them? That was it! He bashed in one of the girl’s heads with a trash can, like the kind you find in a bathroom.
