right?”
“So, let me get this straight, you are thinking that we should bum-rush thirty zombies to get to the front door?” asked Steve.
“I dunno Stewart there are a lot of zombies around the building…” Tom said tentatively.
“No! No bum rushing Steve, c’mon! I mean we pull up twenty feet away and blast a bunch of them, Tom and I will sit on this side and just fire out the windows, we will drive them off and then make a break for the doors.”
“We don’t even know the doors are unlocked, I don’t think they are, otherwise there wouldn’t be anyone inside, right? So how do we let them know we need in?” asked Steve.
“Steve, use your head, the gunfire should do that, right? Any other additions or better ideas? Max? You alright, try to stay with us here buddy, we can’t have you going into shock on us okay, you are probably going to have to walk when we get to the front doors.”
“No, no ideas Stewart.” said Tom, Steve just nodded and said, “Okay lets do it.”
Steve pulled the car around the block yet again and then onto the other side of the street as far away from the clinic doors as they could get and still be on the street. Stewart and Tom each took careful aim and brought down a couple of the zombies, the rest turned towards them slowly and again they fired, neither were accurate enough to bring another zombie down, but both hit their targets. After a third volley and one more head shot, the rest of the zombies fled around the corner or ducked behind the cars along that side of the road.
“Shit!” swore Stewart, “This sucks, we are going to use a lot of ammo to clean this group out! Hey Steve look at the door!”
Sure enough a man in a rumpled shirt with a traditional doctors coat was at the front glass doors waving frantically at them.
“I guess there are people alive in there. You're a lucky man Max.” said Steve, “Let me pull the car up and I bet you guys can get a couple more once the angle changes.”
Steve pulled the car up and while they did hit a couple more zombies they did not bring any down.
“This ain’t working Stewart!” said Tom as Steve backed the car up to try and get them a different shooting angle.
“I know, I can see that, they are smarter than they looked. Hey Steve can you back us up on the sidewalk in front of the clinic? We could get a shot or two off there, maybe get a couple of them.”
Steve did this and Tom and Stewart let loose another volley of shots hitting several of the undead, but only bringing two more down. Max let out a yell when two zombies, one carrying a cinder block slammed into his side of the car, the side window, amazingly did not shatter inward, but did break into a million starred pieces. Max’s yell startled Tom and as he pulled around to see what Max was yelling about he fired a round off, shattering the heavy glass in the front door of the clinic and narrowly missing the physician’s leg.
The doctor yelled something that sounded like, “Oo-oh shit you fucking douche bag!” and retreated into the clinic out of sight, several zombies made for the front door, Stewart shot them both in the head as they made no effort to dodge or hide.
Tom screamed at Steve, “Get us out of here! They are going to break through!” While Max fumbled with the revolver he had picked up earlier trying to point it at the zombies outside the window.
“Ma-ax! Don’t shoot through the window!” yelled Stewart, “Steve pull ahead a few feet, but don’t take me out of sight of the front door, if the zombies get through there we won’t have a doctor anymore!”
Steve pulled the car forward about ten feet, the zombies clambered up onto the back of the squad car, Steve reversed, catching one of them under the car and running it over, the other one started smashing at the rear window with one fist while hanging on to the antenna with the other.
In half a second everything changed, Stewart opened her side door and got a bead on the zombie riding on the trunk, she shot him once in the neck and then capped him in the head as he fell off behind the car. She was then grabbed by her feet by a hand reaching out from under the cruiser. Tom screamed and hopped out of the car after her, at the same time several of the hiding zombies made a rush for both the car and the clinic door.
Chapter 34
After getting to highway six Amelia still did not have any advice on how to proceed, so she turned the caddy onto the highway hoping it would ultimately be faster. The advantage of this particular section of road was that it ran through mostly residential neighborhoods, so she could easily switch to the back streets if she needed to.
Amelia managed to drive a few miles before she spotted flashing emergency lights up ahead on the road, as she crept the car slowly closer she saw a police car and several tow trucks, but no people, there were also several wrecked cars pulled out from the underpass and lots and lots of shotgun shells next to the police car. No bodies, no zombies, nothing to indicate exactly what had happened, but the road was clear, she hit the accelerator and scooted the car past the underpass onto another clear stretch of highway.
“Wanna try the radio station again? Call it in? Let him know six is pretty clear so far?” asked Amelia
“Sure, why not.” Diane said, she had plugged her cell phone into the car for recharging and redialed the stations number again. Diane had not been expecting to get through, let alone on the second ring, the station was still playing canned music, the dj had not been heard since their call.
“He-ello? Is this Diane?” asked a voice on the other end of the line.
Surprised, Diane responded, “Yeah, who is this? And how did you know who I was?”
“We have caller id, I recognized your number and name from when you called twenty minutes ago. My assistant took your first call. This is Blake, by the way.”
“Hello Blake, I am pleased to meet you. I am calling to say highway six is pretty clear, we are heading westbound okay so far since the twenty five exit. You want to let everyone know that?”
“Ah, sure why the fuck not.” came his bitter response.
“What’s wrong?”
“They called me. The zombies fucking called me and and my assistants, whoever was manning the phones. And we gave them directions on how to get here. Sorry for swearing, but the ground floor is full of them now, you kind of saved my life you know. The rest of the gang was downstairs helping the ‘refugees’, I took the elevator down, we obviously still have power, the generator has not even kicked in yet. Anyway, the door opened and I saw a group of them laughing. Laughing, the bastards! They were eating the associate manager, she was my friend Diane! My friend! And they laughed and pointed at me and said ‘Thanks buddy!’ then they tried rushing the doors, but I got them closed in time. I have an elevator key, I can go to the top of the tower if I want, twelve floors up, but I came back here to the station. I mean if they get through the fire doors, they will find me no matter where I hide, right? I know this building there are not any doors stronger than the fire doors are. I locked the elevator out on my floor so they couldn't use that.”
“I am glad I warned you Blake, I am glad you are alive and probably safe, but you have a lot of power and you should use it instead of just waiting for them to come in after you.”
“What do you mean? This is a dead end Diane, no way out, except maybe jumping from the roof and we have those goddamn safety nets installed so I would only fall like two stories before being caught up in one, where I would probably die of thirst without anyone to retrieve me. Of course I could make my way to the edge of the net and continue the fall too, I guess or..”
“Cut it out Blake, cut it out! You don’t have to die there and even if you do you can at least go out helping a lot of other people. I don’t know you, but I know you were trying to help people before, now you can do even more good. Secure yourself first, throw chairs, desks, whatever in front of the fire doors..”
Interrupting Blake said, “No it wouldn’t do anything, the doors open out and …”
“Hear me out! Put the stuff in front of the doors so you can hear them coming and get out of the station if you need to, not to stop them, just don’t lean anything up against the door handle and accidentally open it, or maybe the stairwells are pretty small? You might have better luck tossing a bunch of junk down the stairwell to stop them from coming up, leave one open as an escape route maybe. We did that in the building where I was held up for awhile.”
