shoulders and jogged after him. Worse yet he called out “Sarah!” as he burst through the front door.
Steve paused a second before jogging after Stewart, making the line of them a bit staggered, he was just reaching the front door when Max’s first pistol shot rang out.
Max ran into his living room, past a female zombie who was standing there and heading towards his kitchen, where he saw a confusing scene in his dining room. His table and chairs had been shoved to one side to make room against the far wall. The zombies in the room were standing in the space shouting at each other, they looked almost human, the large male that Max had seen in the bathroom at work had a red face from arguing. Max recognized Nancy, her eyes widened and she started to move when she looked at him. A split second passed then Max started firing bullets into Nancy, trying to get a clean head shot, he was pretty sure he hit her in the neck and chest, the other shot went high or left or right, she was so fast!
Stewart meanwhile was not content to leave a zombie behind her and before entering the kitchen she paused to put two shots into the zombie in the living room. She turned back to Steve and said, “Watch our backs, we’ll call if we need you!” and then hurried towards the kitchen.
The male zombie, Jimbo, quickly grasped the nature of what was happening and taking Veronica by the arm he pulled her close, lifted her up and hurled her bodily towards Max. Max tried to duck, but the stitching and pain in his ribs did not afford him enough agility to do so, he went down in a heap with Veronica on top of him at Stewart’s feet. Stewart was hit high by a chair as soon as she entered the kitchen, by a follow up throw by Jimbo, who was calling out, “Julie bring those guys in! It’s Max! It’s Max!”
Jimbo, then reached over and broke off a wooden table leg, as easy as someone would snap a twig, and advanced quickly over to Max on the floor. Underneath a screaming and yelling Veronica, Max could hardly move, his gun hand was sticking out from under her body and he fired off a lucky shot that somehow caught Jimbo in the thigh, momentarily spinning him around. Veronica, instead of pulling herself towards Max to bite and rend him with her teeth, pushed herself up and rolled sideways off his body.
“Fucking asshole!” Jimbo screamed as he tried to duck, get closer and hit Max with his table leg all at the same time. He succeeded in none of his efforts, missing Max because he was not close enough and while he was able to duck, the close quarters could not get him out of the way of Stewart’s shotgun, which caught him on the left shoulder, neck and head, flipping him completely end over end, his table leg went flying up into the air to be snatched by Veronica as she climbed to her feet. She spun and hurled it at Stewart with deadly force. Taking it full in the chest Stewart let out a small moaning sound and fell back into the living room.
Veronica turned, looked at the overall situation, picked Nancy up and hurled her out through the back patio doors onto the patio. Badly shot and now sporting a few deep cuts, Nancy was still clinging to her undead life.
Meanwhile Max scrambled to regain his feet. Steve, seeing Stewart fall back into the room, rushed to her side, Stewart said weakly, “I’m alright, Go help Max.”
“Sure, you just stay here and cover our asses.” Steve said proping her body up against the wall. He then pressed his pistol into her hand and asked, “Can you lift it? Stewart! Can you shoot it?!”
She nodded ‘yes’ and said, “That bitch was Nancy's girl, Veronica? I’ll be okay, I’m wearing my vest, I just. Got. The. Wind…” and she passed out.
“Fuck! Fuck! Stewart! Goddamn it!” hearing more shots and the sounds of fighting from the kitchen, Steve looked around the living room for any remaining threats, seeing none he made the decision to help Max. Crawling over to the shotgun he picked it up, stood and headed into the kitchen. Reloading the shotgun with extra shells he had in his own pockets.
Max stood up and leveled his pistol at Veronica.
“Fuck, don't move! You're Veronica, right? Don’t Veronica, don’t!” Veronica didn’t listen and picked up a chair to throw at Max. Max shot her, he missed her head, but she flinched when she threw and the chair ended up embedded in the drywall next to Max’s torso.
“Fine bitch, just die!” and he aimed more carefully and pulled the trigger, the first shot was loud and on target, striking Veronica directly over her heart, she staggered back through the patio doors, a second later she came flying back through them at Max, halting at the sight of his pistol about eight feet from her head. The silence was audible as he pulled the trigger. Click. He was out of ammo.
“Shit!” Max leaped backwards and pulled the chair from the wall, swinging it around he met Veronica's charge with it. He felt the stitches in his stomach rip out as he did this and let loose a feral scream as he turned with the chair.
Veronica surged forward pressing Max back, the force of her rush pinned the top of the chair to the wall behind Max and one of the legs slid into her rib cage impaling her with her own momentum. “Fuck!” she screamed, one of her hands did not seem to be working right anymore. Stepping back from Max the chair was pulled from his hands and she then tried to pull the impaled leg out of her torso with her one good arm. For all of her strength it was not working!
Max stumbled and tried to follow up on Veronica’s weakness, when he found moving around was too painful he fumbled in his pocket for the extra bullets he had there, remembering Stewart’s instructions he pulled the slide on the pistol back and carefully put a bullet in the chamber. Veronica went down on one knee, seeing Max reload the gun, she half rose and scrambled for the door, yelling, “Julie! Get in here!” Max popped the clip out of the gun trying to concentrate on three things at once which was not making his job any easier, first he had to load the clip again, there was no spare with the pistol, second he had to watch Veronica, and third he had to try and remain on his feet as blood poured down the front of his stomach. One bullet, two bullets, three bullets, four, Veronica reached the patio doors and lurched outside, still yelling for Julie. As she went Max could still hear her grotesquely pounding on the chair leg, trying to get it out.
Suddenly Max was pushed from behind as Steve rushed into the kitchen, he lost hold of the clip, tracked it with his eyes as it fell down in slow motion to the tile floor. Steve looked at Max, offered him an arm to steady him and said, “Sorry Max!” then headed towards the patio door.
“Hey Steve, wait! The clip man, I don’t think I can bend over, get me the clip!” Max yelled to no avail at Steve’s back. Max heard the shotgun go off and he went to his knees to try and reach the clip himself, he managed to reach it as another shotgun blast went off.
Outside Steve ran into a strange scene, Veronica was near one edge of the house, she looked to be running away, supporting Nancy as she went, two other female zombies were wrestling over a little boy, who clutched a tire iron in one hand, beneath the boys feet was the body of a woman, another zombie, Steve thought. He leveled the shotgun and fired at the woman holding the boys right hand, the shot took her in the chest and splattered the six foot fence with gore as it tore through her body, she did not let go of the little boy when she fell, but tugged him backwards, putting all three of them in a line. Steve walked forward to get a side shot on the other zombie, once he had her lined up he fired into her neck, decapitating her, she immediately let go of the boy and fell, the chest shot woman pulled the boy to her and used him as a shield. Steve did not fire for fear of hitting the boy and used the time to reload more shells into the shotgun.
“Shit! Max! One of them has a boy, looks like your kid maybe!” Steve shouted out.
Max heard Steve shout, he had just jammed the clip home and re-cocked the pistol when he saw the male zombie in the kitchen rise up, the zombie held out his hand, as if saying, “Stop” and Max did not fire.
“Where are my wife and kids?” Max asked him.
“In the attic, we didn’t do anything to them. Let me pass and I’ll leave, you don’t shoot, we both walk away. This was a dumb-fuck idea from the start. Revenge, why bother?” said the man.
“I can’t, you know I can’t let you go, you will just kill more people, I can’t.” replied Max.
“Wait, wait a minute, you’re Max, right?” Max nodded, “They call me Jimbo, and I don’t have a beef with you, even though you shot me I will just walk away and never bother you again, but if you shoot me again, well, you better shoot real good, ‘cause if you miss I will tear you limb from limb. Then, after you I will go and get your wife and kids too. You understand? You ain’t looking too good Max and that little thirty eight pistol you got there is not too accurate anyway, just let me go and we are even, you get your kids, I get to live, everybody is happy.”
“I…”
Max was interrupted by another shotgun blast, part of the shot passed into the kitchen through the back door and he heard Steve yelling, “Oh pig-fucker!”
Outside Steve was trying to get a shot on the zombie woman and was creeping closer to her when he was struck from behind by a lawn chair. Veronica had thrown the lawn chair despite still having one of the dining room
