'It ain't as easy as it looks, huh?' Paige's second blow crushed in the top of the things head and it went down and stopped moving.
The melee had lasted all of six seconds and yet both women, hopped up on adrenaline, were panting. The next zombie was still a good twenty slow paces away and they moved a bit further towards the side of the yard to draw them over, Dora also wanted to see the gate, when it came into line she was horrified to see that beyond it was a mass of zombies, all trying to get through the bottle neck at the same time.
'There must be twenty or thirty of them! We gotta get that gate shut!' Dora said.
'One thing at a time, okay, keep 'em coming towards us so Mike can run for the ammo.'
'What is going on?' Mike yelled over at them.
'There are a bunch more trying to get through the gate, we gotta hurry or we are going to be up to our ears here soon!'
'We aren't already? Maybe we should just get out of here, go around front and make a bunch of noise so they will follow us there instead?'
'Paige, I could barely get over the gate, and that was with Mike's help and the gate is only six feet high! These walls around the yard are eight feet, no way I can do that.'
Paige looked around, noticing how all of the trees were short, not more than four or five years old. There were no piles of junk in the yard either, other than the wood pile behind the changing room there was nothing they could use to climb over the back walls. She got a determined look in her eye as she turned to Dora, 'We bash a few, get their attention, climb up the wood pile and get on the roof of the changing room, they are too clumsy to climb up there.'
'Good idea, I knew I picked you for a reason!' said Dora.
'You picked me? Hah! I only came along because I knew you would be dead without me. I felt sorry for you.' Paige swung at the second zombie in line. The other members of the living dead were lining up nicely and the door and patio were almost clear of them now, however a large number were still pouring in from the open gate.
The women clubbed the second zombie together, handling them two on one was easy, things were going to get harder in mere moments when they would have to handle two or three at once. Paige took a step back, Dora matched her, and the next two zombies were upon them. Dora recognized one of the women, it was an older middle aged woman with stringy blond hair. She lunged forward at the last second, causing Dora's swing to hit her in the back instead of on the head. Dora used her off hand to push the woman's head back and of course the zombie tried to bite that hand. Screaming in fear Dora ran backwards three or four paces, which left Paige to deal with two zombies alone.
'Back off Paige! Run!' however Paige held her ground, swinging a viscous upper cut into the jaw of the first zombie, an older man with no shirt and enough hair on his chest to qualify as fur. The old man fell over backward from the blow and Paige swung her club down on Dora's zombie from behind. Through some misfortune, the woman had her hand up and Paige's blow caught it in the arm. The zombie woman didn't slow down a bit, even with her arm bent in the middle of the wrist and white bone gaping out of the wound. The woman turned to go after Paige and trod over the body of the shirtless man to get to her. Dora stepped up and bashed the blond haired woman over the head when she turned.
This left Paige's second zombie free to act and it lunged forward and toppled the woman down. He pulled her down to her knees and pressed his head into her stomach. Dora grabbed Paige by the arm and jerked her backward. The motion pulled her away from the zombie, but Paige lost her hunk of wood, it toppled end over end until it landed on the grass between the women and the next zombie, where it acted as a meager wall.
As Dora helped Paige to her feet, they watched the lead zombie's foot step down on the piece of wood, its ankle twisted sideways and the man toppled into the shirtless, hairy zombie, which had just regained its feet. Both of them went down again and another zombie, one that looked about twelve years old, tried to walk over them and also ended up on the ground. Both women giggled at the pile up, then Dora said 'All we have to do is throw wood in their way!'
'Yeah, my wood! I already miss it.'
This set Dora off to giggling again and they fell back further. Paige, with a perplexed look on her face asked 'What's so funny now?'
'I'll bet you miss your wood! You poor girl!' she laughed again as they continued their retreat. Paige shook her head slowly from side to side, the smile didn't leave her face, but she said nothing in response to Dora's needling.
The women watched as Mike raced to the back patio table and grabbed several boxes of ammo and ducked into the kitchen. Dora looked at Paige 'Uh, was that the plan?'
Paige grabbed the woman and started hustling forward in an arc around the back yard, 'He has to reload the guns, right? Let's get to the changing room.'
They raced around the side, but because of the rectangular shape of the yard they ended up closer to the zombies than either woman expected. Paige tossed a couple of pieces of wood on to the top of the shed and scrambled up the stacked pile to get onto the roof. Dora, followed tossing her own club up first, she had almost made it to the top, when she felt a cold hand grasp her ankle and start to pull her down.
'Paige!' Dora screamed. The younger woman turned and grabbed Dora's hand, pulling her hard, but the zombie would not let go. Dora kicked ineffectively, bouncing her bare feet off the thing's face and shoulder. This zombie was a younger man, probably sixteen or seventeen, Mike's age. He was wearing only dark green boxer shorts and they were torn open in a way that left nothing to the imagination.
'Hold on, Dora!' Paige said and then let Dora's hand go, she then turned around and hefted a chunk of wood in her hand, she threw it at the man's head, where an end struck it right square on the nose, ruining an otherwise good face. The thing might not feel pain, but having a three pound piece of wood hitting it in the face must have jarred it in some manner, because it let go and fell backward. Dora pulled herself up and turned around to look at the zombies milling about in her yard. They kept coming and were starting to build up at the back of the shed. The mob moved up and stomped on top of any who fell, which they all did when they reached the pile. Thus, the pile was getting higher as each pressed forward. Dora estimated there were now around forty zombies in her yard, with more streaming in from the open gate. Gunfire started in the street in front of her house. It was a rifle, Dora recognized the sound. Then a pistol started firing. Then everything stopped.
'You don't think…' She began, but a rifle started firing again. 'What is he doing?'
'Getting to the gate from the front I bet. Get your club, we gotta knock heads.'
The women began smashing the heads of the zombies that came close, this stopped the zombies from getting to them, but added to the pile, making it easier for the others to reach them. Fortunately the zombies were only able to get up on back side, where so many of them had fallen. On the other sides the zombies just pressed close and jostled each other, not able to reach up or threaten the women.
The gun fire continued, abating periodically, before resuming again. After what seemed like an hour of time, the firing started coming from the side of the house near the gate. The women smashed heads until Mike appeared in the yard. He moved forward, but didn't wade into the crowd of zombies. Instead he angled off to one side and when he was close enough he yelled, 'Catch!' and tossed up a pistol.
Paige recovered it and Mike retreated back into the house to reload, several zombies followed him. Paige took slow aim at the zombies closest to the bath house and fired one shot at a time, which drew the zombies back towards them. After nine shots the pistol was empty, but by then Mike had reloaded and was using the grill as a place to steady the rifle he was firing. In minutes the slaughter was over. There was still some movement on the ground, zombies whose heads had not been fully destroyed, Mike tossed up a box of ammo for Paige and another pistol to Dora. The women climbed down on the pool side by hanging and dropping from the roof.
'Well that went well. Thanks Mike you did a great job.' Dora leaned over and hugged the young man.
'Yeah, I think we need showers again. You two are splattered, uh, more like coated in blood.' said Mike.
'You aren't much better yourself.' said Paige looking Mike over. 'What do we do with these? Some of them are still moving.'
Dora pondered it over for a minute then said, 'You know I think we better pull them out one by one towards the back, make sure each one is fully dead. I would rather not have them in the yard, but what else do we do with them?'
