About a Woman, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

but it did move. Willy frantically tried to get out from under the vehicle.

'I can't get out.' he said after a moment, 'When you lift up it teeters on to my legs and I can't pull free. You'll have to roll it off of me.'

Dora just looked at him incredulously, 'Yeah, right short stuff, and after I do that I will gather you up and fly you out of here.'

He smiled, 'Okay.'

Looking about Dora saw the spare tire from the suburban lying next to the side of the vehicle, she moved this over to Willy's arm and said, 'Okay, I will try and lift enough, then you slide this next to you and when I push down we might be able to get it off of you. Are you all busted up under there? I really don't feel like seeing any other gross things right now.'

'I feel fine.' said Willy with a sort of empty smile on his face.

'Fuck. It is going to be bad then, just move the tire when I get this high enough.' Dora had to circle around to the front of the suburban where she sat the shotgun on the bumper. Moving around to the front put her in view of the zombies and in seconds one of them spotted her and alerted the other eight or nine. 'Don't look, lift!' she told herself, putting her legs into it. She heard Willy struggling with the spare, then glanced under, he had the tire about halfway into position, it might be enough.

'Zombies are here, gotta let this down.' Dora said, lowering the hood, it did not go down as much as she thought it had before, so the tire must be supporting it somewhat, turning around Dora confronted the mob, one of whom still had Beth's arm in its mouth, nibbling on her pinkie finger.

'Stop right there motherfuckers!' To her surprise the zombies stopped, Dora instantly had a headache, one of the zombies, a big fellow dressed in overalls, shook his head as if to clear it and took a step forward.

'It almost worked lady…I felt, something, a pressure, but you don't have the touch, not like Andi and Mo, or even Sam does. I am afraid this is the end for you then, if you just kneel down I'll make it quick for you.'

In answer Dora sprang sideways and brought the shotgun up off the bumper, shooting the overall wearing zombie just under the chin, his head rolled forward and fell off of his neck as the other zombie's howled in rage and pressed forward to attack. Dora backed behind the vehicle and then crouched down and pushed herself with all of her might through the window to go under it. The zombies rushed around to the other side where she had been. By the time the zombies realized where she was Dora had shot another one from behind at close range where it was standing on the overturned wreck.

'I am keeping up with them.' Dora thought to herself with more than a little confusion, normally any super zombies she ran into were so fast that she had to anticipate where they would be in order to shoot them and nine times out of ten even that didn't work. This combat was different, Dora didn't even feel tired, just energized. She leaped backwards, her off hand reaching for more shells to feed them into the gun from underneath as she did so.

The zombies turned on her, the looks on their faces were no longer just of anger, but also tinged with caution, when Dora raised the gun they all scrambled for cover instead of leaping towards her. Most went behind the suburban out of Dora's immediate sight, but two just dropped and rolled in the tall grass of the median. Dora fired into the grass to keep them honest, then dropped prone herself and fired through the open windows of her car, blowing off one zombie's foot just above the ankle and causing it to drop to the ground, where it rolled backwards and away from Dora's next shot.

Willy was struggling to pull himself from under the wreck, he had both hands free now, though his left arm was bleeding profusely. From somewhere he had gotten a long screw driver in his right hand and was digging quickly into the dirt with it, as if to tunnel his legs out from under the top of the vehicle. Dora rolled sideways on the theory that staying in one place for any length of time was probably a bad idea. Andi's leg came down out of nowhere when Dora woman was on her back, instinctively she brought the barrel of the gun up to block the attack, shoving the gun sideways as she did so. The zombie girl tumbled into the grass and Dora shoved herself to her feet with one arm and started to backpedal. Andi was already up and took two steps towards her before stopping and giggling.

'What? Easier to hit a standing target…' Dora started as she brought the shot gun up, she stopped aiming when she noticed the barrel was bent sideways, 'Goddamn it! Is nothing easy?' the other zombies came around from behind the car and got up when no more shots were fired. Two, including the one with no foot, ducked under the hood to go after Willy.

Dora raised the gun up anyway and aimed for Andi, but tried to imagine where the shot would hit given the bend in the barrel, the zombies laughed as she fired, until a young zombie woman next to Andi went down missing everything above and to the right side of her nose. As the girl tumbled to the ground like so much meat the other zombies again jumped in, Dora fired once more, hitting an Hispanic woman who looked eerily similar to Mary in the stomach.

After that it was a chaotic melee where she used the shotgun as a baseball bat to break bones while the zombies pummeled her from every side. Andi stayed back and yelled, 'Don't kill her! Don't bite her! I get the Dora! Bring her to me.'

Under the hood the zombie's reached for Willy and he kept his hand with the screw driver buried in the ground until the last second, then he whipped it out and put it through the first one's head with enough force to pin the thing to the hood of the suburban. The one footed zombie didn't back off, instead he reached forward with his hands and latched onto Willy's wrists. When he started pulling all Willy could do was scream.

Dora fought to keep from letting the zombies get a hold on her; two of them had come forward with their gut shot companion lagging a few steps behind. Andi seemed content to wait the fight out, the three to one odds would have scared Dora even a week before but in the last two minutes Dora has already killed three super zombies and hurt two others badly. The zombies she was facing were all about her age physically, in their mid to late twenties when they died, the gut shot woman was African American with prominent belly, that woman had Beth's arm and was still carrying it as she came forward, the other two were both white, one was a woman about five ten with scraggly strawberry blond hair, a darker complexion with a face scarred by acne. The man was taller and more muscular; he was pushing six foot, three inches tall and weighed well over two hundred pounds.

'My you are a big boy!' Dora said as he stepped up and swung at her. He missed and looked confused that he had not hit her, Dora responded by swinging the shotgun barrel over and around, landing it on his forearm as he blocked her attempted head shot. His wrist broke with a sickening sound and the barrel still smashed him in the head, sending him reeling to the ground.

The zombie was not out, but he was twitching around and would need a few moments to mend, by that time the fighting might be over. Dora immediately moved backwards again, this last step took her back onto the solid footing of the pavement. As the two women approached Andi screamed at them again, 'Get her! Now! I want her now!'

The women looked dazed for a second, as if the girl's shouting had more power than that of an annoying six year old. Seizing the chance Dora thrust the bent shotgun barrel at Fatty, hoping to catch the still hurt zombie off guard. The blunt end of the barrel struck the zombie right through the left eye and Dora screamed primordially as she shoved it home into the woman's skull. The zombie fell backwards ripping the shotgun from Dora's hands.

Still thinking on her feet Dora turned and ran towards the zombie's vehicles, the Ford Ranger was still running. She had just made it to the door when Willy's scream sounded from behind her, causing her to stop and turn around. The one footed zombie had the boy out from under the suburban and was dragging him to Andi. Willy didn't look very good at all, both of his arms looked longer than they should and his left leg ended in a bleeding stump at the shin. He was crying and letting out a low moan punctuated by screams as the zombie jerked him left or right on the way to Andi.

It was Dora who was struck off guard this time, as the blond slammed into her in a waist high tackle, knocking them both into the ranger's side door and leaving a dent six inches deep. Dora couldn't breathe, her ribs were broke, she just knew it, either that or she had been torn in half. For the zombie's part it didn't fare much better than she did, it had tackled her with its shoulder and a large part of the dent in the truck was from where the thing's head had slammed into the door.

Both women, dead and living, rolled around on the ground trying to recover before the other did. The blond rose to her feet first, as Dora rolled under the truck to get away. However, she was not fast enough; the zombie caught Dora by the ankle and pulled her back out into the open. Once the zombie had her out, it grabbed Dora's