I remembered loading it and making sure there was one loaded in the chamber. What the hell was wrong with it? Had Barrett screwed me? Had he unloaded it? I dropped to my knees and looked back at him. Screamed, “Barrett! What the hell?”
He couldn’t take his eyes off the approaching zombie. Fannie Mae stepped back and cold-cocked him on the cheek. He fell to his ass with a
Fuck. I had no idea where the safety was. I tried to ignore the zombie as it closed the distance on us, looking for the safety in the fading light. No fucking idea. Thanks for killing me, Barrett.
“It’s next to the trigger, Duke! A little push button rod!”
I looked up at the zombie. It was no more than three quick paces from me. Its reaching hands were stretched out the length of its arms. It wasn’t looking at me anymore. Fannie Mae was the only one of us still on her feet. Its eyes were locked on her flesh. I flashed on the images from my dreams of Fannie Mae as a zombie, ripped to shreds. Shit, shit, shit.
That was when my fingers found the only thing resembling a “push button rod” on the gun. I pushed it and it slid easily to the other side of the gun with a click. I’m pretty sure I was the only one who heard it underneath the screams of Jennings and Barrett. My breath was coming out of me in wheezing gasps as I braced the shotgun on my stomach and aimed it up at the zombie.
I pulled the trigger.
Oh my God. The shotgun pushed back into my stomach with the force of a train. All the breath rushed out of me in a gasp and black spots appeared in my eyes. I refused to pass out and die. Not while my friends needed me. I pushed the faintness away, forcing my body to take in air. Each breath burned in my throat.
The zombie was still on his feet. He’d stopped at least. There was a gaping hole in his chest from the shotgun blast. He looked down at it and pushed one of his hands into the hole. Then he must have dismissed it as unimportant and took another shambling step toward Fannie Mae.
“Screw this,” I mumbled as I swayed unevenly to my feet.
The zombie finally looked at me. I took a step forward, pushing the release button so that I could chamber another round into the barrel of the gun. The smoking shell I had just shot ejected onto the ground, rattling on the gravel. As I stepped forward I brought the gun up to my shoulder, bracing it as best I could and pointed it from no more than a foot away at the zombie’s head.
I’d like to say that I had some witty quip for it as I pulled the trigger, they always seem to in the movies. When they say it it always sounds like the exact perfect thing to say, but I had nothing. All I had was my rage and anger and sorrow that this was all somehow my fault. So I screamed as I pulled the trigger, pouring all my anger into that shot.
It flew true. The zombie’s brains splattered out behind it and it fell to the ground in a clump, resting atop Thompson’s body.
I was shaking with the heat of my rage. The shotgun was still pointed where the zombie had stood. Smoke rose from the barrel of the shotgun and rose into the dark evening sky. I could hear thunder rattling in the distance. Every breath I took in was followed by a sharp hiss of pain. My stomach felt like it was on fire. I looked over to where Jennings was sitting on the ground. He had his legs tucked underneath him and the shotgun was lying next to him. He was still staring at the headless body of Thompson.
I went over to him and jerked him to his feet. He looked at me, a confused, shocked, where the hell am I look on his face. I considered slapping him but instead punched him as hard as I could. He went back down in the dirt and instinct must have taken over as he went for the shotgun lying at our feet. I stepped on his hand.
“You’re a worthless piece of crap, Jennings.”
He broke down crying again. Great.
I put my shotgun down and put my hands in his armpits, dragging him back to his feet. I took a page out of Thompson’s book, “Man up, Jennings. We need to get to the House. We don’t have time for your mewling.”
A piercing shriek broke out behind us. Now what?
I turned to Barrett and Fannie Mae and saw what they saw. A veritable zombie horde was coming out of the dark toward us. They were in various states of disarray and distress. Some were missing limbs or giant hunks of skin. Some were missing pieces of their skulls. All were coming for us, moving slowly, at the pace of the damned. I don’t know how many were in the pack. Twenty? Thirty? Some I recognized as friends and neighbors. Others I didn’t recognize at all.
All were coming for us.
I screamed at Fannie Mae, “Get Thompson’s gun!” She scrambled for it as I bent over and picked up my shotgun. Jennings broke and couldn’t handle it anymore. He took off running in the direction of the House. The last I saw of him he fell to his knees and crawled a few feet before regaining his legs.
Fannie Mae struggled to turn Thompson over and grab his gun from his waistband as the horde came for us. I don’t think any of us had any brave ideas of making a stand, we just knew we needed the weapons if we were going to survive at all. I only had six shots left in the shotgun and Fannie Mae had all my shells. There was no way I had time to get the bag from her, open it, dig the box out and then load the shotgun. And no way would six shots be enough to kill the horde.
I bent over to pick up the other shotgun and my hand met Barrett’s. He’d crawled across the ground to come meet me. Our eyes locked. He saw the question in mine and nodded. “I can do it, cahuna. I can do it.”
Those were the last words I ever heard him utter.
The idiot picked up the shotgun and chambered a new round with a scream and charged into the approaching horde, gun blazing away. Shot after shot struck zombies. I have no idea if they were kill shots, but he was definitely hitting them. I made as if to charge after him but suddenly Fannie Mae was there before me. She put her hands on my arms.
“No, Duke. No!”
I paid no attention to her whatsoever, tears streaming down my face as I lost sight of my best friend in the
