I didn’t have that compunction. I took one slow motion step forward and lined the sights on her stinking head. That was the moment she looked at me. I took a deep breath and it seemed like the world stopped. I could no longer hear the grunts, groans and screams from around me and there was nothing but me, the trigger, the shotgun and the zombie. I finally pulled the trigger an eternity later.
The top of her head came off in a spray of blood.
She collapsed to the ground in a heap, pulling Stubby down on top of her. Neither of them were moving. I sensed Felix taking a step forward and held my hand out to him. “No. Wait. Hold your post.”
Stubby began to twitch on top of her. He finally got his hands on the ground and pushed. Inch by inch her gore-streaked forearm appeared out of his throat. He shook his head like a dog as he tried to get the last of her hand out. Broken teeth, spit and blood flew everywhere around him as he worked her hand from his mouth. It finally came out and flopped down onto the ground. It was clutching what looked like a lung.
He turned to face us, sensing food. His mouth was an open, gaping ruin. I don’t even know that he had anything left to eat us with. Felix cursed or prayed to his god some more behind me as I stepped forward, chambering another round, and blew off Stubby’s head. He collapsed to the ground in a heap.
I turned around to look at the others. They were staring at me like they’d seen a ghost.
“What?”
None of them said anything. I took two more shells out of my pocket, quickly reloading the gun. I bent over and picked up Stubby’s flashlight and shone it behind us. I didn’t see any more of the zombies, but…
“They never seem to travel alone,” I said to the group. “Be on watch. You see how quickly this can turn.”
I looked at them again. They kept looking around them and back at me as if they couldn’t understand what they were seeing.
“What?” I asked again, exasperated. When I didn’t get an answer I said, “Let’s go. I’ll take rearguard.”
So we went on. Slower than ever.
16.
Time has no meaning in the middle of the dark. It could have been five, 10, or 20 minutes before we reached the cluster of cars. There’s no way to tell when your adrenaline is pumping on high and your heart is beating five thousand times a minute. You’re wet and soaked from the rain and your mouth is dry from the fear and you want only to be somewhere safe. Somewhere where the monsters can’t find you. Maybe even somewhere you can pull the blanket over your eyes and huddle and hide and weep for friends lost.
We tiptoed through the darkness and arrived at the car park some interminable time later in total silence. I doubt there was a man with us who didn’t wish that he hadn’t volunteered for this little rescue/suicide mission. I also doubted any one of us would make it out alive.
Silence greeted us, silently of course, as we stood in the car park. The stupid kid had finally shut up, right when we’d got there. None of us really felt like screaming for the kid and asking him where he was. The four of us looked at each other from our little square, stealing sidelong glances and wondering what we should do next.
“What should we do next?” Felix asked.
Washington nodded at me and whispered, “Any ideas, Duke?” I guess killing a few zombies while the men around me stood there doing nothing had raise my stock in their eyes.
I raised my eyebrow at him. Unfortunately I think the trick was lost on him in the darkness. “Well, we can either stand here with our thumbs up our asses or start looking for him.”
He grimaced at me and rolled his eyes. “How do we do that, genius?”
I eyed the 20 or so cars sitting there and then did a slow circle, turning in place. Everything was quiet. Dare I say that it was too quiet? Only the sounds of our shoes squishing in the mud made any noise at all. “We’re here,” I said. “We might as well call out for him. If the zombies are coming, they’re already coming. They heard our shots and the kid has been screaming for God knows how long.”
Washington nodded and said, “All righty.” Next thing I knew he was screaming at the top of his lungs, “Hey, kid! We’re here! Where are you?”
He yelled a few more times and then stopped, listening. Finally we heard a faint: “I’m here. Please help me.”
“That’s helpful,” I muttered.
We shone our flashlights at the cars. About four cars back we finally saw a hand waving and a head stuck up from a backseat. It looked like a boy in his early teens. Maybe thirteen. I breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, that’s when Felix started shouting. Isn’t that always the way?
He was shining his flashlight behind us, behind
“What do we do?” He asked.
The zombies were shambling slowly toward us, arms already held out beseechingly in our direction. There were no more than 20 in the pack; maybe 15. I looked quickly through the faces for Barrett but he wasn’t in the group. Mr. Haskett was, though, shuffling in his underwear. Mrs. Banks, a friend of my mom’s who usually spent the day in chocolate heaven and watching the soaps. Chocolate and other goo was trickling from her mouth. The zombies were in various states of disarray. Some had disgusting bits dangling here and there and were missing some parts. Others looked almost normal, like they were just out on a Saturday night stroll and happened to be tagging along with the group. I somehow doubted that was really the case.
I glanced around at the others. They all looked sick to their stomach (Rodriguez threw up as my gaze crossed his) but resolute. I thought that maybe none of them would falter. “Well,” I said in answer to Washington’s question, “how about we blow them away? They’re between us and the House.”
