“If we don’t attack now, Dal and Lena might die!”
Leo closed his eyes, fighting the anxiety knotting his chest. Hearing the crazed zombies made him want to do something. Anything.
But they’d all agreed on the Statute of Liberty play. Quite a few things had to happen for that play to work.
The receivers and lineman had to look convincing. The quarterback had to have the ball in the right place at the right time. The player making the run had to be there to grab the ball.
If anything was off, the play went south.
Timing was everything.
“We have a chance to save hundreds of lives. Maybe thousands,” Leo said. “The mission is the broadcast. Dal and Lena know the broadcast time.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Jennifer cried. “What if they don’t live to make the broadcast?”
Leo clenched his fists. He trusted Dal and Lena with his life. He trusted them to make the play.
“We wait,” he said. He held up his watch for Jennifer to see. “Twelve minutes.”
Chapter 39Guy’s Electronic Superstore
DAL AND LENA PEDALED frantically down the street, swerving around dead bodies.
Dal immediately realized their miscalculation. The music had indeed drawn every nezhit on the downtown street in front of Guy’s. What he hadn’t taken into considering were the zombies coming from farther away.
A pack of five burst around a corner. At the sight of Lena and Dal on the bikes, they howled.
Shit. Dal didn’t want to use his machine gun, but he had no choice. The nezhit would be on them in thirty seconds.
He’d long ago learned to ride without hands. Never letting up on the pedals, he shifted his weight backwards in the seat and grabbed his machine gun. Sighting down the barrel, he began to fire. The foremost of the zombies dropped with three shots to the head and chest.
Shots rang out beside him. In his periphery, Dal saw Lena also riding without hands. She fired her machine gun mercilessly into the oncoming nezhit. She was the most beautiful fucking thing he’d ever seen.
Three of the nezhit were down, but the last two kept coming. Dal and Lena kept firing.
He hit the first nezhit several times in the chest. The zombie howled, flailing as she fell twitching to the ground. Hopefully that had been enough bullets to really kill her.
Lena took out the legs of the remaining zombie. He collapsed to the ground—right in front of Dal’s bike. Dal hissed, jerking at the handle bars. He clipped the heel of the zombie.
The bike lurched. Dal stuck out a leg, barely managing to keep himself from falling. He felt the rubber tear on the sole of his Converse.
Howls lit the night behind them. They’d drawn the attention of the nezhit that had run toward Freddy Mercury. A massive hoard of the undead now thundered down the street, coming straight toward them.
“Keep going, Lena!” he cried, struggling to right his bike.
She gave him a wild look before flying by him, racing for the superstore. Dal managed to straighten out his bike and zoomed after her.
They reached the front of Guy’s Electronic Superstore at the same time. The world around them was bathed in the yellow-and-blue neon light of the store’s sign.
Like many of the other shops on the street, several of the front windows had been shot out. The difference was that Guy had black iron bars on all the windows for security. If they could just get inside, they’d be safe.
Unfortunately, there were bars on the front door, too. They dropped their bikes and tried the handle, hoping to find it unlocked like the one at the furniture store.
No such luck. The dead bolt was firmly in place.
Before Dal could formulate a plan, Lena raised her machine gun and aimed it at the door.
“Lena, no—”
“There’s no one other way, Dal.” She opened fire.
Bullets tore through the glass, sending shards to the ground in a showering cascade. The dead bolt snapped under the onslaught and the door flew open.
They hauled ass into the superstore, barreling through the ruined front entryway. Glass crunched underfoot.
Guy’s Electronic Superstore was crammed full of televisions, VCRs, and car stereo systems. Many of them lay on the floor in mangled heaps, shot up by Soviet bullets.
“The stairs!” Lena cried. At the back of the shop was a set of stairs leading to a mezzanine that was crammed full of boxes.
They dodged through the store. Just as they reached the stairs, the first of the nezhit burst inside. A long, low growl rippled through the shop. Seconds later, several more prowled inside.
Dal and Lena raced to the top of the stairs. Dal looked around wildly at the large cardboard boxes filled with televisions and other electronic equipment. Should he start chucking them down onto the nezhit? Could they use them to barricade the stairs? How they hell were they supposed to connect the transmitter to the antenna?
“Dal.” Lena yanked on on his arm, trying to get his attention. “Look!” She pointed to a roof access hatch set into the ceiling.
Roof. That was perfect. If they could get to the roof and lock out the nezhit, they’d have access to the antenna.
In wordless agreement, Dal and Lena scrambled onto the large boxes, rushing for the access hatch. Boxes tipped and fell in their haste. One of them broke open, spilling a three-hundred pound television to the floor. The reverberation of its fall echoed through the shop.
Below, the zombies howled in a frenzy. The pounding of feet echoed in Dal’s ears as the infected came for them. He launched himself at the access hatch.
Luckily, it was a simple latch. He flung it open as the first of the nezhit reached the mezzanine.
Dal seized Lena around the waist and boosted her through the opening. She accidentally kicked him in the face as she scrambled onto the roof. Dal
