walking into a real shit storm, but if that was the case, they would have no choice but to stay and fight.
“It’s our best option,” Jack said. “We can’t take a chance and hope to outlast Reynolds’ men. They might outnumber and outgun us. If it is a small group, sure we could fight, but then what? More might be coming. The point is, we just don’t know, but I can tell you this, Reynolds wants us, and I bet he’s pissed off to no end.”
“He’s right, Zaun,” Maria said.
Zaun nodded.
“We ready to do this?” Jack asked.
The others nodded.
Grabbing the doorknob, he opened the door.
Chapter 21
The first glimmerings of early morning sunshine illuminated the sky. A parking lot stretched out before the group. A few cars took up spaces. The air was cold, a wintry wind chilling Jack’s sweaty neck and face. Looking around, he saw no one. Not a single human being. He immediately knew they weren’t in Manhattan; the three story apartment buildings across the street were too short and there was no skyline above. So they had to be in Brooklyn or Queens.
“Where are we?” Maria asked.
“Not sure, but it isn’t Manhattan,” Zaun answered.
“Where the hell is everyone?”
Jack heard nothing. Not a car, truck, plane or the simple buzz of city life. Maybe all the boroughs were evacuated, for precaution, but why? It was impossible to leave Manhattan, wasn’t it? No, that wasn’t true, as they themselves had escaped. He imagined others might have too. Was it even possible to evacuate a city the size of New York?
To the right was another warehouse building. “We need to put as much distance between us and Reynolds’ men as possible.” Jack wanted to head to the apartment buildings across the street, find people, but they would be out in the open, having to cross the parking lot and the street, making it easy for Reynolds’ men to see where they went.
Instead, they headed to the adjacent building on the right, ran passed the locked entrance, and ducked around the corner. They sprinted to the rear of the place to where a back alley stood and took a right, going behind another warehouse building.
Up ahead, a man wearing a mail carrier’s uniform was standing with his back to the group.
The man turned around as they approached. Jack stopped and the others bumped into him. Half the carrier’s face was missing, looking as if it had been shoved under a lawn mower, the skull completely showing on one side. The zombie started forward, arms out, hungry for flesh.
“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “It can’t be.” He knew it was true though, his gut telling him so since the warehouse. “The bots made it out of Manhattan.” He pulled the. 45 from its holster, prepared to shoot, when Zaun stopped him.
“That’ll make too much noise,” he said. “Let me.”
Zaun stepped forward and removed his sword from its sheath. He met the zombie halfway and sliced off its head. After wiping the blade clean on the undead guy’s shirt, he re-sheathed his weapon.
Jack felt his legs want to give out. He was exhausted. The bot epidemic had spread, hopefully just to the Long Island-Brooklyn-Queens area and not to the mainland. Of course, that was ridiculous, but he still thought there was a chance it could be true.
“I need to sit,” Jack said. “Rest.”
“I think we all do,” Maria said. “And we need shelter; it’s too cold to stay outside and hope to catch some shut-eye. There might not be many undead around here now, but that could all change in an instant.”
“Yeah,” Zaun said. “They might all be in the buildings, but one sound and we’ll have them coming after us.”
They all agreed that shelter was the most important thing. The warehouse they were currently behind was most likely empty, where as the apartment buildings across the street were probably crawling with undead. Jack didn’t like being only a block away from the operations center, but getting off the street was essential.
They worked their way along the rear of the building, coming to a one-way street, with a large, factory-like building on the other side. It had no windows and a large mural of people working in a lavishly green-painted garden.
Jack peered around the corner, saw the way was clear, and ushered the group onward. They worked their way toward the front of the building, the frigid wind causing Jack’s eyes to tear up.
A zombie came ambling down the street from the main road that ran adjacent to the apartment buildings. Everyone froze, and Jack knew they were all thinking the same thing-please let it be alone.
The zombie saw them and picked up its slow pace, shuffling a bit faster. Jack grimaced at the sight, the thing’s jaw distended, hanging low from its face like a huge rubber band. The fingers on its left hand were gnarled stumps of flesh.
“Let it get closer, then take it out,” Jack told Zaun.
When the bot-controlled thing came within a few feet, Zaun quickly and quietly, sliced off its head. With no other undead showing up, they moved on.
At the street’s corner, Jack saw they were now on 4th Avenue. He looked up and down the street and saw no sign of any undead, only numerous vehicles either parked along the curb or stopped in traffic. If people had escaped the city, he imagined many took mass transit, hoping to avoid the overcrowded roadways.
Jack and the others ran to the building’s entrance, only to find its metal gate was down too. With no other options, they ran across the street to the closest apartment building.
The entire row of houses looked decrepit, with exteriors appearing as if they hadn’t been painted since the 1970’s. Security bars covered almost every first floor apartment. Jack thought it a shame that people couldn’t live in a house and look out a window without feeling as if they themselves were locked away, but for now, he was glad to see the steel bars.
He pushed open the badly scuffed front door, the glass having been replaced by non-transparent Plexiglas. Inside, were a small foyer and another door about ten feet away. It was covered in wire mesh; breaking in would be extremely difficult. Jack tried the door, finding it locked. Along the wall were six mailboxes, indicating the building held six apartments, most likely two on each floor. He began kicking at the door, taking turns with the others, surprised at how sturdy the thing was.
“Cover your ears,” he warned, then readied his shotgun and blasted the lock apart. The noise was deafening in the small room, leaving a slight ringing in his ears. With nothing holding the door closed, Jack easily pushed it open. He cocked the shotgun, and entered the hallway.
“Hey,” Zaun said, holding up a piece of mail. “We’re in Brooklyn.”
The building’s interior wasn’t any better than the exterior. The air was stale, with a mixture of rot and sewage. The walls were filthy, the color of a smoker’s tobacco-stained teeth, and marked up. The black and white patterned linoleum tiles were cracked and worn, revealing the dullness of the wooden floor beneath. An overhead light was on, indicating the electricity was still flowing.
“Let’s clear the building,” Jack said. “It’s only three floors, two apartments per level. Shouldn’t take us long, then we can get some rest.”
The first apartment, 1F, was on the left. Jack tried the door, but it wouldn’t open. A single lock was all that kept the place secured. Most doors in the city had two locks, one on the doorknob part of the door, the other about a foot above it, usually a bolt-action of some kind. He stepped back and gave it a good kick. The door flew open, colliding into something solid, followed by a crash as if someone had fallen.
Pushing the door open all the way, Jack saw what had made the crashing sound. What had once been an elderly woman-now a member of the undead-lay on the floor, attempting to get up. Its arms were covered with open sores. She was still wearing her glasses, but the knock she had taken had knocked them askew as they rested crookedly on her face. The air was putrid, a mixture of mold and rot. Not wanting to waste a bullet, Jack asked
