Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde (12 page)

“Where did
they
come from?” Benji asked in surprise.

“Unity Gang probably brought them with them,” John yelled
over the crackle of gunfire that ensued. “They keep 'em as pets and fight them.
I told you it was bad.” John turned and stared at me. It was too much to take
in at once. Things had gone from bad to plain psychotic. Joel was still inching
forward, pulling himself along. He wasn't going to make it. What started out as
four or five zombies was now easily up to thirty. John glanced around. They
were coming out of buildings in packs. The gunfire wasn't doing much to slow
them down. Their bodies seemed to absorb the rounds. Only a direct shot to the
head would stop them from advancing.

“Get back in the Jeep!” John yelled. “We're leaving now!”

“No!” Tom cried out in protest. “We have to save Joel! We
have to save my brother!”

“It's too late for that,” John hollered back. “Now get in or
get left behind.”

Benji scrambled up into the Jeep. He curled up in a ball in
the back seat, keeping his head down and covering his ears. The sound of
gunfire was all around us, like a chorus of exploding high grade fireworks. I
followed him in, taking the passenger seat. John started the Jeep and put it in
reverse. Tank dragged Tom, desperately kicking and screaming, to the car.

“Get in or I'll knock you out,” Tank warned him. Tom tried
to pull himself free but Tank grabbed him by the arm and yanked him around,
delivering a hard punch to the stomach that knocked the wind out of him. Tom
doubled over and Tank wasted no time throwing him in the back of the Jeep. Tank
was only part way in the vehicle when John took off, slamming the pedal to the
floor and leaving a trail of rubber behind.

Tom lay next to Benji, crying mournfully. Tank didn't say
anything. I opened my mouth to speak, but John cut me off.

“Not a single word,” he growled, his voice low like a coiled
snake ready to strike.

I shut my mouth. We rode in silence until we got back to the
first neighborhood. John pulled up in front of his house and shut the engine
off.

“Everyone inside the house now,” he demanded. There was no
longer any pretense of friendliness about him. We climbed out of the car and
stood staring at John, waiting for further instructions. He looked like he was
about to explode.

Now we're seeing the real John,
I thought.
A
coward who leaves fallen men behind.

My look must have said all of that and more because John
suddenly turned on me.

“I've had just about enough of you for one day,” he said.
“Tank, see to it that these brats are secured until I decide what to do with
them.”

“My pleasure,” Tank replied.

“Lock them in the secret room and put a guard on them,” John
barked. “I've got some business to take care of and I don't want them causing
any more trouble or even accidentally getting anyone else killed.”

Before Tank could reply John floored it, taking off down the
street.

“Well, ladies,” Tank began with a slimy grin. “You heard the
man. Let's go.”

He marched us upstairs to the room covered with Nazi
memorabilia. I hadn't bothered to tell Benji and Tom about the decor. Their
surprise was as genuine and deep as mine when I first saw it.

“You like it?” Tank asked. “I decorated it myself.”

“You did this?” Benji asked in surprise.

“Yep,” Tank proudly responded. “I'm a bit of a collector, or
at least I was before Z-Day. John's house burned down during the riots so I
offered him mine to set up headquarters in. There is some reading material you
can flip through while you wait to see what John plans to do with you.”

“You can't keep us locked in here like prisoners,” I feebly
objected.

“That's where you are wrong,” Tank corrected me. “We can and
we will. Consider yourselves lucky. If it were up to me I'd just take you out
back and shoot you for what happened back there.”

And if it were up to me I'd chop off both your hands and
leave you to the zoms
, I thought.

“My brother is still out there,” Tom cried out suddenly. “We
have to go back for him.”

“I hate to be the one to tell you this kid, but by now your
brother is either dead or craving some serious brains. It's his own damn fault
too. I never seen anything like that before. It was like he had a death wish.”
Tank spit out a string of curse words that made Benji blush. Tom's jaw clenched
and I could see he was plotting how to repay Tank for his insult.

“That's his twin brother,” I said. “Show some sensitivity.”

“I thought you two hated each other,” Tank replied.

“We didn't hate each other,” I fumed. “We disagreed. Besides
that's no reason to leave him to zombies. How would you feel if someone did
that to one of your family members, then laughed about it?” An evil look came
over Tank's face, like a dark cloud throwing a moody shadow across his eyes and
forehead.

“I've known Bruiser almost my whole life,” Tank said in an
even, steady voice. “He was better than a brother to me. He’s saved my life
countless times. Now because of your idiot brother's actions, he's dead.”

“Sorry,” I offered as guilt flooded over me.

“Save your apologies for John,” Tank roared, his tone hard
as nails. “I don't give a crap what you children think. Just remember this, you
ever talk that way to me again and I will twist your head off like a dinner
chicken. Now sit down and shut the hell up.”

Tank shoved us deeper into the room and slammed the doors.
He locked them from the outside.

Of course
, I thought, picking myself up from the
ground and testing the handle.
The secret room locks from the outside.
That's why John wanted to keep us here.
Tank wouldn't want people just
wandering in and discovering his Nazi obsession. Before Z-day he kept it under
lock and key. After the world came apart and he was helping to run a white
paramilitary splinter group that was fighting off mostly minority gang members,
it wouldn't matter if people knew he was a bigot.

“It's locked from the outside,” I explained without them
asking.

“What do we do now?” Tom wondered, pacing back and forth and
chewing on his fingernails.

“Nothing we can do. We wait and try to come up with a plan.”

“We have to help Joel,” Tom reiterated. “We have to go back
for him.”

“I agree,” I said. I looked over at Benji and he nodded.
“First chance we get we have to make a break for it. We'll grab Joel on the way
out of town and never look back.”

“How are we going to get out of Lompoc when the Unity Gang
controls the highway out?” Tom asked. “You saw what they’re like. They’re
animals who killed my brother for no reason at all. It's not like we can just
explain that we're not part of their war and watch them let us pass through.”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “But we will find a way.”

I sat down with my back to the doors and closed my eyes to
think. Things were not going according to plan at all. Somehow I knew they were
going to get worse before they got better. I felt guilty about Joel's death,
even though it wasn't my fault. Yeah I didn't like the guy. He kept challenging
me. He kept picking fights for no reason. He was a pain in the butt from the
minute he saved us at Vandenberg. That didn't mean I wanted him dead, did it? No.
It didn't. I was exhausted from the events of the day and my mind was starting
to play tricks on me. I was going to leave Joel and Tom behind. That's the
truth. I was going to grab Benji and sneak out of town the first chance I got.
Now I was going to have to risk my life again to try to help Tom. But how?
Nothing came to mind but more problems when I asked myself that question.

Without even realizing it, I drifted off to sleep again.

The sound of the door unlocking woke me from a deep,
dreamless sleep. I scrambled to my feet and hurried over to the bed where Benji
had passed out. Tom sat in the corner staring at the wall, as catatonic as
Cameron in
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
. It had grown dark outside. I
quickly scanned the room for signs of a clock. All I saw were Nazi symbols and
swastikas. Abruptly, the door swung open and Tank stood there looking as
intimidating as ever.

“Rise and shine, kiddies,” he sang out condescendingly.
“It's dinner time.” The cute girl I had seen earlier in the day stepped out
from behind him with a tray full of soup bowls. She walked into the room and
set one down in front of each of us. The contents looked like piping hot beef
stew with a square of yellow corn bread on top. When she set the bowl down in
front of me she stared deeply into my eyes for a long time. Up close she was
even more beautiful than I had imagined. I was speechless. Then without a word
she turned and marched quickly out of the room. Another woman I didn't
recognize came behind her and gave us all large glasses of water. I gulped half
my glass down at once. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was.

“Easy there runt,” Tank scolded. “You're only getting one
bathroom break so take it slow, amigo.”

“Where's John?” I demanded. “I want to talk to him.”

“And people in hell want ice water,” he said in a mocking
voice. “In case you hadn't noticed, John's a pretty busy guy. He'll get to you
when he has time, princess. Now eat your chow and shut your yap.”

Tank slammed the door shut and locked it again.

“You think it's safe to eat?” Benji delicately turned over
his portion with a large spoon, like it might explode at any second.

“I guess so,” I said, taking a cautious first bite. It
tasted good, really good. “Tastes fine to me.”

“What if he poisoned it?”

“I think if John wanted to kill us he would just take us out
and shoot us,” I mused.

“Yeah,” Benji agreed. “Or let Tank twist our heads off like
chickens.” I turned and looked at him in shock. He laughed. I tried to fight it
back, but soon I was laughing too.

Things have just gotten ridiculous so fast
, I
thought. I looked over to see that Tom wasn't eating. He'd turned himself more
toward the wall and was muttering under his breath. He was taking what happened
to Joel pretty hard. It made me stop giggling.

“That's not funny,” I said, spooning in a few bites. “Eat
up. We're gonna need our strength.”

We chowed down in silence for a while. When I reached the
bottom of the bowl I found something unexpected. At first I thought it was a
seasoning leaf. I dug at it with my spoon to unearth it from the soil-colored
sludge of the stew and saw that it was a piece of plastic. I pulled it out to
reveal someone had stuck a tiny plastic bag at the bottom of my bowl, but that
wasn't all. There was paper inside.

A note,
I thought
. Someone snuck a note to me. But
who? And why?

I unwrapped the plastic and removed the paper from it, being
extra cautious not to get it wet. I unfolded the tiny square of paper until it
was the size of my palm. There were tiny words etched into its surface in
perfect little letters.

The guard change happens at midnight. The spare key is
hidden in the spine of Mein Kampf. Check the map in John's office. The road
south is not guarded by Unity Gang. You've been lied to. Eat the evidence when
you are done. Good luck!

I leaped up and grabbed the book off the shelf.

“What's going on?” Benji asked.

“I'm not sure,” I replied honestly, flipping the pages down
and pulling at the spine. The glue gave a gentle sigh and came loose. A shiny
silver key slid out and plopped onto the bed. I picked it up and shoved it in
my pocket.

“What's that?” Benji probed.

“I will tell you later,” I promised, crumpling up the note
and jamming it into my mouth. I chewed it up as best as I could and swallowed
it whole. I could feel the sharp edges tickling as it slid down my throat. A
moment later the door opened again.

Just in time,
I thought.
Any longer and I would
have been caught.

The cute girl came back in and cleared the dishes away. I
tried to make eye contact with her, to let her know I had gotten her message,
but she wouldn't look at me. She was in and out of the room in under a minute.
Tank sauntered in after she left, looking annoyed to be stuck babysitting a
bunch of kids instead of being out there chasing down gang members.

“All right,” Tank grumbled, sounding grumpier than ever.
“Time for bathroom breaks. Who has to go?” Benji stood up and walked toward the
door.

“Good,” Tank said. “Now let me remind you that if you try to
escape you will be killed without hesitation. No warning shots. You got that?”

Benji turned white. His young legs began to tremble a
little. He was unable to answer. He nodded his reply.

“Fantastic,” Tank chortled, pulling him out of the room. He
shut and locked the door again. I turned to Tom.

“I know you can hear me in there,” I whispered gently to
him. Tom didn't budge. He hadn't touched his food either. His eyes were moving
back and forth a lot and he kept blinking, but that was about the only sign
that he was still in there. “We're getting out of here tonight. First thing we
do is steal a car. Then we go looking for Joel. You don't have to do anything.
Just be ready to go when the time comes and don't slow us down. You got that?”

Tom closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Got it,” his small voice croaked. It made me sad to see him
this upset. He was always the fun one, the peacemaker, the guy telling us all
that everything was going to be okay. Losing his twin brother to the chaos out
there had turned him into a hollow shell. I knew I didn't have to explain to
him that there was a good chance we wouldn't be seeing Joel again, that his
brother was dead and gone—or worse, transformed into a monster.

The lock in the door clicked several times and the door
swung open once more. Tank shoved Benji back in.