Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde (3 page)

“No time to waste,” I said. We both took off at a full run,
giving it everything we had. I still had my sword in my hand. As we passed the
female half zombie, she reached up toward me and bared her teeth. I brought
down my katana and decapitated her with a single swipe of the blade. Benji kept
glancing back as he ran, trying to see where our pursuers were. I yelled out
and caught his attention.

“Don't look back,” I shouted, fire burning in my lungs.
“Just keep running!”

By the time we were halfway to the buildings, the carnage
beneath our feet had disappeared. The majority of the fighting happened in the
open area near the school, as soldiers sacrificed their lives for us.
Most
of them died in vain
, I thought.
What if that had been my brother?
I
didn't have to imagine what it would have been like to know them because I had
been on a first name basis with most of the enlisted men since I had arrived. I
recognized too many faces on our sprint to freedom, faces frozen in death,
twisted by pain and anger. So many people had already died. With a small gang
of the undead still chasing us, I knew I didn't have time to mourn these fallen
heroes but I made a mental note that if I made it out alive I would honor them.
They deserved that mark of respect for all they had done, all they had given.

We were less than twenty feet from the buildings when I saw
something moving in the shadows. My heart skipped a beat and I felt the
familiar sour sensation rising up in my guts. We were racing as fast as we
could go, straight into a zombie trap. A million horrible thoughts all went
through my head at once. Maybe there was a swarm of them in there, faces peeled
off, nothing but teeth and sharpened bones. Like insects working together
they'd used their
hive mind
, their animal intelligence to force us into
a monstrous feeding pit. How many people were already dead in there, having
been torn to bits by these disgusting monsters? Rapidly I glanced around for a
way out even as my legs carried us forward. I knew that if I tried to change
course too suddenly, chances were I would trip and roll right into whatever
demon was hiding in the shadows waiting for us. And even if I did make it,
there was no way Benji would.

If I am going to die this way then I’ll clear a path for
him
, I thought as I gripped the handle of my sword tighter. It was the only
answer that made sense. I raised the sword in front of me and let out a loud
battle cry as I charged forward toward the terrible darkness that awaited us.
Before I could cross the threshold, two teenage boys stepped out of the alley
and faced us. It was the Parker twins, Joel and Tom. They were covered from
head-to-toe in dried blood.

What is that in their hands?
I thought as they raised
their arms chest high and pointed black steel at us. Guns. I’d seen them
before. Not just any guns—an MK-13 and a grenade launcher. I slowed down
just enough to let Benji get in front of me and then tackled him to the ground
with all my might, holding him down as he squirmed and fought. The grenade flew
past us a split second later.

“Cover your ears!” I yelled. Benji stopped fighting and
stuffed his fingers deep into his ears as if they were foam plugs. I barely got
mine in when the explosion went off. I could feel the ground we were sitting on
ripple from the force of the fiery blast. I looked back to see pieces of the
foul zombies flying apart. The ones who had joined the chase were now down for
the count, but our main attacker was still in hot pursuit. He was less than
twenty feet away. We were screwed. With my sword over ten feet away I didn't
stand a chance of retrieving it before he reached us. I was going to have to
use hand-to-hand combat, knowing a single bite would transform me into one of
them.

“Stay down!” Tom Parker yelled. The next thing I knew a hail
of bullets came ripping out of the MK-13, penetrating the soft flesh of the
hell spawn and literally cutting him in half before our eyes. Strips of gray
flesh, black muck, and oily red contaminated blood showered us. I did my best
to cover Benji from the cascading flow of filth. It felt like the gunfire went
on forever but in reality it was probably less than a minute. Tom walked over
to the bullet riddled zombie and kicked him over with his foot. Despite taking
so much lead and being literally sawed in half, the thing was still moving its
mouth, flexing its neck muscles as it lunged at Tom with its teeth.

“Suck on this,” Tom said, sticking the barrel of his
automatic weapon into the creature’s snapping mouth and blowing its blackened
brains all over the asphalt.

“Where the hell did you two come from?” I asked, sitting up
and wiping the mess from my clothes the best I could. So far as anyone knew,
you couldn't get infected with the zombie virus by coming into contact with
their blood or guts. The disease was spread by being bitten, the saliva
transmitting the virus directly to the blood stream. You could bathe in a pool
of undead guts and not get it, not that anyone I knew wanted to test that
theory. Nothing smells as bad as the living dead. Words just can't begin to
describe the disgusting stench.

“A simple
thank you
will suffice,” Tom said,
extending his hand to help me up. I took it and got to my feet. Joel had set
down his grenade launcher and was turning my blade over in his hands,
mesmerized by its perfection. It made me uncomfortable to see him with it. A
katana is not a toy to be played with. It's a delicate flower and a deadly
instrument of justice. My blade was like my secret girlfriend and I didn't
appreciate him causally putting his paws all over her.

“Thanks,” I said, turning my back to him and walking over to
Joel.

“Don't mention it,” Tom said with a note of mild sarcasm.

“I believe that belongs to me,” I said, with just a hint of
force in my voice. He looked up into my eyes.

“Right you are,” Joel said, immediately handing it over.
Instantly I felt the muscles in my neck relaxing. “Just taking a look. No harm
done.”

“How did you two survive?” Benji asked. I was glad for a
reason to change the topic. “And where did you get those amazing guns?”

“We were in the mess hall when the order came to evacuate,”
Joel said.

“We were way back in the kitchen, um, liberating some grub
for those late night snacking fits,” Tom added, looking sheepish. “Our candy
supplies were running dangerously low.”

“Right,” Joel said, taking back the conversation. “So we
hear all this earsplitting screaming, chairs scraping, people stampeding out
the door, just general mayhem. We pop our heads out just in time to see a
soldier shut and lock the door.”

“Why would they take the time to lock the door?” The words
were out of my mouth before I realized I was speaking.

“That's exactly what we said when it happened,” Tom chimed
in.

“So we creep up and take a peek out the window,” Joel said,
taking back the narrative. “You gotta realize at this point we have no clue
what's going on. It could be a drill for all we know.”

“I was hoping we were being evacuated to new housing, to be
honest,” Tom said. “There's a big spot above my bed that I am pretty sure is
the start of black mold.”

“It was unreal,” Joel said, waving his arms to make his
point. “First I see all the people on the base running toward the old
elementary school. There are flashes of green as the soldiers run behind them,
forming something like a human shield. There’s a lot of screaming . . .”

“But it's like someone screaming
orders
,” Tom
interrupted.

“Exactly,” Joel said. “Then the screaming started getting
louder and blending together more. That's when we saw the first wave of zombies
attack.”

“I didn't know they could move that fast,” Tom said. “I've
only ever seen them kinda moping along. Sure they’re lethal, because they don't
ever let up once they catch a whiff of you.”

“We never imagined they could move like that,” Joel said.
“It must have been the extreme hunger or something.”

Get to the damn point
, I thought. Just as I was
getting ready to lose my patience, Benji prodded them for the rest of their
long, drawn out tale.

“So how did you escape?”

“We cracked a window and slipped out,” Tom said. Joel shot
him a look that seemed to say thanks for ruining the story.

“I've done some research,” Joel said. “Zombies are attracted
to noise and movement.”

Everybody knows that
, I thought, rolling my eyes and
fighting back an exasperated sigh. Joel pretended not to notice.

“They were too busy going after the cluster of screaming
adults and fighting soldiers to notice us. So we slowly walked over to where
the fighting had started. There were three dead soldiers just ripped to shreds
lying there.”

“It was ugly stuff, man,” Tom said, looking at the ground.

“That's when we saw the second wave coming over the west
wall,” Joel said dramatically.

“Zombies can't climb walls, man,” I said.

“They didn't have to
climb it
,” Joel countered. “They
lined up against it and just pushed it over like a human tsunami. They climbed
over the rubble. They were coming right for us.”

“What did you do?” Benji's eyes were wide with fear and
anticipation as he listened, totally absorbed in the twin's story.

“We hid,” Tom said. “Under the bodies.”

“No way,” I blurted out.

“It's true,” Joel said, not sounding so cocky anymore. “We
didn't have much of a choice, did we? The zombies were heading toward us so we
got on the ground and pulled the dead bodies over us for cover, hoping it would
distract them.”

“It did,” Tom said defiantly, puffing out his chest. “They
went right past us and toward the fighting. I remember thinking I must have wet
myself out of fear and not even known. Only when I got up I saw it wasn't urine—it
was blood coming out of the soldier I'd pulled over me, leaking out what was
left in his body. It was still warm.”

“Soaked right through our clothes,” Joel said. “We grabbed
these guns and broke out as fast as we could, using the buildings for cover.”

“Why did you follow them to the school?” I asked.

“I dunno,” Tom said. “I guess we just had to know what
happened.”

“I kept wishing there was some way to stop them,” Joel said.
“Instead, we were as helpless as babies and couldn’t do a damn thing.” He
looked upset with himself for not doing more to help. I understood the feeling.
A wave of guilt crashed over me thinking about all the people we'd left behind.
I swallowed it back. There would be time for self-pity and wallowing later. For
now, we needed to keep it together if we were gonna make it out of this alive.

“So you've never shot that thing until just now when we
arrived?” I was having a hard time wrapping my head around it all. The MK-13
was a fierce piece of machinery. Tom had handled it like it was an Xbox 360
accessory.

“Our dad is a Marine who saw action in Iraq,” Joel proudly
said, the grin returning to his dirty face. “Between us, we've pretty much
practiced shooting on every kind of automatic weapon imaginable.”

“Let's just say we've had a colorful childhood,” Tom added.

“Where is your dad now?”

“We don't really know,” Tom admitted. “He left us here right
after Z-Day.”

“Haven't seen him since,” Joel worriedly shrugged.

“Thank you for saving our lives,” Benji said with shiny eyes
that fought back tears of gratitude.

“Yeah,” I added lamely, feeling like a moron. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome,” Tom said with an easy smile.

“We were just working on a plan to leave when we saw you
hauling ass this way,” Joel said. “I think we should give the kitchen another
once over for supplies before heading out. Tom thinks it's too risky.”

“Tom's right,” I said. “It's not safe to stay here with the
horde on the loose. It's just a matter of minutes until they eat their way
through the school and start looking for fresh victims.”

“So you've got a better plan?” Joel gave me a menacing look.

Everyone got real quiet and looked at me. I felt my throat
going dry but pushed through it.

“If we take the 1 south past the housing we'll literally
walk right into town. I'm hoping we can grab an abandoned car along the way,
maybe gas up in town, then head south to Hueneme. My brother is stationed
there. He'll know what to do.”

No one said a word. I felt my skin crawl as they stared at
me. I didn't know if they thought it was the most brilliant plan ever or the
dumbest.

“You're old enough to make your own decisions,” I stumbled
on, trying to come off more casual than I really felt, “but we are heading
south. You’re welcome to come with us.”

“What makes you think it's any better down south?” Joel
asked, fire still burning in his eyes. “How do you know we'll be safe there?”

“I don't,” I shrugged. “All I know is we can't stay here
anymore.”

Joel and Tom stared at each other a long time, as if they
were communicating by telepathy. Tom nodded and Joel shook his head. Benji
watched on, fascinated. They turned back to us at the same time.

“Okay,” they said in unison.

“Okay what?” I asked.

“We'll go with you,” Joel said. “On one condition.”

“What's that?”

“You let us do the shooting,” Tom said gleefully.

“Fine by me,” I said. “I've got a condition of my own.”

“Oh yeah?” Joel said. “What's that?”

“The minute we find a place that's stocked up and safe, you
two shower and change into clean clothes,” I said, pointing at them with the
end of my katana. “You look like something out of one of his more screwed up
comic books.”

“I think they look kinda cool,” Benji said. Tom smiled at
him and messed his hair up.

“I knew you were gonna say that,” I replied, walking past
them and through the field that led out to the blacktop.