White Flag of the Dead (12 page)

The outcome was amazing. Even before the ball hit the ground, zombies had already zeroed in on it and were chasing it. Those that had not seen it, spun around at the sound of it hitting the pavement. The group as a whole converged on the bouncing ball and became a tangled mass of arms and legs. Several zombies fell to be stepped on by their comrades, and the group only lost interest when they realized there was nothing for them to eat. I did manage to move most of the zombies away from the gas station, and they were now focused primarily on the parking lot across the street.
Useful bit of information, that
, I thought. I didn’t figure a tennis ball would do any distracting if they were chasing live prey, but if they didn’t know you were there and got distracted enough to move, that could buy you some very precious seconds.

I turned around and as I made my way to the ladder I happened to look over the stone wall and into the backyards of the subdivision behind the gas station. I saw a lot of white flags on mailboxes and shook my head. I also saw a lot of zombies milling about and couldn’t figure out why they were there. That was until I looked at the second floor windows and saw what had to be thirty people looking at me. To say I was stunned stupid was an understatement.

The people had rigged together four homes by the upper floors. Ladders extended between the houses, and I shuddered to think what it must be like to crawl on an extension ladder suspended over a sea of hungry ghouls. I raised a hand in greeting, and got twenty in return. There was no way to communicate outside of hand signals, and I needed to get back inside. I went back down the ladder and met up with Tommy and Duncan.

Duncan had effectively managed to cover the front windows, so we were okay with anything looking in. We still needed to be as quiet as possible, since sound seemed to attract them in droves. We sat down at the employee section again and I had Jake in my lap. He was playing with some stuffed animals I had found in the store, and taking turns hitting them on the table, trying to eat them, and talking to them.

“So how was the roof? I saw the Z’s go running after a tennis ball. That your doing?” Tommy asked, sipping on a warm bottle of water.

“Yeah, that was me. Just running a little experiment.” I said.

“Well, it was exactly the right thing to do at the time. Duncan couldn’t put up the posters without attracting attention, so you gave him just the opening he needed.”

Duncan nodded. “I had everything taped and ready to go, but couldn’t move because three of them were too close. Thanks.”

I nodded back. “Speaking of close. Have either of you taken look out back, over the wall?”

Tommy shook his head. “Can’t see anything over the wall unless I stood on the dumpster, and I sure ain’t one to try that right now. Why?”

“Well, you’re not going to believe this, but behind the wall, there’s a subdivision of houses, and at least three of the houses are occupied with a number of people.”

Tommy and Duncan just stared at me. If I didn’t know better, I would swear Jake stared at me, too.

I continued. “They are living on their second floors, and have connected the houses with extension ladders on the roofs. It looks like several neighbors came together and have created a sort of refuge, but I can’t imagine they have enough food for all those people.’

Duncan halted in his eating of a granola bar. “What do you want to do?”

I thought for a second. “We need to communicate and see what their situation is. For all we know, they’re fine and just enjoying the show of three lunatics trying to make a run for it. Duncan, do you remember where you put those radios you found?”

Duncan nodded. “Yeah, I remember. Are you thinking on tossing one over?”

I shook my head. “I don’t have an arm like that. We need to think of some way to launch one over without attracting too much attention.”

It was Tommy’s turn to shake his head. “Why worry about attracting attention? Why not just throw it in the yard?”

“There’s about thirty zombies wandering around the yards, and likely as many in the houses on the ground floors. We’d be witnessing a slaughter if they tried to get it.” I said.

Tommy looked down. “Hadn’t figured on that.” he murmured. Then he brightened. “What if we tossed the radio into the yard, distracted the zombies from the roof here, and they could get to it.”

I thought about it. “What about the zombies on our side? Won’t they hear us?”

Tommy got more excited. “Yeah, but if we’re on the roof, near the false front, they’ll never know where the noise is coming from, and lose interest in a little while. All we need to do is get the ones in the yard to see us, and they’ll be wandering over to the fence in no time.”

“Works for me”.

Duncan got the radio ready by wrapping it in a towel and putting it in a coffee can. We didn’t need to throw it too far, but a good fifty yards. Tommy said he’d give it a throw. I had no problem with that. Jake was getting antsy, so I needed to spend some time with him before I gave him his dinner. Duncan and Tommy would let me know how it went.

They were gone for half an hour, then came scrambling back down the ladder. Duncan was slapping Tommy on the back and Tommy was grinning like a loon. I looked up from feeding Jake and asked, “So, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?”

Tommy slumped into the seat and took a swig of water. “I’ve never felt so wanted in my life. We climbed up on the roof and waved to the people in the houses, and then Duncan whistled. Holy shit. You would have thought he just farted in church. Every zombie in the yard came limping over and clawing at the wall. I saw several come out of the houses and join the group.” He took another drink. “After that, we just sat there and let the group see us. Duncan would occasionally wave at the zombies, but it gave me time to throw the can.” Another sip. “I had no idea I could throw that far.”

I glanced over. Jake was nearly done. “How far?”

Tommy grinned. “I bounced it off the porch and it landed near a smashed-in sliding glass door. I have no idea how they’re going to get it, but we did what we could.”

I couldn’t argue with that. We had no real obligation to those people in the houses, and they had no obligation to us, either. But since the dead seemed to be outnumbering the living these days, we kind of needed to try to stick together. Duncan clicked the radio on and we waited. I gave Jake a bath in the big sink in the back area, and he loved it. He played with the faucet and laughed when I used a bottle of water to wash his hair. I really envied his inability to understand the situation he was in. Yeah, we had a scary moment there, but we recovered and now just needed to plan our next step.

10

The sun was starting to set, and that was when the radio crackled to life.

“Hello? Hello? Anybody there? Are the guys who threw the radio to us still there? Hello?” The voice sounded frantic.

Duncan picked up the radio. “Hello, we read you. How are you all doing?” He looked at Tommy and me when we came over to hear.

“We’re okay for now, but we’re running out of food. We’ve been rationing for a week now, and are nearly out. Any way you can get some to us?”

Duncan looked at Tommy , who shook his head. “Negative, it’s too risky right now. How many people are up there?”

The answer stunned us all. “We’ve got sixty-two people on the second floor of four houses. We’ve been going back and forth with the ladders. The zombies know we’re here and won’t leave.”

It was my turn to shake my head. “Can’t get them out without serious help. Do they have vehicles?” I asked.

Duncan asked the question to the person on the radio. “No, our vehicles are gone. A group passing through took them two weeks ago.” the voice said sadly.

I ground my teeth in frustration.
People suck
, I thought. A thought occurred to me. We could get them out, and moving, but we were going to have to do it soon. I reached over for the radio.

“Hello?” I said.

“Yes?” came the reply.

“Do you have any weapons?” I asked, formulating a plan as I spoke.

“Yes, we have about fifteen guns and everyone has a weapon of some kind”

I raised my eyebrows. That was a lot more that I ever had expected. “Do you have any ammo?”

“We have about four shots each. We used a lot when we set up our little forts.” the radio said back.

I hoped it would be enough. “I have a plan, but it’s going to take a serious concentrated effort. We’ll talk again tomorrow. Can you hang on until then?”

The voice sounded determined. “We’ve made it this far. What time?”

“I’ll call you back at 8 am. Turn off the radio so you don’t waste batteries. Out.”

“Will do. Out.” The voice sounded off.

Tommy and Duncan looked at me. “We have some planning to do, and I for one, am tired of playing nice with these decaying bastards.”

“What’s the plan then?” Tommy asked.

“Simple.” I said. “We kill them all.”

Planning became lively after that, and we talked and long into the night.

11

The next morning, at precisely 8am, the radio crackled to life.

“Hello? Is anyone there, hello?” The voice seemed calmer, but I could hear other voices in the background. I picked up the radio.

“Hi there. How are you all holding up?” I asked.

“People are pretty excited, I have to say. They figured they were going to die up here either through starvation or suicide.” The voice said.

I could understand that. Tommy and I had talked about such things as well. “Can you hang out for a little while longer?” I was curious about our time schedule. If we could wait until it rained, that would be so much better for trying to move a large group of people without attracting so much attention. My plans were shifting away from hiding, but even I knew when to cut and run. We could be running into thousands of zombies, we just had no way of knowing.

“We can hold out for about a week, then things will get ugly.”

“Understood. Listen, we think we can get you out and moving, but it’s going to take some coordination.” I outlined the basics of the plan, and heard some exclamations from the other end as the voice responded.

“We don’t have much choice, do we?”

I waited a second before responding. “I’m not going to lie to you. We’re going to have a running fight the second we get this going. If you don’t want to go through with it, that’s your choice. We’ll leave the door open to the gas station and you can try to get your food from here after we leave. But we are going. You need to decide if you are staying.”

The radio was quiet. I could almost hear the arguments going on. Then the voice came back on. “Okay. We’re with you. What do you want us to do?”

I spoke for about fifteen minutes, and then signed off. They had promised to be ready whenever we were, and we had no real idea when we were going to go. I was hoping for rain within the time frame, but the best laid plans always seem to go wayward, as I had already seen.

I fed Jake and then spoke with Tommy and Duncan about being ready to move as soon as possible. They had already been to their car, and managed to get most of their essential gear, as well as the rest of the ammo, back into the gas station. They had also moved the dumpster right next to building as needed.

Duncan had found some duffle bags in the back room, and he and Tommy both filled two of them with gear. I still intended to move with the bike and trailer, so I was good. I looked around the store and selected a few items I thought might be useful, but for the most part, a lot of the stuff was useless. I saw some magazines near the front, so I wandered up that way. I looked over the selection, and picked up two of them that looked interesting. A gun magazine and a news magazine. Both were a month old.

I stood up and looked straight into the eyes of a zombie. One of the posters had fallen, and I hadn’t noticed it until I had stood in front of the store. The zombie looked at me, then opened its mouth and moaned loudly. It was a nasty one, with no shirt and huge tears in its flesh. Its skin was stretched over its skull and bared teeth snapped at me as I stepped back, my hand going for my SIG, then the zombie smashed his head into the glass. The window held, but a crack formed and grew longer as the zombie moaned again and struck the glass with its fist. Behind it, I could see more zombies coming over to investigate.

Crap. Well, we needed to go, why not now? I bolted back to the back room and grabbed Jake, getting him in the seat of the bike and giving him a toy to play with. I put some hearing protection in his ears, as it was about to get very loud.

“Duncan, Tommy! We got company! We gotta start the plan NOW!” I yelled

Duncan didn’t hesitate, he grabbed his rifle and extra magazines and headed to the roof. Tommy came running out of the back area and grabbed up the radio and hollered for them to get moving, we’re bugging out.

I grabbed my carbine and an extra magazine and headed back for the front. The zombie who had been pounding on the window had broken a large portion out of it, and was starting to climb through, like a big greasy worm. I raised my gun and blew his head in half, shifting my aim immediately to the zombie behind him. I shot that one down as well, and saw many others begin walking my way. I cleared away another one, then heard Duncan open up on the roof. It was gratifying to see several of the shuffling dead go down for good, head shots taking the unlife out of them. I shot another one that was close to the front, too close for Duncan to see. It was a young boy, likely no older than twelve, with a hideous neck wound. Black fluid leaked out of the big vein in his neck, and he dropped with a coughing moan.

Tommy was not sitting idle. He went out the back door and shot two zombies that had been around the side, out of sight of the roof and front. He dashed back inside for his and Duncan’s duffle bags and brought them outside.

Two minutes into the fight I heard a crashing fusillade of shots, and then another. I smiled grimly to myself.
Looks like the squatters are rebelling against the landlords
, I thought. I looked out into the street and saw that Duncan had done his job well. He had waited until the zombies had reached his ‘killing zone’, then proceeded to drop them systematically. Thirty corpses were stacked on each other in a wide semicircle like a grotesque fence. Damn fine shooting.