Zombie Fallout: 'Til Death Do Us Part Part 31

"Oh I can guarantee I'll worry about it all night," I told her as she pulled off the highway. It looked like some sort of industrial park and she found the oldest, dilapidated piece of corrugated c.r.a.p to park behind. Seemed perfect for what we wanted, but on the flip side, it looked like the setting for ninety percent of every horror movie. It was four stories of sc.r.a.p metal; meth heads would have avoided the thing it was so far gone-even they had standards. Sleep would not easily be forthcoming.

It wasn't three minutes after the engine noise stopped echoing through the abandoned building when I heard the rhythmic breathing of Azile. I'm glad she pulled over when she did. There was a slice of moon in the otherwise cloudless night; the stars were beginning to make themselves known, although I did not think they would honor my wish. My gaze alternated between the brilliance of the night sky and that d.a.m.ned building. The broken windows with panes of gla.s.s hanging out of them looked like eager jagged teeth that wanted nothing more than to kill what was left inside of me. I heard a bottle skitter along a concrete floor somewhere within the structure. I peered at the windows, willing myself to evolve a few millennia further when man could finally see in the dark. It wasn't working. Then I fell into the trap that every-and I mean EVERY-person in movies, literature, and real life situations fall into.

I waited and expected more noise, another hint or clue to what had made the original sound. When it was not forthcoming I tried my best to rationalize it away, reasoning that it was most likely a rat, or the wind, or even a ghost. But never once thinking that it was truly what it was, something out to kill us. Wouldn't something with nefarious reasons that had just given itself away with some blundering move, immediately try to become a black hole of sound? Unmoving, ultra-cautious? It only made sense.

How many times have you been in bed, and in the middle of the night you had been awoken by an unexplainable sound? You sit up rapidly; your heart is cras.h.i.+ng against your breast plate. You struggle to adjust your vision to your surroundings. Alert for danger from any quarter, ears trying to pick up the minutest of sounds. When you realize that the threat is not immediate, you begin to relax, starting to find rational causes: the over-stacked dishes in the sink toppling, the dog knocking over the trash can, maybe even a particularly heavy gust of wind causing the drapes to push over a lamp. Never once believing it to be the man right outside your bedroom door holding an eight-inch curved blade, but he's patient, he knows he should have been more careful when he knocked the family picture off the small table in the hallway.

He'll wait until he hears your soft snores before he slowly turns the handle on your bedroom door, when he hits that creaking floorboard right next to your bed, it'll be to late as you catch a glimpse of the steel glinting in the sliver of moonlight s.h.i.+ning through your window as the blade is drilled into your neck, severing you carotid artery. Screams will escape you as he places his gloved hand over your mouth. Thoughts of your children in their rooms will fleet through your mind as your life slides away.

I sat up, there was a malevolent force in that building, and it was staring at me I could feel it's gaze upon me like a physical presence. I brought the M-240 up to rest on the windowsill. I would light that f.u.c.king building up like the Times Square Christmas tree if given half a reason. Azile was young enough that she probably wouldn't have a heart attack when that first round went down range.

"Show yourself, f.u.c.ker," I whispered. I was calm, mostly. I was hoping I wasn't making any mind phantoms. There were enough demons and monsters running around without the need for me to create mythical ones.

"Mike?" Azile asked.

I jumped. Thankfully my finger was not on the trigger or I would have certainly blown off fifty or sixty rounds before I knew what I was doing.

"What's going on?" she asked as she saw the gun in the ready position.

"I heard a noise in there," I said pointing. It sounded a lot weaker when it was verbalized, and I didn't tell her about my feeling.

Now she was listening. After a while she spoke. "Probably just the wind."

"And wouldn't that be what they wanted us to think?" I asked her before I truly thought about my word choice. Oh boy, my paranoia was on high alert that fine evening.

"Who, Mike? Do you see something?" she asked as she was peering over my shoulder.

"I don't see anything. Something sees us, though. I can feel it."

"Do you think he sees us, Dave?" the dark haired man asked nervously.

"I don't think so Greg," Dave said, putting his night vision scope down. "But I swear he keeps looking right at us."

"Why don't you just shoot him?" Greg asked.

"First, because Kirk hasn't told me to...second, because it's not an easy shot...and mostly because of that f.u.c.king gun he has. If I miss, he'll punch holes through this piece of s.h.i.+t building. A lot of f.u.c.king holes," Dave said, again picking up his scope and looking at the barrel of the death dealing machine. "I can guarantee one thing, though, Kirk is going to want that gun."

"You saw the gun. You should tell him," Greg stated nervously.

Their leader Kirk was a scary, solitary, psychotic man, who ruled more by abject fear than through any true leaders.h.i.+p qualities. The last person that had left their group had been hunted down mercilessly. When caught, Kirk had ordered him to be hung upside down and whipped until foot long strips of skin sc.r.a.ped against the ground as he swung back and forth on the chain that secured his ankles. Dave shuddered as the man had screamed for mercy that wasn't ever going to come. And what had made it worse was the man was Dave's friend, and he had done nothing to protect him.

Dave had convinced himself that it wasn't so bad under Kirk's regime. They were safe, they ate every day, and as long as they did exactly as they were told, there was nothing to fear. That wasn't always the truth; sometimes Kirk forgot what orders he issued, or if the outcome wasn't to his design, someone would pay. But for the most part, if you did what you were told you were safe. Dave's friend Bill had begged him to leave with him. Dave had refused, not because he didn't want to go but because he was petrified of what Kirk would do.

When Bill had come up missing during morning roll call, Dave had not even hesitated when asked where he was or where he might have gone. In fact, it was Dave that had to deal a significant amount of punishment to his 'friend.'

"We're friends, Dave. Don't do this," Bill had begged. "We grew up together for Christ's sake. Dave, stop this!" Bill had screamed as he was hoisted in the air.

"Five lashes," Kirk ordered.

"Five lashes? That's it?" Dave asked, hoping that his friend would someday be able to forgive him.

"Yes, five lashes from you. And hit him like you mean it or I'll make you do it again," Kirk said.

Bill screamed as Dave whipped him across the back.

Kirk said, "Zero. Hit him harder or I won't count them."

Dave reared back and struck again. Bill writhed in agony, screams, tears, and blood coming from his body.

"Better...one," Kirk counted. "Continue."

Dave delivered four more brutal blows. Angry wet, oozing welts as thick as breakfast sausages criss-crossed Bill's back. His body heaved as he sobbed.

"It's over, buddy, it's over. I'm so sorry," Bill said as he headed over to the chain release.

"What are you doing?" Kirk asked.

"Letting him down," Dave said with a confused look on his face. "You said five lashes."

"Yeah and your five lashes are done, I meant five lashes from each of us." Kirk said sweeping his hand across the twenty-eight-person populace.

"You'll kill him," Dave stated.

"No s.h.i.+t. Hand the whip to Chad," Kirk stated as he went back to playing his Nintendo DS, the beeps and whistles the game produced doing little to drown out Bill's whimpers and groans.

By the time the whip made it all the way to Kirk, Bill had come to the last link in his chain of life. Dave was amazed Bill had anything left, but when Kirk began to whip his face, he managed three more screams as his eye was torn free from its facial moorings and his lips were flayed off. The affect was grotesque as his face began to slough away. More than one person in the group had to walk away. Dave didn't, though, because Kirk was watching him intently as he finished his friend off.

"Let me see the scope," Kirk said as he came up next to Dave, startling him out of his memory.

"Jumpy?" Kirk asked as he grabbed the night vision gla.s.ses.

"Sorry, the guy in that truck sort of scares me."

"More than me?" Kirk asked smiling. "Just busting your b.a.l.l.s," Kirk said as he looked through the scope. "Holy s.h.i.+t, did you see that gun?"

"I did. That's why I had Greg get you."

"Well go get it then."

"Wait...the gun...by myself? How?"

"Relax, you take s.h.i.+t too seriously," Kirk said smiling. "Just busting your b.a.l.l.s again."

"Ha ha," Dave laughed insincerely, hoping Kirk didn't pick up on it.

"Hey, dips.h.i.+t!" Kirk yelled.

Dave was about to ask 'Him?' when Greg called out 'Yeah?' from behind them.

"Go release the zombies," Kirk said.

Greg raced away.

Those f.u.c.king zombies, Dave thought. They gave him the w.i.l.l.i.e.s just thinking about them and that they housed them in the same building had been one of the reasons he had a major loss in sleep.

"Something's going on," Azile said in my ear.

Not sure how she thought I could miss the loud metallic clanging in the otherwise still night.

"Sounds like a security door rolling up," Azile said. "They had them at the loading docks where I worked."

"Not good, not good," I said as I charged the weapon. A heavy cloud chose that exact moment to cross over our small source of light. The moon was completely blanketed as we both heard the sounds of metal sc.r.a.ping along pavement. Sparks were shooting up from the ground as what we later learned were chains being dragged along. We couldn't see what was dragging them, but it was clear they were headed in our direction and fast.

"Shoot!" Azile begged.

"I can't see anything. Get us out of here!"

Using the sparks as an indicator, whatever was coming had halved their distance and were not slowing. Without being able to see what was coming I could not shoot I was ninety-nine percent sure what it was, but not a hundred.

I heard the whir as the truck tried to catch. "Azile, now would be a good time."

"Won't start," she said as she pumped the gas and messed with the stick s.h.i.+ft.

The cloud cover pa.s.sed, my nightmare was revealed as hundreds of zombies raced toward the truck. Bullets and tracers lit up the night as I hammered them into the oblivion they so rightfully deserved.

"f.u.c.k," Dave said as he watched the h.e.l.lfire issue from the truck. He was glad he hadn't taken a shot. He would have never got a second one off if he had missed, and he was no marksman.

"He's killing my pets!" Kirk shouted. "Kill him!" he shouted at Dave.

"I don't have a shot."

"Make one or you'll be running out there."

Dave lined up a shot. His crosshairs dancing wildly as he made the attempt. The shot went wide blasting through the winds.h.i.+eld.

"f.u.c.k!" I shouted as the winds.h.i.+eld blasted out away from me. I had caught the muzzle flash from my peripheral vision and swung the M240 in the general direction. Bullets slammed into and through the thin aluminum sh.e.l.l of the building.

Bullets danced over the heads of Dave and Kirk as they dropped for cover.

"That might have been a bad idea." Kirk was smiling again. Broken gla.s.s, debris and dust were still raining down on them long after the bullets had ceased their attempt at ending their lives. Kirk didn't get back up to look out the windows until the gun started up again and thankfully not in their direction.

I was not egotistical enough to think that I had killed the threat from the third story window, but I imagine I had put the fear of whatever deity he believed in into his heart, and as long as he embraced that fear, I'd be fine. "How's it going, Azile? I'm running a little low on ammo."

"I'm trying, stop yelling at me!" she screamed back.

"Recall the zombies!" Kirk yelled as he raced down to the first floor.

Dave stayed where he was. Recalling the zombies meant putting out some of their prisoners as bait and he didn't want to be part of it. "I should have left with Bill," he said softly.

"You say something?" Greg asked.

"What'd you hear?" Dave asked.

"Something about you wis.h.i.+ng you'd left. I'm going to have to tell Kirk."

"Tell him this for me," Dave said as he put a round in Greg's chest. Dave ran to the opposite end of the building and down the two flights.

"What the f.u.c.k is going on out there?" Len asked as Dave nearly plowed into him.

Len had the unenviable task of guarding the door that was located the furthest from the action.

"Armageddon, Len, I'm getting out of here."

"You know the rules, Dave, n.o.body in...and especially n.o.body out."

"Len, just let me go. Or, better yet, come with me."

Len actually did think about it for a moment. "s.h.i.+t, Dave, I'd like to, but you saw what he did to Bill. I can't go through that."

"Just let me go, Len."

"I can't. There's one way out from the back of this building, who do you think he's going to blame?"

"Just say you didn't see anything."

"But I did and I'm a horrible liar."

"f.u.c.k, Len, I'm sorry" Dave said as he shot Len in the midsection.

Len fell back into the door as he placed his hands over the wound. "That f.u.c.king hurts, Dave," Len said as he slid down the door.

"I'm sorry, man." Dave grabbed Len's legs to move him out of the way.