Billy closed his driver’s side door and started his truck. The rumble of the engine filled the garage with a satisfying fullness that drowned out the howls from outside. “Eddie’s dead, you retard,” he mumbled beneath his breath.
Billy pressed on the gas and plowed through the garage door. Splintered wood and metal exploded in every direction, and the zombies on the other side were run down beneath his enormous tires. The battering ram had passed its first test superbly.
The night was dark, and the roads were dense with abandoned cars and debris. Automatic streetlights illuminated the streets with a dull yellow glow that cast the lurking forms in silhouettes. Dozens of undead leered at the titanic metal Beast that rampaged through their ranks. They moaned and staggered in pursuit, but just as they had become aware of the thing in their midst, its tail lights had disappeared up the street.
A few moments passed, and Billy’s guilt got the better of him. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to laugh at you. You’re gonna make lots of friends at the DDC.”
“I’m gonna be the hottest chick there,” Jenny stated confidently. She was always concerned with whatever was the coolest or hottest. All other women, even friends, were mere rivals.
“You sure will be!” Billy encouraged her. He had to admit, she was pretty hot, but being hot in this new world wasn’t exactly an asset. With any luck, she’d find some refugee or guard to climb on top of and then she’d be that poor schmuck’s problem. Right now, he’d be happy to trade a year’s worth of screwing Jenny for a full stomach and someone to talk to with half a brain.
Billy continued to plow through the zombie-infested streets in his unstoppable truck. The gas-guzzler had just enough fuel to get them to their destination. After that, it would be a shame, but she wouldn’t be worth the rubber in her tires. She’d be dead, but she’d have given her life for his.
“So remember, once we’re there, just get out of the truck and blend into the crowd. There will be lots of people so it shouldn’t be hard. Do you understand?” Billy asked.
“Let’s hit that base!” Jenny pressed play on the truck’s sound system and began dancing in her seat. Rap music rumbled through the vehicle and the powerful speakers drowned out the sound of ghouls banging against the truck. In the silent city streets, the commotion would carry for miles.
“You are so fucking stupid.” Billy whispered beneath his breath. It wouldn’t matter if she understood the plan or not. Once they were in the DDC, he would find somewhere to hide and lay low. Whatever notice this moron brought onto herself through her own attention-needing stupidity, would be her own problem.
Billy looked ahead, and the DDC loomed in front of him atop a hill. With a confident nod, he pressed on the gas and began to accelerate toward the side of the building — a brick wall of the attached record store. This was going to be all too easy.
Billy imagined himself one day—maybe a couple months from now—after he had integrated himself into the refugee population, cornering Dr. Damico some place private… some place quiet. Then she’d learn who was really in charge.
“Try to keep me out? You don’t know who you’re messin’ with.” Billy sneered. He focused on the music store wall before him and pressed the accelerator.
A strange rattling sound barely audible above the rap music caught his attention.
“Pretty!” Jenny pointed out the window and smiled back at him. Billy glanced over to see what she was looking at.
From atop a fenced off guard tower at the front of the DDC, a rhythmic series of yellow flashes streaked through the parking lot toward them. The truck’s line of approach and the tracer’s line of fire converged a few yards from the wall Billy was speeding toward.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good plan,” Billy thought. In a heartbeat, the sounds of bullets puncturing his truck cut his music off, and the inside of the cab erupted into a torrent of red gore and screams.
Chapter 7
The streetlight shining through the window illuminated the clock on the wall across from the cot where Dr. Kelly Damico lay. Unable to sleep as usual, she watched the minutes tick by while listening to the sounds of a San Diego overrun by ghouls. Distant gunfire, explosions, the occasional scream, and the ever-present moan of the undead sang through the night. The clock read 11:00 pm, then 12:00, now 1:00, and she was no closer to being able to sleep than she was the hour before. Her mind drifted between the patients here at the Tierrasanta DDC and the husband that she missed with all her heart.
Months ago, when the city wasn’t completely overrun, the DDC guards would open fire on dense packs of undead to thin their numbers. Now, it was best to avoid shooting at all, remain as quiet as possible, and hope the hordes of ghouls outside would ignore activity within the building. So when shouting and the thunder of gunfire from outside shattered the relative quiet, Kelly sat bolt upright in bed.
A loud crash shook the building and Kelly gasped. Was there an explosion? Had someone set off a grenade? She hurried to the window and peered through the blinds into the fortified lot below. Rifles in hand, guards were running from their posts toward the DDC entrance.
Kelly looked over to Dr. Thomson’s cot. He wasn’t there, but that was hardly unusual. While Kelly’s insomnia kept her lying awake in her cot staring at the clock, Dr. Thomson’s insomnia motivated him to wander about the DDC.
She slipped on her shoes and rushed through the clinic’s upper level. The area designated for the youngest children and their families was lit by dim blue nightlights. She felt the eyes of terrified mothers and fathers on her as she moved through a back hallway that led to the roof of the music store. “Stay here!” She whispered. “Stay quiet!”
The sound of gunfire outside was joined by gunfire from the ground floor.
A shaft of blue moonlight cast through a crack in the door at the end of the hallway. The roof of the music store provided an excellent vantage point from which to observe the area around the clinic. Kelly shoved open the push plate of the door and slipped outside.
The humid night air had been cooled by the recent rain, and reflective puddles collected on the gravel roof. The DDC commanded an impressive view of the city: moonlight, streetlights, and fire light, cast San Diego in a bizarrely beautiful twilight apocalypse. The rank putrescence of the city’s dead wafted on the breeze, mixed with the stench of rotting trash that had collected for months.
Dr. Thomson and Sergeant Adams — head of security — stood on the edge of the rooftop. Dr. Thomson paced back and forth nervously, while the Sergeant popped off shots at the ground below and growled into his radio. “There’s a shit ton of them! Lot guards! Drop what you’re doing and join me on the roof. Grab all the ammo you can on the way up. We’ll establish a firing position.”
Kelly rushed to join her coworker, her heart thumping in her ribcage. As the parking lot below came into view, she could see it was occupied by a thick stream of walking dead wandering funnel-like toward the building. Directly below her, the red taillights of a truck poked out from a gaping hole in the side of the music store. The dead were streaming in one by one, two by two — manageable for the moment, but endless.
Minutes passed, and for every ghoul that Sergeant Adams shot in the head, one slipped into the DDC. Kelly looked on helplessly as screams, shouting, and gunfire from the ground floor painted a horrifying mental picture of what was happening below.
“Shit!” Sergeant Adams growled. His rifle had run dry, and he slung it around his shoulder as he drew his sidearm. He broke into a sprint towards the door, and shouted into his radio, “Where is my ammo?”