And I didn’t have to wait long, a crashing sound around the other side of the building meant the other part of the plan was in motion — throw shit out the window and make a lot of noise to distract the chanters. That one sounded like the TV. Power was off and there wasn’t anything on anyway.
I didn’t want any affected to see me unlock the gate, or risk them getting in so I’d set up the distraction for me to get out.
Now I moved, slowly, pseudo aimlessly, like I’d seen the loner affected earlier, toward the truck with the welding rig on the back, muttering the phrase.
It wasn’t’ long at all before I was no longer alone. Three others were wandering around and for some reason gravitated toward me. Were they on to me? What did they want? If they were on to me then why were they moving so slow? No, they wandered closer but then just started following me, still a little aimless but definitely trying to keep up with me, still muttering the phrase quietly. What the fuck did they want?
I didn’t feel like I could risk them seeing me doing something which might seem odd to them so I wandered away from the truck and started going in a large circle. Now there were two more. What the hell was going on? Was I gathering my own pack? I knew I couldn’t keep doing this forever, so I went for it. As nonchalantly as I could under the circumstances, I grabbed the welding rig and helmet and started walking away from the truck, still chanting, trying to be one of them. A couple of them followed suit, grabbing some pipes. Great, I’ve just given them weapons. Then one of them started eyeing me, like he knew something was up.
I kept walking, not sure how I was going to keep them from following me back to the gate, then I heard another crash and some of them went running to see what it was. I stayed behind, along with the one who was eyeing me and two others. I crept closer to the gate, no real plan in mind yet, and they crept with me, getting closer to me, their heads cocking to the side like animals trying to figure something out. So I said fuck it, I knew how to use one of these from when I was helping my dad build his boat. I turned it on, lit it, and put the flame right in the eyeballers face and holy shit did he scream.
I blinded the other two as quickly as I could and sprinted for the gate, knowing I had mere seconds. I got the key out, fumbled, cussed, then got it and the lock was open. I got in, closed the gate and locked it back up just as a horde of them was upon the gate, screaming, chanting, already trying to climb the fence and getting caught in the razor wire. I went back inside as soon as I could, hoping they would get away once I was out of sight.
Now I was inside, but not safe, and not alone. Some of the residents had come to see what the commotion was, and I didn’t even bother trying to trick them. The first ones I burned but then decided to save fuel so I started cutting my way through the crowd before they could figure out what was going on. We were in a hallway which actually gave me an advantage because they couldn’t surround me and only so many could get close to me at a time. But I knew I couldn’t last long like this so I cut my way to the stairs and hightailed it.
I was lucky, I only had to mow down a couple more on the stairs, but the rest of them were behind me and they were hungry for some SEAL. As I was getting to my floor I started screaming, “Open the gate. Open the gate. Open the gate.”
And then realized I wasn’t real sure at this point which floor I was on.
Shit, damn my fucking shit memory. But I found it, saw them with the gate open and rushed in.
“Close the gate. Close the gate.”
They did and the pack came crashing into it, spitting and screaming, trying like hell to get in. But the gate held.
“Well,” I tried to catch my breath, “that sucked.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
From the journal of Jude Guerrero
12/25/2012
“Nice,” spoke up Eric. “Way to bring them to us.”
“Fuck you, Eric. I’ll fucking burn a penis shape in your face.”
I’m not real sure why I said that, but I would do it. He shut up.
I gave the rig to Tim Tom. “Here you go. Enjoy.”
He looked at it. “Oh no, it’s missing a tank. It’s not going to work like this.”
“What?”
“Just kidding,” he laughed. “You should see your face.”
I was stunned for a sec but couldn’t help but grin. “Fuck you, Tim Tom, fuck you.”
We opened the windows on the side over the vans to see what we had and we did have a van with the back and side windows already barred. Better than that, we had two vans like that and a delivery truck, looks like it was a laundry truck.
I would say we were lucky but we were trapped in a city full of raving mad murderous cannibals, so lucky isn’t the word I would use.
We started on the windows, Tim Tom really doing most of the work, me just helping as I could. He just wouldn’t shut about some girl, then another girl, and pizza, and this beer he really liked that he could only find in Boston, and everything else except what was going on around us.
I also had him cut a bit of pipe for me. It housed electrical wires but the juice was off for good now, so it didn’t matter. I got him to make the end pointy, after a few minutes of trying to explain it, and he asked me what it was for but I knew it was useless to try and tell him, so I just waited to show him.
I took the long pipe back down the hall to the gate, where my biggest fans were still waiting to tear me apart. They sure don’t give up easy, but I guess what else do they have to do?
When they saw me coming the chanting got louder and some of it turned into roaring. Then I showed Tim Tom what the pipe was for. You see, my knife couldn’t fit through the grating on the gate, but this little pipe could and they were pushed up to the gate so close, the front ones being pushed from the back, that it was easy to just shove it right into them. As I expected, the first one didn’t seem to give a fuck that I had just shoved a pipe into him. He just kept screaming at me, banging at the gate. So I kept stabbing, and some of them started to bleed out, enough that they stopped chanting.
And, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as they stopped chanting the others attacked, ripping them apart with their teeth and hands, scratching and clawing and actually eating their fallen comrades.
“Oh my fuck,” he said from behind me.
I turned around and tried to shoo Tim Tom away, “Get away, you don’t want to see this. You either.”
The others were watching, and didn’t need convincing. They started leaving and left me to my grim chore.
I knew it was going to make a mess, and I knew it would start to stink, but I didn’t plan on being here much longer and we were going to have to get out and down those stairs to work on the van, then get everyone out. I figured since I had such a large crowd gathered I could go ahead and remove some of the obstacles that were going to be in our way.
It took a while, a long while. They were lined up down the stairway, waiting their turn for slaughter. And, I had to take my time, stab a few then let them bleed out enough that they stopped chanting and the others would tear them up and eat them. And they never seemed to get full. They also never seemed to realize that if they got close, I was going to kill them. I had to let them tear each other up and eat each other, or else the bodies would just pile up and be in the way and we wouldn’t be able to get past them. As it was, it was still going to be a mess.
It went on a long time. Way too long. When they finally stopped coming there was the biggest, most horrific mess I had ever seen, and I had seen some carnage in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was glad I wouldn’t be able to remember it. I’m not sure why I’m even writing about it.