Allison stared at me, eyebrows furrowed. “Chase, he’s a person. Not a diversion.”
“He’s an asshole. Why the hell was he screaming, why was he running--?”
Then I saw it. Them. No other way to classify it other than a herd. Not like cattle. Maybe a pack was a better description. Like wolves. Another fifteen, I don’t know, could have been as many as twenty zombies, rounded the corner by the Sears building. Rounded that corner like a New York Yankee rounding first, sprinting for second.
“Are you shitting me?” I said out loud. “This asshole's going to get all three of us killed. He’s running right for us.”
And closing the distance fast.
“Okay. Okay,” Allison stumbled. “So now what do we do?
Where do we go? We need to hide.”
I didn’t remind her that a mere second ago she was trying to get me to help the madman. Didn’t blame her. Maybe we could have saved him from a handful. The zombies in the parking lot had been slow movers. Everything changed with the new . . . pack added to the equation.
Hated to admit it, but part of me hoped the guy was taken down. It was a heartless thought, possibly a chicken shit thought, but there it was, swimming around in my brain. I needed to get to my kids. I needed weapons. I didn’t know this guy. He meant nothing to me. It was not much different from the training I’d received at work. One call at a time. Enter the job and don’t look back. Go on to the next call.
“Chase?”
I opened my mouth, about to suggest a solution, when they got him. One zombie from the pack leaped forward. It was a great tackle. Arms wrapped the running man’s waist, and legs, while its shoulder drove into the back, and down the two went.
The group was on them instantaneously. A genuine dog pile.
“We have to go,” I said. “Diversion or not, this is our chance.”
Allison stared at the unfolding feast. Eyes wide. She didn’t respond, but followed behind me. We stayed low and ran as fast, and as quietly, as we could. We skirted the parking lot, staying out of the spray of lights.
I kept one eye on the massacre. Aside from the fast zombies, the slow moving ones were closing in. Couldn’t imagine there would be much meat left for sharing.
God, did I just think that?
What was wrong with me? There wasn’t much meat left. I shook my head. I needed to stop. Allison was right. That had been a man, someone probably with a family. I had wanted to use his . . . screaming, as a chance for us to escape. That was terrible enough. I didn’t need to think of him as mere meat, too.
We made it to a caravan. We slammed our backs up to the side panel. We were out of view, could no longer see the man being devoured. Ripped apart. Hopefully, they not only could not see us, but had not noticed us, either.
“I was going to let him die,” I said.
“What?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. That man, I had no intention of helping him. None.”
Allison took my hand, gave it a squeeze. “We need to get into the store.”
She was right. Nothing I could do now. Maybe nothing could have been done, regardless. Still, I was pissed. Mad at myself. This was not me, not who I was. Not who I wanted to be.
Weapons.
The sporting goods store.
“Okay. Let’s get inside.” I stuck my head around the front of the van. Most of the zombies were staggering about in the general area. I closed my eyes at the sight of the fallen man. He’d be torn apart. Literally. Chunks of remaining limbs and pieces of discarded flesh littered and displayed in three spots in that section of the parking lot.
The pack of zombies stayed together. They were the ones that made me most apprehensive. They weren’t headed towards us, but they were headed back towards the mall.
“It’s now or never, Alley. You ready?” I asked.
“I guess,” she said.
I looked at her, and almost yelled. A zombie had snuck up on us.
It grabbed Allison’s hair and yanked her back and off her feet. . .
Chapter Fourteen
The zombie needed to reset his stance after dropping Allison to the pavement, before falling to his knees over her.
Allison let out a scream. Her hands clawed at his face, and her feet kicked out at nothing. She tried rolling onto her back in an attempt to scramble away.
I struggled getting my tire iron out of my belt loop. It was wedged. Panicked, I gave up on the lodged weapon, and reeled back with my leg and face-punted a solid kick to the side of the zombie’s head.
My boot knocked the thing sideways, but not off Allison entirely. Its hands held fast to her hair and shoulder. I kicked again, this time, standing over it, clobbering the heel of my boot on its temple.
The drive pushed him down and off my girlfriend. I jumped up, and stomped down on his skull, and again and a third time. The fucker’s hands still reached out for Allison. She was up, and out of reach.
“Chase,” she said.
“I got him,” I said. I managed to get the iron free. I raised it over my head and smacked it down onto his forehead. The brow split. Blood sprayed.
Allison tugged on my shirt. “Chase. They heard. They’re coming.”
I didn’t need to look around to understand. I knew what she meant. I knew we were now in trouble. “We need to get inside.”
We ran.
The slow zombies marched our way. I saw that. The fast ones, the pack of quick zombies, they had us in their cross hairs as well. Timing was essential and obvious. We needed to reach the doors to the store before the zombies reached us. It would be close, photo-finish-close.
My legs pumped as hard as they could. All I kept thinking was, don’t trip, don’t trip, don’t trip. I saw it in my mind though, tripping over my feet, falling to the ground, and being eaten by monsters that--by all intent and purposes--shouldn’t even be hungry anymore. Gluttons.
Allison ran alongside me. I heard three things. Us breathing, their feet pounding pavement--and that pounding of pavement getting louder and louder.
Safety loomed yards ahead. Just yards. The way I bounced as I ran made the sliding doors seem to shake. It’s how my brain felt. Jumbled and loose, sloshing freely around inside my skull.
Then I heard, above our breathing and shoes pounding pavement, the groans. The moans. So loud, so angry. They sounded like a chorus of cries, like hundreds of fingernails raking across a chalkboard.
We were almost to the doors, to the sanctuary of the mall, but so were they.
I held my tire iron raised in the air as I ran. If any of those things got in the way, tried blocking those doors, I’d be ready.
Thirty feet from the door, it looked like we’d make it. Once inside the store we could quickly scramble for more useful weapons.
Or could we?
The doors were automated. If we entered easily, so would they.
And then it didn’t matter. As we reached the doors, as the doors slid open, one of the zombies reached us. Blocked our entrance.
Allison stabbed the pointed end of her iron into the thing’s face. Through an eye-socket. I heard a pop. Saw juices fly. She didn’t even try to pull her tire iron free. She left it, jumping over the falling body and through the open doorway. I was right behind her.
The bad thing? The zombies were right behind us.
Inside the store, Allison went left, to where I’d said weapons would be located. I followed, hoping they’d be accessible. We wouldn’t have time to pick through items searching for what might work best.
“Grab something,” I said. “Anything.”
Anything. There was nothing. Hunter camo, deer stands, rain slickers, shoes. Where were . . . what? If guns were on display, they wouldn’t be loaded. Bows would be behind counters. I expected to raid the store, as if shopping without paying. I didn’t think we’d be chased into the store.