Up to the second set of chairs and then I could almost reach the roof.
The chair rocked under my feet but I dared not look down. If I did, I was sure one of them would have me.
I leapt up and the chair wobbled to the side.
Fingertips. That’s all I managed to hold on with.
Joel grabbed an arm and pulled. Craig grabbed my other arm, and if not for them, I would have gone back down into the mass.
Another shuffler smashed into the chairs and I was left dangling like a side of beef.
“Fucking get me out of here!” I yelled in an unintended falsetto.
“We’re trying, you fucking ox,” Joel said as he strained.
Joel’s face was full of worry, visible even behind his thick shades. He gasped for breath and threw his body into it. I rose into the air a few precious inches and managed to get a grip on the edge of the hole.
I pulled my legs up close to my body as something else grabbed at my boots. A hand got a hold of my pant leg and I was stretched between my rescuers and my would-be consumers.
I’m pretty sure I screamed like a little girl.
Roz leaned over and grabbed a wrist. Together, the three of them pulled me up. I kicked down and dislodged the hand on my pant leg. Another kick caught the shuffler in the head.
It gibbered as it fell away. The bitch’s head was covered in wisps of hair and her eyes were sunken in like the orbs of a skeleton. Blood coated her body, but most of it was by her mouth. She struck the mob below and used them as a trampoline.
I was so sickened that I sat down with my feet dangling inside the garage, took aim, and shot her in the head. Her mouth moved and something like words came out, but they didn’t mean anything. She stopped making noises when my round split her skull. Take that, you sick fuck.
“Thank you, Joel. Thank you for saving us.” I reached out to offer a manly shake-thing that turned into a half-hearted hug until he pushed my hands away.
“You’d do the same for me,” Joel said. “You might wish you were still down there.”
“Why in the hell would I wish that?” I asked but trailed off when I saw the new horizon.
I rose on shaking legs, my body exhausted as adrenaline faded away. The sun was an unholy blaze that illuminated a fresh nightmare. All around the house there were the dead. Nothing but the dead. On and on the horde stretched, and more were on the way.
We were trapped in the middle of Undeadville with no escape.
“What do we do now?”
Joel shrugged and picked up his AR-15 and popped the magazine. He gave it a quick shake and slid it back home with a click.
“I guess we wait and hope they go away.”
Below, the front door to the house gave in with a crash. Great; that was the second fortress we’d lost in two days.
Craig and Roz sat to the side to watch the Z’s gather. Roz sat down and touched her fingers to her forehead, then down to her chest, and then side to side while muttering something about el Diablo.
“How’d you even get up here?”
Joel pointed at his entrenching tool and then looked at the house. They’d come out through the roof, jumped the couple of feet that separated the buildings and then gotten us out.
Christy popped out of the hole in the house a few seconds later and slung a couple of backpacks onto the roof. She took a deep breath and pulled herself up. Craig made the three-foot leap onto the home and helped her cross.
They both joined us and collapsed in a heap.
“I got what I could but they broke into the house.”
“All that food and water,” Roz said and shook her head.
“At least we’re still alive.” I tried to sound cheerful but it was cut off by the moans of the dead. A shuffler threw itself at the side of the garage and fell into the crowd below.
“Yeah. This is terrific.” Joel said.
Joel had managed to make it out of the house with his assault rifle. He sat with it cradled in his arms.
The ocean of the dead stretched around us until they covered the ground in every direction.
This is Machinist Mate First Class Jackson Creed and I am still alive. For now…
Reinforcements
04:35 hours approximate
Location: Undead Central, San Diego CA
Supplies:
Food: zip
Weapons: almost zip
The roof. The roof. The roof is surrounded by the fucking dead. We just need a fire to make the mother….you get the idea.
I’m not much for long speeches. After a while all of the words sort of run into each other and become a drone. Joel Kelly also wasn’t a fan of long speeches and beat me to it with this perfect summary: “We are so fucked.”
You’d think a Marine would have a little more dignity or some words of wisdom. If John Wayne was playing the part of a Marine at Anzio and the enemy surrounded our little group of survivors, I’m sure he’d have some powerful words for the troops. Big words about glory and how it’s a fighter’s duty to destroy the bad guys.
Our troops just lowered their heads and hid. It wasn’t hard. Since full dark we’d tried to sleep. The effort was there, but I had sand paper in my eyes from listening to the moans all night.
The house was full of dead. The garage was packed with the dead. The area around us as far as the eye could see was surrounded by the dead. So many dead it was like an ocean. They were out there in their rotted masses really stinking up the place. They groaned, moaned, and snarled. Christy lay on her side and tried to muffle them out with her hands. Craig stared back at them defiantly. That’s what a kid’s bravado is good for, right there. I had no such illusions.
“How did this mess happen?” Roz asked. She was covered in sweat and blood — not her own blood, but that of her dad and the Z’s that had chased us into the garage. I’d shot a shuffler in mid-leap and blood had splattered liberally. It was probably the single best shot I’d made in my week in the city and no one even saw it. I should get a fucking medal for that blast. I settled for being alive.
“At least we’re alive.” I said. I got a whole pat on the hand for that.
“Why don’t we sneak back into the house? Close the door. Lock it. Then we kill all the zombies. We’ll be safe then,” Christy whispered.
Girl didn’t realize that we couldn’t just take our chances like that. One bite was all it took.
“Will that work?” Craig asked and flipped one of the shufflers the bird.
“Not a chance.” I broke the bad news. “We’d probably all die trying.”
The shuffler hissed at Craig. He sniffed the air, looked at his slower moving brethren, and then put his hand in his mouth and bit off a finger.
The Z’s left him alone while he chewed on his own digit.
Craig lay back down, so I did the same. Maybe if we stayed out of sight long enough the Z’s would lose interest and wander away.
“Why do they do that?” Craig asked quietly.
“Why do they do what?”
“Act like they’re afraid of the crawly dudes.”
“The slow ones?” I asked.
“Yeah. They even act like they understand the weird ones.”
“We call them shufflers.”
“Shuffler? Like they deal cards?”
“No. On account of that shuffle step they use when they walk. It’s like a stuttering motion they can’t control. We thought they were running around on broken bones or maybe weren’t fully turned or some shit.”
“Watch your language around the kids,” Roz warned.
“Language?” I blinked.
“Doesn’t bother me, dude,” Craig said.