A New Death (Savannah's Only Zombie Novel) (11 page)

It was Anastasia.

“Oh boys, you should have stayed inside,” she giggled.
“Zombies! Come and get it!”

Lexx wandered the upstairs hallway.

All the doors are closed
, he thought.
Which one is
it?

“Zombies! Come and get it!”

He heard the girl yell from the closed door right beside
him. Quickly, he opened the door, and there was Tori tied to a chair with her
shirt cut in two right down the middle. The girl, Anastasia, was standing out
on the balcony. She whipped around once Lexx opened the door.

“You too?” she asked before yelling for help.

Lexx charged in and ran straight for the girl. She was still
holding the kitchen knife that she had been scrap-booking Tori’s shirt with. As
Lexx got closer, she waved it back and forth in front of her.

“Get back!”

Lexx ignored her, pushed the knife out of the way, and
shoved the girl out onto the balcony. He then closed the door, and locked it,
leaving her banging on the glass to get back in. She let out a string of
obscenities.

“That girl has a pretty foul mouth on her,” he said, as he
causally walked over to Tori. Anastasia in the background continued her assault
of banging and swearing on the balcony door.

“You have no idea,” Tori said.

This was the second time today she was relieved to see that
man. When she saw the truck explode earlier, she was just sad that he died. He
had become a friend, and a trusted partner in this whole apocalypse deal. Now,
she was honestly happy that it was Lexx that came to get her, and not one of
the others. Nothing against the other guys, but Lexx was indeed starting to
grow on her.

Damnit,
she thought, as he began to untie the rope
from around her ankles. His rough hands gently slid over the bare skin of her
lower legs.

She gave him a good look over as he worked to liberate her
from the chair.

He’s not bad looking,
she thought.

His rugged features and solid frame really overshadowed his
slightly receding hairline. His five o’clock stubble was filling in his jaw line
quite nicely too.

Good Lord, what am I thinking?
She thought.

Once her hands were free, they shot down to rub where the
ropes had been.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Rescue’s not over yet babe,” Lexx answered.

He stood up and began to look for anything he could use as a
weapon.

“Well, locking her out there was a good idea. That girl is
bat-shit crazy,” Tori said as she joined in the search. She walked over to
Anastasia’s suitcase. Not a single thing to be used as a weapon. There were
some large, rubber “devices,” but those probably would not do much damage
against the skull of a walking corpse.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Lexx said. “My first idea was to just
dropkick her off the balcony, but then I thought,
You don’t just dropkick
girls off the balcony.
So, I locked her out there instead.”

“Good thinking. Holy crap! Look at this thing,” she said,
holding up one of the larger rubber phalluses.

“Looks small to me,” Lexx said with a shrug.

She looked over at him. He paused long enough to give her a
quick smile, but went back to looking. After a few minutes of frantic
searching, they both gave up.

“Nothing,” he said. “Didn’t she have a pistol earlier? Where
is it?”

Tori did one last glance over the room. Anastasia had
stopped banging on the door and was crumpled down on the balcony crying. She
was holding the large kitchen knife to her chest, like a small child would with
a stuffed animal, or security blanket.

“Hold on a sec,” Tori said.

She walked over to the balcony door and unlocked it. As she
opened the door, Anastasia jumped up to her feet.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she began crying.

“Give me the knife,” Tori said.

Anastasia held the knife back up to her chest and shook her
head. She acted like a toddler who did not want to give up her toy. Tori could
see over the rail and saw the amassing crowd of dead at street level.

“Give me the knife, or we leave you here. With them,” she
said, motioning towards the zombies below.

Anastasia shook her head more violently and sprung at Tori,
knife pointed straight for her gut. In one fluid move, Tori grabbed her by the
wrist, and twisted. The knife fell to the ground. She held her arm firmly,
pulled her in close, and looked her in the eyes. The girl flicked out her
tongue in a seductive way.

“No thanks,” she said as she shoved the girl back, and
planted her foot right square into her chest.

Anastasia went spiraling back towards the balcony railing,
arms flailing. She lost her balance and tumbled head first into the moans of
the dead below. Tori went to grab her before she went over, but missed her by a
nanosecond. Anastasia’s screams grew louder as the crowd of zombies began to
devour her. She kicked and screamed, but fell silent when one of the zombies
reached its dead grey fingers into her mouth, and ripped her jaw from its
hinge.

Tori stood there in disbelief. She did not mean for that to
happen. She tried to grab the girl, but it was too late.

“I, I didn’t mean to kick her off, just back,” she
stammered.

Lexx walked over and picked up the knife. He placed a hand
on Tori’s shoulder, trying to comfort her, and to pull her back into reality.

“I believe you babe. But what’s done is done, let’s go,” he
said softly.

She nodded hesitantly and turned to go back in the building.

“However,” he added. “I guess you
can
just kick girls
off the balcony.”

She punched him in the arm.

“Shut up. Let’s go. Someone is bound to come investigate all
the noise. Let’s find Jeremy and Ben and get the hell out of here.”

She started to walk to the door.

“Um, Tori?”

“Yeah, what?” She snapped.

“You, uh, maybe wanna grab a new shirt?”

Lexx pointed to her half cut open shirt. She looked down and
saw that her breasts were pretty well exposed from where Anastasia cut her
shirt. She never put the bra on either, so Tori was pretty much going girls
gone wild. A new shirt might have not been such a bad idea.

“Why? You don’t like this look on me?” she said coyly.

“I love this look on you.”

She giggled. A few shirts could be seen hanging out of
Anastasia’s bag, so Tori walked over and inspected a few. She picked one that
seemed to be clean. She took off the tattered mess she was wearing, ignoring
Lexx’s dropped jaw, and put on the white cotton shirt that read, “I ‘heart’
Savannah”. Instead of a heart, a peach was in its place. She put her hands on
her hips and faced Lexx.

“How do I look?”

“You workin’ it girl,” Lexx said, snapping his fingers in a
z-formation.

She laughed again and he smiled at her, their eyes catching
for a brief moment. The smile faded from Tori’s face as she pulled herself
together.

“Alright, let’s get the hell out of here.”

***

Ben quickly opened the door for Jeremy and Avery when they
started to relentlessly bang on the door. There was a small group of z’s behind
them, one right on their heels. It reached out with its rotting arm as Ben went
to slam the door shut, getting it caught between the door and doorframe. It
moaned in a painful agony, which caught Ben off guard, because until now, he
had not noticed any of the dead even register pain. He slammed the door again.
Crunch. Again. Crunch. He slammed it a fourth time, this time with a sickening
crack, successfully separating bone and tendon. The dead forearm fell to the
floor; its fingers still grasping for a brief moment, until finally succumbing
to death.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Ben muttered under his breath.

He looked over at Jeremy and Avery, who were both hunched
over, trying to regain their breath. Jeremy straightened up, taking a deep
breath.

“We need to find Lexx and Tori, and get out of here.
Pronto,” he said.

“What was that scream?” Ben asked.

“I think it was that girl,” Avery said. “I think someone
threw her off the balcony.”

“Oh, geez,” Ben said. “You think Lexx did that? Why would he
do that? Her friends are not going to be happy.”

Jeremy shook his head.

“Let's hope not.”

He motioned for them to follow him. They turned a corner and
began to walk down the corridor. Modern art lined the walls. None of it made
any sense to Jeremy.

I could make that
, he thought.
It just looks like
someone threw paint against a canvas.

He was lost deep in thought when they rounded a corner,
running right smack into Albert and two of his men. Everyone drew their
weapons. A good old fashioned Mexican stand-off. Albert was still holding
“Agatha” and the two camo guys were with him, who were still holding their
shotguns.       

“What are you doing out?” Albert stammered. “What was that scream?
Where did you get guns?”

Jeremy held his ground. He glanced over at Avery. The kid
was sweating bullets, but had his pistol ready and pointed for one of the
shotgun guys. Jeremy mouthed a “ssh”; Avery nodded. Ben was still holding the
scissors he found earlier. Albert definitely had the upper hand.

“Who screamed?” Albert said, his voice much sterner this
time

“Your girl,” Jeremy said.

“What? Anastasia? What did you do to her?”

The two guys with Albert looked at each other, both now
looked more nervous than confident in their leader.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?” Albert bellowed, his voice now no longer
nasally and meek.

“We threw her off the balcony,” Jeremy answered.

Ben shot him a look as if to say, “What are you doing?”

Jeremy ignored it.

“You what?”

“We threw her off the balcony into a group of zombies.”

Albert twitched as he processed the information. Tears
started to well up in the corners of his eyes. Jeremy grew nervous as he
watched the man’s finger tighten around the trigger. Albert began to snivel,
but quickly stopped. His face darkened, anger taking over. He straightened up,
pointing the barrel of the AK-47 directly for Avery.

“DIE!” he screeched.

Jeremy shoved Avery hard right before Albert began unloading
his clip into the wall behind where Avery stood. The bullets ran up the wall as
the rifle jumped in Albert’s hands, the barrel rising with each shot. Jeremy
dove for the ground and fired his pistol hitting the left shotgun guy in the
shoulder. This caused him to misfire his shotgun blasting his buddy with
buckshot. Albert’s rifle finally ran out of ammo, his war cry trailing off into
a whimper. He lowered his gun and looked to see his back-up lying on the
ground. His bravado now gone, he turned back to face Jeremy and the others. The
front of his pants turned dark with urine.

“You’ve never fired a gun before have you?” Avery said as he
stood up, dusting himself off.

Albert sheepishly shook his head no.

“Dude,” Avery said. “Yuhdum.”

Albert turned and ran.

They followed after Albert, who led them into the main room
where everything started. He ran and hid behind the other two guys who were
standing there with rifles drawn. These two were the ones dressed in skinny
jeans and deep V-neck t-shirts. If the camo guys looked like they knew what
they were doing, these two had no idea. As he positioned himself behind them,
his crooked smile crept back up. Jeremy, Avery, and Ben came to a halt and
raised their new shotguns. Ben was going akimbo with the pistols, trying to
look like he knew what he was doing.

“Albert,” Jeremy started, again holding out one hand as a
peace offering. “Just let us go. Get some help for your people, and just let us
go.”

The small man smiled for a minute and then laughed.

“Kill them,” he said.

His two cronies hesitantly aimed their rifles and prepared
to fire. Jeremy could tell that they did not want to kill anyone, but that they
also did not want to cross Albert. He had no idea what made these people
blindly follow him. Their fingers tightened around the triggers. Everyone held
their breath.

“Not today, bitches!”

Lexx came flying off the second floor balcony, a knife in
his right hand. He came down on one of the rifle-hipsters, who tried to aim the
barrel up at the falling man, but only ended up taking a knife across the
chest. The blade cut through the shoulder strap, sending the gun to the floor.
His friend went to fire at Lexx, but Tori came up behind him, putting him in a
choke-hold. She had snuck down the stairs and flanked Albert and his men. The
guy’s face turned blue and he quickly passed out. She let him fall to the floor
with a thud. He lay there motionless next to his bleeding buddy, who just
groaned in pain.

Albert realized he was now completely surrounded. Surrounded
by people he had really, really pissed off. His friend’s knife wound was not
going to kill him, but that guy was not getting up to protect Albert anytime
soon. The cards were greatly stacked against him.

“I knew you would harm us,” he said quietly.

Tori kicked him in the back of the knee, causing his legs to
buckle, and put him sprawled out on the floor.

“You put this shit upon yourself!” Tori yelled. “Don’t you
dare put that on us. You should have just let us go!”

Jeremy held up his hand, motioning that was enough. She
nodded and backed off. He handed his shotgun to Tori, and crouched down next to
Albert, looking him in the face. Albert’s head raised a little to meet Jeremy’s
gaze.

“What?” he huffed.

Jeremy continued to stare at the man. Albert hung his head
low again.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No,” Jeremy answered. “But I am going to ask you again, do
you have any gasoline?”

Albert began to giggle again. The man was losing it. He
began to shake his head violently, much like Anastasia did earlier. Tori raised
her shotgun.

“No gas. No gas. No gas,” he began to mumble over and over.

Jeremy stood back up and shrugged his shoulders.

“I think we’ve lost him,” he said. “Let’s just go-”

“HELP! NO, NO, GET AWAY!”

Yelling came from the hallway. The guy who Jeremy shot in
the shoulder came running out. He held his hand on his wound. Blood stained his
camouflage shirt. He lost his footing coming into the room and took a nasty
spill, not able to catch himself. He turned over on his back just in time for a
mob of zombies to come pouring into the room. The first few fell on him and
began to rip into him, tearing away at his flesh.

“NO! NO!”

He kicked at them, but they didn’t care. They were hungry.

“Let’s go!” Jeremy yelled, running towards the door.

“What about him?” Ben yelled, motioning towards Albert.

“Leave him!” Tori said.

“We can’t just leave him,” Ben shot back.

She looked at Jeremy to make the call.

“What am I? The decision maker now?” he said.

Lexx got to the door first, but taking enough time to
retrieve one of the rifles from the floor. He held the door open for them to
run through. Avery went through. Tori made a quick bow towards Lexx as she
passed him. Ben reached the door next, stopping to look at Albert then to
Jeremy.

“We can’t just leave the man,” Ben said.

Jeremy went to answer him, but noticed that one of the
zombies looked familiar. It was a young woman. She was missing the bottom half
of her jaw. What was left of her intestines hung from the dark cavity in her
stomach. Her mascara was smeared down her face, darkened by blood.

It was Anastasia.

Albert looked up as she shambled towards him, arms reaching
out for him. Her left arm must have broken from the fall, because it was bent
in an angle that was unnatural. His face lit up.

“Sis,” he said. “It wasn’t supposed to end this way. I did
everything you said. I did everything just the way you said. Why didn’t it
work?”

She fell on him and began to peel the skin from her
brother’s bones. Jeremy looked away and back to Ben. Ben nodded and exited the
building.

“I guess that solves that problem,” Jeremy mumbled, before
walking through the door and slamming it shut.

***

The situation was no better outside. The noise had attracted
zombies from all over the place. They covered the square. Anastasia’s screams
had really attracted the dead to the area.

“Uh, guys?” Lexx said, after butting a geek in the head with
his rifle. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we are in the same
position we were in few hours ago!”

He was right. The Jeep still had no gas. Jeremy began to
think about how far they could make it on what gas they still had in the tank.
It was mostly fumes. They probably wouldn’t make it out of the city. The Jeep
was good for a lot of things, but sucked at gas mileage. Tori blasted a zombie
who wandered too closely to the group, sending a mist of red against the
building.

“Hey, over here!” Avery yelled.

He was standing down by the back alleyway that led behind
the building. His waved his hand for them to come to him. They ran in his
direction, and as they got close, he ran on down into the alley.

“Come on! Hurry!” he yelled.

“Where are we going?” Jeremy asked.

Avery didn’t answer, but led them to a small parking area
hidden behind the building. Sitting in it were several, new-looking moped
scooters.

“I heard them mention these; we can use them to escape!”
Avery said with a smile.

“Scooters?” Tori said, unsure if he was being serious.

“Yeah!”

She looked at Jeremy for confirmation.

“You got any better ideas, Tori?” Jeremy asked.

“Uh, not riding scooters for one.”

“Look,” Avery started. “I know it doesn’t seem like a good
idea, like not much protection and all, but what they lack in defense they make
up in mobility. You can get around obstacles a lot easier on these things than
you would be able to in a car. Plus, gas will last you a lot longer.”

“He’s got a solid point,” Jeremy said.

The rest of the group still looked unsure, but the zombies
were starting to funnel their way into the alley so time was limited. They all
picked a scooter and took off in the opposite direction of the oncoming horde.
Avery let a ‘whoop’ once they hit the street. Tori shot a glance at Jeremy, but
he was too busy enjoying the wind in his hair.

***

They reached Bay Street with no problems. Avery was right.
They were able to maneuver around obstacles much better than with the Jeep. And
the scooters had enough get up and go to pass up any skirmishes with the dead.
Avoiding the dead was much better than taking them on. Once they got to Bay
Street, they came to a rest. The pedestrian signs were still on.

“Walk sign on across Bay Street,” the automated sign spoke
in a monotone voice.

Tori mimicked the sign, causing the others to smile briefly.

“Avery, we were headed west before this. Rincon, to be
exact. We were going to hole up at Ben’s parent’s and ride this thing out. I’m
sure it’d be ok with him if you tagged along with us,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah, that’s fine with me. He’s been a great help,” Ben
added.

Avery smiled, but looked back east.

“Well, I appreciate the offer guys. I mean, we make a great
team and all, but I really need to head home and see if I can find my parents.
Plus, I’m going to try and find my buddy Josh. He was my zombie buddy before
all this. We use to watch zombie movies and play video games all the time back
when all this stuff was still fiction. He’s knows a good bit about zombies and
stuff, so I’m sure we could make it through this thing.”

“You sure?” Jeremy asked.

Avery nodded.

“Yeah, I should be able to get home with no problems. If you
don’t mind, I’d like to hang onto the shotgun,” he said, holding up the gun.

“That’s perfectly fine. Do you want a pistol too?”

“No, this will do for now. Thank you though.”

Jeremy reached out to shake Avery’s hand. They shook hands
and Avery kicked his scooter back on. He nodded to everyone else and drove off
towards the islands. Jeremy turned back to the group and switched his bike on.

“Alright, west it is.”