Dead, but Not for Long (34 page)

“Do I even want to know what that was all about?”
Lindsey asked with an icy stare. “Xena? Honey? Are you trying to get me killed?
That woman could crush me like a bug.”

The bikers watched in stunned silence as Helga
decreased the undead population in the parking lot from her moving bike.

“Should she be wasting all that ammo?” one of the
bikers asked from atop the truck. “I mean, we’re done shopping.”

“I know this woman,” Snake replied. “The less
ammunition she has, the better off we are.”

As he waited for the men to finish loading the
truck, a sign next to the grocery store caught Snake’s eye. Festive,
multicolored lettering spelled out, ‘Party Store.’

He turned to Lindsey and smiled. “I’d be willing
to bet there’s some stuff in here that would make life seem a little more
normal to some of the kids at the hospital, maybe even some of the adults.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” she said. “Do you want me
to go with you?”

“Maybe just stand guard by the door,” he said. “Just
give me a yell if we start to get company.” He walked toward the glass doors
and peered inside. Sensing no movement, he pulled the door open and once again
scanned the building for any signs of danger. Turning his head toward Lindsey,
he asked, “Could you tell the guys to join me when they’re done?”

“Shouldn’t you wait for some back-up first?”
Lindsey looked concerned.

“Nah, looks clear from here, besides, they’re busy
loading the truck. I think I can handle it,” Snake replied, walking into the building.

Lindsey watched through the glass as Snake
disappeared down an aisle. It wasn’t long before she saw him running toward the
door, a look of terror chiseled into his face. Lindsey barely got the door open
before he came barreling out. She was sure that, had the door been closed, he
would have blown right through it.

“Close the door!” he screamed in a tone that
seemed odd coming from a grown man, let alone Snake. Lindsey let go of the door
and ran, knowing she had no way of keeping it closed. The commotion caught the
attention of Wolf and a couple of the other bikers and they hurried over to
Snake, who had stopped a safe distance from the store and was trying to catch his breath.

“What is it, boss?” Wolf asked.

“Sorry guys. I can’t. I just can’t,” Snake mumbled, still visibly shaken.

“What could be in there?” Mouse asked Wolf, making
certain Snake couldn’t hear. “I mean nothing scares Snake.”

“Only one thing scares Snake, besides Helga,” Wolf
replied. “Lindsey, could you keep an eye on him? We’re going in.”

~*^*~

The men approached the door, their weapons ready.
Wolf was first to go in. The rest, still apprehensive from Snake’s reaction,
stayed well behind him. The room was dark, except for the light that filtered
in from the front windows. Movement was heard coming from the back of the
store, followed by a raspy moan. The group cautiously made their way toward the
source of the noise. Wolf could see through the dim light that several shelves
had been knocked over, trapping something in a back corner of the room. As they
peered over the shelves, squinting to see what it was, the aberration appeared.
A collective gasp went through the group, as Wolf’s fears were verified. Before
them was the mauled face of a creature that, in life, had been a clown. Dried
blood blended with its orange wig, which sat sideways on a painted white head.
The smeared mascara around the eyes seemed to intensify the milky corneas, and
the bright red around the mouth disappeared into its red stained upper teeth.
The bottom teeth were missing, as well as the lower jaw. Its tongue flopped
from the back of its torn-out throat and the remnants of a windpipe protruded
from its neck. Dried blood caked the front of its outfit all the way to its
enormous shoes. The men backed up as Wolf raised his pistol and leveled it at
the mutant’s forehead then pulled the trigger. The jolt of the blast caused its
large round nose to pop off, and the creature slumped to the ground. No one
said a word as the men grabbed a few things and left. Wolf was glad to see that
Snake had partially regained his composure by the time they returned.

“Sorry, Dude,” Snake said, as he watched the men
exit the building. “You know how I am about clowns.”

“Don’t worry, Boss,” Wolf reassured him,” if that
were a giant spider, I’d be right there with you.”

Snake couldn’t tell if his friend was serious but
he knew that Wolf had an issue with spiders.

“What I don’t understand,” Wolf continued, “is how
that thing got bitten in the first place.”

“How’s that?” Snake asked.

“Well, you’d think it would taste funny,” Wolf
answered with a smirk. Snake would have thumped him, but he was still too
embarrassed. Instead, he muttered something and started moving toward the
truck. The groceries were loaded and two of the men were putting the empty tank back in.

Snake stopped when he heard someone say, “Looks like word got out about the party.”

More zombies were beginning to trickle into the parking lot.

Helga asked, “I should shoot these, too, no?”

Snake shook his head. “That’ll just attract more
of them. Let’s do it the old fashioned way and save some ammo. Maybe give these
guys a chance to try out their new bows, too.”

Helga’s eyes lit up at that thought. “I will help,”
she said, leaving no room for argument.

Lindsey bit her lip. She wanted to try out her new crossbow, but she was
wondering if she would have an accident with Helga around.

“Okay, Snake, you got me into this,” she hissed, “now you’re going to have
to keep her from killing me while I practice with the crossbow, all right?”

“Okay,” Snake reassured her. “I’ll back you up,
but don’t shoot her. You’ll just make her mad.”

Lindsey looked at Snake, trying to determine
whether or not he was kidding. “I’ll be careful,” she said, getting the
crossbow and arrows out of the truck.

One of the bikers brought out some long pieces of
rebar they’d picked up, thinking they could use them like lances or javelins.
They also had fireplace pokers and crowbars as well as anything else they’d
seen that looked like it might make a decent weapon. Helga picked a crowbar and
began to walk around cracking heads. She glanced at Snake when she passed him,
but only paused a moment before she moved on to the next zombie.

Snake was glad that Helga had something to vent her anger on, besides him, but he hoped
that she wouldn’t run out of targets before she calmed down. He kept his distance, just in case.
He was surprised at the ease with which she slaughtered her victims.
Despite the adrenaline rush, he personally gained no pleasure from it. Every infected he killed was once
a living breathing human being; a mother, father, son, or daughter. The hardest
to dispatch were the children. He had to keep telling himself that they were
already dead, empty vessels possessed by some demonic force. He saw it as a way
to bring the tormented beings to their final resting place. Helga, on the other
hand, seemed to gain more pleasure with each blow. She definitely had issues
and he knew that he had everything to do with that.

Lindsey watched as the other woman coldly and
methodically killed off the infected. It wasn’t going to be so easy for
Lindsey, but she knew that it had to be done. With a city as large as Lansing,
there was little chance that they would ever rid the area entirely of its
undead, but it didn’t hurt to diminish the enemy numbers, either. It also gave
her the opportunity to try out the crossbow and the practice could mean the
difference in life or death for her or someone else.

She looked the bow over. It seemed to be a top of
the line model, not that she was a crossbow expert, but it had been the most
expensive one in the gun shop, and it had lots of extras, including a scope.
She knew that crossbows had been around for a long time, and they seemed to
have come a long way since da Vinci had drawn his sketch centuries earlier.
Overwhelmed, she was still trying to figure out how to use it when Wombat came to her rescue.

“Having trouble?” he asked with a grin.

“I’m not sure how to work this thing,” she admitted.
“I tried pulling the string back and it’s even harder than a regular bow.”

“It’s very hard to do it that way,” he told her. “They
have these strings you can use to cock it, but in this case, the bow has a built-in crank.”

He proceeded to show her how to use it and she
gave it a try. It was easy but time-consuming. It wasn’t the sort of weapon
that was going to be useful in a situation where rapid-fire shooting was
necessary, but she thought it might prove handy when the dead needed to be picked off silently.

Lindsey chose one of the creatures that was
shambling her way. She took careful aim, fixing the cross hairs on one of the
dead man’s milky eyes before pulling the trigger. The zombie never even broke
its stride as the arrow punched a hole through its shoulder.

“You flinched when you pulled the trigger,” Wombat
said. “Squeeze it gently, keeping your eye on the target when you do it.”

She tried again, this time following the biker’s
advice as she took her shot, never letting her gaze leave the target. She
pierced the eye of the infected man and he crumpled to the ground.
Knowing that she needed to save as many arrows as possible, Lindsey went to get them,
trying to ignore the horrible sound as she retrieved the one from the dead man’s eye.

“Nice shot Xena!” Snake yelled, smiling. He turned
to see Helga scowling in his direction. As their eyes met, she turned and swung
her crowbar full force into a slow-moving zombie’s head. The head came off the
body and flew several feet across the parking lot as the body slowly teetered
over. She turned toward Snake again, this time with a mischievous grin on her face.

“Uh, you too, Helga,” he said, trying to get on what was left of her good side.

Lindsey jumped when the rolling head came toward her, wondering if she would be next.

“Did you see that?” she asked Wombat in a whisper.

“Yeah, didn’t think it was possible to knock a head off like that.”

“Maybe his neck was already broken.”

“Maybe,” Wombat said. “I’d try not to piss her off, just in case.”

“Too late,” Lindsey said, loading another arrow. She
stepped a little farther away from her next target. She missed twice but
finally planted the arrow in the middle of the zombie’s face. She hoped that it
would make Helga think twice about coming after her, but she doubted it.

Snake was a little unnerved by the competition but his attention was soon turned toward the streets where
more of the infected were making their way into the parking lot. Unfortunately,
they were coming from several directions. He thought it might be time to get
moving, but driving the bikes through a horde of zombies wasn’t going to be
easy. Might as well thin the crowd a bit, first, he thought. He readied his bat and joined in the fray.

Lindsey was getting faster with the crossbow, and it was a good thing, because she had more targets
than she could handle. Fortunately Wolf and Wombat were nearby and they took
out anything that got too close. She concentrated on the ones that were near
the edge of the parking lot, shooting away from the others so she wouldn’t
accidentally hit one of them. It seemed that for each one she put down, there was suddenly another in its place.

“We need to get out of here,” Snake finally said. It seemed like they had been fighting off the
growing horde for hours and there was no sign of let-up. The parking lot was
piling up with bodies, though some of the men had been dragging them off to the
side when they had a free moment or two.

“Load up, boys,” he yelled as Wombat locked up the back of the truck.

Helga fell into line with the rest of the bikers and Snake jumped into the truck,
starting it as even more of the dead made their way into the parking lot. He had a
hard time dodging bodies on the way out and he winced as he had to go over a couple of them.
He glanced in his side mirror to make sure he hadn’t lost anybody off the top of the truck.

As they made their way to the next stop on the list, Lindsey pointed into the sky where several jets
were flying by. Within a minute, explosions could be heard across town.

“I hope that wasn’t as close as it felt,” Snake said.

“Other side of town, from what I can tell,” Lindsey said, checking the mirror.

~*~

“Keith?” Shanelle’s voice came over the phone. “I’m
back in my apartment with a couple other people but what are we going to do
now? We’re out of food.”

She and a dozen of her neighbors had worked the
previous afternoon to clear a path to the roof. They had gone back up in the
morning, planning to spend the day up there in hopes that rescue helicopters
would be by to pick them up. When Keith had heard the news about the military
pulling out of the city, he had called her at once with the news. She and the
others had gone back into the building, disheartened.

“I’m going to talk to the pilots the minute they
get here in the morning,” Keith told her. “If they can evacuate the hospital,
there’s no reason they can’t pick up a group from your building, too. I’ll call
you once I talk to them but plan on being up there early in the morning, even
if you don’t hear from me. My cell reception is getting worse all the time.”

“All right,” she said, sounding relieved. “The
city looked pretty messed up from the roof. All I could see for as far as I
looked was those dead things. Didn’t see a sign of a living person
anywhere, not even in the windows of the other buildings.”

“Maybe they got out,” Keith said. Still, the choppers
had only brought in about sixty survivors in all, out of a city of over a
hundred thousand. It made him wonder just how many living people were left in Lansing.