Dead Stop (25 page)

“The doc wasn’t
kidding,” he continued through gritted teeth. “These bastards are hellaciously
strong! I’ll hold this guy, but you might want to make it quick.”

Marisa nodded
and turned to head up the aisle towards the lights…

…when the store
went dark again.

“What the hell?”
Harley’s strained voice cut through the dark.

”
Mierde!
”
Marisa snapped. “Now what?”

Then the obvious
explanation hit her…Stacey must have turned off the alarm. The main control
panel for it was in the back hallway next to the storeroom. Both of them knew
how to reset it since at least once a month a kid or some drunk would push open
the fire door by mistake. It was just another exciting feature of the job.

This time, the
surprising new development wasn’t a disaster in the making.

On the other hand,
that meant it was time for her to join the fight with the man-eating, killer
corpse.

The question
was, what could she do?

Marisa was no
wilting wallflower, but her mother had not raised an idiot. She had no
illusions of jumping into a fracas between a deadly monster and a trained
fighter.

 She had
done it with Deke because she hadn’t had time to think about it, and Deke was
losing the fight anyway. But this was different. Harley had fought the thing to
a standstill, and she was scared of doing anything that might put him at a
disadvantage again. At the same time, she remembered Deke and Stacey both
talking about how these things didn’t tire and realized a standstill already
put Harley in trouble. She needed to do something, but she didn’t know what.

In the end, she
opted on asking the expert.

“Harley?” She
squinted at the dark shape of the two combatants struggling on the floor.
Without the light, she didn’t dare swing for fear of hitting him instead of the
creature. “How can I help? Just tell me what to do. Should I go get the
others?”

“Nope,” he
grunted. “That wouldn’t do much but risk getting the others hurt…and it ain’t
necessary.”

“You sure?”

“Yep. I’m sure.
You still got the bat?”

“Yeah, but it’s
hard for me to see. I’m scared of hitting you by mistake.”

“Good,” he
gasped. “You’re using your head. What I need you to do is lean the bat against
the end of the shelves right there, and then step away.”

“Right here?”
She wondered what in the hell he could be planning.

“Yes. Right
there. Just lean it, handle up, against the end of the shelf. Then I want you
to go back over to the door to the restaurant.”

“Harley…”

“I need you by
the door,” The strain in his voice left no room for argument. “I’m going to try
something but I’m going to need room to maneuver. And if it doesn’t work I’m
going to need you holding the door for me.”

“Got it,” she
replied. She carefully leaned the bat where he said and took a step back. “Is
that good?”

“That’s fine.
Now go ahead and get clear.”

Marisa
understood he was about to attempt something extremely risky. At the same time,
she also knew he didn’t have a choice.

When you had a
tiger by the tail, the most dangerous part was letting go.

 “Harley,
be careful.”

There just
wasn’t anything else left to say.

The waitress
turned and hobbled for the doorway as fast as she could. She figured it was
just as well he sent her all the way to the door before doing whatever it was
he was going to do. In her current shape, she wasn’t going to be outrunning
anything. It only occurred to her as she reached for the handle that he had
probably been thinking exactly along those lines.

“Okay, I’m
here,” She grasped the handle. “Whatever you’re goi…”

There was a
grunt and a crash from the darkened area.

It was hard to
tell what was happening, but she detected a flurry of motion on the floor. Then
the awful figure of the walking corpse rose up against the window. Its ghastly
head turned to focus on her, where she stood visible in the light from the
parking lot.  A split second later Harley came up out of the darkness at
the end of the shelves where she had laid the bat.

He didn’t
hesitate.

The weapon
blurred in the dim light as the big man closed and attacked in one fast,
viciously savage motion. The monster had just started its attack posture when the
bat connected against the side of its head with a sickening
crack
. It
staggered and fell back against the little counter behind the register. Harley
didn’t wait to see if it would recover. He spun the bat and brought it straight
down on the monster’s head in three powerful, consecutive swings.

He hammered the
thing to the floor…each impact marked by a sodden crunch that left little to
the imagination. It was violent, brutish, and the last blow sounded with a
meaty finality that convinced Marisa the monster would not be rising again.

She gave silent
thanks she hadn’t seen much but silhouettes.

Harley’s figure
stood there, breathing heavily, then stooped down into the darkness of the
floor. A couple of seconds later a small flare of yellow light came to life.
She realized he must have grabbed a loose cigarette lighter from the debris of
the wrecked counter. Now he had bent down to examine the corpse.

“Harley? Are you
okay?”

“Yeah, I’m a
little scratched up, but I’ll be okay. You?”

She had seen the
blood on his shirt earlier, and knew the thing had at least clawed him pretty
good a couple of times. Still, he didn’t seem very concerned about it so she
figured that was between him and the doc.

“I hurt my toe,
but I’ll live. What are you doing?”

“I’m looking at
something,” he muttered, then spoke up. “Something weird.”

“Something
weird?” her laugh had no humor in it whatsoever. “What could possibly be weird
on a night like this?”

“Something you
probably don’t want to see,” Harley replied in a bemused tone. “As a matter of
fact, it’s something you definitely don’t want to see…but the doc definitely
should.”

###

 
Rising
Waters - Holly

Damn you,
Gerald! Damn you! Damn you! And damn me too!

They hadn’t
thought of the fire alarm.

Only two minutes
earlier she had been sitting in an enclosed building with all the bad things
that wanted to eat her outside.

Only two minutes
earlier she had been at least somewhat safe, comfortably dry, and of all the
things she had been questioning…none of them had been her sanity.

Only two minutes
earlier.

Then Gerald had
raised his pale, blood smeared face from the table, and stood up in an effort
to see the carnage outside. He squinted at the retreating figures in the storm,
looked over at the small group of locals huddled under the tables near the
doorway, then brought his now wide-eyed gaze back to her.

His eyes locked
with hers, yet he didn’t really seem to see her because the half grin that
spread across his face was in response to some thought within. His hand emerged
from beneath the table with his car keys.  He pointed the electronic door
opener at the window beside them and pushed the button.

“Look, Holly.”
He nodded out the window, and she followed his gesture to see the parking
lights on his BMW flash in the rain. “The big yahoo was right. They’ve all run
for the gas pumps.”

“Gerald, what
are you thinking?” She didn’t trust where this observation was leading. Gerald
wasn’t exactly the risk taking sort, especially if discomfort or actual bodily
harm was a potential outcome.  But something was different here. She
noticed something about his eyes were off.

His pupils were
contracted to pinpoints, and when he refocused on her she got the chilling
suspicion that the Gerald she knew had taken a back seat to something else for
the moment. This was Gerald “distilled.”

“It’s a straight
shot,” he smiled. “Nothing between it and us but rain.”

Was he kidding?
There were people
dying
out there.

“Gerald,” she
whispered, “that’s insane. Just drop it.”

“No.” He didn’t
even take umbrage at her disagreement. “It’s not. I knew parking away from
these clod kickers was a good idea at the time, and now it just worked in our
favor. The beamer is at an angle away from the gas pumps, so we wouldn’t be
running straight at those monsters.”

“Gerald, stop
it.”

He didn’t even
slow down…just kept speaking in a low, intense monotone.

“We can make it
to the car in five seconds. And those things won’t even know we’re out there
until we’re safe in the beamer. Then we can wave bye-bye to these filthy
creatures and be back in Austin in three hours.”

In a depressing
flash of intuition, she understood that the “filthy creatures” he referred to
weren’t just the ones out in the storm. She may not have been “small town” but
she still came from way out on the country edge of South Houston. It made her
wonder how much higher on the “evolutionary scale” she rated in his eyes. At
least he was still talking in terms of “we” in his current state.”

“Gerald, we
can’t,” she pleaded. “It’s suicide. Besides, you’ll ruin your beret out there
in the rain.”

Holly knew how
stupid that sounded, but it was exactly the kind of trivial thing that Gerald
usually cared about when more important matters were at hand. It was a forlorn
hope, but she prayed it might get through to him.

It didn’t.

“We can,” he
continued in an eerily calm voice, “and I will. On the count of five, I’m
getting out of here and going home. You are free to come with me. Five…”

“Gerald, no!”
she hissed. This was completely unlike him.

“Four.”

What the hell
was she going to do? This was lunacy! Between the stress of being out of his
element, the horror of the past few hours, and now the punch in the face from
the smaller local boy, Gerald had apparently snapped.

“Three.”

She regarded him
with despair.

He meant it. He
was going to do this, and now she had to make a choice. Either go with him, or
get left behind.

“Two”

It was safe in
here…but was it? Harley had said there wasn’t going to be any help coming, and
if he was right, then sooner or later they were going to have to make a run for
it anyway. Once daylight came, and the storm ended, the dead were going to be
able to see inside…and then these windows would only last so long.

“One”

And she
understood on a gut level that if she remained here, they were through. Gerald
wouldn’t look back. He would take it as her choosing the people here over him
and would wash his hands of her. That would have consequences of its own.

“Go,” he stated
in the same calm voice, stepped out of the booth, and rushed around the seat
for the fire door.

In the end,
habit made her decision for her.

Something
inside, some lost voice, wailed for her stop as she found herself taking off
after him. She shut it out, sick with the knowledge it was the fading voice of
who she had been two years ago. The voice of the girl who had real friends,
real passions, and real opinions…the girl who hadn’t met Gerald yet, and all
the opportunities that came with him.

Now was not the
time to indulge in going over past choices, she told herself.

Now it was time
to run.

Gerald hit the
door ahead of her at full speed, and she followed right at his back. An ear
splitting, electronic shriek assaulted her ears as the door flew open and she
understood they had just made a critical mistake. They had forgotten that
opening the fire door would set off an alarm. Now, instead of making their run
for safety with the advantage of the monsters not knowing they were coming,
they had just announced their presence outside to the entire countryside.

As she staggered
out into the blinding chaos of the downpour, she realized they were committed.
Any attempt to stop and turn back would cost valuable seconds, allowing the
zombies to react and attack. Besides, a flicker of motion to her right caused
her to turn and see several wasted, loping figures coming from behind the truck
stop towards her.

The monsters had
been closer than she realized! They must have been back there, out of sight of
the action up front, and only now drawn around the building by the sound of the
alarm. There were at least a good half dozen of them. Even worse, they had
already spotted her and were well into the process of running them down.
Lightning flared, bringing their gaping jaws into stark relief in the wild
storm. Then something came around the building behind them…

…something truly
awful.

C’mon, don’t
look back, just run! Don’t look back, just run! Just run, just run, just run!

Gerald began to
widen the gap between them, and she had a sudden image of him leaping into the
car and hitting the electronic lock switch as soon as he slammed the door,
leaving her outside to be ripped to pieces. It wouldn’t be malicious on his
part. He simply wouldn’t think to wait for her until it was too late.

And she would be
just as dead.

Holly fled through
the rain with desperate eyes fixed on the approaching car and a grinning pack
of the living dead snapping at her heels. Ahead of her, the dark shape of
Gerald ran into the hood of the car then fumbled his way around to the driver’s
door. The sight of him grabbing for the handle prompted a burst of even greater
speed.

“Geralllldddd!”
she wailed as he yanked the door open and jumped inside. “Waiiiittt!”

The slam of his
door shook the car as she grasped the handle of her own. She yanked on the
handle with a ragged cry, ripping her own door open, and saw his finger punch
the lock button at the very same instant.