Dove: A Zombie Tale (Byron: A Zombie Tale Book 2) (13 page)

Lopping in swift fashion, I severed the heads off a few of the newcomers before having to settle for taking an arm and a leg to slow them down. The creatures kept coming, spilling out from the dark like some sick, demented vending machine of horrible death and stench. I swung and hacked and slashed as bodies stepped through the doorframe. Carnage piled up at the foot of the opening before me. But none passed by me.

After the first fifteen, I lost count. Limbs fell. The occasional head shot took one down for good. But in general, I knew I would need to double-check the creatures stayed dead once the onslaught ceased. But where that end would be found baffled me. Bodies continued coming. Moaning, drooling, oozing.

Did this place open up onto a subway platform, or something? I needed to find some way to stem the tide of undead rising from the basement below. Grabbing rack after rack of wire shelves, I dragged them down, slamming them onto the floor. They fell upon the pile of gore and wriggling appendages, but only slowed the creatures the slightest bit. The only thing that seemed to stop them for good was the laser-sharpened steel singing in my hands.

I watched men and women fall to the ground. The count must have reached thirty by this time. But still they came. Had they been packed in down there like cattle? How in God’s name could so many creatures occupy so small a space.

The answer to that question lay on the floor before me as the pile of dead or dismembered grew larger, blocking the doorway. But still they came, pushing through the piles of their own fallen.

“What in the hell is wrong with you damn creatures?” I asked one as I stabbed it in the eye. “Where the hell are you all coming from?”

It seemed like some kind of sick clown-car trick from a Stephen King nightmare. The beasts just continued up the stairs.

Jab, stab, thrust, swipe, hack. I kept swinging the swords and taking out the rushing monsters. I hadn’t gotten Dove to safety, recovered from a major Lord battle, and wiped out half the Philadelphia Zoo for nothing. She’d found her aunt. We could bring her with us to safety. The safety that waited for us back at Eastern States Penitentiary.

I hoped.

A crash resounded through the dining room. Something had broken through one of the plate glass windows.

I cut down two more creatures before the thumps and beating started against the swinging doors. Two fronts, and here I stood dead center. Poland caught in between Russia and Germany. I continued hacking and slashing at the doorway, cringing with every pound and thump I heard at the other door.

“Son of a bitch!” I cursed to no one. “It’s times like this that I truly find it hard to believe in a God above.”

A Goner in front of me groaned in response. I thanked it by cutting through its windpipe and listening to it gurgle black sludge as it fell to the floor in its second death. The tide slowed from the basement, but a new sound from the dining room scared me more than anything else in the world could ever scare me. The roar of a Lord echoed through the chamber and crept around the almost absent swinging door. For the first time since my undeath, I knew fear and wanted to run away like a frightened little child. I wanted to shut down—to curl up in the fetal position and suck my thumb. After my last tango with one of these bastards, I did not look forward to fighting another.

As my sword dispatched the last creature rising through the basement doorway, the swinging door exploded into the kitchen. The fight, it would seem, had come to me.

~ ~ ~

I had never in my life been so grateful that I could not hear. The thick insulation of the freezer blocked nearly all sounds from the kitchen outside. The occasional thump or bang as something struck the door resounded through the space. But in all, we heard little.

I stared at my aunt Esmerelda.

“How in the hell are we going to get out of here, Sabrina?” Her voice contained a strange mix of both fear and anger. “The handle is broken from the inside.”

“Byron is out there. He’ll get us out.”

“Who? That nut job with the swords? He’s going to get himself killed.”

“He can’t do that, Aunt E.”

“What? What do you mean? Those things will tear him apart.”

“He can’t die. He’s already dead.”

“Excuse me? Did I just hear that correctly? He’s already dead? Would you care explaining what in the hell you mean? He seems to be walking and talking like you and me.”

“He’s a zombie. But different. He still thinks like a human.”

“I don’t believe this. I’m trapped in here thanks to the hordes of undead customers outside, and you bring another one thinking he’ll be able to s—”

A roar reverberated through the steel walls of the freezer, only dulled a little. Something slammed hard against the side wall and it buckled inward with a short, linear crease.

“What the hell is happening out there?” My voice betrayed my concern.

“Your zombie buddy is getting his rear-end handed to him is what’s happening.”

I gave her a stern glare. “What happened to you?”

She frowned at me, and wagged both hands at the freezer door. “That’s what happened to me, Sabrina. A mad world full of people eating other people.”

“How did you end up in here?”

“I locked myself in. Two days ago.” She pointed to a 5-gallon pickle bucket in the corner. “I’ve been going to the bathroom in the pickles and eating whatever hasn’t spoiled. Where the hell have you been?”

I blinked at her. “Sorry. I didn’t realize.”

“Oh, no kidding you didn’t realize. You were sleeping up in your room with your headphones on when I left for work the other day. Things seemed a little off at the time, but I made it here safe enough. I opened the restaurant and had the morning chef and a couple of the waitstaff with me.

“We had a couple of the regulars come in. You know the ones who buy either the scrapple platter, or the pork roll sandwiches. Anyways, they came in and had their breakfasts and things started like any other morning. But then some tweaker showed up. I figured the guy was bugging out on bath salts or something. Completely freaked out, he stood outside with his head against the window staring in. Bobby—you remember him, the morning bus boy—”

I nodded.

“Well, Bobby went outside to shoo him away and this freak just leaps at him, snarling. He grabs Bobby by the head and bites his face before throwing him on the ground. Bobby’s freaking out and one or two customers run outside. The tweaker attacked them too.

“I picked up the phone and dialed the cops. You know how that works in Philly. I ended up on hold. On hold with 9-1-1! Really, what do I pay taxes for? While I’m on the phone, this guy comes rushing into the place, blood running down the front of his clothes. Both of the customers lay on the ground outside. Nobody moved out there. Bobby had stopped writhing around on the sidewalk, and it looked like he did a number on the two customers.”

More roars, screams, and sounds of fighting penetrated the cracks around the freezer door.

“Well, Francine runs to the back and ducks down into the basement and several of the customers followed her down. That left me alone in the dining room with this blood-covered tweaker snarling at me. So I dropped the phone and ran. He followed me, so I slipped into the freezer and slammed the door shut behind me. We kept a sweatshirt in here for freezer stocking time, so I slipped that on to keep warm. People screamed outside and all I can surmise is that the tweaker ran down the stairs for the basement. After a while, the power went out. And then it fell silent. Every now and again I would hear something bumping around out there, but nobody ever opened the door to see if there was anyone in here.

“I’ve been in here since, trying to figure out how in the hell I would get out. And then your freaky friend there showed up and I panicked.

“So you’re the reason I’m locked in here with you? You’ve been trying to figure out how to get out. Someone opens the door, and you make them close it again. Great, Aunt E, just great. This is exactly where I wanted to spend the zombie apocalypse.”

“Hey, don’t blame me! Blame the damn creatures that started this thing. You think I want to be stuck in here?”

“Don’t get defensive on me. Let’s just hope that Byron is able to clear out whatever lurks downstairs and opens the door soon. It really stinks in here.”

“Yeah, no kidding. There’s a reason they have that saying—
don’t crap where you eat
. I never had to think about it until now, but they’re right. It really kills the appetite.” She chuckled a little, forced laugh.

Something hit the freezer door, jarring it in its frame. Startled, I let out a low yelp. Roars and screams followed from outside. A sword blade pierced the insulated door, about head height. Black goo dripped from the blade.

The handle banged and the door swung open with a slow, deliberate movement.

“Is everyone okay?” Byron’s voice called in. “We don’t have much time, so let’s get whatever we need and get the hell out of here.”

He had certainly seen better days, but on first glance appeared to have fared much better than his last fight with a Lord. He yanked the sword blade from the door, and I collected my things from the freezer floor.

“Byron, this is my Aunt Esmerelda. Aunt E, this is Byron.”

“The dead guy, right?”

He gave her the warmest smirk and wink he could. “Don’t be hatin’, we can’t all be perfect, you know.” He ushered us out of the freezer and pointed to the front of the restaurant. “Get moving, and don’t mind the mess. There were a few more than I thought there would be.”

As we passed through the dining room to the vehicle waiting by the curb, I noted the condition of the place. He was right, and mess did not capture the state of the room. It looked as though a zombie bomb had exploded with pieces of carnage dripping from the ceiling and piles of gore all over. The furniture had all been smashed apart, and body parts still twitched and moved in different areas of the space. He turned to Aunt E with a sly grin. “I hope the owner had ‘Act of God’ coverage on his insurance. Because I delivered the wrath of God out here.”

She didn’t respond as we climbed into the vehicle and pulled away from the curb.

chapter ten

These Lords are
becoming more dangerous
, the microorganisms spoke in my ear.
They are gaining strength and becoming feral. Something is wrong. They seem to be mutating into something different.

“What do you mean different?” My voice broke the stillness inside the Rover like a gunshot. Esmerelda gave me a screwy expression in the rear view mirror.

“I didn’t say anything,” Dove barked beside me. I tapped the side of my head and she nodded in understanding. She turned in her seat and whispered a quick explanation to her aunt.

We don’t know. This is the first time our species have even interacted. Generally, like with you, we develop some kind of symbiotic relationship where we both benefit. In this case, the other microorganisms seem to be merging with the human hosts and creating some new kind of creature.

“Can you examine them,” I asked, my voice just above a whisper. “Is there a way you can study them from afar?”

We have been. That is why we have developed the conclusions we have. The problem is that we cannot enter another organism now that we have bonded with you. These other symbiots are actively seeking additional hosts. It’s like they are creating some kind of hive mind. The Lords are infecting other creatures in order to control them with a singular mind.

“Is that what happened before? The other Lord tried to infect me?”

Yes. We were able to destroy the foreign symbiots, but in doing so we lost the ability to study them.

“Do you think you can find some way to turn the hive mind back on itself?”

What do you mean?

“Say a Lord tried to infect me again. Could you capture and exploit their symbiots against the Lord that spread them?”

We would need to study more of these new symbiots in order to determine if that is possible. Given the strength and ferocity of these new symbiots, it is not likely we will be able to break them and bend them to our will. Our recommendation is to stay away from them. Avoid the Lords. Stop fighting them. They are becoming far too powerful.

“Bad news,” I turned to Dove. “These Lords I told you about are about as bad as you can get right now. They are trying to dominate groups of zombies and seeking to infect new victims. Which means that all three of us are now on the menu for these guys.”

Esmerelda cocked her head to one side. “I used to have an immunity to the Lords and Goners,” I explained to her. “My symbiots would be able to emit neurotoxins to warn them away from me. But now they have mutated and become some real bad mothers.”

“Bad mothers? Is that a technical saying in the zombie hunting business?” Esmerelda smirked as she asked.

“Something like that. We need to get to the prison and make sure that everyone else is safe.”

The rear view mirror caught my attention. Something moved behind us with tremendous speed. “What’s the fastest way to the prison?”

A car crashed behind me, shoved aside by something large and coming in our direction.