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

With slow, steady movements, we crept to the end of the hallway, peering around the corner. A fluorescent lamp hung from the ceiling by its power cord, swinging in a light breeze blowing down the corridor. It brushed against some plastic sheeting draped over a bank of lockers. The tension in my shoulders melted away and I dropped the bat to my side.

“It’s just the lamp,” I laughed. “Look, it’s...”

Something burst from the room behind me wailing like a tortured banshee. It slammed into me, pitching me to the floor. The bat slipped from my grasp and half-rolled, half-slid away. More wails split the air as bodies poured from the open doorways. At least a dozen Goners filtered into the corridor, emaciated and filled with madness.

Sammy leapt forward, the nine-iron held high over his head and screaming like a madman. The club whipped through the air and crashed into one person’s skull, caving it in. “Go for the head,” he yelled. “It’s the only thing that keeps them down. If you don’t destroy the brain, it’ll get right back up.”

I scrambled forward, stretching and reaching for the bat. Something grabbed my leg and pulled me backward. “Get off me! Let go!” I craned my neck and rolled my hip. One of the Goners held my ankle in its hands, trying to stuff my boot in its mouth.

I kicked as hard as I could given the odd angle. The Goner, a woman with sunken eyes and paper-thin skin, possessed much more strength than I thought possible for her starved form. She fought me and continued trying to chew my boot.

“Let go of me!” I failed to dig my nails into the floor. The woman dragged me across the floor, pulling me toward the room at the end of the corridor and further away from my bat—my salvation. “Let me go!” Her glazed eyes and fierce determination told me all I needed to know—she would not quit until her teeth sunk into my flesh.

Flailing my arms, I reached for anything I could lay my hands upon. Anything that could serve as a weapon. My heart leapt when my fingers closed around something long, thin, and solid. Even better, the object came with me. Without bothering to examine my new weapon, I swung it at the Goner with every ounce of strength I could find. Again and again I struck the woman. My eyes pinched shut. My teeth grit. My knuckles hurting from clenching the weapon so tight. But she did not relent. Not in the least. And I slipped out of the corridor through the threshold.

~ ~ ~

Like a cobra I lashed out, tossing my weapon and grabbing the doorframe with both hands. Struggling against the Goner’s exceptional strength, I pulled myself back toward the corridor. My arms ached, my shoulders killed me. But I persisted. I would not succumb to whatever hell lay within this infected woman’s gnashing teeth.

My foot slipped from her grasp and I slid forward. Tucking my legs beneath me, I rolled, and popped up, lunging for the aluminum bat.

Another Goner reached for me, its arms sweeping over my head as it missed. I drove my palm upward under its chin, forcing its head up and back. It gnashed its teeth and snapped at me, guttural sounds rolling from its throat.

Slipping by the creature, I dove for the bat and slid across the floor. Its hand brushed down my back as I rushed past. My fingers wrapped around the cool, metal handle of the baseball bat. Aluminum death smashed into the closest Goner’s head. It exploded like a rotten tomato beneath a hammer.

Sammy’s club swished through the air, breaking bones and crushing heads. He had already fell three Goners and continued swinging with gusto. I stepped forward and drove my bat at another creature, snapping its sickly thin arm.

“This way!” I called, clearing a path through the chomping, biting creatures. He stepped in behind me, covering my back.

“I’ve got ya,” he shouted back, working the club like a professional.

I pushed through the crowd of Goners, smashing with wild abandon. Groaning forms crashed to the floor, or fell through open doorways. “I take it we want the exit at the end of the corridor?”

“Yeah. Keep going.”

No more Goners stood in the corridor between us and the exit. Four remained behind us, and Sammy moved much slower than before. I whipped around to his aide as we backed up toward the exit door.

“There aren’t that many more in here,” Sammy called. “As far as I remember, the police only dropped five or six Goners off here in the past week. Those few probably infected the rest of the squatters in here.” He brought his club down into a thick head. The man had not lost much of his weight yet, but open sores on his flesh oozed black ichor. “That was Martin—a good guy. He used to share whatever food he’d scavenged from the dumpsters with us. We all liked him. I guess I’m the only one left, now.”

“There’s no time for reflection, Sammy. We need to get out of here. These things are not stopping.” I kicked the exit door as Sammy fought the Goners behind us. It flew open, slamming hard against the concrete block wall outside. The noise echoed down the corridor as the last of the nearby Goners crashed to the floor, its brains leaking from a nine-iron sized hole in its head. More approached from down the hall.

Thick gray and black clouds hung in the sky. A flash of light arced, dancing and reaching about. A peal of thunder shook the ground. Sheets of water fell in a torrent, pooling on the paved ground outside.

“Sammy, let’s go!” I screamed, leaping through the door. “We need to get away from this place. My car is down the block!”

He smashed another creature’s head in. Black and red clumps of brain and blood clung to his weapon. Hair stuck in the iron’s grooves. He surged through the door and slammed it shut with his elbow. Grabbing a nearby cinder block, I jammed it against the base of the door and the railing to lock the creatures inside.

“Why would the police let those things live?” I bellowed in outrage. Stomping my foot and spinning in the parking lot. “Why not just kill them.”

“They’re people. Or so the cops thought when they dropped them off. But once they wake up from the infection, they’re something far worse.”

“We need to tell the police. Warn somebody. These things are going to get out, and people are going to get hurt.”

A wail sounded from down the road in the direction of my car. My blood ran cold.

I didn’t want to say the words, but couldn’t help myself at the same time. “What was that?”

“What do you think? I told you before that these things have been getting out. They’re all over the neighborhood.”

“We gotta get to my car, and fast. We might be safe once we get inside. Then we can drive to the nearest police station to warn them. Something has to be done before whatever this is spreads any further.”

He nodded. “Which way?”

I pointed the bat down the road. As I watched him turn his attention, his expression changed. Color drained from his face. His eyes grew wide with fear. Sammy’s jaw hung open.

“What?” I asked as I turned to follow his gaze. My heart hammered and I could feel my palms growing clammy. The answer to my stupid question lumbered toward us. “Oh God!”

I couldn’t count how many Goners walked the road. Too many for me to wrap my head around. How could so many people be infected if the infection was contained inside Saint Bonaventure? There must have been hundreds of people massed about, their eyes scanning the streets like wildcats on the hunt for prey. Emaciated, sickly, and in various states of decay. How far had the infection spread?

“I don’t think he’s going to help us now. I think God has abandoned us, Dove.” Defeat rang clear in his voice.

I whipped around and stared him hard in the face. “God will only help those who help themselves. And I don’t plan on going down without a fight. I need to find my aunt and make sure she’s safe.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Where is she?”

“In the city.” I paused. “Through them. Same as my car.”

“Damn.”

“Yup. Damn. I don’t think we have the artillery to pull off that assault.”

“I would agree. We need a new plan.” One of the Goners on the road turned toward us, a vicious wail escaping its lips.

“Yeah. Well I think we’ll need to come up with it on the fly. They’re on to us. And coming this way.” Like a single organism, the pack of infected coalesced and moved our way. Their wails filled the skies with the sounds of horror as other wails answered from all around.

“This is bad.”

I looked up the road in the other direction and my breath stuck in my chest. Another pack of Goners, even larger than the first, trotted down the road in unison from the vicinity of Fair Hill Cemetery. I tapped Sammy on the shoulder and directed his attention toward them. “No. That’s bad.”

chapter two

“Where else can
we go?” Sammy asked.

More wails filled the air. The cacophony reminded me of the aviary at the Philadelphia zoo. I couldn’t think with all the noise and the sight of two hordes of infected merging and swarming toward us overwhelmed me. I froze, unable to speak or to move.

“Dove?” He waved his hand in front of my face.

I spun, craning my neck to look up the school’s facade toward the roof.

“Up,” I called, clambering onto the handrail surrounding the landing. A gabled overhang protected the door from the weather, and could provide our temporary salvation. I climbed the gutter pipes to the overhanging roof and reached back to help Sammy follow. From the ridge we reached the half wall surrounding the school roof and scratched our way up the brick wall. Looking back, the hordes massed and broke toward the school.

“How do they do that?” I asked.

“Do what?” Sammy gave me a screwy expression.

“Act like a single organism. Like they share a hive mind. They even walk in perfect synchronization.”

He stared out across the crowd and shrugged his shoulders. “It beats me. I’ve never seen this many of them before. I didn’t even know this many of those things existed.”

“I didn’t know any existed,” I mumbled before turning back to scan the roof for our next course of action. This location would not provide much safety for long. Near the southeast corner, a skylight penetrated the surface. “Do you think you could handle a fall?”

“I don’t know. What kind of fall?”

“Not sure, yet. I’m still trying to formulate the next part of our plan.” I looked over the edge scanning the streets when the next stage of the escape leaped out at me. “This church connected to a much larger complex, right?”

“Yeah. They had a convent, a parochial school, and a rectory for the priest. Why?”

“Old places like this heated with steam. We could use the steam pipes to travel between the buildings and then to the sewers. The sewers could take us to the other side of the crowd and to my car.”

Sammy smiled. “I like it. It’s a good plan. A fall like that shouldn’t be too bad.” He paused. “Okay, let’s do it. Do you think any have gotten inside, yet?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know. Let me go check.” I peered over the half wall to the crowd of infected below. Their emaciated forms possessed an uncommon strength, as though their muscles operated with more efficiency, drawing greater power. They pounded against the walls, the door, and even the railing, but seemed to miss that we climbed up to the roof. I slipped away from the edge and approached Sammy. “They’re not too bright. They haven’t figured out we’re up here, or how to reach us. Yet. But I’m not going to wait around for them to figure it out.”

“Then let’s crack this window and get out of here!” Sammy raised his golf club, ready to smash the glass.

I grabbed it as he swung down. “Stop. You shatter that window and any Goners inside will come running to us. Do you really want to fight your way all the way to the cellar and beyond?”

He shook his head.

“Then how about we do this all nice and stealth-like?”

He reached into a pocket and removed a small pocketknife to jimmy the lock. It opened without a sound and I slipped inside. Several handholds hung from the wall inside the opening. I climbed down and from the bottom hold dropped three feet to the floor below. Sammy followed, but slipped as he reached for the last handhold, landing hard on his side with a yelp.

After a flurry of half-whispered curse words, he grumbled under his breath. “Hot damn, that hurt.” He nursed his arm as he performed a quick self-inspection.

“You better get up. Your little crash there probably alerted every Goner in the area to our presence.”

“We either need some guns, or axes, or something. A baseball bat and a golf club may be good in a pinch, but they’re not too sturdy.”

“You know of a hunting supply store around here?” I narrowed my eyes at him.

“No.”

“Then I guess that’s out of the question, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Unless we find a bit cop or something.”

My blood froze as the implications of his words sank in. “If a cop got bit, they’d have brought him to a hospital.”

“Oh God! They infect a hospital, or a police station and we’re all in a world of hurt.”

My eyes popped wide. “That could spread through the city like a wildfire. I need to get to my aunt.” I shouldered my bat and popped my head out the open door into the corridor. Patchwork shadow and light lined it in both directions. Like the corridors downstairs, there were no doors in the frames. “It’s empty. It looks safe.”