Revenence: Dead of Winter: A Zombie Novel (15 page)

     "What you need," Phoebe said, "is a flamethrower."

     Anthony snorted.  "And where are we supposed to get one of those?"

     Phoebe patted the backpack beside her.  "It's all right here," she said.  "Or the plans for it, at any rate."

     "Okay," Shari said, "I'm not even gonna ask why it is that you have instructions for making a flamethrower, I'm just gonna be glad that you have such resources at your disposal."
     Phoebe rolled her eyes.  "Believe it or not, I didn't have them before the world went to shit.  I printed out as much stuff as I could the first few days after it started.  I wasn't sure how long there would be internet, or power--I wanted to be prepared to cobble some shit together if I had to."

     "Makes sense," Shari said.  "I suppose the internet's as good as gone."

     Phoebe shook her head.  "No, it didn't really
go
anywhere.  The ISPs are gone, but it's only a matter of time before whatever survivors are left have things up and running again.  It's just a matter of networking, namely knowing how to tap into the networks."  She grinned.  "And that's no sweat for someone like me!"

     "Okay," Anthony prodded, "you were saying something about a flamethrower?"

     "Oh," Phoebe said, "right.  Yeah, I'll look over my notes.  I think I should be able to piece it together for the most part out of stuff we have here, but you'll need to find a CO2 tank."

     Anthony nodded.  "I'll look at the coffeeshop across the street.  Should be one there, I doubt anyone else has looted a CO2 tank."

     "Anything else we can do?" Shari asked.

     "Just peace and quiet, so I can focus," Phoebe said as she rummaged through her backpack.  "You two work on finding that tank.  I'll let you know if I need anything else."

     It was almost noon when Shari and Anthony set out again, this time with Phoebe's newly constructed flamethrower in tow. 

     "Okay," Anthony said, leading Shari toward a shed on the west side of the lot, "so this is what we're gonna do...there's an elementary school about a five-minute walk from here, right?  And past the school, there's a park.  The Army surplus store is on the far side of the park from the school.  It's one story, so I figure that if we can get up to the roof, we'll have a good view of the area, and we'll go from there."

     "How do you propose we get up there?" Shari asked.

     Anthony swung open the door of the shed.  "Ladder," he said.

     "What ladder?" Shari asked, pointing to an object in the far right corner of the shed.  "That ladder?  We're carrying that ladder for three blocks?  I'm sure we can find one in a garage or something, somewhere closer to the school than that."

     "Yeah," Anthony said.  "I'm sure we can, too...but where, exactly?  Do you really wanna go scavenge random houses and buildings, hoping they have a fifteen-foot ladder?  Not knowing who might be in those buildings?"

     "Alright," Shari said.  "I get it.  Help me lift this thing."  They each picked up an end of the ladder, maneuvering it out of the shed. 

     "Thanks again," Shari said as they started northward, ladder in tow.  "I don't know what I'd have done without you and Phoebe.  Hopefully, that thing'll make it easier to cut through the crowd," she said, nodding toward the flamethrower and tank on Anthony's back.  "How are you holding up, anyway?  Now you have to carry that thing, plus half a ladder."

     Anthony shrugged ahead of her.  "I'll be okay," he said.  "Good thing I'm a pretty big guy, huh?"

     "Yeah," Shari said, grinning, "I'd noticed." 

     "Ha!" Anthony laughed, smirking  back over his shoulder at her.  "You getting an eyeful back there?  It's okay, you can stare if you want to." 

     They heard the muted, irregular footsteps of a slower, older zombie coming from the right.  As they turned to look, an undead teenage female exited a driveway, accelerating to a slow, awkward jog when she sensed the presence of the living. 

     "Hold up," Anthony said, setting down his end of the ladder.  He strode to the undead girl, tripped her, buried the blade of his machete into the base of her skull, and strode back to the ladder all in the space of less than ten seconds.  "Moving on," he said as he and Shari lifted the ladder and continued down the street.

     "At least there shouldn't be too many of them," Shari said.  "The undead are all concentrated right around that place, from what I saw on the water tower.  It'll be a cake walk until we get there, and then it'll turn into a shitstorm."

     "Maybe, maybe not," Anthony said.  "Let's hope that most of them are on the far side of the school.  It's  narrow, but fairly long...if I had to guess, I'd say probably about fifty yards.  So I'm hoping that most of the undead will be to the opposite side of it.  We might not ever have to be in any real danger, if we're lucky."

     "Here's hoping," Shari said.  They trudged onward, taking in their surroundings as they went.  "I really appreciate you coming with me--"

     "I know," Anthony said, chuckling, "because you've said it at least half a dozen times already today."

     "I wasn't done," Shari said.  "I appreciate it, but I really hope nothing happens to you.  They're my friends, and you didn't really have to help.  If anything went wrong, I'd feel responsible."

     "Relax," Anthony said.  "Don't worry about it.  I'm a grown-up, and I made the decision to help you."  He snorted.  "To be honest with you, I just want to do what I can to see two more people survive.  Doesn't matter who they are, so long as they ain't zombies or sadists.  I can't stomach the thought of the whole human race going extinct, or even worse--leaving it to the sadists."  He shook his head, his eyes on the road straight ahead of him.  "I can't stomach it at all.  Gotta help people--real people-- whenever I can.  I think back on all the assholes from the old world who I couldn't stand, the ones who I might have thought twice before pissing on them if they were on fire.  And even those ones--"  He uttered a faint laugh.  "I even hope the best for
those
douchebags.  I know, when I think about it, that I'd kill a sadist to save one of 'em."

     "Isn't it weird?" Shari agreed.  "There were all different types of people, and let's be honest--some of them really fucking sucked.  I guarantee you, I would have hated one out of three of them.  But that was back then, back when they were a dime a billion.  It's only a handful of months later, and I can't even remember what most of my all-important beefs with people were even about."   She sighed.  "At least being on the brink of extinction has brought people closer together."

     Anthony glanced back briefly over his shoulder.  "So...what do you make of the sadists, then?"

     Shari smiled.  "I said it brought people closer together, that doesn't include sadists."

     "Fair enough," Anthony conceded, focusing on a yard a few doors down where the tall grass rustled clumsily.  "I think we got one up there."  He and Shari set the ladder on the asphalt.

     "I've got this one," Shari said, reaching for her bow and quiver.  She raised the bow, nocking her arrow as she stalked nearly  noiselessly, toward the yard.  As the withered undead male struggled to run toward his intended prey, Shari watched him for a moment, noticing his Bob Marley T-shirt.  She held her gaze on him as she released the arrow, which probed the right eye of the former Marley fan.  He crumpled to the ground as Shari stalked toward him. 

     "I hope you're smoking a big ol' joint in Heaven," she said as she wrenched her arrow free from his eye socket, "with Marlely himself."  She wiped the arrow on the dead man's shirt and stood, returning it to its quiver and starting back toward Anthony.

     "You talking to the undead now?" Anthony teased as he and Shari lifted the ladder and continued toward the school.

     "He liked reggae," Shari said with a faint smile that faded into a sullen, unfocused gaze.  "I don't like being reminded that they liked things, though.  I don't want to know anything about them."

     "Me, neither," Anthony muttered ahead of her.  "I just exterminate 'em, first-person shooter-style.  I figure, hey--I can go ahead and feel guilty about it, but in the end, I'm gonna have to do it anyway, right?  If I don't think too hard about who they were, or who they may have been...."  He trailed off, taking in the area ahead of him as they approached the intersection just before the elementary school.  "So far, so good," he said in a low, hushed growl, referring to the fact that there were no undead visible on the side of the school which they were currently facing.  "Let's move in toward that far entrance, the smaller one, as fast as we can," he said, pointing toward the .  We'll lean this ladder up against the wall where it's good and low, have us a little rooftop barbeque."

     They crossed the street and started across the vast lawn in front of the school, mindful of potential undead lurking behind the wide dwarf conifers dotting the overgrown landscape.  "So you were a first-person shooter guy back in the day?" Shari asked, smirking.

     "Yeah, I guess," Anthony said, his eyes on the entrance at the far west end of the sprawling school grounds.  His lips began to curl into a reluctant grin.  "Somethin' wrong with that?"

     "No," Shari said, "not really.  I never cared for them much, personally."

     "So what exactly did you care for?"

     "Don't get me wrong," Shari said, "I like the shooting.  But I preferred the role-playing games, because they had that and a whole lot more.  You know, character building, leveling up with various skills, some of which aren't even weapon-related...."  She trailed off, uttering a slight laugh.  "I can't help but apply it to survival nowadays.  It's like I'm living in an RPG and trying to catch my melee skill up to my sniping, or to sneak in a quick medicine or barter point to bring me up real quick in a pinch or something like that." 

     Anthony stifled an amused snort as he led the way, his gaze holding steady on the school.

     "It's silly, I know," Shari said.  "I never said I wasn't a nerd, did I?"

     Anthony shrugged.  "Just didn't picture you being the type, that's all.  You seem a little--I don't know, sophisticated compared to most gamers I've known of."

     "Okay," Shari said, "I'll consider that a compliment." 

     "Alright," Anthony said as they reached the western extremity of the school, "you sure you're ready to do this?"

     Shari smirked, rolling her eyes.  "Dude, who do you think you're talking to?  Keep in mind, me and Daphne are the ones who fought our way up here from Kentucky, remember?"  She snickered.  "Not everyone was living the good life holed up nice and cozy in a radio station, alright?"
     "Alright, alright" Anthony said, "I know you're technically the bigger man, okay?  Lay off already.  I need you to get ready to climb up there ahead of me." 

     They leaned the ladder up to the roof and Shari hurried up while Anthony held the base steady.  She wandered to the northern edge of the roof while Anthony climbed up behind her, pulling the ladder up after him.

     "Holy shit," Shari breathed, gesturing northward.  The park that lay between the school and the shopping center to the north was filled shoulder-to-shoulder with undead, and as she looked to the east and west she realized that the entire street itself was packed for at least a block in either direction.  "It must be every zombie in the greater Champaign-Urbana area."

     Anthony walked over, coming to a stop at Shari's side and letting out a low whistle as he surveyed the situation.  The undead nearest the school had sensed the presence of the living and breathing, and some of them were clawing in vain at the wall of the school, as if they could climb up.  "Shit, you're not kidding," he muttered.  "Least the ones that can still move, at any rate."

     "So what exactly should we do?" Shari asked.  "What's our game plan?"

     Anthony shrugged.  "Game plan?"  He readied his flamethrower, releasing some gas from the tank.  "Step one, gas it up."  He pressed the ignition, unleashing a 30-foot plume of flames downward and outward, setting aflame a wide swath of the crowd.  "Step two, light it up.  Done."

     "And done," Shari muttered as she watched burning zombies stumble into others, inadvertently setting their own kind on fire.  She realized that Anthony wouldn't even have to hit the ones closest to the school, as more and more of them became victims of friendly fire.  "It sure does get the job done, doesn't it?" 

     Anthony lifted the tank slightly, extending the arch of the flame to maximize its reach.  As she watched over the next couple of minutes, she realized that there had to be at least two-hundred undead on fire. 

     "How many of them do you think there are?" she asked.  "You must have dealt with crowds every now and then as a security guard."

     "No," Anthony said, "that wasn't really my area of expertise, but based off some of the concerts I've been to--"  He paused, eyeing the crowd.  "I'd say there must be at least ten thousand of the fuckers down there."

     Shari nodded, her arms crossed as she moved closer to the edge to peer at the smouldering horde below.  "How many do you think we can get from up here?"  Her stomach churned as the stench of burned hair and skin assaulted her nostrils, and she retreated away from the edge.

     "Well," Anthony said, "being optimistic--that's maybe five-hundred down there burning up.  They'll set some of the others on fire, slow but sure, but that'll only help us so much."

     "Okay," Shari said, "so what then?"

     "This is what we do," Anthony said, stooping to push the ladder closer to the side facing the park.  "First, we're gonna get off this roof."

     Shari made a face, crossing her arms in front of her chest.  "First who's gonna get off what?"

     "You and me," Anthony said, "the roof, we're gonna get down off the roof."

     "Why would we do that?"

     Anthony gestured toward the park.  "This has been pretty easy so far," he said.  "But what, do you think they're all gonna come up to the school to get roasted just for our convenience?"

     "No," Shari said, rolling her eyes.  "Smartass."

     They crossed the roof in order to descend from the same spot where they had come up.  Anthony swung the end of the ladder off of the roof, carefully leaning it down to the ground.  They both scurried down, then worked together to lower the ladder to the ground.

     "Let's move," Anthony said as he started around the wing, heading northward toward the park.  "We don't want to be late to the barbecue."