The Zombie Chronicles - Book 6 - Revelation (Apocalypse Infection Unleashed Series) (24 page)

Claire shot me a look. “Looks like they want it the hard way,” she said, gripping her shovel. She bolted toward the first zombie and pounded it in the head with her shovel, smashing its curly red hair into its skull.

I decided to take the ones on the left. I gripped the shovel tightly, then methodically took aim. My jaw fell open at the grotesque sight before me. Dark, black blood poured from its mouth, as if was regurgitating motor oil. Long shards of glass protruded from its eyes, cheeks, and chin. The zombie’s entire body was covered in glass, as if it had been standing too close to a window during an explosion. Sharp pieces were embedded in every single inch of its horrific body. I swung my shovel in a giant arc and connected with its glistening head, hitting its skull with a bone-crushing
thud
.

“
Impressive!” Claire said before she went after the next glass-covered zombie. She swung the axe high over her head and buried it deep in the thing’s skull. It crumbled to the ground, and she planted her foot squarely in the center of its face as she pulled as hard as she could to free her axe. “Did that hurt?” she asked the zombie.

For a response, the thing flailed a bit.

Claire swung the axe into its head again. “How about that?” she mocked.

“
Are you okay?” I called over.

“
Yep. All’s well in the world.” She peered ahead. “But not for long.”

More zombies were approaching from all directions, and I gasped at the horror now surrounding me. A fresh meal was near, and they moaned in excitement and anticipation. My heart beat rapidly against my ribcage as they fixated on our position. Swinging my shovel back, I whacked a zombie with straight, black hair and a bad complexion. It was naked, and bite marks lined its entire body, from its face all the way down to its feet. I obviously didn’t hit it hard enough, because the nude nightmare ambled back to its feet. I kicked it and sent it toppling over a nearby gravestone, then bashed its head in with a sickening
crunch
to finish it off. A wave of nausea flooded over me as black gore covered a patch of green grass.

A zombie in a football jersey stretched out its hands, and I whacked it so hard that its severed, rotting head flew off its shoulders and into the grass. Gore exploded, and the zombies next to it were splattered with black blood.

Another flesh-eater gnashed its teeth, snarling loudly. This one was dressed in a white nightgown with bloody hand marks all over it. I swallowed hard. The white gown told me it was newly turned; otherwise, it would have been covered in dirt and slime. I slammed my shovel in its chest, and it went down like a ton of bricks, just long enough for me to hit it again and put the wretched creature out of its misery.

Even though we’d avoided using our guns, the zombies kept coming, and I knew there was no way we could take them all on. The cries of the dead grew louder and louder. The wanted to rip into our skin and pull it off our bones chunk by chunk, slurping on our blood as they feasted on our flesh.

I grabbed Claire’s arm and pulled her behind a large headstone. “We’ve gotta get outta here, Claire! We’re way outnumbered.”

“
I just need a minute,” she said between gasps, “to see if it’s her.”

“
No! C’mon! We’ll come back later.”

“
No, Dean. We’ve come this far, and zombies aren’t gonna stop me now. I have to know!”

“
We’ll come back,” I urged.

“
It’ll be too late. They’ll devour the remains.”

“
They can’t unzip the bag.”

“
They won’t have to. I already did.”

I swallowed hard. “So what do we do?”

She thought for a minute. “Remember when you were complaining about all the toys in the car on the way over here?” she asked.

“
Yeah. So?”

“
You stepped on that cymbal-clashing monkey.”

“
And?”

“
Well, there’s a switch that makes the monkey play and chatter.”

I instantly understood her plan. “Right! We could plant it on some grave stones away from Jackie’s grave.”

She nodded. “Maybe it will distract them enough for us to get a quick look. If it’s her, she comes with us.”

The thought was morbid, but we had to find Jackie a better, safer, more peaceful final resting place.

As we ran to the car, a woman with one eye hanging out of its socket reached for me. I shot Claire a sideways glance. “Go get the monkey. I’ve got this.”

She nodded and took off.

I smacked the woman, then aimed for the next one that was coming at me, dressed in a grungy fluorescent shirt. It went down just as easily. Wiping my face, I stepped back and inhaled deeply.

Finally, Claire returned with monkey in hand and turned it on. “It works!” she said when the thing grinned a toothy smile and started clashing its cymbals together.

I grabbed the toy, and we fumbled through the dark, passing twenty-five tombstones as we went. I set the monkey on the headstone of a man named, ironically, Steven P. King, and turned on the switch.

“
Stephen King…as in
Monkey Shines
?” Claire said.

I nodded and grinned. “I couldn’t resist.”

“
Perfect!”

Claire and I let out a few whoops and hollers for good measure when the zombies began stumbling toward the noisy chimp. At that point, we knew Claire’s plan had worked brilliantly.

“
It’s working!” Claire said.

I grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.”

We circled around and made it back to Jackie’s grave while most the zombies stumbled in the opposite direction.

“
I’ll take the ones on the left,” Claire said.

Without a moment to waste, I whacked a bald zombie so hard that its head cracked like a melon. The other one came at me, and I kicked it in the gut, knocking it into a dilapidated headstone left over from the 1800s. I spun around to see if Claire needed help, but she’d already taken care of business. When a wayward zombie approached her from behind, she turned on her heels and whacked it right in the face with her axe, then crushed its skull.

Claire’s hands were shaking, but she wasn’t about to give up. “Do it! I’ll cover you,” she said.

Without hesitation, I jumped back down into the pit. My own hands trembled as I gripped the vinyl bodybag. When I pulled it apart at the zipper, what I found staring back at me was none other than a dead zombie.

Chapter 24

I stared at the dead creature, wondering why fate was pulling such a cruel joke. I had hoped it was Jackie, that they’d kept their word and had given her a proper burial, but they obviously hadn’t. The zombie staring back at me had platinum-blonde hair with bangs. Her face was badly decomposed, and she was dressed in a dirty nurse’s uniform, with the name “Jeanie Towers” embroidered on it. “She’s…it’s not Jackie,” I called up.

Claire let out a sob. “Are you sure?”

“
Positive.”

“
Then let’s get outta here!” she said.

I looked at the zombie one last time, and its eyes suddenly blinked open. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe as fear and terror gripped me. Luckily, instinct kicked in, and I reached for my pistol. Snapping jaws lunged toward my face, but when I pulled the trigger, the single bullet cut through its cranium.

Claire gasped. “Um, you shouldn’t have done that, Dean. You just rang the dinner bell!”

“
Sorry. I didn’t really have a choice,” I said.

I clambered up the side, and Claire reached out her hand to help me up. The figures were pretty close, shambling toward us like moths to a flame.

“
Oh crap,” I said, my voice trembling.

I aimed at the rotter directly in the path of my gun. Its skin had decayed and oozed off, and only the dark black muscles were visible. Before I could squeeze off a shot, it bit down on the barrel of my rifle with rapid, snapping jaws. I pulled the trigger, and gore exploded from its head. I gagged at the unmistakable stench of death assaulting my nostrils.

“
No more guns!” she said. “You wanna draw every single one of them over here?”

“
They’re already here!” I reminded her. “Let’s go!”

She motioned me to follow her. “This way!”

We zigzagged around tombstones and zombies. When we were a good distance away, Claire pulled me behind a huge gravestone. A huge group of rotters blocked our path up ahead. Luckily, they hadn’t spotted us yet. I took a quick peek to survey the situation. Some of the undead stared at the ground while others stared up at the stars. Some stumbled around, banging into headstones, and others wandered around aimlessly.

When a zombie lurched toward us, Claire whacked it on the head without a second thought. The walking dead started stumbling toward our direction, so we took off to the right, made a few turns, and bolted toward a building in the eerie shadows. We hid behind the chapel mausoleum, a small building with a pointed rooftop and a cross on it. I peered out, my heart racing. Rising from the swirling fog, more shadows stumbled closer. When I glanced ahead at the approaching monstrosities, I gasped. “There are just so many of them,” I said.

“
Let’s try a different way,” Claire said.

“
We can circle around them,” I breathed out, “and then cut through the bushes.”

“
That might work,” she whispered.

I bolted to the left, and we ran down another row of gravestones. Trying to lose the zombies, we went out of our way and took a different way back to the car. I stopped and motioned for Claire to stop as well. I saw a zombie dragging a dead baby doe through the leaves, and there was a pretty big group slurping and feasting on more dead deer in some kind of feeding frenzy.

I spun and went a different way, only to run into another disgusting horde. I quickly pulled Claire behind a huge, out-of-order water fountain. Eerie howls, moans, and grunts echoed, making me shudder as I watched shadows shuffle all around me. The dead now dominated the graveyard, and I had to figure out how to make a stand or make an escape.

I paused to catch my breath for a quick second. “Let’s ditch the car,” I said. “We can just make a run for it.”

“
No way. There are too many of them. We’ve got to cross back into the safe zone, where they can’t follow us. Because walking through these freaks all the way back to the city perimeter, well, it’s just not an option. We need wheels and we need them fast.”

I stared into the big pool of murky and pondered what we should do. Getting back to the car would be dangerous, but being on foot could be equally as dangerous. “We’ll make one attempt to get the car. If it’s overtaken, we’ll go on foot.”

She took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

A rotting face suddenly broke the surface of the water in the fountain, spraying droplets of stagnant mist everywhere. Arms covered in slime and algae reached for me, and I jumped back with a gasp. Claire grabbed my hand and pulled me along. We ran past crops of headstones glinting in the moonlight. When I saw the parking lot off in the distance, my heart leapt in joy. Gasping for breath, we sprinted through the trees and burst through the overgrown vegetation, ending up straight at the parking lot. Glowing white eyes stared at us, sending waves of panic flooding through my body. There were way too many of them; that was exactly why I wanted to ditch the car in the first place.

A snapping zombie in a blue dress came out of nowhere and now stood inches from me. I’d had enough with battling them with my shovel, and it was time to use deadly force. We had both agreed that if it came to this point, we would use our guns. I loaded a cartridge into the chamber, then leveled the barrel at the zombie’s bald, rotting skull, and pulled the trigger. In an instant, its lifeless body lay dead at my feet. When more came, I aimed the barrel, focused, and kept pulling the trigger.

“
If we can take enough of them out,” Claire said, “we can get to the car.”