The Zombie Wars: The Enemy Within (White Flag Of The Dead Book 8) (12 page)

I looked over at the revolving doors and saw a familiar shape stumble by.

“We need to get out of here. If they think we’re in here, that door isn’t going to hold them,” I said.

“Let’s get upstairs,” Duncan said.

Right as he said that there was a large crash, and a huge zombie fell through the doors.  He struggled with the revolving door, and Duncan quickly stepped up and killed the beast.  When he looked back, he shook his head.

“We’re idiots.  The skylight from up above may as well have been a sign to come and eat us. They can totally see us,” Duncan said.

Another zombie crashed into the door, then another, and another. Behind those, there was a sea of monsters waiting to come in and devour us.

“You were saying something, Duncan?” Tommy asked.

“Just get moving.”

We bolted for the escalators, taking two at a time. At the top we wedged a nearby table into one opening and put two chairs onto the other. It wouldn’t hold for long, but if we could get a few tumbling down, it might buy us a few minutes.

Tommy broke through a door, and we found ourselves in the offices of some sort of legal agency. There were file cabinets as far as the eye could see, half a dozen conference rooms, and a large legal library on the far side. Behind us was a large bank of windows, but a quick look showed us that getting out that way would be less than helpful, since it was an atrium in the center of the building. It was then that we realized the entire building was built in a square, so anything that chased us around one floor, would just run us into their friends that were a little slower getting up the stairs.

“Street side windows, “I said, running around a bunch of desks and cabinets. Tommy and Duncan followed after they jammed the door to the office closed.

We reached the windows and looked down. There were about two or three thousand zombies down there on the street, most of them following the crowd as they stormed the building. Chances were pretty good there were a few hundred milling about in the lobby area, and in a few minutes, they would be upstairs trying to kill us.

“Thoughts?” Duncan asked.

“Have you got anything in your backpack that might help us?” Tommy asked.

“Nothing that wouldn’t kill us as well,” Duncan said thoughtfully.

“And you carry these things around with you,” Tommy said. “Remind me not to get too close in the future.”

“I have an idea,” I said. “But it’s going to take timing.”

“Lay it out,” Tommy said. “Anything besides blowing up.”

A large crash at the door answered for me, and we looked at each other.

“Looks like time’s up,” Duncan said.

“Help me with the glass,” I said. I took my pick out and cracked a small hole in the glass. I stuck the pick through and pulled back, cracking off a large piece that Duncan cleared away. I use the pick again and Tommy was able to pull out a substantial piece. Pretty soon we had the window cleared and were able to look down onto the street. The height was deceptive. It looked like the ground was closer than it was, and we would easily break an ankle or leg if we thought to jump now.

The zombies were still working their way inside, and fortunately none of them had seen us.

“Now what?” Duncan asked. Another crash on the door, and this time there was the sound of something breaking.

“Each of us need to push three desks to the center and get ready to get them out the window. I’ll go first.  You two come right behind me. We need to get these out as fast as possible. When the first one hits the street, the next two need to be right behind it,” I said.

The two men instantly understood what I was talking about and hurried off to get the desks. I lined up my first one, then two more.  Tommy put three out, and Duncan did the same. The desks slid pretty easily on the tile floor, my only concern was stopping myself from following it out the window.

There was another crash at the entrance and the distinctive sound of a door flying open and slamming into the wall.   There was a general groan as the zombies caught our scent, and it was only a matter of time before we were out of room.

I got behind the first desk and raced towards the window. I shoved it out as far as I could, and dove to the side to keep from going out with it. I ran back as Tommy flew past me, launching another desk out onto the street. Duncan was next, and his went out with as much grace as the other two. I didn’t waste time admiring the handiwork, I just ran for the next desk in line and shoved it out the window, with Tommy and Duncan right behind me. The last desk went out, and we didn’t have time to admire our creation.

“Jump!” I said, pushing over several file cabinets to try and slow down the zombies who were looking for either legal advice or a tasty human treat. I wasn’t in the mood to provide either.

I went over to the window to see Duncan and Tommy clamber down the small mountain of desks we had thrown out the window.  The zombies who hadn’t entered the building were making their way over to the mess, and I had better land correctly, or I was going to be on the receiving end of some very hungry ghouls.

I jumped down, sliding a bit on the surface of the top desk, but getting over to the correct side. I stepped down onto the next one, and my foot got caught in a drawer sending me headlong into the bottom desk.  An intense pain flared in my leg as something sharp dug into my thigh.

“Dammit!” I yelled, falling to the ground. I held my leg and rocked back and forth, cursing the entire time. Duncan and Tommy raced over and tried to help me up.

“What happened? You okay?” Tommy asked as I jumped on one leg.

“Did you get bit?” Duncan asked, worried.

I grimaced and tried to walk, but my leg was not cooperating. Every time I tried to put weight on it I stumbled.

“No, I’m not bit. I think a corner of a desk jabbed me in my leg when I fell,” I said, jumping forward.

“Well, that’s good, but we’ll all be a little bitten if we stick around here,” Tommy said. To emphasize his point, several zombies were starting to fall out of the window, flop around the desks, and land messily on the ground behind us.  Two of them were able to get up and started our way.

“Are you kidding me?” Duncan asked. He pulled his pistol and shot them both, the sounds echoing loudly in the confines of the high rises. The noise caused another round of groans, and this time the groans came from all around us.

“I guess not,” Tommy said. “Come on, we have to get out of here while we can. Can you make it?”

I nodded, stumbling forward. My leg was feeling better, although I figured I was going to have a hell of a bruise in the morning.

We moved slowly away, keeping ahead of the zombies that were getting colder the more time they spent out of their tunnel. That was a good thing, because I could still only move at a slow walk, and it was a limping one at that.

We moved up a street and around another, trying to put as much distance as we could between us and the horde. The cars in the street were good for slowing them down, and I made use of them by leaning the hoods and trunks as I passed by.

“Do we have any idea at all where we are?” I asked, stumbling a bit when my hand slipped. I looked at Duncan. “And before you say Tulsa, I’d suggest you think about it first.”

Duncan grinned, and as he turned away he shook his head. I knew him better than he hoped I did.

Tommy looked at the skyline, then checked a small map he pulled out of his coat. Two minutes later he gave us the bad news.

“We actually ran in exactly the opposite direction that we needed to go, and we’ve got about two hours of daylight left,” he said.

“Shit.” I had nothing else to say. I didn’t want to spend the night in a city with thousands of zombies roaming the streets only to have to run for it again in the morning.

“Well, things could be worse,” Tommy said.

“How?” I asked.

“I dunno. Just something people say. How’s the leg?”

“Slightly better. Where’s Duncan?” I asked, looking around.

“Not sure.  Wait, there he is. What’s he doing?”

“I’ll be damned.  He’s riding a bike,” I said. I shook my head as Duncan rode up on what was clearly a kid’s bike. It had a large rear tire, a long banana seat, and a long front fork for the little tire on the front. It was a pedal-powered chopper. If I had had a bike like this when I was a kid, Michelle Braxton in the fourth grade would surely have wanted to be my girlfriend.

Duncan hopped off the bike with a smile and ran back to the bike shop he had found tucked in between a bagel shop and a locksmith.  He came out leading a small mountain bike and another kid bike. This one had large front and rear tires with a tall set of handlebars. It was probably one of the strangest bikes I had ever seen.

“Ready?” Tommy asked, as I settled onto the mountain bike. Duncan was not about to give up the chopper.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.  “We have to get the containment crews in here fast before these guys spread all over the place.”

“Oh, right!  Wait a minute!” Duncan said. He turned his bike around and fiddled with his pack. He came out holding a handful of small boxes, and started putting them on top of random cars we had already passed. Behind him, a lone zombie turned the corner and groaned like there was no tomorrow. Duncan put a finishing touch on a box, left it on top of a car, and ran back to us, plopping himself down on his seat.

“That should work,” he said pedaling away. Tommy and I had to work a little hard to catch up, and I needed to keep my leg from cramping.

“Don’t you ever worry about one of those things blowing up in your pack?” Tommy asked.

“No, not really,” Duncan replied.

“Color me unsurprised.”

We rode through the city, circling wide to avoid the zombies that had come out to play. It took us an hour, but we finally reached the outskirts were the containment crews had been waiting for us. We got more than a few odd looks regarding our transportation, but that didn’t matter a bit. I got off my bike and limped painfully over to the captain of the containment crew.

“There’s several thousand zombies wandering around the downtown area,” I said. As I spoke, there was the sound of several explosions, and the ground trembled slightly underneath our feet.

I looked at the captain again. “Maybe a few less, I’m not really sure,” I said as if nothing had happened.

The captain, a former road crew foreman, grinned and pounded on his earthmover three times. The men climbed aboard their machines and fired them up. The ground trembled again, this time as the machines rolled past.

I limped my way into camp, following Duncan and Tommy as we made our way back to the trailers. I practically fell through the doorway and clawed my way into the bench seat by in the kitchen.

Charlie was sitting in a captain’s chair reading a small book.  He looked up as we sat at the table.

“How was the walk?” he asked.

“Busy,” I said. “What are you reading?”

“Book about Oklahoma. Did you know Tulsa had secret tunnels under several buildings and hotels? They used them to transport illegal booze during the twenties.”

I looked over at Duncan and Tommy.

“You don’t say.”

Montana Mountains

Darnell woke before dawn, listening to the silence that usually indicated snowfall in the mountains. He and his daughter had spent nearly a month in a small cabin at the campsite furthest south along the trail. They had been spending time at the campsites with the notion that if they stuck close to the trail, it would be the last place anyone would expect to find them, and after the first snows, no one would bother to come after them anymore. They would figure them to be dead or gone forever, which suited Darnell just fine.

Darnell went over to the wood stove and rubbed his hands together to get the circulation going. He took out his knife and shaved some splinters off a small stick, and after arranging the kindling to take a flame, struck a match.

The little fire wasn’t warm yet, but just the promise of heat was enough to ward off the chill that had permeated the small cottage. At this particular campsite, there was a small house, a visitor center, and four cabins just like this one. Inside the visitor center there was little to offer, having just a counter, a reception area, a storeroom, and bathrooms. There was a soda machine, but it looked like it hadn’t been restocked since before the Upheaval.

The house was another matter.  It was a caretaker’s home, and by the looks of things, the caretaker had gone out to town at exactly the wrong time and never came back.  Darnell and his daughter thought it wasn’t right to just take over the house, so they set themselves up in the farthest cabin from the road. They did relieve the house of all the supplies and edible foodstuffs, so they were decently stocked for the coming months. The caretaker had evidently been a hunter and fisherman, and Darnell used the rod and flies to catch at least one meal every couple of days. Alison wanted to be useful, so she took over the longbow they found and practiced her hand at it. The man had no guns except a replica flintlock, and that wasn’t exactly useful against zombies. The big compound bow they found was too heavy for Alison to try, but Darnell was able to manage it.

The fire grew bigger, and Darnell fed it a couple of small sticks. There had been a large supply of firewood at the house, and the pair had liberated a great deal of it. Darnell spent a day cutting a third of that wood into kindling, which wasn’t easy since he had to do it as quietly as possible. He didn’t know who might be out there, living or otherwise, and he’d rather not be disturbed by anyone.

To that end, Darnell had taken several pine branches and tied them together above the chimney. The smoke that came out of the cabin was dissipated before it got up in the air, and helped hide them from anyone who might be trying to locate them by their smoke signature.

Alison came out of one of the bedrooms and rubbed her eyes.

“Morning, daddy.”

“Morning, sweetheart. Feel like pancakes today?” Darnell asked.

“Only if you let me make them,” Alison chided with a smile. “Yours come out like glue.”

Darnell smiled. “True, but you aren’t hungry for a very long time afterwards.”

“I’ll get the mixture and skillet.”

“After breakfast, I think we should hunt the hills to the south. I think I saw some animal up there the other day,” Darnell said, blowing a little on the fire and opening the draft vent a bit more.

“Okay. It would be nice to have some meat for a change. No offense, but fish is getting old,” Alison said.

“Keeps us alive, at least until we get out of the mountains,” Darnell said.

“You’ve said that, like, a hundred times.”

“Always true, every time.”

“Ugh. Wisdom. Save me, someone.”

After breakfast the pair picked up the bows and quivers and headed out. They crossed the river using the access road and made their way up into the hills. The sun was breaking over the hills and lighting up the peaks and contrasting them sharply with the valleys. As they moved higher, Darnell smelled the air, trying to see if he could discern their wood smoke. It was there, but faint. Hopefully, further off it would be gone altogether.

“Daddy!” Alison whispered as she pointed to the edge of the trees. 

Darnell looked and saw a decent-sized rabbit casually moving around the base of one of the trees, looking them over with no apparent concern.   Darnell figured this rabbit must have had some form of human contact in the past, and was unconcerned as long as the two kept their distance.

“All right, this one is yours. Take your time and make your first shot count.” Darnell kept an eye on the rabbit as Alison slowly drew an arrow and nocked it. She drew back the arrow to her cheek and sighted along the shaft, keeping an eye on the rabbit.

A second later, the rabbit was impaled, the arrow striking it just behind the head and exiting out its throat. The animal jumped once and then fell, its legs twitching purely by reflex.

“Nice shot!” Darnell exclaimed. It wasn’t Alison’s first kill, yet she was beaming. It had been a difficult shot, being about twenty yards on a target that was barely the size of a lemon. “Were you aiming for the head?”

Alison shrugged. “It seemed the easiest, and we don’t lose any meat.”

Darnell chuckled. “Oh, regular hunter now, are you?  Well, then, you can skin it and clean it.”

“Ewww! Daddy! No! That’s gross!” Alison complained.

“Shh!” Darnell raised a hand. Something had moved in the woods, sliding in between the trees. He raised his bow and sighted at the man who came closer, stumbling up the hill. It was a zombie, and Darnell waited until it cleared the trees and then loosed the shaft, piercing the zombie in the eye and dropping it in the snow.

“Nice shot, yourself, Dad,” Alison said quietly. She had her own bow up with an arrow ready to fly if her father had missed. That was the drill they had practiced. If they came in contact with the zombies, they were to cover each other’s shot if they could.  That was also why they had practiced their archery for the last three weeks, several hours each day.  Darnell saw that arrows were better than bullets because they could be retrieved and used again, and in a pinch, he could make his own.

“That zombie is oddly dressed for a person who should have died in the April of the Upheaval,” Darnell said, walking closer. He went over to the dead man and turned him over.

“I’ll be damned,” Darnell said, more to himself. “Lance Clearwater. You should have stayed home.” Darnell quickly removed his arrow and wiped it off on one of the furs the man was wearing.

“Who is he?” Alison asked.

“One of Luke Blacktail’s scouts. Supposed to only work with his brother.” I guess we may be seeing another zombie before too long.”

“Dad, was he looking for us?”

“Not sure.”

“What are we going to do?”

Darnell shrugged. “We’ll put him up a tree, and if his brother shows up, we’ll deal with him, and put him up a tree as well.”

The pair struggled but managed to get the dead man up into the crook of a tree. Darnell muttered his way through a half-forgotten prayer, and the father and daughter went back down the hill with their kill. On the way, another rabbit jumped from a bush, and Alison’s bow twanged. The rabbit was hit mid-air and tumbled to the ground.

“Show off,” Darnell teased his daughter.

A week later, the pair celebrated Christmas as best they could. Darnell presented Alison with a handmade quiver ringed with rabbit fur. Alison gave her father a necklace made from wooden beads she carved herself. Darnell put it on with all the pride of a father receiving a gift from a child who made it in school.

“I’ll wear it always. Thank you,” Darnell said.

“You’re welcome. You know what I wish, though, don’t you?” Alison asked.

“I do,” Darnell said, his eyes getting a little damp. “I wish your mother was here, too.”

The two went to bed after dinner, and the world was quiet and chill. The snow fell in a light blanket, and the temperature dropped below zero for the first time that winter. A cold wind blew from the north, and the promise of more snow swirled over the mountains.

Darnell woke up in the middle of the night wrapped in his blankets. He’d gotten used to the sounds of the quiet woods, so when a new sound appeared, it woke him instantly.

That’s not a sound I have heard in a while
. Darnell thought to himself.
I wonder where they are going.

The noise became louder, and Darnell rose out of his bed to see a small car drive by. But it was not like any car he had seen before. It was a like a little station wagon but prepared for war. It was resting on oversized tires and shocks, while the windows were covered with metal blinds. A roof rack held two cargo containers and several gas cans. Darnell could make out one person driving, but there seemed to be another person reading in the back.

The car drove on through the snow, heading north. Pretty soon they would reach the upper pass and head towards the community Cole Hobbes built.  Darnell doubted they would be welcome with open arms.

He turned back towards his bed, his concern over the car fading. It wasn’t his problem, Alison was, and running out in the middle of the night to warn complete strangers was a good way to get killed.

The sound of the car faded away, to be replaced by a much louder, harsher noise. Darnell went back to the window and the next sight took his breath away. Dozens of cars and trucks rode past following the first car. The dozens became hundreds, and after a while Darnell stopped counting. He wasn’t even aware of Alison standing next to him.

“Who are they, Dad?” Alison asked with a small voice, startling her father.

“Not sure, but that’s a lot of people moving through the territory,” Darnell said. “Wonder if they are that army the scouts were talking about?” Darnell asked, more to himself than to Alison.

They watched the procession move through the woods and up the road, eventually disappearing into the dark, the trees and mountains swallowing up the sound of their passing.

Darnell sent his daughter to bed, and went back to his own. He thought for a long while about what Cole might do about an army coming up his back door.
If they’re half as competent as they look, Hobbes might not have much to say about it,
Darnell thought as he drifted back to an uneasy sleep.