Z-Burbia 5: The Bleeding Heartland (23 page)

“No, just mumbling a lot,” Rafe says. “I think you’ve learned to keep the volume down.”

Lourdes turns, and gives us the NVG bug eye glare. It’s not so much a glare, since we can’t see her eyes, as it is a sustained, silent chastisement. I’m married. I know what those are.

Shit, I take that back. Never let Stella know I said that. Dammit, now my brain is betraying me in even worse ways. Why, brain, why?

“I will kill you myself,” Lourdes says.

“Sorry,” I whisper.

We keep going.

We must get somewhere that Elsbeth recognizes, because she holds up a hand and pushes some of Lourdes’s guys out of the way. She slowly moves to a large boulder and places her hand on it. A couple of Zs come around the side, but she snaps their necks and tosses them to the ground without even flinching.

“The landing is just ahead,” she says, and then takes off.

“Elsbeth! Wait!” Lourdes calls out as quietly as possible, but Elsbeth is already out of sight.

We move around the boulder, and I can see the landing to the stairs about a hundred yards away. This is good and bad. Good we made it with only a few Zs to deal with; bad because there is at least six feet of rock to climb up to get onto the landing, and my leg is hurting way more than I’m letting on. I do not look forward to that climb.

We’re fifty yards out when the pit turns into a blinding, migraine inducing, holy shit I think my retinas are on fire, hell. Someone just turned on the lights.

“Hi, folks!” a voice calls out from in front of us. I know that voice. Reptile Jesus. “Jace! Welcome back! And you brought friends! Here I thought you weren’t a true believer. I have to thank you for having confidence in me enough to do a little recruiting while you were gone!”

We all yank the NVGs from our faces and scatter. The pit’s lights are on, and we are out in the open, fish in a barrel.

“Where are you going?” Kelvin asks. “I’m hurt you’re running away. I was going to read a couple of Bible verses, then we could have some graham crackers and milk. We do have some delicious milk here, straight from our own cows, you know.”

“What is up with his accent?” Stuart asks me as we cower behind a small boulder that is a lot less cover than I’d like.

“I know, right?” I reply. “I think the guy is trying for a Southern preacher accent, but is ending up more with a shitty Kevin Costner as Robin Hood accent. Not good.”

“I can hear you, Jace!” Kelvin yells. “And I spent a lot of time abroad, so I have picked up some subtle European nuances here and there. More than one woman has told me it makes me sound cultured.”

“Like spoiled yogurt,” I yell, and turn to Stuart. “Get it? Because yogurt is cultured with bacteria and I hate him, so I said the yogurt was spoiled and-.”

“I get it, shut up,” Stuart replies.

“How about I make you fine new folks a deal?” Kelvin yells. “You drop your weapons and come peacefully, and I won’t leave you down here in the pit. I think that punishment has played itself out. Plus, you know where the backdoor is.”

I snicker.

“Really?” Stuart growls.

“Sorry,” I reply.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think we will be surrendering,” Lourdes yells. “In fact, I’ll be asking for your surrender. I will also be asking that you release all prisoners. You do that, and you get to walk away alive today.”

“That ain’t the deal,” Critter hisses. “I want to shoot his ass.”

“Yes, I have to agree with the old man,” Kelvin responds. “That isn’t the deal. The deal is you throw down your weapons, and I le
t
yo
u
live. Not the other way around.”

“You all have shotguns,” Lourdes yells. “We have rifles and carbines. It’s short range versus long range. We’ll cut you down before we close the distance enough for your weapons to even be remotely effective.”

“That’s quite the assumption,” Kelvin laughs.

“It’s not an assumption,” Lourdes says. “It’s firearm basics.”

“No, I agree with your assessment of the effectiveness of shotguns to rifles,” Kelvin agrees. “But what I don’t agree with is that these shotguns are our weapons against you. Our weapons against you are coming right now. You see, Ms. Torres, and yes, I do know who you are, a simple fact about warfare is that it is nearly impossible to win when you are fighting two fronts. Or, in your cases, fighting your front and your behind.”

“He he,” I snicker. “Behind.”

“Long Pork,” Stuart snarls.

“What? I can’t help it,” I reply. “It’s how I handle stress before shit gets crazy.”

“Too late,” Stuart says as he points behind us. “Zs!”

He’s right. Here come the Zs. And it’s quite a fucking lot of them. Looks like they’re fresh too, which means they’ll be limber and strong and really, really fucking hungry. That’s not good.

“Whatever shall you do now?” Kelvin asks. “If you stand up and fight the biters, then you’ll expose yourselves and we’ll start firing. If you stay put, then the biters will overwhelm you, and it’ll all be over before it begins. So, how about you lay down those weapons, put your hands in the air, and walk to my voice. Despite my ambiguous accent, I have been told I have a comforting voice. Would it be so bad to walk to such a voice as this?”

“Your voice is stupid,” Elsbeth says. “How about if I rip it out for you?”

There’s a scream, and the sound of shotguns discharging fills the pit. Lourdes and her men don’t waste time with the Zs behind us, and stand and open fire at the shotgun men, moving quickly from their cover and towards the landing.

I, on the other hand, only have a crowbar and can’t exactly sprint at the moment, so I keep my attention on the encroaching Zs. They’ll reach me way before I can get to the landing, and that’s assuming I don’t get cut down by a shotgun on the way. So, it’s Z fighting time!

I get up, raise my crowbar, and run at the Zs. Then I trip over a rock and fall flat on my face. Guess what? That gash on my forehead opens up again. Fresh blood pours as I struggle to stand. Guess what else? Zs love the smell of fresh blood.

I swear half the horde comes for my ass.

Fuck the crowbar, I’m bailing!

But instead of running to the landing, I run parallel to the front of the Zs towards the far wall of the pit. I see a boulder, and I have an idea. With the lights on, the pit looks so much smaller than I thought it would. Sure, I saw it when I was first brought down here, but you know how it is when you visit or travel somewhere the first time, it always takes longer and everything seems bigger. The magic has worn off for me, so it’s not so imposing now.

I run (and by run, I mean quickly and painfully limp) as fast as I can. The Zs are getting closer and closer, and I know that if I just make it to the wall, I’ll be fine. Why do I think this? Because, like I said, I have an idea.

All the Zs’ attention is on me, and when I get to the boulder right by the wall, I clamber up it as fast as possible. Unfortunately, only having one hand, this means I have to let my crowbar go. No worries, I’ll get it back when it’s all over.

“Stuart!” I yell. “Now!”

“Now, what?” he yells back, fighting off a dozen Zs at once. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I wipe my forehead and flick blood down on the ground. The Zs go completely apeshit and swarm over the fresh blood.

“Sitting ducks! Fish in a barrel! Turkey shoot!” I shout.

Stuart blasts a Z’s head off, cracks another’s spine, takes a third out at the legs, then crushes it’s skull with a boot, and blasts another Z’s head off. He looks over at me, and how the majority of the horde is surrounding my boulder, all eager to get at my sweet, sweet Jace juice. My blood. I’m talking about my blood when I say Jace juice.

Thankfully, I see Stuart smile.

“Critter! Rafe! On me!” Stuart yells as he turns his rifle on the horde of Zs. A horde that faces me, since I decided that being bait was my best chance of survival.

They say the best offense is a good defense. Is being bait defense, though? Is it offense? What would bait be classified as in warfare terms? Or professional football terms? Because I always think of that saying referring more to football than to warfare.

Stuart, Critter, and Rafe open fire on the horde and start cutting them down. I curl up in the fetal position and cover my head with my arm, since I’d really not like to catch any friendly fire. Not that my one arm will exactly save me from a bullet, but I like to be optimistic in these situations.

The gunfire is deafening, and my ears are ringing so much that it takes me a second to realize that it’s finally stopped. I pull my arm away and peek over the boulder. Nothing but piles of Z corpses. The few that decided they didn’t want to stand there and die, and instead turned and went after Stuart, Critter, and Rafe, are quickly being taken down by those three, melee style.

I glance at the landing and see blood and bodies everywhere. Lourdes and her men are climbing up onto the landing, having obviously out fought Kelvin’s shotgun bitches. I do a quick count, and see that Lourdes didn’t lose a single guy. My count also tells me that there are two important people missing.

“Where’s Reptile Jesus and Elsbeth?” I shout.

Lourdes gets onto the landing and looks over at me. “Who?”

“Reptile Jesus! I mean Kelvin! The asshole that was talking! Where is he?” I shout.

“He ran!” Lourdes shouts back. “Elsbeth took off after him!”

“Oh! Okay!” I yell.

“Jace, shut up, and get down here,” Stuart says.

“Right-O,” I say, and slide down off the boulder. I start to walk past the Z corpses, then stop as I recognize a face. “Oh, wow.”

“What? Who is it?” Stuart asks.

“Her name was Tara,” I say as I kneel next to the young woman’s body. I look at the others and realize I recognize a lot of them, and they are mostly all women. “Fucking A. The son of a bitch sacrificed his own followers to fill the pit.” Then terror fills my guts. “Greta!”

I start tearing through the piles of Z corpses like a madman, hoping and praying I don’t find my daughter. The others realize what I’m doing and help, but after a few minutes of searching it’s obvious she isn’t here.

“She’s still up top,” I say. “Come on.”

I’d be lying if I say my climb onto the landing is graceful. So I won’t say it is. With Lourdes leading once again, with me navigating the twists and turns, we sprint through the mine and get to the mouth just in time to see Elsbeth and Kelvin face off in the middle of the compound. I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that it’s a pretty cool face off. Kelvin has some skills.

Elsbeth sends a flying roundhouse kick at the man, and he actually catches her leg in midair and throws her to the ground. He drops a boot right where her head was a split second earlier, but Elsbeth is fast enough that she dodges, and answers by slamming a fist into his exposed crotch. But Kelvin only smiles and falls to one knee, planting it right in Elsbeth’s chest.

“I always wear a cup!” he yells.

“That doesn’t seem practical for everyday use,” I say to Stuart. I shut up without him having to tell me.

Elsbeth responds by boxing Kelvin’s ears, then whips her legs like a helicopter, throwing the man off of her while flipping to her feet at the same time. So fucking cool!

“You have a cup for your face?” Elsbeth shouts, then rams an elbow into Kelvin’s nose over and over again. The man sort of sways for a moment, then tumbles over onto his side. “Didn’t think so.”

“Totally badass,” I say as we all run up to Elsbeth. “I so wish I could have recorded that. Fuck TV when you have an Elsbeth around.”

“Why would someone fuck a TV?” Elsbeth asks. “That would hurt.”

“Funny,” I say.

“No, painful,” Elsbeth replies. “That’s what hurt means, Long Pork. Not funny.”

“No, I meant… Oh, forget it,” I say, and look around the snow covered compound, then point. “Those are the women’s trailers. Greta has to be in there.”

While Lourdes and her men pick up Kelvin, and not so nicely, I may say, Elsbeth, Stuart, Critter, Rafe, and I all hurry to the cluster of trailers where I saw the women at earlier. We get almost to the first one when the door is kicked open, and out comes my daughter.

Only one problem: there’s a woman behind her holding a pistol to Greta’s temple.

“Let Kelvin go!” the woman yells. “Or I kill your girl!”

“You must be Jobeth,” I say. “Kelvin spoke so highly of you the other day. He especially said what a kind and caring soul you are, doing God’s work by making sure the ladies of the compound don’t come to harm.”

“He never said that!” Jobeth snarls. “He hates me!”

“Uh, then why do you want us to let him go?” I ask.

“Because he promised to take me with him!” Jobeth yells. “He said once we were done here he’d show me where—”

She doesn’t get a chance to finish as her head explodes into a thousand bits of bone and brain. Greta screams, and runs her ass off over to us as all of a sudden the compound is filled with rifle fire. Huh, I guess they don’t just have shotguns.

I wrap my girl in my arm and hit the deck as Elsbeth falls on top of both of us. Stuart’s face is close to mine, and we cower there, a pile of survivors, while rifles, carbines, pistols, and shotguns blast the ever living fuck out of everything. I now know why dogs hate the Fourth of July. There is nothing worse than a fuck ton of bang bangs going on when there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.