Zomburbia (28 page)

“We need to get out of here,” Brandon told her. “Those things already got three of us. Stick around here and who knows how long we'll last.”

“I'm not going out there,” she said, her jaw set. I'm sure she was going for defiant. She came off more like a petulant kid.

“Then you can stay here,” Brandon told her. No one, not even Cass, argued with that.

“We should hand out the guns, all gather in the living room, and then get going,” I said.

“And make sure everyone has their car keys,” Phil put in.

“Right. Where's Ken?”

“Him and some others are in the back bedroom; it's the only room back there with a picture window like these.”

“It's been pretty quiet back there for a while,” Natalie said. She stood up and looked through the weapons. She chose a little automatic Beretta. I was about to ask if she knew what to do with it when she removed the clip, checked the load, replaced it, and slid back the receiver to put a round in the chamber. “I have one just like it in my glove box. Hey, this may be mine,” she explained when I gawked at her.

“Can we be best friends?” I asked her.

“If we get out of this alive, we'll talk about it,” she said, and grinned. “For now, let's go get the boys out of the back.”

As we walked down the hall, Brandon started getting everyone to their feet and making sure folks knew where their car keys were.

“Don't forget Crystal and them in the kitchen,” I said to him. He nodded.

I caught up to Natalie, who stopped to wait for me.

“This is some kind of crazy, huh?” she asked. “The zombies and all?”

“I guessed it would happen.”

She laughed. “And you still came out here anyway. Stupid or macho?”

“A little of both, I guess.”

“Yeah,” she said as we reached the door at the end of the hall. “I think we'll be friends for sure.” She opened the door. Hands reached out of the darkened room and grabbed her. She screamed and I threw myself back against the wall to avoid the zombies' clutching hands. Natalie screamed and fired the Beretta. There were too many of them for it to do any good.

I screamed, too, and raised the shotgun. I could hear steps coming quickly down the hall toward me. I couldn't fire, I'd hit Natalie. She screamed again and a zombie reached deep inside her abdomen.

I pulled the trigger. The first shot hit her dead in the chest and she stopped resisting the monsters. I kept pulling the trigger. It seemed no matter how many times I fired into the room, no matter how many of the assholes I killed, more kept coming. There was a click as I pulled the trigger on an empty chamber.

Brandon stood beside me then. He screamed into my ear, asking what was going on. Then he looked into the room and saw that it was filled with the monsters. Saw Natalie and saw that Ken and the others must be dead. He fired his own gun, let loose with both barrels. I ran forward and pulled the door shut. It shook as the undead on the other side threw themselves at it.

“They were waiting for someone to open the door,” I said to no one in particular. “They planned another freaking ambush.”

“We need to get out of here,” Brandon said.

We ran back into the living room.

“Where's Nat?” Cass asked.

Brandon shook his head and the girl broke down in tears. He asked one of the boys who didn't rate a gun to help her.

I grabbed more shells out of the ammo box and loaded the shotgun. We were going through the ammo too fast. We needed to move out now or things were going to turn really ugly. Uglier than they already were. Brandon was about to call to the crew in the kitchen that it was time to go when Phil interrupted him.

“Brandon, is this place insured?”

“What? Why are you asking that?”

“Is it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Phil slung the AR-15 over his shoulder and walked over to the fireplace at the end of the room. Over the mantel were two oil lamps. He took both and walked to the near end of the hall. He hurled one of the lamps down the hall where it smashed against the wall.

“Hey!”

Phil took a lighter out of his pocket, lit the second lamp, and then threw it after the first. The whole back of the hallway filled with flames. The heat reached us just a second later.

“That back room is filled with zombies,” Phil said. “I don't want them coming out behind us.”

Brandon didn't say anything. He didn't look too happy, either.

“As soon as I tell the guys in back to go, drop your stuff from the windows and get in the circle,” I told the guys at the windows. I turned to a couple of kids manning the front door. “Then you guys open the doors. The people with guns go out first and clear the porch, then everyone else comes out behind us and we move as a group toward the cars.”

“I still don't know why we're listening to her,” Cass said.

“That's why you don't have a gun,” Brandon said to her. “Let's go,” he yelled to the people in the kitchen.

After a pause, there was the sound of them dropping the table, the sound of splintering wood, and then the
boom boom boom
of gunfire. The four of them came running in a second later.

“We'd better go,” Crystal said. She stopped and surveyed the faces in the room.

Crystal said, “Ken?”

No one said anything. She figured it out.

The guys at the windows dropped the tables and bookshelf and ran to join us. The two guys at the door let their bookshelf drop and did the same. There was a pause before the door burst open and a zombie ran in. Phil opened up with his rifle and the thing flew out again. Then the debris in front of the windows was pushed in and monsters started climbing in. Four of us—Brandon, Cody, a kid I didn't know, and me—rushed out onto the porch and let loose with our guns. The others stayed inside and took care of any zombies that made it in either through the windows or the kitchen.

It only took a few seconds to clear the porch and we called the others out. We gathered outside and started down the wide steps to the sandy lawn.

“Stay close together,” I yelled as we started to slowly move toward the cars. The cars were maybe twenty yards away. We moved so slowly it felt like we weren't making any progress.

I saw that the whole back of the cabin was on fire. I hoped Phil was right, I hoped a ton of zombies were caught in the blaze.

The whole world narrowed down to those cars. Get to the cars. Whenever a zombie popped into view between them and me, I pulled the trigger. My arm ached like it was going to fall off from the recoil. Once again I heard the click as I fired on an empty chamber. I was almost relieved to not feel the kick of the shotgun.

“I need to reload,” I said.

“Me, too,” said someone else.

There was too long a pause before I heard Cody's voice. “We're out of shells.”

“Jesus,” Cass said, her voice high and keening. “We're all dead. This was such a
good
idea!”

“Someone had better shut her up,” I said. I was tired of being understanding and sympathetic.

“We just need to keep moving,” Brandon said. I could tell he was trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

Phil was apparently the only one with ammo left. The assault rifle kept up a steady chatter that almost drowned out the fact that we were all arguing ourselves to death.

“We need to head back,” Cass insisted.

“We can't go back, you stupid skank,” I shouted. “The damned house is on fire!”

“And whose bright idea was that?”

We had beaten back the zombies as we walked along and fired at them. Now they lurched closer and closer. It made me crazy angry to see our doom walking slowly toward us while we stood still
talking.
There was no way Phil could keep them off of us. Then I noticed that there were too many of the monsters between us and the cars.

“We need to use our guns like clubs,” I said. “We might be able to fight them off. We need
to move,
dammit!”

“Wait,” Brandon said. “What's that?”

Then I heard it. Sirens, and not too far off. Natalie's phone call must have gone through. I would have breathed a sigh of relief if I didn't have to get busy beating zombies to death with the butt of my shotgun. Thank God we'd killed most of the runners or else we would have been toast.

As we kept at it, the sirens got louder and we could see the red and blue lights strobe through the trees as the police came up the twisty driveway.

I heard a scream behind me. I had to ignore it because I had troubles of my own. I started swinging the gun like a club. My lungs hurt as if I'd been running all night long and I worried I was going to lose my grip on the gun because my hands and upper arms were covered with black zombie gore. Just when I thought I couldn't go on anymore, I heard the first of the shots. A zombie stumbling toward me fell as the top of its head peeled off. I looked up and saw a squad of police in riot gear and armed with automatic weapons slowly advancing through the mass of zombies. That was the good news. The bad news? We were in their line of fire.

“Everyone get down!” I yelled as I dropped to the grass. I hoped everyone heard.

I spent the next eternity or so lying on the ground, covering my head and hoping the SWAT guys reached us before the oncoming horde of zombies. I lost all sense of time because the only thing I heard was the sound of rifle shots, and it started to mesmerize me. After a while, I was aware that someone stood over me. I opened my eyes to see a pair of combat boots. I looked around and saw that the line of cops had reached us and were now breaking to walk around us.

A second line of cops came up behind the first and started looking after us.

“Stay down for the time being,” a cop yelled at us through his helmet's visor. “We have medical teams on the way. They'll assess you before we move you out of the area.”

It occurred to me that they were less worried about whether or not we were okay, and more concerned if any of us had been infected. I was positive I was going to have to spend a few more days under guard at the hospital. Not to sound shallow, but none of this was my idea of a great kickoff to the summer.

The medical guys showed up a few minutes later and did triage on all of us. I was relieved that they cleaned up my arms and face and said I was good to go, no hospital for me.

The cops gathered up those of us who didn't have to go to the hospital. Only three kids had to go. Two because they'd possibly been bitten or scratched by a zombie and one, Cody, because an overzealous jock had clubbed him in the head when they were both going for the same zombie. The rest of us were given blankets and cups of coffee while we were told to wait. Coffee! Like the zombie invasion is sponsored by freaking Starbucks or something.

I sat on the tailgate of a truck next to Phil, sipping my java, not saying anything. Just listening to the dwindling sound of gunfire as the police cleaned up the last of the zombies. That's where Brandon found me. He came up and gave me a big hug.

“I'm really glad you're okay,” he said into my hair as he hugged me. I was mostly worried he was going to spill my drink all down my front. After everything we'd been through, the last thing I needed was a scalding burn on my temporary cleavage.

After he pulled away, I said, “Brandon, I think we should talk.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Why don't we go over . . . ? Well, anywhere else.” I gestured toward Phil.

We walked a few feet away. With nothing between us and the burning house, the flames warmed the night air. I wouldn't need my blanket for long in the heat. I wondered if anyone had called the fire department.

“What's up, Courtney?” Brandon asked.

No way to sugarcoat it.

“I can't see you anymore.”

His mouth fell open. “What?” he demanded. “Is this because I had the party out here after you said I shouldn't?”

“No,” I said, then corrected myself. “Yes, but not totally.”

“Not totally? Then why?”

“Look at me, Brandon,” I said. I spread my arms. “This dress, my makeup, my hair. I didn't do any of these things because I wanted to, I did them because I thought
you'd
like them.”

“I do like them.”

“Not the point. I was trying to change to get you to like me. Look at me—I feel like freaking Sandra Dee in reverse.”

Brandon looked confused. “Sandra who?”

“It's from
Grease,
” Phil piped up from the tailgate of the truck. “It's good, even though it has a lousy message. You should watch it.”

I turned and glared at him. I said, “Some privacy, Phil?”

He slunk away to where most of the others were gathered.

“So, that's it?”

“Also, your friends don't like me.” He opened his mouth to interrupt. I steamrollered over him. “They don't, Brandon. Trust me. I don't want to leave the few friends I have left because I've gotten an unexpected bump in social status. And . . .”

“What?”

“It's the Vitamin Z,” I said. “I really don't like that you and Ken were doing it after the experience we had.”

“That is so hypocritical,” he said, his face flushed. “I can't take it, but you can sell it.” He pitched his voice low so that, hopefully, none of the cops milling around would hear.

I was expecting that. “You know what? You're right.” He looked so hurt and angry and confused, I wanted to do something to try to comfort him. I didn't, though. It would just make things even worse later. “I've been a hypocrite and I've been really stupid and selfish. Well, I'm going to stop. I decided that I'm not selling anymore.”

“You had some sort of what, epiphany, while you were slaying zombies tonight?” he asked.

“I've been thinking about it for a while, I guess. I hadn't been selling it since last week, but I've decided to make it permanent. Yeah, tonight made it all come together,” I said.