Zombie Fallout 5: Alive in a Dead World (6 page)

“Nothing up here!” he yelled.

“I thought you said he was in the military?”
Brian asked.

“Air Force,” I told him.

“Oh,” Brian answered.

“BT? Can you, Paul and D stay here?”

“You got it, Mike, but this place does not
feel right. I think we need to get going sooner, rather than
later.”

“Understood, we’ll make this quick.”

“What could possibly make such a strapping
young man as yourself afraid?” Mrs. Deneaux asked BT.

“You, for starters,” he answered, looking
over her head for any signs of trouble.

“I’m going outside to finish my
cigarette.”

“Shit,” Brian murmured as we looked in the
tool section.

“What are you looking for? I can help,” I
told him.

“Bolt cutters,” he told me almost
simultaneously with Gary’s words.

“Movement!” Gary shouted.

“I am so sick of zombies,” I said aloud, but
not really directed to Brian. My next sentence was, though. “You
want to hear something sick?” I asked him.

“Not really, I’d like to get the bolt cutters
and get the hell out of here.”

I ignored his entreaty completely. “I
secretly wished something like this would happen. Yeah.” I
continued when he looked over at me strangely. “I was sick of my
boring ass life and my shitty job. It all seemed so pointless back
then. I went to work, came home, ate dinner, said about five words
to each of my kids, ten to my wife, went to bed, and then did the
same thing the very next day. I mean, I don’t know if I was exactly
thinking of a zombie invasion. A potential alien takeover or
perhaps Chinese troops making a beach head in California would have
worked just as well. I don’t know. I really didn’t care what the
calamity was as long as my family was safe and I got out of my
rut.”

“Couldn’t you have maybe hoped to win the
lottery?” Brian asked me as he turned over a tool box laying on the
floor.

“Maybe, but that seemed so farfetched.”

“More so than the world being overwrought
with zombies and aliens?”

I noted that he didn’t discuss the Chinese
because that was truly a potential threat. Hadn’t thought much
about China since this crap started, but they must have close to a
billion zombies over there by now. That was a mind-boggling number.
I shrugged my shoulders.

“Two maybe three somethings coming this way,
still can’t tell what they are though!” Gary shouted. He was
backing down the aisle towards us.

“Probably safe to say if they aren’t talking,
we know what we’re dealing with,” Paul answered as he went back to
the front door to make sure our avenue of retreat wasn’t sealed
off.

A shot fired from the top of our aisle.

“Did you get it?” I asked Gary as he came
back to us.

“No, I was firing a warning shot.”

“Um, Gary we talked about this. Zombies don’t
traditionally care about those kinds of things.”

“I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t see them through
the aisles. You sure Glenn didn’t just maybe drop you out of the
ranger station window that day at Blue Hills?”

I got the shivers just thinking about it.
“There they are,” I said flatly, pointing to three of the mottliest
crew of Home Depot workers to ever shamble along. They were a
mess--torn, blood-stained clothes, at least two had suffered some
sort of gunfire damage. The third, an old man of about eighty,
looked like he had a foot and a half in the grave before this
started. Surprisingly, the only things that were relatively intact
on any of them were their bright orange aprons. “You can ask them
if they’ve seen any bolt cutters,” I told Brian.

He looked over to the zombies and then at me.
“I wonder if I can still catch up with Alex. He seemed to have his
shit together.”

“Only if you take Deneaux,” I told him as I
put my pop gun to my shoulder.

“Fine, I’ll stay,” he said as he began to
look with a little more fervor through the strewn tools.

“Throwing screwdrivers would be more
effective,” I said prophetically as I pulled the trigger. The lead
zombie paused for a fraction of a second as it absorbed the impact
and then began its forward progress again. “Are you kidding
me?”

“It looks like it wrapped right around its
skull,” Gary said, looking over my shoulder.

“Do not tell me this is a new version of
zombie,” I said, eyeing the zombie for any sign of it stopping.

“What do you mean?” Gary asked.

“Could they be growing thicker skulls as
protection?”

“That’s impossible,” Brian said. “That kind
of adaptation would take thousands of years. AHA!” he suddenly
exclaimed. “Not the biggest pair, but they’ll do.”

“That’s what she said,” I said, just because
that’s what men do.

“Bathroom humor, Mike? Here? Mom would be so
proud.”

“Sorry, it’s who I am. And anyway, he started
it.”

“I’ve got what I need. Let’s get out of
here,” Brian said, holding the bolt cutters up and heading quickly
for the exit.

I placed a well aimed .22 center mast on the
zombie’s forehead. His head snapped back a bit, I saw the gleam of
white bone which became immediately coated with a brackish gel that
looked a lot like congealed blood. The third bullet finally pierced
through and he stopped cold. “You planning on shooting?” I asked
Gary as my rifle jammed.

“I was going to save my ammo,” he told me
matter-of-factly. “What’s the matter? You’re doing fine.”

“I have a jam.”

“Well, fix it. They’re deaders anyway…”

I looked up. The two shamblers on the left
had been playing possum and were coming full tilt. Well, one of
them was anyway. The old man was trying to get his giddy-up going,
but that passed him by two decades ago.

The first zombie plowed into me. I was barely
able to put my rifle up in time to keep him from biting any part of
me off. “Shoot him!” I yelled.

“You guys are all entangled. I can’t,” Gary
said in alarm.

“A bunch coming for the doors!” Paul
yelled.

The zombie was an inch from my face, his
breath was swoon-worthy, but I didn’t have the time for my inner
diva to make a show. Its hands were making a clutch for the rifle.
I simultaneously pushed him away with the rifle and let go. He
could have the jammed piece of shit. I rolled to my right, a
Philips screwdriver puncturing my side. The smell of the fresh
blood got the zombie moving frantically. He let the gun go, his
gray filmy eyes fixed on mine. I never took my eyes off him as my
hands reached around the tools, looking for something zombie
killing-worthy. I was having no luck as I first came across a
rubber mallet and then a hacksaw. “Are you kidding me, God?” I
shouted. And maybe he was, but then he guided me to a short-handled
tool of some sort. I couldn’t tell what was on the end, but it had
heft, and right now, I could deal with some blunt force trauma. The
zombie had pulled himself closer, and I rolled onto my left hip and
swung whatever the hell I had in my right arm as hard as I could.
The safety-coated hand axe shone dully as it arced down and into
the side of its head. My arm shivered from the impact, but the
zombie seemed momentarily stunned. I kept rearing back and used as
much leverage as I could, bringing my body up and slamming down
with as much force as I could muster on each subsequent hit. I
could hear his skull splinter with the first two hits, and the
third finally broke through. My reward was a huge squirt of his
creamy insides. I was repulsed as liquefied gray matter spilled
forth. My feet were barely able to gain traction as I pushed away
from the scene. Small white maggots wriggled around in the goop for
a few seconds before becoming still. I might have decided to get a
closer look, but Gary took this moment to put a bullet in its
head.

“Little late to the dance, aren’t you?” I
asked him. He put his hand out to help me up.

“Had to get rid of Papa Smurf and you looked
like you were alright.”

“Kind of fits him, doesn’t it?” And it did.
The old man had a white beard, was older than most craters, not to
mention he had a significant blue hue to him.

“You might want to take the rubber off your
axe,” Gary said as we moved back down the aisle to the doorway.

I grabbed a screwdriver and pushed the hair
and bone covered material from the blade. “I wish it had a longer
handle.”

“I wish it fired rounds,” Gary added.

“Well, that too.”

Paul was keeping the zombies at bay, more
from the smoke screen his shots were producing than actually making
a dent in their numbers. BT was down to a broom handle and was
pushing the closest zombies away with it. He kept sticking it in
their faces and sending them skidding backwards. They didn’t get
the concept to grab the stick. Their arms were uselessly
outstretched, trying to get a hold of their potential food.

“Mike! This is fun and all,” BT said with
some effort. “But I really think we should get going.” A couple of
zombies jostled into the broom handle, dislodging it from BT’s
hands.

We had a window of escape, but it was
starting to look like one of those fantastic,
heavy-metal-doors-coming-to-a-close, Indiana Jones kind of
escape.

And then Dirty Fucking Harry saved the day.
Well, in this case, I guess it was Harriet. Mrs. Deneaux came in
the front door, cigarette in mouth, cloud of smoke encircling her
head, and one eye squinted. She took a quick assessment of the
situation and flew through her magazine of rounds. Zombie heads
whipped back before their bodies followed. Chunks of hairy, matted
bone flew through the air. Eleven zombies dropped. What was going
to be a narrow escape was now something we could drive a semi
through.

“Thank you,” I told her breathlessly as we
got to the door.

“If I were fifty years older, I’d marry you,”
Gary said, kissing her on the cheek.

“I knew it!” BT shouted. “All white women are
crazy!”

Mrs. Deneaux cackled loudly as we mostly
carried her to the truck.

“I told you!” Paul said as we all got back in
the truck.

“What happened?” Brian asked.

“Mrs. Deneaux is what happened!” I shouted.
“She just might be the baddest ass person on the planet right
now!”

Brian got the truck moving as a stream of
zombies came flooding through the door. “Horrible customer
service,” he remarked as we pulled out of the parking lot.

“Not bad,” I told him as I clapped him on the
shoulder. My heart rate was finally coming down to something
approaching “galloping horse.” A few more minutes, and maybe I’d
get it to “hummingbird” status.

“Now what?” Gary asked.

“We find a storage locker facility,” Brian
answered.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Storage lockers, I’m telling you they’re
gold mines. My cousin does it for a living.”

“Does what, exactly?” I asked, not
understanding what the hell he was talking about.

“He used to buy abandoned storage lockers and
sell the contents for huge bucks.”

“Great, but I don’t think we really need an
old record collection or furniture for that matter,” I told him,
more than a little pissed that we had all just risked our lives for
this half-assed idea.

“No, Mike, he said he always comes across
guns when he does these.”

“Come on, who sticks guns in a storage
locker?” I asked. It sounded like the most insane thing I’d ever
heard. Sometimes I hated having my rifles in a safe at my own home
because that would delay me getting to them. How much of a
pain-in-the-ass would it be to tell the home invaders at your house
to hold off while you put your shoes on and drive down to the
storage facility to retrieve your weapons. I’m sure they’d be super
understanding.

“I don’t know. Folks who only want guns for
hunting season, or relatives who have passed and the kids stick
everything in storage until they can go through it.”

“Or a sporting goods store that’s gone
under,” Gary added.

“Maybe we’ll find Harry Potter’s magic wand
too.” I said. “I don’t think the risk was worth the return, Brian,”
I said, more than a little miffed.

“What do we have to lose?” he replied. “We
either find something and punch Eliza in the mouth or we don’t and
scramble to catch up with the others.

“Fair enough,” I relented, but I was far from
placated. I did not want to go running into the night again with my
tail between my legs.

Chapter
Five – Mike Journal Entry 4

I found the rows of orange-colored garage
doors to be more than a little unsettling. I couldn’t put my finger
on it, the uniformity? Great. Was I developing a new phobia? Just
what I needed. I did not like the fact that it felt like we were in
an alleyway with limited avenues for escape, but I had to admit the
zombie apocalypse had passed right by this place.

“See? I told you,” Brian said excitedly,
almost as if he were listening to my thoughts.