American Revenant (Book 3): The Monster In Man (7 page)

Chapter 12

“What the hell do you
mean “We’re going to the armory”?  The jackass running things over there wants
us all dead, or have you forgotten that?”

“No, Jimmy, I haven’t
forgotten it.  But we also have no choices here.  Hopefully that “jackass” will
see that we can help each other.  Either way, we’re going.”

“Fine, can we at least
shove these three out the front door while we make our way out the back?  They
might slow that damn horde down a little.”

Rick glared at Jimmy for
several seconds before moving to grab his pack and weapon.

“I thought the same
thing, Jimmy, but you know we can’t,” Mike said.  “Let’s just get the hell out
of here. Besides, having these goons might keep that Greer from shooting us on
sight.”

Jimmy nodded curtly, snatching
up his bag and heading for the back door.

The men all stacked up on
the back door, with the three goons in the middle of the bunch.  Jimmy stood in
the lead position; hand on the doorknob, waiting for the word to go.

“Let’s do this,” Alex
said, voice tight with dread.

Jimmy twisted the knob,
yanked the door in, and stepped up, shotgun at the ready.  He stood there,
still and silent, listening for the slowly advancing horde.  A low rumble, like
distant thunder came from the direction of the front of the house.  Jimmy
shivered, a chill running across his skin.  “It’s clear, but we need to move.”

“Straight across to the
armory, go quick.”

Rick’s words were all the
encouragement the group needed to get moving.  As they passed the back of the
house several of the men, including the goons from the armory, glanced over at
the still bodies lying in the tall grass.

Dean wondered if it had
been necessary to kill them, but quickly gave up pondering the question.  He
wasn’t sure he could have done it, though he was fully aware that they would have
killed everyone in the house if Jimmy had not taken them out first.

Calvin ran just in front
of Rick, dividing his attention between the three hostages in front of him and
the ground passing under his feet.  He couldn’t stop thinking that he would trip,
twist his ankle, or even run head first into a tree.  His friends would have to
keep going and he would be devoured, most likely by some middle-age housewife
in pink slippers and housecoat.

“How many were there?”
Cal huffed, stepping around a dead stump as the group made their way into a
small copse of trees that bordered the highway.

Rick did not answer
immediately, kept moving forward, cautiously watching where he placed his
feet.  “Hundred or more, hard to tell.”

Calvin was just as
confused as the rest of his companions, and he gave voice to everyone’s
thoughts as they moved through the trees.  “How did they know we were there? 
Why would they come out of nowhere like that, heading straight for the house we
were in?  No way were we making any noise.  Hell nearly everyone had been
asleep, just before these pricks showed up.”

“I don’t know, Cal. 
Maybe they smelled the blood after Jimmy…”

“I thought they couldn’t
smell.  Dean, you and Dad said they had no sense of smell.”

“That’s what we thought,
from that one kid we found at that house in New London.  I don’t know Cal,
maybe we were wrong.  Maybe that kid was a fluke, I just don’t know.”  Dean was
breathing heavily, not just from exertion.  A colossal heaving fear welled up
in him, that somehow he and his father had assumed incorrectly and it was now
going to get them all killed.

Having passed through the
trees, the men spread out a couple of feet from each other as they stepped onto
the highway.  The large armory building loomed in front of them, sitting on a
low hill. 

“Renny, get your ass up
here,” Mike said, “start telling your guys there’s a fucking horde coming this
way.  They start shooting I’m putting a bullet in your guts,” he growled.

Renny moved quickly up
beside Jimmy, who still held the point position.  Only one guard stood outside,
on the north end of the building and Renny started shouting as soon as he
spotted them.  “Go, horde coming, giant horde coming!” He shouted, flapping his
arms forward and back, as if pushing the guard to run away.

The guard dropped the
cigarette he was puffing on and shouldered his rifle, pointing it not at the
unknown men, but at Renny.  “Renny, that you?”

“Yes, it’s me, damn it! 
Run, get inside, there’s a friggin’ massive horde of shufflers comin’ this way!”

Renny stumbled as he
tried to run up the steep slope of the hill, instead of angling for the lower
area near the turnoff from the highway.  He caught himself, and pushed on up
the hill, all the while calling “Go, damn it, just go!” between heaving draughts
of air.

The guard began to
backpedal, stumbling as his foot hit a dip in the ground.  “Who the hell are
these guys, Renny?”

“Don’t worry about it,
let Greer handle them,” Renny said as he ran by the guard.

Everyone made it around
to the main entrance of the building, which faced away from the highway, and
the impending horde of undead.

Everyone gathered in the
main parking lot, moving toward the building as the door pushed open and a man
in battle fatigues stepped out, rifle up and aimed at the group.

“Stop right there,
people.”  The man’s eyes searched the bunch, seeing three of the men he had
sent to ambush the attackers waiting in the house.  His gaze settled on Renny. 
“What the hell Renny, you were supposed to take these assholes out; instead you
bring them right back here.”

“Listen Greer, shit went
sideways, Johnny and Dan, are…uh, they’re dead.”  Renny began to stumble over
his words, more terrified of the immediate threat of Greer’s rage, than the
zombies.  “Th-there’s n-nothing we could do man!  Uh, we have bigger problems. 
There’s a big ass bunch of the shufflers coming!”

Greer cocked his head,
looking closely at Renny, the barrel of his rifle drifting downward and inch. 
“What do you mean, “big ass bunch” Renny?  How big?”

“At least a hundred, most
likely much more.”

“I didn’t ask you
shitface!  I was talking to my man here.  Who the fuck’re you?”  The rifle
jumped back up, sighting on Rick.

Rick took a step forward,
looking Greer directly in the eyes.  “There’s a sizable herd of zombies heading
this way.  We don’t have time for your bravado bullshit.  We need to work
together to survive, and that’s all there is to it.”

Greer took several steps
forward, now only a couple of feet from Rick.  “You don’t tell me what the fuck
I need to do!  This is my fucking house, and I make the rules!”  Greer’s face
began change colors, his instant rage flowing up from his collar into face,
flushing it a bright red. 

Several men had followed
Greer outside, and more were now coming through the door, every one of them
armed.

“You can shut the hell up
or I can hang your asses on my little cage out there,” Greer flicked his rifle
toward the vehicle area, surrounded by a fence hung with still-twitching
zombies.

The heavy smell of
decomposition flowed on the air from the fenced vehicle area, thick and cloying
even at a distance.

Rick glared at the man
holding him and his people at gun point.  Renny and the two goons walked slowly
out of the crowd, rejoining their people.  The Oko Tipi group stood there,
unsure of what to do with this crazy-ass nutjob that was going to either kill
them or get them killed.

“Me and my boys are going
back inside that building where we can wait this shit out.  As for you, when
this is done, you don’t need to worry, I’ll make sure the rest of the people at
your camp are well taken care of.”

Mike Phillips stood there
silently, watching this man who was obviously psycho telling them he was going
to not only let them die, but that he would also kill or capture everyone left
at Camp Oko Tipi once there was no one left to defend it. 

Mike saw the man clearly
for what he was.  The bad guy, that one person that everyone knows is evil
right from the start, but does nothing about until it is too late.  He was not
going to let this crazy prick govern his life or the lives of his friends and
family.

Greer and his men had
begun to back away slowly, retreating toward the safety of the armory when a
bright red hole suddenly appeared above his right eye.  His head snapped back,
throwing blood and brain tissue on the man standing just behind him.  The loud
crack of Mike’s .45 and the sight of their leader crumpling to the ground
disoriented the men for a moment.

Rick and his men brought
up their weapons, taking advantage of the confusion.  “Not one single man raises
a weapon or you’re all going down, is that fucking clear!” Rick shouted.  “We
don’t have time to play games with you people, we have to get inside where…”

Rick’s words were cut off
by the sight of the first zombies rounding the corner of the building, heading
straight for Greer’s men.  They saw the look on his face, turning to see the
hungry mouths and grasping hands coming for them.   They were too far away from
the entrance to get back before at least a few of them were brought down.

“We’re cut off!” Calvin
said, his voice rising.

The others looked around,
knowing there was nowhere to go that they would be safe.  Alex slapped Mike on
the arm and jerked his head at the vehicle lot.  “Inside there, no place else
to go.”

The others heard, began
to run for the lot.  “Shit, it’s padlocked!” Alex jerked on the lock, as if
desire and desperation alone could snap the cold metal. 

The bodies hanging
closest to them began to thrash and twist, causing the fence to sway
violently.   Jimmy stepped forward, placing the end of his shotgun barrel
inches away from the padlock and pulled the trigger.  The thick padlock jumped,
tearing away from the chain wrapped through the fence and around the posts of
the gate. 

“A warning would be nice,
next time,” Dean said, his ears ringing from the report of the shotgun.

“I think you got their
attention, Jimbo,” Mike said, looking over his shoulder.  “Everybody in, now!”

Behind them, a large
chunk of the horde peeled away from the main group that was now descending on
the men from the armory, heading for the fenced vehicle enclosure.

Shots were being fired in
a futile attempt to slow the mass of writhing, grasping, rotting bodies that
easily overran the soldiers from the armory without pause.  Few of the zombies
stopped to join in the feast, following the last man as he went for the door,
leading the horde toward the smorgasbord that waited inside the building.

The man made it through
the door, fighting against the spring loaded door closer to shut it as fast as
possible.  Snapping the lock into place he stood behind the door, watching as
the undead piled up outside, pressing against the glass.  The zombies in front
were slowly being crushed against the windows.  His stomach turning at the gore
being smeared and spattered over the glass, the man turned and ran down a wide
hallway, locking another door behind him.

Jimmy yanked the gate
open, climbing over a car that sat sideways behind it.  The other five men
followed closely, with Rick bringing up the rear, pulling the chain link gate
closed behind him.  “I need zip ties!” he called. 

Every one of the men
carried a few of the heavy-duty plastic zip ties.  They were great to use as
restraints if needed, but had so many useful applications during a survival
situation that it became standard for everyone to have some on hand at all
times.

Reaching behind him, Rick
took the small handful of zip ties he was given, and pulled several from a
cargo pocket on his camo pants.  He threaded the chain through the fence,
around the aluminum tubes of the gate and began to secure that with the plastic
ties.  In and out, through each other he cinched down tie after tie, hoping
that the seven ties he used would hold the chain tight, keeping the fence
closed.

Once the gate was as
secure as he could make it, Rick dropped down behind the cars that circled the
inner perimeter of the fence, leaving a wide open space in the middle of the
lot.

The men hunkered low,
watching through windows and between gaps in the vehicles.  Heavy breaths were
exhaled, hammering hearts began to slow.  A couple of the men sat with their
backs to the cars, leaning against the cold metal, muttering to themselves. 

“What now,” Dean
whispered, “we’re trapped in here, with Zoms hanging on the fence, and Zoms
surrounding the fence, and Zoms about to break into the damned armory.”

“We wait, we watch and we
figure some way out of this shit.”  Mike spoke softly, watching as the pack
that had separated from the main horde bunched up around the gate, rattling the
fence, shaking the zombies that hung there like diseased piñatas.  All eyes
turned toward Jimmy when they heard him softly humming the tune to the old rock
and roll song Shake Rattle and Roll.

“What the hell, Jimmy?”
Rick asked, as several gave him a stern look.  Mike chuckled when Jimmy just
shrugged.  He stopped humming but grinned at his friend with a knowing glimmer
in his eye.