El Paso Under Attack - 01 (8 page)

“
How did all these attentions make you feel?
”

To be honest, it was funny. Kingsley and Dudley were getting a kick out of it as well.

“
Did you respond to any of these people?
”

No. Not until Tito wrote. What could I say to them? I guess I figured that they needed some kind of hope. Maybe this could be it. The stories weren’t always true, but if they could inspire someone to hang in just a little longer…good for them. I wasn’t going to take that away from anybody. Also, don’t forget…they were cracking us up.

“
Your friend Tito wrote?
”

Correct.

“
Why do you call him Tito?
”

He looks like a Tito.

“
I see and he was able to connect the tales he was reading back to you?
”

Yeah, he said later that if the stories were real…only I could be the General. Which is quite a compliment coming from Tito…I think. He’s normally a very angry person who becomes rather resentful when someone else achieves any kind of success. You don’t usually get compliments from guys like that unless they need something from you. Then again, he did need something from me…

“
I should think so. What did he say?
”

Help.

He told some stories about the good ole days as a way of garnering my attention and proving it was him, but he wanted help. He was trapped in his apartment and the entire complex was teeming with zombies.

“
And what did you tell him?
”

I told him to sit tight and be safe. I was coming.

“
What happened next?
”

The people who were watching the site reacted. All of them began to send messages at the same time. The site crashed for the next few hours.

“
What messages were the people sending you?
”

Help us.

“
And what did you think of that?
”

I panicked. Kingsley and Dudley were reading over my shoulder. The responses, the crash…it was kinda surreal. We didn’t know how to react to that. We just kinda sat there in silence for awhile. Then Kingsley began to laugh.

“It figures. The whole world is going to shit and freaking Jax ends up being famous!”

“Yeah, no shit,” said Dudley. “Why does all the cool stuff happen to you?”

They were both cracking up. I was trying to laugh along with them, but there was some serious stress involved. I mean…talk about pressure. I’m just one person. I have no training. I was surviving on luck. Never mind the whole healing from my injuries. Never mind that when I was in the thick of things I felt way too comfortable. What the hell could I really do to save anyone?

“
I could see how you’d feel the pressure, but you handled it quite well.
”

Eventually I handled it. I don’t know how well, but I eventually dealt with it I guess. At the time I was more concerned with the third thought that was on my mind.

“
And that was?
”

Getting out of that house.

It took a good long while to figure that one out and when I finally did, let’s just say…my plan bordered somewhere between lunacy and idiotic. It was mid afternoon on the fourth day. I looked out a crack in the boarded up window and saw my new best friend…the sun. That hot, blaring ball of heat that hangs over the Texas skies and makes life miserable every single summer…well, I don’t think the zombies liked it very much, because the ones that hadn’t already entered the nearby houses seeking shelter were all sitting around in whatever shade they could find looking just as miserable as you please.

This is common knowledge now of course. Zombies don’t like extremely hot temperatures. They tend to get really sluggish and seek out whatever shelters they can find, but back then it was new and welcome news to me.

However, when zombies are stalking humans they tend to be rather relentless. I’d noticed that without much difficulty as well. So that meant that even though most of them were waiting out the heat in the neighbor’s homes, the minute we made a run to the car they’d snap awake and attack.

My plan needed a part two since the idea of running to the car and getting surrounded by masses of zombies wasn’t very appealing. I wandered around the garage until I saw the ladder and every bit of my crazy ass plan came together. I also caught sight of some chain link fence. Now that really started to spin my gears. However, I had to keep my mind on the present situation, which included rigging up the ladder and getting back to Georgie’s. Just keep chain link fencing in the back of your mind, because I’ll get there later.

We spent the entire night stretching out that ladder. It was already pretty long, but we needed it even longer for my plan to work and we also needed to reinforce it so that it would hold our weight.

The zombies snapped out of it as soon as the sun went down. We could hear them outside, as we pounded and hammered on the ladder; they pounded and hammered on the walls. My plan may have been insane, but it was still a halfway decent idea. It was also the best we were gonna come up with. We just needed the sun to make another appearance so we could get a decent head start.

“
How was Tamra doing during all of this?
”

She wasn’t doing very well. She was steadily getting worse. Kingsley refused to leave without her. He’s always had a soft spot for kids. He’s good with them and as far as he was concerned, she was alone in this world and he wasn’t about to abandon her.

“
How did you feel about her?
”

I have no idea. I kept my distance, but Kingsley had made up his mind and that dudes an Aries. Those people are stubborn as hell…my wife’s an Aries as well, so I speak from experience. If Dudley and I left without the girl, we were also going to have to leave without Kingsley and neither one of us was prepared to do that, so the decision was made without me ever having to think about it.

When we made a break for it, Tamra was coming with us.

“
You had no attachment to her?
”

I knew what was going to happen. I kept my distance. If I was wrong I’d make up for it and buy her an ice cream, but I’m rarely ever wrong. That’s one of the many things about me that can really infuriate people, but it’s also something that they have to learn to live with if they wanna hang.

I was really hoping that this would be one of those rare occasions and I’d be wrong. I mean…I was still getting my information from a bunch of movies and most of them weren’t even very good movies. There was hope. Not much, but a little.

When the sun rose on the fifth morning we watched in anticipation. The day grew hotter and hotter. The majority of the zombies sought shelter once again. The ones that remained sat in the shade or squirmed under bushes. By mid afternoon Dudley, Kingsley and Tamra were on the roof with this incredibly long and awkward homemade bridge that used to be a ladder.

The houses in this neighborhood were rather close together. The bridge easily spanned the distance to the next houses roof. Kingsley began to make his way across. The zombies hadn’t noticed what they were doing yet; they were more concerned about the heat.

The homemade bridge worked…kind of. It wobbled like hell, but Kingsley made it. Next up was Dudley. He had Tamra secured to his back. Halfway across, a zombie scream broke the silence of the neighborhood into a thousand pieces. In less than five minutes about two hundred zombies were reaching up for him. He was about five feet over their heads. Safe, but it probably scared the hell out of him when they started jumping up in an effort to grab him.

They approached the next house with our improvised bridge in the same way and the zombies followed. I watched nervously as they went across the shaky ladder and to the next roof. I couldn’t believe it was really working.

I waited until they started on the fifth house before I made my move.

I ripped the boards we used to secure the front door off and after loading up my arms with gear and food I went outside.

It wasn’t as clear as I was hoping. There were still some loitering zombies and a couple of them noticed me and started running my way. I threw the gear and food into the back of the Jeep with the rest of the supplies Dudley didn’t grab when he ran for the house. My hands found my tomahawk and knife as if they had a mind of their own.

The first one was easy enough to take out. It ran straight for me, so I swung and cleaved the top of its head off. The second zombie, who was right behind the first ducked under my second swing and tackled me to the ground. I improvised with a backwards somersault, ending up on top and stabbing my knife through its ear and into its brain. I was back on my feet in less than a second and that was a good thing.

More were coming.

Damn.

Shit.

I quickly ran back in the house and grabbed the rest of the food and gear. On my way back out, the first of the zombies had reached the front door.

I ran straight at her. It must have surprised her, because she came to a sudden stop. She was just beginning the first obscene notes of that famous zombie scream when I kicked her as hard as I could under the chin.

She went flying.

I kept running. Straight to the Jeep where I threw in the last of the food and gear.

As soon as I did this, I once again reached for the tomahawk and knife. About ten zombies were coming for me.

I think I actually smiled as I ran forward to meet them.

We collided in a beautiful cacophony of breaking bones. I was hacking and stabbing and kicking and slicing. It was over quickly. When I reached the very last of them, I took out his knee with the axe and pushed my blade into the top of his head as he fell.

I was amazed. I had just taken out ten zombies (yes I counted) in just a few seconds. I turned around and around looking for more. I was beginning to enjoy this, but unfortunately, the rest of the zombies were in hot pursuit of my buddies.

I ran back to the Jeep, started her up and began chasing after Dudley, Kingsley and Tamra.

It didn’t take long to find them. They hadn’t gotten very far. They were stuck at the seventh house they had reached. The ladder had broken and fallen to the ground. Kingsley was on the edge of the roof trying to climb up with Dudley’s help. A couple hundred zombies were crowded below him, reaching up hungrily for his dangling legs.

No big deal.

I pulled up as close as I could and began to scream for all I was worth. A couple hundred zombies turned and looked at me. I was now honking the horn and flipping them off.

For a second, I’m actually wondering if he’s joking around. He’s not
.

Well, I doubt it was my middle finger that got their attention, but whatever it was…they came a running!

I hit the gas and tore off down the street with just about all of them running after me. I quickly slowed my pace and let them gain some ground on the Jeep. I had to keep them interested after all, so I waited for them to get about ten feet behind me and then I kept the Jeep at that pace for the next five blocks.

When I felt that I’d gone far enough with my new friends, I really hit the gas. I left them behind, very far behind and a few blocks after that, I simply hit a few streets that pointed in the right direction and made my way back to my friends.

I pulled up to the seventh house and they were all ready waiting for me in the front yard.

They ran to my Jeep just as Tamra, who was still on Dudley’s back finally turned.

I shot a hole in her head before Dudley even realized what had happened. With all the excitement, neither of them had known she’d even died. I pulled my pistol and shot purely on reflex just as she was going for Dudley’s neck.

He freaked, fell backwards and rolled with the dead little girl flopping wetly behind him. Kingsley saw the entire thing, yet I shot before he could call out or react. He pulled Tamra off of Dudley’s back and helped him back to his feet.

Nobody said a word.

Our escape however, did not go unnoticed. I was glad to see that not all of the houses in the immediate area had become shelters for the dead. Others had managed to board up their homes just as Georgie did. People…living, breathing, healthy people began cheering for us as they emerged from behind locked and boarded up doors. They had been watching everything.

“Get your cars.” I shouted. “You can follow us.”

The trip back to Georgie’s wasn’t uneventful. The zombies weren’t much of a problem. The few that rushed us fell under a hail of bullets.

It seems that in Texas, everybody owns a gun and if it isn’t just one gun, its many guns, but that wasn’t what made the return trip eventful.

Our group was growing. Some of the people that were joining up with us had laptops and these people that had laptops had been checking up regularly with EPUA. They had read all about my exaggerated little adventures and I had also posted the address of Tamra’s house earlier when I was talking to Georgie. The people living nearby had been watching. They wanted to see what the “General” would do.

“
I guess they weren’t disappointed.
”

No, they weren’t disappointed. They saw how we made our escape. In fact, they started coming out in droves to join us as we made our way back to Georgie’s. We just kept meeting more and more of them along the way. Our path was being posted all over EPUA by the folks with the laptops.

“
How many joined you during the return trip?
”

I dunno. It seemed like a couple hundred, but maybe I’m wrong. There were a lot of cars. That made me nervous. If the zombies gathered in huge numbers and gave chase, we’d never be able to stop at Georgie’s. I was also worried about where we were gonna put everyone.

In the end, I grabbed some kid with a laptop and started giving orders.

“I want everybody on Georgie’s street,” I told the kid. “To start making their way over to Georgie’s house, then when they have enough people, tell them to start securing about twenty houses on each side of the street.”

Needless to say, Georgie was freaking out. He didn’t want these people anywhere near him, Lucy however, was already making her way outside to meet the neighbors and get to work.