Generation Dead - 07 (17 page)

“Any back exits?” I asked, although I was leery of them since the utility tunnel was such a fun place.

Julia shook her head.
“None that I want to use.
  I definitely heard something when I checked the door.”

“Well, what then?  We can’t get out the back and the front is out of the question.  Wait.  How did you get here?  You didn’t go through the window, did you?”  I asked Julia.

“I came in through the regular GAP
store,
” Julia said.

“They’re connected?” Jake asked.

“Yeah, you passed the connecting corridor to come back here.”

“So there could be a whole mess of
zombies
right around the corner?”

“Suppose so.”  Julia shrugged.  “As long as they don’t have a reason to come back here, we should be okay.  We can sneak out later.”

“Jake?” I asked suddenly.

“What is it, Aaron, I’m trying to get us out of here.” Jake sounded exasperated.

“Do mannequins move?”

Chapter 27

“Shit!”  Jake figured out in a hurry what I was referencing to, and immediately drew his knife for confrontation.

“Got
it,
” I said, moving forward.  The zombie, an advance scout for the horde that was milling about in the main hall walked out of the darkness towards me.  I couldn’t see it all that well, but
it’s
glowing eyes were as clear to me as if it was outside in the sun.  I used those eyes as an aiming point and
drove
the spike end of my tomahawk right between them.  The zombie fell backwards, and
its
outstretched arm caught a display rack, pulling it down against a glass table.  The rack shattered the table with a huge crash, sending a shower of broken glass cascading to the tile floor.  The sound was a waterfall of tinkling notes, and in the immediate silence following the crash, Jake only had to say one thing.

“
Damn
.”

An
ear-splitting
chorus of groans flew in from the outside of the store, matched by another chorus coming from ghouls inside the store as well.  They were actually a lot closer than I had wanted to admit, so the quiet talking was pretty much over.

I took the lead.  “Follow me!”  I ran towards the front with Jake and Julia close behind.  I could see several dark shapes working their way towards the other door where zombies were already streaming in, and so their attention wasn’t on us, thank God. 

I grabbed a low display table and heaved it over my head.  The thing was a lot heavier than I thought it was, but that would help with what I had in mind.  I waited a second for about three or four zombies to be in the line of fire,
and then
I heaved the table through the window.  Since the window had already been broken, the rest went easily with little resistance.

The table crashed into the trio of zombies on the other side, and we were right behind it.  We had no room for error in this place. 
The table did not hit two of the dead
, and they came right at us. Jake took a wide swing and literally knocked the one
on the right completely off
its
feet.

Julia was right behind on the one on the left, and the weighted end of her staff swept the legs out from under the zombie
who fell
as the spear head streaked for its eyes.  A quick crunch and the job
was
done.  I was already past the two and heading back the way we had come.  The side door was out, a glance back showed dozens of zombie
s that way, so we had to return
through the mess we had run from.

I darted from one side to the other, dodging debris and overturned kiosks.  Julia and Jake were right behind me.  It was dangerous, since it was fairly dark, and there was a lot of crap on the floor.

In the middle of the center of the mall was a glass elevator.  Surrounding that elevator was a defunct waterfall.  Long-dried pools had revealed their
treasure,
coins were all over the bottom of the waterfalls.  We didn’t stop to pick any up, since there
was
about five zombies waiting for us under the dull glow of the skylights which illuminated the mall’s center court.

I dodged into a jewelry store, hoping to take a side route around the five, and that was when Jake
said,
“Where…”

I didn’t catch the rest since the distraction caused me to slam into a display case.  I hit the thing dead center, and it was solid enough to knock me back on my ass.  Julia was right behind me, and my sudden stop and
fall,
caused her to slam into my back and be on the bottom when I sat down. 

“OOOOF!”
She said as the air left her lungs.

“Sorry!” I rolled off of her and Jake helped us both to our feet.  The five in the court headed our way and I ran out of the jewelry store, moving through the scattered tables of a coffee shop.  Jake grabbed up one of the chairs as he went by and hurled it at the group.  Knocking two of them down, the chair wrapped up the legs of a third. 

“Nice!
”
I called as we raced towards the longer end of the mall.  We passed by a couple of stores that looked like they hadn’t been looted, but since one was a lingerie store and the other a greeting card store, it wasn’t that big of a surprise.  No one needed that stuff in a zombie apocalypse.

Passing a Pottery Barn, I moved under a stairwell and skidded to a stop. 
Several zombies
, which
must have been inside the stores when we first went by, and were prompted to explore in search of
food,
blocked our path
.

Julia was paying attention this time and avoided running into me.  She moved to the left side and Jake moved to the right.  The zombies groaned and moved towards us in a group, making things difficult for a fight.

“Call
it,
” Jake said, hefting his weapon.

I very nearly said we should take them when I happened to see movement in the darkness behind the zombies.  I couldn’t tell how many there were, but the amount of
shifting
told me there were
quite a
few.

“Upstairs.
Now!”
  I turned and bolted for the stairs, taking two at a time.  I reached the top and ducked under the arms of a zombie that came limping out of a candle store.  I stood up and with a swift backswing of my ‘hawk, smacked the zombie in the head.  It hit the railing and was sufficiently overbalanced that it fell over the side, falling hard to splatter on the floor below.

We were alone for the time being, although the ones we ran from were slowly making their way up the stairs.

“What now?” Julia whispered.  Jake was at the top of the stairs, eyeballing the oncoming horde and hefting his weapon.  I knew if I didn’t get things moving, he’d probably wade into them and start killing.

“There’s got to be an exit from the second floor up here.” I said, looking for the
telltale
signs of light from doors and windows.  I thought there looked to be some sunlight down the way towards Macy’s, but it was hard to tell.

“Well, there isn’t one from that side.”  Julia pointed across the mall chasm to the other side. 

“Maybe there’s one around this area here.”  I started in that
direction
and Jake came up the stairs.  I knew if we left this area, we had to be
sure,
otherwise we were in for a fight to come back this way.

I stepped forward and checked the corner.  There wasn’t a zombie nearby, but I was hearing some strange things.  It sounded like something was bumping into something and couldn’t get away.  I didn’t have the time to check it out, so I moved past it. 

At the corner of
Abercrombie
and the Bedding Experts, two well-dressed zombies stumbled into view.  Julia didn’t waste time and speared one of them, and Jake hammered the other.  I wasn’t too worried about what we might encounter as long as they came out in small doses.

We moved forward into the darkness, and I was happy to report to the other two that it looked like we were going to find an exit after all.  I could definitely see some
light at the end of this tunnel, and for
once,
that wasn’t metaphorical.

I stepped up the pace and approached the corner, stealing a look around, hoping we would be all clear, but I would be okay with a few zombies.

What I wasn’t expecting was to come face to face with a ghoul that was slowly working his way along the wall in the opposite direction as
myself
. 

“Whoa!” I said
,
jerking my head back as the
little nasty lunged forward in
an attempt to bite my nose off.  He reached out and caught hold of my backpack strap, pulling me in for a bite.  I slammed a hand up into its throat and forced myself back, keeping the teeth away from my face and wrist.  I twisted to the right, slamming the ghoul up against the wall and getting a real good look at it.  It was male, like I thought, and it was sparsely dressed in a pair of long shorts and a t-shirt.  The t-shirt was streaked with black, and the zombie grabbed and pulled at me with
its
other arm, latching onto my other strap.  I increased my push and felt my hand start to slip on the dead skin that was shifting under my grip.

I squeezed hard, feeling the dead thing’s throat and bones, and I wish
ed
I had the strength to crack
its
neck.  The dead face snapped and groaned at me, opening its maw and
it tried
to take a huge bite out of my face.

I couldn’t get it to release
its
grip, and I
dared
not release mine, so I had to do the next best thing, and that was to draw my grandfather’s knife and try for a kill.  Trouble was, my angle was
wrong,
thanks to the zombie’s arm t
h
at was holding my strap.  I had little choice but to place the knife against the zombie’s throat, just above my hand and start sawing.

It took a little time, but I finally got the knife to the spine and severed the cord.  The second my blade touched the spinal
cord
, the zombie dropped to the ground.
Its
head was still deadly, and I was careful as I let go of the gooey throat.  Reversing my grip on the blade, I spiked it down and it easily pierced the skull, killing the zombie for good. 

Chapter 28

I stood up, and was about to berate my companions whe
n
I saw they were having some trouble of their own.  The zombies on the stairs had finally reached the top and had managed to come up to us from be
hind.  Jake was standing on a be
nch, methodically cracking zombie skulls with what looked like a bored expression on his face.

Julia was spinning her staff, alternately killing with her blade or the metal ball on the other end.  She would hack on their necks with the big blade, more often than not killing her attackers, or she would use the ball to crack a head or two.

Julia had one zombie left, and it was a big one.  This guy must have been six foot five and he came charging at the little woman.  Julia took one look at him and suddenly jumped into the air, bringing the ball down as hard as she could on his crusty head.  The metal ball landed with a crunch, and the undead giant toppled forward without a sound.

Jake was fairly indiscriminate when it came to his killing.  He didn’t think anything about
it,
he did not even see the zombies as little more than an annoyance.  It always got to me how cool Jake was able to stay in the face of danger.  At least, he was according to what Jake had said.  Jake was playing a kind of game, which he cheerfully described as death by gravity. 
He wouldn’t kill them when he smacked
them, he preferred to hit them in the shoulder and knock them over the side of the railing.  Each one
that
he hit made a squishing sound that really sounded disgusting.  I was glad we weren’t able to see over the side into the gloom.

Jake smacked the last one on his side, and it slammed against the railing, but it didn’t go over.  Julia kindly provided assistance in the form of a push with her metal ball, and the zombie went over obligingly.

Jake looked at me. “How’s the exit looking? 

“As good as can be expected.
  I haven’t had a chance
to look, so I’ll head over there
now.

“Mind
yourself
,
” Jake said, pausing
to
grab a golf towel from the store to wipe off his mace.

“No worries this
time,
” I said. “I think all of the activity is concentrated at the end with the zombies looking out.” I thought for a second.  “I just hope there’s not too many of them, since I am running out of ideas.”