Lipstick & Zombies (Deadly Divas Book 1) (29 page)

Gerri turned the handle slowly, and then flung the door open and backed away, letting Sadie and Jo take the lead.

The big pile in the corner was Marvin, wearing those blue polyester pants. If it weren't for the puddle underneath him, you could almost pretend the drying blood was a fabric pattern.

Tammi sat next to him. She was shaking, and covered in blood. There was no sign of the zombie that had gotten Marvin. Carrie wondered how long Tammi had been in there. The drying blood made her think it had been a while—likely before the attack on stage.

Gerri was calling her name to no response. Sadie slowly approached her, and told the others, "I think she's in shock."

"Imagine that," Carrie said.

"It's okay, Tammi, it's just us. I'm Sadie, remember? We have to get out of here."

"Wait, no," Jo said, and pulled Sadie back. Tammi's head jerked up at the movement. There was a collective gasp as Tammi's jaw fell open, exposing her recent meal.

The group of them took a step back, but there was no way all five of them could get out in time. Jo yelled, "Stay together!" just as Tammi stood up and zeroed in on Carrie.

Carrie said, "Why
me
?" and almost expected Tammi to respond when her jaw flapped uselessly up and down. Carrie squared the arm holding her forearm machete in front of her chest, blocking the thing that was Tammi from getting too close to her face.

Tammi took one lazy step, and then lunged at Carrie, knocking her flat on her back. Carrie's arm pushed uselessly against the weight. Her blade had to be cutting into the zombie's arm, but it didn't care.

The sight of Tammi straining in desperate hunger to get at Carrie's face was bad enough, but even if Carrie could have closed her eyes, the bitter iron smell of Tammi's breath, and the sound of her groans, and the agony of her nails scraping down Carrie's stomach, was enough trauma to send Carrie to therapy for the rest of her life.

Wet breath traveled only inches to Carrie's skin. It took all Gerri and Sadie had to hold the thing's head there. Carrie couldn't help but scream when she saw their finger's slipping.

"I got it! I got it!" Dee yelled right in Carrie's ear. She jammed a long knife up through Tammi's jaw. Hot blood poured down Carrie's neck.

The thing stopped struggling, and Sadie and Gerri let go. Tammi's head fell on Carrie's shoulder.

With the little breath Carrie had, she cried out, "Get it off me! Get her off me!" and Sadie and Gerri shoved until Carrie was free.

Carrie scooted against the wall, gasping for air.

Jo asked, "Are we all okay?

It was an absurd question. Carrie stood up and shook out her arms. "We're good. Let's go."

Dee said, "I should have been nicer to her."

"Just don't look at her," Carrie said. She kept her own eyes pointed toward the ceiling, but she wasn't seeing anything. She was focusing on the feeling of her own breathing. It was loud, and heavy, and it was still happening—she was still breathing. "Don't think about it," she told Dee.

Gerri shook her head. "We have to get out of here."

"Right," Sadie said. "Let's move."

Jo checked the hall before motioning them forward. Carrie had always known that Jo was a better fighter than the rest of them, it had been obvious during their training sessions, but she never would have thought that Jo would have been ready for anything like what they were going through. But then, she never would have imagined Dee on the floor, stabbing a knife into Tammi's jaw to save Carrie's life, either.

It was only five steps to the exit they'd struggled to get to. Carrie sighed in relief as they jogged up to it. Freedom. At last.

"No, no, no!" Sadie shrieked and stepped back. She slammed her body into the door again and again.

Jo scooted Sadie to the side and pushed on the long metal bar. You should be able to simply push on the bar, the door would unlatch, and open. Jo tried it four times before she said, "It won't open."

"I've got this," Gerri said, and pulled an ax from the bag Jo was still carrying. The two girls moved out of her way, and Gerri whacked the ax until the bar snapped off the door. She shoved against the door with all her weight, but it didn't budge. Jo and Sadie squished in and shoved with her.

Sadie gave up and said, "I think something is blocking the door on the other side. Like a cement wall."

"Agreed," Jo said, panting for air. They were all looking rather ragged.

Dee walked around in a circle, as if looking for answers, and then asked, "Well now what do we do?"

"Is there another exit?" Gerri pointed to the side hall. It was dark, and only went about twelve feet before it ended in a swinging door that appeared to break the hall into two sections. There was no telling what was beyond there, but it only made sense there'd be an exit. There had to at least be a window.

Sadie said, "One way to find out," and led the way toward it.

Jo raised her knife and looked to the others. Carrie let go of her forearm machete, rubbed her hand clean on her skirt, and gripped it tighter. "Ready," she said.

Sadie pushed the door open and gasped. Carrie didn't know how she had it in her to even be surprised at this point. The hall was packed with old, weak, decaying zombies. They would have almost been a relief after the strong new ones they'd been seeing, if there weren't so many of them.

Sadie threw a knife into the head of the closest one, who'd begun lurching, and then took a large step back. "Leaving now," she said.

Dee said, "But..."

The group of them got halfway back to the blocked exit door and watched the swinging door close.

"What do we do?" Gerri asked.

Dee said, "Maybe we fight them."

"What?" Sadie asked. "Did you see how many there were?"

"But they're old," Dee argued.

"So was the one that ate Dylan,” Gerri pointed out.

"There are too many," Sadie said. "Even if we killed them all, we don't know if there's a way out. I don't know about you all, but I don't want to die for a maybe.”

Two zombies pushed through the swinging door. The girls braced themselves, ready to fight the ones coming for them, but the door swung open again, and it was hard to get an accurate count of how many were pushing to get through.

Jo said, "Go," and they did.

Carrie glanced at the door Teegan hid behind as they ran past. As long as she didn't open that door, she should be fine with the old corpses going by. She sent a ball of hope out into the universe that it was true.

They turned the final corner and slid to a stop. The stage door had been broken open. There was less screaming now, though the chorus still rang out in the distance. Up close, the screaming was the agonized, deep grunts of final battles mixed with the sorrowful sobs of final pains. The sounds of massacre.

Dee asked, "Are we really going out there?"

No one said anything. Carrie didn't figure any of them wanted to be the one to make that call. This wasn't grabbing a pretty weapon in a controlled environment to get a good job with lots of fame. This was blood and death and screaming for no reason. There was no reason, just violence.

A zombie was still groaning on the floor. There was a hunk of broken metal where its eye should have been. Gerri stepped over its legs and stabbed it through the other eye. “Okay,” she said, and rolled her shoulders loose. "There are people out there. People who might help us. People who might need help. We could hide in a room back here, but if we do, we might just get attacked, alone and without an exit. No one knows we're here, so there's no real hope of anyone coming to help anytime soon. I say we rally."

"Wow, that's so..." Dee couldn't find the word, which had to have been a first.

"Brave? Bad ass?" Gerri smirked. "Remember it for the reporters later."

"I'm in," Sadie said.

Carrie nodded and looked to Jo. She was always the first to react when the rest of them were surprised, but she wasn't much for talking when anyone else was. They needed her to, though. She must have had some kind of survivalist training on how not to die in these situations. Carrie prompted her by asking, "Jo, what do you think?"
Jo pulled her hair back and grabbed for a tie on her wrist that wasn't there. She let it fall loose on her back and looked out at the open door in front of them. Carrie suspected she couldn't talk while looking at them. "I think," she started to say, but cut off when Noah ran past the door. There wasn't time to see much, just enough to see the blood. A moment later, a zombie ran past.

Jo took off, but Gerri grabbed her with both arms. "We do this together, careful, right?" She didn't let Jo go until she agreed.

“I guess that settles that,” Carrie said.

It only took a few seconds for them to reach Noah, but his weapon was already buried in the new zombie's skull. He wasn't happy about it though, or bothering to retrieve his weapon. His attention was on the rigging above the stage. They followed his gaze up, where a zombie with one arm was staring back at him.

"Move!" Jo yelled. His gaze met hers before the zombie stepped forward into empty air.

DEADLY DIVAS’ PHONES

SADIE

Mom:
Get to the tower.

Mom:
they won't let us come get you. Get here now!

Anthony:
Where are you?!?!

DEE

Dad:
call won't go through. In tower. Here. Now.

Mom:
Dee! Can you see this? Get here!

GERRI

Dad:
Tower!

Mom:
Where R U?

CARRIE

Dad:
In the tower. Won't let us leave. What's happening? Are you safe?

Chapter Twenty-six

JO

It crashed hard on the stage. It sounded like it had broken its own legs, but a second-lifer didn't care about that. It dragged its broken body toward an unarmed Noah.

Jo slashed its head clean off before it got there.

"You okay?" she asked, her eyes never moving from his bleeding arm.

He said, "Not a bite," and she nodded and took a step to put some space between them.

There weren't that many people left near the stage. Not live ones, anyway. Bodies, like rag dolls, lay strewn about. The soldiers that lined the stage were gone, probably among the dolls. Most of the people were squeezed together at the back of the auditorium, still screaming and shoving to get to the exits.

Gerri told Noah, "The back exit is blocked. We couldn't get through."

"You can hide in my office," Noah offered. They were talking like they were able to ignore the screaming. The more they stood still, the harder it was for Jo to focus.

"Old zombies are in the hall," Gerri said. "And Teegan is locked in your office."

A sound under the stage made even Jo jump.

"It's okay," Noah said. "I've got a couple of soldiers fighting with me." He went over to the opening where the platform for the first corpse should have been. "You guys okay?"

"Yup," the girl said. "All clear down here." Noah helped pull her up out of the hole, and a man who looked just like her after that.

"Did I hear them say the back exit is out?" he asked.

"Yes," Gerri said.

"Help can't get in the main entrance with all those people trying to get out," he said, and pulled a small set of binoculars from a pouch on his belt. "There are four fast ones still running out there."

"That's good," she said.

"Not for the people they're eating," he said. "The crowd is shoving people out as offerings, like the zombies will stop with those poor suckers. What a day."
"What do you expect?" she asked. "They're fighting with backpacks and drink bottles."

"Should we help them?" Gerri asked.

"'We' nothing, kid," he said. "You stay here. We got this."

"Unlikely," Gerri said.

"We have weapons," Jo offered, holding up their bag.

"You got my favorite ax," Noah said. "Thanks."

"You two have a strange relationship," Gerri said.

"No guns?" the guy asked.

"Be grateful for what you're given, honey," Gerri told him.

"Feisty," he commented.

Gerri turned her back toward him. "He's barely said anything and I already know this guy is gross," she told the girls. "If the zombies come at us, we feed them him first."

"Good plan," Sadie agreed.

"These are my weapons," Noah said, before the soldier had a chance to say whatever he was planning. "We don't use guns in fight scenes. It's over too quick."

"Real helpful now," the girl said.

"This wasn't supposed to be real," Noah said.

"Whatever." The girl was securing as many weapons as she could to her belt. "We'll cross the field in one group, and then split into sections when we get closer. Acceptable?"