Mark Clodi (20 page)

The doctor yelled something that sounded like, “Oo-oh shit you fucking douche bag!” and retreated into the clinic out of sight, several zombies made for the front door, Stewart shot them both in the head as they made no effort to dodge or hide.

Tom screamed at Steve, “Get us out of here! They are going to break through!” While Max fumbled with the revolver he had picked up earlier trying to point it at the zombies outside the window.

“Ma-ax! Don’t shoot through the window!” yelled Stewart, “Steve pull ahead a few feet, but don’t take me out of sight of the front door, if the zombies get through there we won’t have a doctor anymore!”

Steve pulled the car forward about ten feet, the zombies clambered up onto the back of the squad car, Steve reversed, catching one of them under the car and running it over, the other one started smashing at the rear window with one fist while hanging on to the antenna with the other.

In half a second everything changed, Stewart opened her side door and got a bead on the zombie riding on the trunk, she shot him once in the neck and then capped him in the head as he fell off behind the car. She was then grabbed by her feet by a hand reaching out from under the cruiser. Tom screamed and hopped out of the car after her, at the same time several of the hiding zombies made a rush for both the car and the clinic door.

Chapter 34

After getting to highway six Amelia still did not have any advice on how to proceed, so she turned the caddy onto the highway hoping it would ultimately be faster. The advantage of this particular section of road was that it ran through mostly residential neighborhoods, so she could easily switch to the back streets if she needed to.

Amelia managed to drive a few miles before she spotted flashing emergency lights up ahead on the road, as she crept the car slowly closer she saw a police car and several tow trucks, but no people, there were also several wrecked cars pulled out from the underpass and lots and lots of shotgun shells next to the police car. No bodies, no zombies, nothing to indicate exactly what had happened, but the road was clear, she hit the accelerator and scooted the car past the underpass onto another clear stretch of highway.

“Wanna try the radio station again? Call it in? Let him know six is pretty clear so far?” asked Amelia

“Sure, why not.” Diane said, she had plugged her cell phone into the car for recharging and redialed the stations number again. Diane had not been expecting to get through, let alone on the second ring, the station was still playing canned music, the dj had not been heard since their call.

“He-ello? Is this Diane?” asked a voice on the other end of the line.

Surprised, Diane responded, “Yeah, who is this? And how did you know who I was?”

“We have caller id, I recognized your number and name from when you called twenty minutes ago. My assistant took your first call. This is Blake, by the way.”

“Hello Blake, I am pleased to meet you. I am calling to say highway six is pretty clear, we are heading westbound okay so far since the twenty five exit. You want to let everyone know that?”

“Ah, sure why the fuck not.” came his bitter response.

“What’s wrong?”

“They called me. The zombies fucking called me and and my assistants, whoever was manning the phones. And we gave them directions on how to get here. Sorry for swearing, but the ground floor is full of them now, you kind of saved my life you know. The rest of the gang was downstairs helping the ‘refugees’, I took the elevator down, we obviously still have power, the generator has not even kicked in yet. Anyway, the door opened and I saw a group of them laughing. Laughing, the bastards! They were eating the associate manager, she was my friend Diane! My friend! And they laughed and pointed at me and said ‘Thanks buddy!’ then they tried rushing the doors, but I got them closed in time. I have an elevator key, I can go to the top of the tower if I want, twelve floors up, but I came back here to the station. I mean if they get through the fire doors, they will find me no matter where I hide, right? I know this building there are not any doors stronger than the fire doors are. I locked the elevator out on my floor so they couldn't use that.”

“I am glad I warned you Blake, I am glad you are alive and probably safe, but you have a lot of power and you should use it instead of just waiting for them to come in after you.”

“What do you mean? This is a dead end Diane, no way out, except maybe jumping from the roof and we have those goddamn safety nets installed so I would only fall like two stories before being caught up in one, where I would probably die of thirst without anyone to retrieve me. Of course I could make my way to the edge of the net and continue the fall too, I guess or..”

“Cut it out Blake, cut it out! You don’t have to die there and even if you do you can at least go out helping a lot of other people. I don’t know you, but I know you were trying to help people before, now you can do even more good. Secure yourself first, throw chairs, desks, whatever in front of the fire doors..”

Interrupting Blake said, “No it wouldn’t do anything, the doors open out and …”

“Hear me out! Put the stuff in front of the doors so you can hear them coming and get out of the station if you need to, not to stop them, just don’t lean anything up against the door handle and accidentally open it, or maybe the stairwells are pretty small? You might have better luck tossing a bunch of junk down the stairwell to stop them from coming up, leave one open as an escape route maybe. We did that in the building where I was held up for awhile.”

“Oh yeah, I can do that we have a promotion where we go around to the local bars and have about twenty cases of glass cups we gave away as swag, that would make a lot of noise if they hit it, plus a few desks and chairs in the stairwell, that is going to take awhile though, there are five stairwells in the building, one at each corner and one near the elevators. Not a bad idea Diane, I might have even a few more. What else to you have?”

“Okay here is the important part, get back on the radio, you could ask people for help, tell them you need someone to come free you from the station and explain your situation, maybe. Regardless you need to get back on the air and keep telling everyone what is going on, you are it man, every other station is off the air, let people know to hit them in the head, tell them to call all their friends and spread the news that you are on the air, get people organized, right now everyone is trying to fight back on their own and we are losing, at least from my point of view, I know that of the people I spent the night with only maybe six of the twenty of us are still alive, so you gotta get people organized and have them fight back. There is no reason why the station could not be the rallying point.”

“I might even live through it. Okay I will do it, let me give you another number you can reach me at, I have the feeling this line is going to get busy really soon. Also here is my cell number in case the power totally goes out. We have a generator, but who knows how long that will last?”

Diane took his number on a small notebook she pulled out of her glove box. Amelia admired Diane’s organization skill; the last time she checked her own glove box so much stuff fell out that she had resolved to never open it again.

After Diane hung up she asked, “Well, spill it, what happened, I think I got a pretty good idea from your end of the conversation. But do you think he will make it?”

Diane went to respond when the music abruptly cut off and the dj’s voice was on the air again, “Well thanks to my good fried Diane, I am still here ladies and gentlemen. First things first anyone I told to come to the station, and you know who you are, you had best stay away, it seems Diane’s warning that some zombies can talk and act like normal humans is true and several of them fooled me and invaded the station, so it is not a safe place to be anymore. Second tell everyone we are on the air and to keep calling. I have to go and do a few things to help keep me safe and will be back on live very soon. I have recorded this while I am talking and will set it to repeat until I am back. Oh and if anyone from the first group has a lot of guns, I would certainly appreciate a helping hand getting out of here too. Be back soon folks!”

After a moments though Diane said, “I think he just might make it Amelia. I think he just might.”

Chapter 35

Max struggled to a sitting position he felt so weak, so weak that all he could do was point his revolver at the open door and whisper to Steve, “Don’t move the car, Stewart is under the car, don’t move the car Steve!”

“Fuck, Max! Help her! Help her! Tom watch out, they are coming!”

Tom was busy pulling Stewart from under the car, Max risked one shot with the revolver, hitting the zombie in the leg, it barely seemed to phase it. Tom let go of Stewart with one hand and swung the shotgun around with the other firing into the zombies that were approaching the car. Steve pulled out the automatic pistol he had and scrambled over the seat to the open door, he fired into the zombies, bringing one down and momentarily sending the rest dodging sideways to avoid his wild fire. Tom bent back over to pull at Stewart, who was firing under the car with her gun hand and hanging on to Tom’s arm with the other.

Steve ran out of ammunition the gun clicked empty and he froze. Evidently the training he had been given was momentarily wiped from his mind and he sat there pulling the trigger to no effect. Max said in an almost normal voice, “Reload Steve. Reload Steve. Steve reload.”

Steve scrambled to reload and while the zombies pressed their advantage, Tom’s shotgun roared once more before he said, “I am out Stewart. I can’t reload with one hand.”

“Let me go Tom!” she said.

“No!”

“Let me go!”

“No!” he screamed, froth spraying out of his mouth.

A zombie loomed up behind him and Max struggled to raise the revolver, his hand was shaking so bad he could not get a clear shot and the edges of his vision started to fade into black, the fatigue and blood loss were hitting him and he started to pass out. The last thing he saw was the zombie pitching forward, the last thing he heard was the sound of Steve’s voice coming from somewhere well above him as if he, Max, had fallen into a deep mine shaft, “An a.r.r.o.w M.a.x! A.n. a.r.r.o” then he passed out.

Tom was pulling with both hands as the zombie loomed up behind him, he yelled, “Fire Max! I don’t care if you hit me! Fire Steve!” his voice raised several octaves to an almost comical pitch.

The zombie fell forward onto the side of his body, Tom thought he was done and waited for the biting, briefly wondering how badly it was going to hurt, before he realized the thing was not moving. Looking down he saw it had an arrow sticking out of the back of it's head, in fact another one was down and several more had arrows sticking out of their necks and shoulders, following the flight of the arrows backward he saw a young man and a woman standing at the edge of the parking lot amongst the heavy vegetation firing arrows into the zombies, he made himself smaller and grabbed Stewart with both hands gaining a few inches on the zombie that was trying to pull her under the car. Steve finally reloaded and fired into the remaining zombies. He saw, better than Steve, the other young men and a woman wading into the parking lot with swords, a baseball bat and even an ax! They were cutting the zombies down and they were moving to guard the front door to the clinic. As he watched one of the ‘good’ guys was mobbed by three zombies, the largest one, and he shrugged them off and hacked at them with his sword, then had to drop it when it become wrapped up in one of the zombies insides, he reached back to his belt and pulled out a large dagger and continued to slash and hack as he was once again bowled over, his friends were busy fighting their own battles, but were quick to come to his aid as soon as they could, getting him to his feet and putting his sword back into his hand, then pushing him towards the zombies between them and the clinic. Steve could swear they were laughing.

Once Steve had the gun reloaded he pointed it carefully at the lead zombie coming towards them, it already had an arrow sticking out of it's back, but had not slowed down much, he hit it just about the left eye and it dropped quickly. Steve then rolled forward, his legs still in the car, his gun hand pointing under the car and using his other hand he supported himself and tried to get a line on the zombie that had Stewart trapped under the car. The position was awkward and he could only see the mangled thing past Stewart, it was not worth taking a shot, he might hit Stewart. Steve scrambled out of the car, paused to put another bullet into an oncoming zombie and then said, “Tom! Take the pistol! Gimme the shotgun!”

Tom let go of the gun and Steve pressed the pistol into his hand, “You have seven shots left.” Steve fumbled in the pockets of Tom’s coat and came out with the shotgun shells he knew were there. He reloaded the shotgun with five shells and ducked around the back of the squad car, looking for a better angle on the zombie that had a hold on Stewart. Tom fired the pistol at more approaching zombies, the rest ran back towards the cars parked on the side of the road. Steve could not see anything at the back of the car and continued around to the driver’s side. He noticed Max was slumped unconscious in the back seat and saw the zombie’s leg sticking out from under the tire of the car on this side. Ducking down he spotted the thing’s torso, on arm was on this side of the body and was holding onto the undercarriage of the car, the other had Stewart, the zombie was trying to drag her lower leg to it's mouth, but between Stewart and Tom’s efforts the leg was not getting any closer. Steve angled the gun away from the Stewart and Tom and fired one round into the back of the things head. The car gave a sudden jerk too.