Running with the Horde (7 page)

Chapter 16

“Back on the Hunt”

             
Wariness and stealth were still top of my mind as I moved along the streets toward Rose Hill. I was getting much more comfortable being out among the undead but I wasn’t ready to fully trust my new found fortune just yet. I was still jumping every time I saw movement but soon there were zombies everywhere around me. I had a feeling we were going to the same place.

             
I stopped to rest at the base of Hillcrest Street which traveled up a long steep hill. There would be no trouble locating the house the truck went to. I would only need to follow the zombies which were flowing up the street like a river of salmon. If the horde of zombies wasn’t enough, the sound of generators and loud, base-heavy music would have been a dead giveaway to their location as well.

             
The number of undead steadily multiplied and soon open space was at a premium. I stood like a small tree in a riverbed as they flowed around me. It was getting late and I didn’t want to stand like that forever. I stepped into the fray and began moving with the zombies up the hill at a slight trot.

             
At first it was difficult keeping my footing with so many bodies around me. Breathing the rancid air of rotting flesh was gross but eventually I got into a kind of rhythm with the crowd. A weird sense of giddiness overtook me when I realized I was running with the horde. I even grunted a few times to fit in but stopped doing that when I noticed the zombies around me were staring my way as we ran. This almost made me lose my footing so I shut my mouth. After a few more steps they looked away.

             
Winded, sweaty and working up a decent side ache, I eventually made it up the hill and around a corner. The zombies began to slow down considerably as bodies grew more tightly packed as though we’d hit some kind of barrier. I was starting to get very nervous as I lost my freedom of movement. My arms were bent at the elbows in front of me with my fists pressing firmly against the sport coat of a very large walking corpse in front of me. My pack and shotgun were digging painfully into my back. I couldn’t see a damn thing. I could hardly move. The smell was making me dizzy and the thumping of the base was very loud. I figured I was in about the middle of the street and I needed to get out of the crowd in a bad way.

             
I began to jostle my way blindly to the right. Sticky substances gushed into my face and on my clothes. These could only be body fluids from the zombies around me. The idea of this made me dry heave, as I shoved harder to get out of the crowd. I couldn’t tell if I was making progress or not but I could feel a panic attack coming on.

             
Over the roar of the crowd I heard men hollering and cheering. There were flashes of bright light above my head and I thought I smelled smoke through the haze of rot.

             
My struggles were for nothing for soon I could hardly move. I was stuck in a quicksand of rotting humanity and it felt like my throat was slowly closing.

             
I began to thrash harder as full panic set in. My head was pounding and I was screaming obscenities to no one in particular. That’s when the gunshots started and I almost fell to my knees. I held tightly to anything I could grab, I knew if I went down I would die.

             
The gunfire got the crowd good and frenzied and I was knocked forward and then back in the surge, the wind leaving my lungs with a low grunt.

             
Now I was no longer moving on my own but being roughly shoved to the right by many hands, hips and legs moving in a hive-mind type of coordination. I popped out of the side of the mob like a cork from a wine bottle onto a darkened knoll on someone’s front yard. I sat there on my knees panting and sore. Any thought of luck was gone, something was definitely different about me. I just had no idea what an understatement that was.

             
After a few minutes I was ready for action again. I rose to my feet and steadied myself on a big oak tree situated behind me on the little hill. The zombies were in an absolute frenzy and from my vantage point atop of the knoll I could finally see why.

Chapter 17

“Fort Friendly”

             
I was in a cul-de-sac similar to my own but this one came with a much higher tax bracket. The bad guys from the truck had commandeered the large estate in the center of the circle. It had once been a beautiful modern mansion but now it looked like something Saddam Hussein might have felt safe living in.

             
My initial assessment of these men changed from disdain to wary respect.

             
They had constructed a heavy duty wall around the entire perimeter. A wall that would have made the Emperor of China blush. It was so thick there were men standing comfortably on top of it, shooting guns and tossing stuff onto the crowd of zombies below.

             
In front of the wall was a tangle of medieval looking pikes and bushels of razor wire. The only open area was a big gate. In front of the gate was a large deep pit. Any zombies who charged the gate would fall into the hole. It was filled to the brim with writhing bodies. I guessed, based on the layout, the gate lowered like a drawbridge when it opened.

             
Beyond the wall stood two covered platforms, like those elaborate deer stands occasionally found in the north woods. It stood to reason there were another two behind the house so they could post lookouts at every corner. There was probably a rear gate as well so they had an emergency exit but at this point I was only guessing.

             
I stood before a modern-day suburban fortress, built to withstand multitudes of zombies. There was no way this had been constructed after the Sickness broke out and people turned into mindless, man-eating corpses. Someone was playing with house money.

             
My ability to follow through on a rescue mission was beginning to look impossible. I sat down by the tree to study the men for a while and try to come up with some sort of plan.

             
It wasn’t long as I looked at them before I decided that ‘bad guys’ did not adequately describe these people, those words were far too genteel. These fuckers were savage animals with lizard brains and assholes for faces. I hated each one on sight.

             
A big party seemed to be underway inside the house. It was lit up like Christmas and the music was really fucking loud. Somewhere large generators were working overtime to fuel this fantastic display of wanton energy waste.

             
The shadowy figures I could see in the windows could have been dancing but I doubted it. My imagination did not have to work very hard to conjure up the fate of the people they had taken in the truck.

             
The good times party express had overflowed to some of the guards as they seemed to be drunk. There were three men on top of the wall passing a bottle back and forth. The man on the left was doing spit-takes with his booze as he watched the man in the middle gyrate and pop off rounds into the zombies below to the beat of the music. The man on the right also thought this was hilarious and was on his knees, wheezing with glee. He held a pistol haphazardly in his hand aimed precariously at his cohorts.

             
Of the two men in the guard towers, one seemed to be asleep sitting down in a chair with a cowboy hat covering his face and his legs sprawled casually over the side rail. The barrel of a rifle sticking up by his head. I recognized the stupid hat from the truck.

             
The other guard did not appear to be drunk and did not appear to be happy. He was standing almost at attention staring at the bozos on the fence with contempt smoldering on his face like a brush fire just getting ready to ignite.

             
He had a big scoped rifle cradled firmly in his arms and a toothpick held captive between tightly grimaced lips.

             
In spite of my ill will toward the men on the fence I got a queasy feeling in my belly as I could sense what was about to happen. The gyrating fellow ceased his shooting and tossed his rifle back behind the wall, unzipped his fly and began urinating on the zombies.

             
The left side fellow made a big show of looking away but clearly thought this was a laugh riot. He fell on his ass and almost toppled over the side, catching himself at the last moment. He was too drunk and too full of the giggles to fully appreciate his near death experience.

             
Quick as a rattle snake the toothpick chewing guard from the tower raised his rifle and shot the peeing man in the back of the head spraying blood and brain matter into the crowd below. The man’s body followed shortly thereafter.

             
The zombies went ape-shit to get a piece of him. I felt a surge of energy pulse through me that almost made me pass out.

             
I sat there blinking the spots from my vision as the laughing man got suddenly serious and rose carefully to his feet. The man in other guard tower woke up and looked over at the shooter with a glare as he adjusted his cowboy hat. He picked up a radio and spoke something into it before resuming sentry duty.

             
The man who had been laughing was now stone-cold sober. He was trying to look small as he slowly climbed down a ladder I couldn’t see back into the compound. The remaining man on the wall was sobbing and staring into the zombies below looking for his fallen friend and glancing back nervously at the shooter.

             
He was screaming, “What the fuck, Tegan?! What the fuck?!”

             
I wasn’t sure if Tegan was the shooter or the man who’d been shot. I watched the shooter as he eyeballed the remaining man. The look on his face said he longed to shoot him as well but he did not.

             
In time, two new men appeared on the fence and escorted the sobbing man away. That left only the two tower guards, both of whom were now very stoic.

             
The music ended abruptly a minute or so later. All but two lights went out in the house and all was quiet.

             
Except, of course, for the maddening chorus of a thousand ever-hungry zombies.

Chapter 18

“Zombie Team 6”

             
The zombies continued to stream in until the entire complex was surrounded by deep waves of bodies on all sides. They now occupied all of the visible terrain with the exception of my dark little knoll. They steered clear of that because of me I suppose and our confusing kinship. I stood in awe of the multitudes of undead people all around me.

             
I didn’t think there had been that many people in Friendly to begin with.

             
As the mansion of terror became a must-see attraction in the realms of the undead, I was desperately running through my options. Being that I now had unlimited freedom of movement I had a tremendous amount of choices at my disposal. I could try to burn them out or blow up their wall. I could find a tank, learn how to drive it and smash my way inside. All of these and many more ideas I considered and really thought they were all good ones. What I lacked, however, was time and know-how.

             
I didn’t know how long the prisoners could remain under the care of the animals inside the wall without undergoing some major negative life events. Based on the weird dance party I witnessed, I was already too late to help some of them. I wouldn’t know for sure until I got inside and I needed to do that soon. I would have to use what I had on hand.

             
My two guns were basically useless. Even if I got inside I would be grossly outnumbered. I was stumped and growing very frustrated with my apparent impotence when a zombie mailman tripped and went sprawling at my feet. Mail from his bag spilled out and I went to help him gather the mail and put it back in the bag.

             
I am sad to say I repacked most of it before I realized he was just standing there staring at me with two large bulging eyes and I remembered why we were there. As he disappeared into the crowd I pictured him reciting the postman’s credo.

             
Then it occurred to me that I was flush with resources. I had, with conservative estimation, a few thousand time bombs just hanging around waiting for me to find a way to get them inside the compound. I went from depressed to giddy in a heartbeat. I needed some tools. I located a dark garage outside the cone of their large mounted lights, grabbed my shotgun and leapt into the crowd.

             
My going was much easier this time as the zombies divided in front of me like I was a hot knife and they were butter, opening a nice little path for on the way to the garage. I stopped being amazed at new developments and just enjoyed my good fortune.

             
I made it to my destination in seconds and began looking for a way into the garage where all normal Americans kept their tools in tidy metal boxes.

             
The side door was locked but there was a convenient window which I promptly smashed in with the butt of the shotgun. I stuck my elbow in to unlock the door but not before a moment’s hesitation as I wondered if there were zombies inside. Some habits are hard to break.

             
The air inside smelled pleasantly of motor oil and old grass clippings and was zombie free! It was a classic garage smell and provided a really nice break from the air outside. I took out my flashlight and did a careful search of the area with one hand covering the beam so the guards didn’t see strange lights flashing in the garage of a neighbor who was supposedly on permanent hiatus and would not, therefore, be using the garage.

             
I located the tool chest and found a large wire cutter, a pry bar and a big claw hammer. Then I located an aluminum ladder hanging along the wall and hefted that down as well

             
It took me a while to make it back because I had to drag the ladder behind me and pray nobody noticed one of the zombies was dragging a ladder. Before long I was breathless and back on my knoll trying to decide on my entry point, the ladder hidden safely behind the big oak tree.

             
The house was still silent but now all the interior lights were out. This was good. The guards were still guarding, this was not good.

             
The outside lights illuminated almost every portion of the yard around the house with the exception of one dark area on the side where the cones of light did not touch. I would have about ten feet to work with.

             
I cut a wide circle through the neighbor’s yard and began my approach through the crowd hoping they would let me pass but still allow me to blend in. I made it to the part of the wall I had marked in my head and went to work with the wire cutters and the pry bar, the zombies moving to accommodate my need of the space.

             
Cutting through five feet of razor wire and checking every few moments to ensure I remained unnoticed was an exercise in patience for me but eventually I cleared enough space to fit the ladder in. I took out the hammer and began wailing away on the pikes, the sound of the hammer lost in the roar of the massive horde. I hammered until the pikes were loose enough for me to push aside.

             
I turned to the zombies gathered around me in a tight semi-circle and commanded them to stay away from my handiwork. They seemed to pause for a second before resuming their growling and pawing at each other. I scrambled back through the crowd to retrieve the ladder.

             
Soon I had it positioned against my cleared out portion of the wall. I moved up each rung at a slow creep until my head crowned the top. I peeped timidly over expecting to see a gang of thugs looking up at me with weapons drawn. Instead, the ground below me was dark and empty.

             
There were rear guards lounging in similar towers looking out over the rear section of the wall. I could see them from atop the ladder. Sure enough they had built a second gate in the back. I marveled again at the ingenuity and brawn it must have required to construct the wall and turn the large house into a fortress.

             
An absurd pang of regret that my actions might ruin it did a belly flop in my gut. Then I remembered the choked-off scream of the old man and I quashed that feeling.

             
I would burn the fucking place to the ground if I could.

             
I also couldn’t get my mind around the sheer stupidity of partying so loud they drew all the zombies within a few miles to their front door. They were so confident in their wall that they had allowed themselves to be cut off from any possible escape until the zombies disbursed.

             
It didn’t add up that someone smart enough to oversee construction of this magnitude would put themselves in this position. Something I would sort out later I told myself, if I lived that long.

             
Now came the hard part. I tossed Dave’s shotgun and my pack over the wall as quietly as I could and climbed down from the ladder. I turned to group of zombies nearest to me and asked for volunteers. A bunch of arms were already up so I could see they weren’t going to make this easy for me. I was reminded of grade school when I had the chore of picking my team for kickball. It was always very stressful for me. I didn’t like to hurt feelings.

             
I grabbed a stout looking fellow in a dirty gray hoodie by one of his outstretched arms and half led him, half dragged him to the base of the ladder. I positioned him in front of it and he just stood there like an idiot. I placed both of his arms into position on the ladder, still nothing from him.

             
“You gotta give me something here, bub,” I said but he wasn’t listening.

             
I put one of his blue-jean clad legs on the first rung hoping he would get the idea. He didn’t. Exasperated, I got behind him and began shoving his under quarters up the ladder.

             
This was a memorable task for me as I found my face in very close proximity to his overripe ass but I found I could get him to climb if I pushed him up one rung at a time. Finally he reached the top and I bull rushed him over with as much energy as I could muster. His legs flipped over the wall flinging a shoe over my head. I worried he might break his neck on the ground but then I remembered it didn’t matter.

             
By the fourth zombie I had a really good process down; select, drag, position, walk up, shove over and repeat. I had also worked up quite a nasty lather which, I was horrified to note, was not entirely made up of my own fluids. But this should be expected when a person essentially gives several shoulder rides to slowly rotting dead people.

             
The last individual I selected, for what I began referring to as Zombie Team 6, was a smallish older lady because I was tired. The moment her legs flipped over the side I scrambled up to the top of the wall and began pulling the ladder up with me. I doubted my ability to sustain the fall without injuring myself and since I wasn’t a zombie, I knew I would feel it if I broke a limb.

             
The ladder was loud as hell but I finally got it settled on the other side of the fence so I could start my descent.

             
My little squad of the undead had mostly wandered off. The only one still in sight was the last one. She did not do very well with the fall and appeared to have lost mobility from the neck down. She was still moaning and snapping her jaws like a wind-up Halloween toy.

             
She had no quit in her, I’ll give her that much. I climbed down and put her out of her misery with two hard stomps to the head.

             
I ran to the side of the house and stood in almost pitch-black darkness by the corner. Minutes ticked by like hours, I thought perhaps the zombies had been a waste of time and I would need to go in alone.

             
As I was devising Plan B, a gunshot split the night from one of the tower guards and I heard, very clearly, a man scream into some kind of amplifier.

             
“BREACH!!!”

             
More shots erupted from the guards, something heavy crashed inside the house and lights flared on, illuminating a storm of activity. Moments later, the big front doors flew open with a crash and armed men came piling out in a frenzy, cursing and falling all over each other.

             
One of my zombies had positioned himself conveniently in the dead shrubbery next to the door. He launched himself on one of the men, burying rancid teeth deep into his exposed neck.

             
This surprise attack knocked any remaining cobwebs from the minds of the men as they turned to their fallen comrade and opened fire from multiple guns killing him, the zombie and another of their own who had tripped during the initial melee.

             
Two more of my zombies rushed in towards the commotion and the men went into full panic mode, their minds perhaps seeing more than just two zombies. They scattered and fired indiscriminately at the zombies catching more of their own in the crossfire.

             
At least fifteen men had come out of the house. Five were down and the rest were trying to regroup in the yard to find the source of the breach. The guard towers were now empty, this worried me. Of the men I’d seen so far, the tower guards had seemed the most competent. I peered around the corner and saw my opening. I walked causally out into the light, up the front steps and entered the front doors which were still ajar.