The Dead Rise (Book 1): Zombies and Chainsaws (10 page)

Chuck screamed, "What the fuck is going on tonight! There's goddamn weirdos in the street moaning and shit! I got you dumb asses falling all over me, and on top of all of that I didn't get one damn girl who hit on me at the bar, they are practically indebted to me for -"

Jude and the other two men just stared trying to push back up off the ground and finding it hard to be mad at him when he had no idea what was actually going on. Kindra came around the corner gaining speed. Chuck saw her and screamed like a girl.

"What the hell happened to her Jude? You were supposed to screw her not murder her, Jesus, what were the two of you -"

Jude could only think of one word having time to finally process what he was seeing thinking of her getting bit, dying, and coming back to life. Jude screamed, “Zombie, Chuck, she is a damn zombie!”

He waited to hear a rebuttal, a reason why she wasn't but if Chuck had something that was great about him it was that if he had an answer and enough visible evidence he would take that to heart. He ran over to a dumpster finding a two by four board and ran back as she dived towards Jude who was still trying to get back up. Chuck ran straight for her staggering a bit and swung in a circle sending all of the force from a four-foot long board into her gut. 

It connected with her and sent her off of her feet backward and skidding across the concrete leaving a trail of skin and blood. Chuck walked up helping Jude and the others to their feet unsure what was really going on there.

Roger said, “Damn nice hit there Chuck. Thank you so much brother.”

Chuck looked at his handy work but unfortunately it had done little but what seemed to possibly piss her off even more. She pushed back to her feet, the pain of the hit had already disappeared and she was back up ready to go. When she came at Chuck a second time he brought the board up over his head and brought it down with everything he had, to send it into her skull and split it open. She fell to the ground and the men stood nearby and just watched for a second. Chuck not caring one way or another walked up one more time bringing the giant wood down once more and did a finishing blow. Her head completely split and the brains spilled out of her skull.

Jude said, "I don't think she was gonna get back up man."

“I don’t give two shits Jude, she tried to eat us. We need to get the hell out of this town, there is something strange going on,” Chuck said.

Pete pushed up rubbing at his ribs giving Jude a look, “Yeah you got that right.”

Jude said, "I need to call Maria and let her know what is happening. What if this is not just here."

Roger said, "Uh you can call her from the road dude we need to go. I get what you are saying, but something must have made her this way, and we have yet to find out who or what that was."

Jude didn’t care and he said, “Well then we need to keep our eyes out.”

Pete said, “No we need something to break their heads in and we need some guns to shoot as well.”

Jude said, “What if shooting them in the head doesn’t work?”

Pete said, “Of course it will work, it is common knowledge how you kill zombies stupid. I just don’t know where the hell we are going to find a bunch of guns in podunk Missouri.”

Jude said, “Well let’s at least get back to the van. I think with all of this I got good and sobered up real quick.”

Chuck said, "Well that's good because I feel like shit still and I'm going to have one hell of a hangover come Saturday morning."

Jude said, "Lets hope we see Saturday Chuck. Come on we need to get going. We need to get outta here."

Pete said, “You think you might want to go and grab your boots and stuff there Jude?”

Jude looked down at himself. He’d forgotten he’d been half naked when he ran out of the motel room only wearing a pair of Levis and nothing else.

He nodded, “Yeah boots might not be too stupid of an idea huh? I think we ought to try driving by the sheriff’s office on the way to and let him know, if he hasn’t already figured it out what is going on.”

They headed back to the room to gather their things, which weren't much, they heard what sounded like an army marching. Chuck walked out peering into the dark he yelled to Jude.

"Hey, Jude I think there are more of those things out there."

Jude said, “Well how many of them do you think there are?”

Chuck didn’t have a chance to answer because when he saw the horde walking toward him he was incapable of speech. He did a sign of the cross and ran to Roger and Pete’s room not knocking and yelling, “Get your shit and get to Jude’s room, there are hundreds of those things walking into the motel courtyard we got about a minute ‘til they are here. Come on over to our room, I think we ought to stick together if you know what I mean!”

The two men came to the door seeing the mob coming toward them and realized instantly how unimportant a bag full of clothes was to them. They dropped their stuff where they stood and they sprinted out of the room and to Jude’s slamming the remains of the door shut. Chuck cringed when the door slammed and peered out the window guaranteeing the thought that there was a good chance these things could hear somehow because they started their walk toward the noise of the door shutting. Chuck watched as the sea of them made their way in. They never stopped filling the courtyard and within a few minutes they had the space crammed with bodies.

Chuck walked past Jude who was pulling on a pair of cowboy boots and went to the bathroom staring at the tiny window that was useless. He looked down at his gut and knew even Jude would be hard pressed to be able to fit out of it. He thought about how little Pete was and that maybe they could push him out of it but didn't see him volunteering too much for being pushed out a window into the unknowing night to be alone. He stood on the toilet pulling the window down until he had broken the chains keeping it up, off. He twisted his head to the side looking out the window and nothing but dead eyes stared back at him.
Chuck got off of the toilet and walked into the living and sleeping room quarters. Chuck said, “Hey guys slow down we uh got a -”

Jude who was not understanding, cut him off, "What do you mean slow down, we need to shift into high gear and get the fuck out of here or we are screwed.
”

Jude ran to the bathroom verifying they were most definitely trapped. He said, “What do you guys think we should do?”

Pete said, “Do you guys want to wait them out? Do you think they will get bored?”

Chuck said, “I don't know if they will get bored. But some poor bastard might come walking through or driving hopefully and draw their undivided attention away from us.”

Jude said, “I don't know if waiting around here is that good of an idea. I think we need to leave.”

Roger said, “You know Jude I really like that idea of us leaving, but the van is over a mile away and those damn things are everywhere. You couldn't tell me how many you think there are without getting a much, much closer look at them.”

Pete said, "So what the hell do we do? Eventually, they are going to figure out that if enough of those dumb asses push against the window it is going to break. We all know after that it is just a matter of time before enough of them pile together and they can fall through the window. I think we all know at that point what is going to happen.
”

Chuck who was not shy about facing the reality of the horrible circumstances they were under said, “Yes, they break the window we are fucked. It's about that simple.”

Jude stared around at the room for a moment weighing the small group’s options quietly to himself in his head. He walked over ripping the sheets off of the bed that were stained with the waitress’s blood and tossed them all on the floor. He bent down next to the bed examining the rails and saw there were not even so much as wheels on the bottom of the bed as small spikes that they sat on keeping the frame in the air. The other three men stared trying to figure out what he was doing and if he had lost his mind.

Roger said, “Jude what the hell are you doing man we need to figure out a plan, we need to get the hell out of here. Have you lost your mind?”

Jude laughed as he stared at the bed. He looked up and he said, "You know I would say all in all, for being in the middle of some small town fucking zombie apocalypse, I think that I'm doing better than most. I don't have a lot to compare this too given you know, I've never had anything like this happen before."

Roger said, “Yes I will give you that one. What is it that you want to do with the bed though?”

Jude lifted it up off of the ground and pointed to the spikes. He said, "I think if we put this up against the window we could hammer the bed frame into the drywall and hopefully if we put Chuck's bed frame on the opposite side of it, we can make a makeshift fence and keep those things from breaking through once they figure out the window."

Chuck who had no plan decided that Jude’s was better than nothing. He walked over helping Jude put it up against the wall and Jude held it while Chuck hammered at it with his two-by-four until it was into the wood studs tight. By the time they were done with the first bed Pete and Roger had already gotten the second bed stripped of the mattress and they placed it where it needed to be so that Chuck could continue hitting it into place.
When Chuck had made his final strike on the frame the four men backed up admiring their handiwork. Chuck said, “Do you think that thing is going to hold, is it enough?”

Jude said, "Well if it doesn't this room is going to be filling up pretty damn quickly."

Watching the window and waiting for the inevitable to happen, the group of men did not have to wait very long. The moaning became louder on the opposite side of the window, and within minutes the group of dead had smashed every piece of glass out of the window frame. They watched in horror as the dead tried to eat their way through the metal bed frames, ignorant to the fact that it was an impossible feat to be had, but the word
can't
was not in their moaning vocabulary. Their teeth began to break on the railing of the beds and the men just stared, waiting for help that after a time they realized wasn't going to come.

After a half hour Jude who had got side tracked with the dead remembered he had not called home to see if they were okay. Jude dialed the number and waited knowing he would be waking up Maria and most likely Patrick which was something that he could live with. The phone rang six times before Maria answered the phone groggy and not yet fully awake.

She whispered, “Hello, Grimes residence, who the hell is this?”

Jude on the other end yelled startling her, “Oh thank God you're still alive!”

This made Maria popup waking confused if she had imagined the words he had said or in her tired state was just what was able to be understood.

She said, “Jude-Jude is that you?”

Jude who was very much awake yelled back, “Of course it's me - who the hell else would be calling this early in the morning?
”

She looked at the clock seeing it was just after three in the morning and could not think of a soul that would be calling this early. She said, “Apparently only inconsiderate asses like you would call this early Jude. Now can you explain again what in the hell is going on?”

Jude spoke extremely quickly and knew he would sound like an insane man. He screamed it anyway, “The dead! It's the dead! They are rising, they are everywhere and they're trying to kill us all.”

Maria pulled at her hair leaning against the kitchen counter in her worn bathrobe nodding her head. She said, "Oh, of course, the dead are coming back to life, and here I thought you were going to say something that might sound, you know, a little bit crazy. I told you to get laid Jude, not go down and experiment with drugs."

Jude yelled, “Would you just look out your window and make sure they aren't in the street?”

She opened the blinds and other than a stray cat walking across the street hunting for a mouse to eat there was nothing to be seen. She said, “Jude damn it did you go out with Chuck tonight by chance?”

Jude was getting very frustrated. He said, “Look I'm not crazy and I wouldn’t believe you if you called me telling me this line of shit either, but I don’t know what to tell you. These things are walking around and they are trying to kill me. Other than sending you a picture in the mail there isn’t a lot else I can do to try and convince you of what it is I am saying.”

Maria sat on the other end rubbing at the bridge of her nose. She said, “Okay so what do you want me to do Jude?”

Jude sat there open-mouthed realizing there was very little that she could do. He said, "I'm not calling for help I'm just calling to warn ya'll okay. In the morning, I want the two of you to get your butts out of bed early and head on over to the grocery store. I want you to buy like you are shopping for an army and make sure you get plenty of stuff we can just boil with water. You get plenty of canned goods too. If I'm wrong then don't worry about it. I'll make it right with the manager somehow and return it all, you got me?"

Maria said, "I don't know if we will be able to head out in the morning Jude, it is supposed to rain cats and dogs tomorrow."

Jude yelled into the phone something that wasn't in his normal nature when speaking to Maria who was well aware of this fact. He said, "Oh for God’s sake woman would you just do what I say and trust me that I'm not completely bat shit fucking crazy, please! I need to go, I got a lot of shit to figure out, like how to stay alive and get the hell out of this fucking hotel room. Tell Patrick that I love him very, very much."