Z-Burbia 7: Sisters of the Apocalypse (8 page)

"Got it," Antoinette says as she yanks the last board free and puts her hand on the first door. "Ready?"

Audrey empties the rifle she's using and throws it across the room. I do the same with mine, so does Marcie. Antoinette is already strapped and good to go.

"Where's Froggy Girl?" I ask and look back towards the flesh barricade. The dumb Inez is shitting herself and frozen against the bodies. "Girl! You better move your shit over here now or you're getting left behind!"

I'm done babysitting Froggy Girl. She led us to a dead end and Steph got killed because of it. I ain't blaming Froggy Girl, but I ain't gonna carry her ass anywhere either.

Froggy Girl looks at us, her eyes wide with pussy-ass terror.

"It's the zombie apocalypse, bitch! Get over that shit and move your tits!" I yell at her.

She flinches, but doesn't move.

"Fuck her then," Audrey says and nods at Antoinette. "Go!"

Antoinette yanks the door open and we bust ass out into the street. Tons of Zs come at us right away, all drawn by the noise of gunfire. There are at least three times as many as before. Not surprising.

We have blades out and guns secured. No need to add to the noise by coming out shooting. Best to stab and hack our way through the horde so that the Doyles are the only ones making noise. The Zs will want our delicious lady flesh, but they are dumb as shit and the gunfire still going on inside the courthouse will draw a lot of them that direction and away from us.

I slash at a Z and take her head right off then spin and cut down a second and a third, chopping their legs off so they're just flailing dipshits. Hands grab at me and I send a few of those falling to the ground as I stab Z after Z through the eye sockets. Always aim for the eye sockets. Less resistance. There's some skull at the back, but not enough to matter and it's soft bone. Foster taught us that to use on the living. Works just as well on the dead.

The sisters are keeping things tight. We're a swirling unit of brutal violence. Heads are popping off like those dandelions that are everywhere in the summer. Pop, pop, pop. If we can't reach heads then we take off legs. If legs aren't easy to get to then we take off arms. But no matter what, every slash counts for something. No wasted energy. Can't afford that when you're fighting through a Z-horde.

"How many are we looking at?" Audrey shouts.

Antoinette is tall and gets on her tiptoes just after slicing three heads off with one stroke. Bitch is badass.

"Lots!" she yells and comes down in time to keep her balance as six Zs lunge at her.

I step in and take down four while she deals with the other two. It's just a pile of undead limbs and torsos at our feet. The heads have rolled off somewhere. Heads will do that when they ain't attached to necks no more.

"We have another block of Zs before we can get clear!" Antoinette announces.

We nod at each other and keep pushing through.

Audrey is on point and keeps us headed in the right direction while Antoinette handles left and I handle right. Marcie is on our six and she keeps the horde from closing in on our backs and taking us out from behind. But the Zs try. They're Zs. Those sons of bitches never give up.

"Alley!" I yell as I see an opening coming up to our right. "Use it or keep going?"

"Could be a dead end!" Audrey shouts. "Keep going!"

We move another few feet and another, constantly spinning, always moving, our blades slashing and cutting and chopping and—

"WAIT!" Froggy Girl screams from the courthouse as she comes out of the doors with a rifle in each hand. "WAIT!"

She opens fire on the Zs in front of her. She's firing from the hip and both rifles are barking lead into Z bodies. She has shit for aim that way, but downs enough Zs to get through part of the horde before she's surrounded. What the fuck did she think was going to happen? She's an Inez, not a sister.

"Help me!" she screams as one of her rifles jams and she tosses it aside. "Help me!"

"Fuck her," Audrey snarls as she cuts a Z in half right down the middle.

She kicks the halves out of the way, spins and chops off some Z legs then hacks two more Zs' arms off before stabbing them in the heads. Nice.

Froggy Girl is yelling at us to help her. She keeps saying please like that word means shit when you are smack dab in the middle of a Z-horde. What, I'm going to die because she's being polite? Fuck that shit.

"Move ass!" I yell back at her. "Do it yourself or die!"

She's screaming at me, but I ignore her. I have Zs to kill.

Five reach in at me, but Marcie spins around and hacks the arms off of three below the elbows before they can grab me. I stab, stab, stab them in their heads and they fall as the other two slam into me. I can't afford to go down, so I let them back me up against Antoinette. She knows what to do and does her own stabbing as I push the two Zs back far enough for her to have a shot.

With her attention on me, that means the Zs on the left are closing in fast. I return the favor and help Antoinette cut them back enough that we both have a little breathing room.

"Shit," Marcie says and laughs. "The girl is making it."

Froggy Girl empties her last rifle into the horde and kills enough Zs that she's got almost a clear path to us. I ain't big on crazy chicks shooting rifles in my direction, but I'll let it slide this time since she's in trouble.

"Use it like a club!" I yell at her as she starts to drop the empty rifle. "Beat some Z ass!"

She flips the rifle around and smashes her way through the horde. A Z grabs her by the hair, but she yanks herself free. Not without a price. That Z takes a huge hunk of hair with it and Froggy Girl screams as blood starts pouring down the back of her scalp and neck.

Shit. That's a lot of fresh blood.

"Faster!" I yell at her.

We're next to the alley and I glance over and see it's not a dead end. It opens up onto the next street over.

"This way!" I yell and hack to the right. "It's clear!"

Zs are stupid. They follow each other in hordes and herds and packs and shit. If Zs are walking on the street then other Zs join them and it turns into a stupid Z parade. They don't wander off like tourists. Alleys mean nothing to Zs unless there are noises coming from them saying it's food time.

I slash through eight Zs and I'm in the alley. I hold my position and give the sisters time to follow me. Yeah, now that we're in the alley the Zs are interested, but they don't have us surrounded anymore.

Froggy Girl screams. It's a healthy rage scream, not a pain scream. Easy to tell the difference.

"We leave her," Audrey says as she jams her blade up through the chin of a Z. "She had her chance."

"No shit," I say and drop three more Zs. "But don't mean we can't help."

I pull a grenade from the side of my pack, yank out the pin, and toss it into the horde.

"Frag out!" I yell and we move ass down the alley.

The grenade goes off and I kinda hope it hasn't ripped Froggy Girl into a hundred chunks. If she was smart then she ducked down when I yelled. If she wasn't smart then the Zs will be distracted by her fresh meat that's all over the street.

That rhymes. Meat and street.

We don't stop or look back until we're at the next street over. There are a few Zs in the street, but not even close to enough for us to worry about. I glance over my shoulder and Froggy Girl is running her ass off down the alley to us. Good for her.

"She keeps up on her own from now on," Audrey says as Froggy Girl reaches us. She's all covered in Z gore, but I don't see any bite marks. "You hear that, girl? You keep up or get left behind. We aren't gonna save your ass again."

"I hear that," she says.

That's not all we hear.

"Engines," Marcie says.

"More Doyles," Froggy Girl says and looks up and down the street. "We go this way. We can cut through that building. They'll pass right by us."

"That the direction we need to go?" Audrey asks. "To get to our Humvees?"

"You left them in a garage back by where you killed all my friends, right?" Froggy Girl asks. Ain't no anger in the question. Sounds like she's made peace with us taking out the Inezes. Not like she has much of a choice, really. "If you left them back that way then yes, this is the way to your Humvees."

"Good," Audrey says. "Lead on."

She does.

Chapter Eight

"What the fuck is this place?" Audrey asks as we squeeze between some boards after Froggy Girl. "What the hell?"

It is a weird place. There's lots of bright-colored shit. Yeah, it's got dust all over it, but you can still see the bright colors. Looks like…

"Indoor playground," Froggy Girl whispers. "I used to play here as a little girl. I liked the tunnel up on the ceiling."

We all look up at the bright orange tunnel that's bolted to the ceiling. Every few feet there is a plastic window. A tickle at the back of my mind tells me I've been in one of these places before. Maybe when I was a kid too? I bet my nanny brought me here. Not my mother because she was too busy and too much of a cold bitch to do that. But, my nanny, for sure.

My nanny? That's a weird memory. Did I have a nanny?

"Why are you whispering?" Antoinette asks Froggy Girl. "This place hasn't been cleared?"

"No," Froggy Girl replies quietly.

She points back up at the tunnel on the ceiling. We all squint in the gloom and then gasp as Z faces show up against the plastic. Little Z faces. Undead kids.

I fucking hate undead kids.

"Don't worry," Froggy Girl whispers. "They're stuck up there. They aren't smart enough to figure how to get out. They get jammed in a bend, go back the way they came, then get jammed in that bend. Back and forth."

"But we don't want them moaning and groaning," Audrey says. "They'll bring more Zs."

Froggy Girl nods.

"This way," she whispers and leads us around old play equipment to a door across the room.

It's a big room. The whole ground floor is one giant room with support beams here and there. There are plastic slides. Some small, some big. Plastic houses, plastic animals to ride, plastic picnic tables. A lot of plastic.

And a lot of bloodstains. Most of the plastic shit is covered in it. Might have been kid blood, might have been mommy blood. Ain't no way to tell now. It's all dried and brown. No bodies around to know for sure.

We keep moving, our eyes glancing up at the tunnel now and then. The Z faces are gone, but we can hear them scurrying around like hamsters. The tunnel shakes a bit as they move and we give each other a look when we see what's gonna happen.

"Shit," Audrey says.

There's a far-off boom and we all jump. Hard not to.

"Steph," I say. "Took them long enough to move her body."

"I hope she took out a bunch of those Doyle assholes," Marcie says.

It's good that the grenades I set finally went off. But it's bad because the sound gets the kid Zs even more active and dust starts falling from the ceiling as the tunnel begins to creak and pull at its bolts.

"Here," Froggy Girl says as she shoves open a door in the back wall. "There's another alley behind this building."

We run for it as the tunnel gives way. The bolts pop, pop, pop and half the ceiling just lets go, sending the bright orange tubes falling to the ground. The kid Zs groan and hiss at us as they try to get free of their tunnel, but Froggy Girl was right, they're all jammed up inside there. But they're loud enough, along with the noise the crashing tunnel made, to bring Zs to the front doors.

It's the sound of Z hands slapping at boards that echo in my ears as we get through the back door and into a storeroom. No Zs here, just lots of boxes and some old sleeping bags where someone had bedded down at one point. Froggy Girl leads us to a last door with a dead exit sign hanging by a couple wires over it. She pushes the heavy bar in the middle and sunlight streams into the dark storeroom.

We get outside and stop. Engines. Close engines.

"Up against the wall," Audrey says just as two Humvees go driving by the mouth of the alley.

We flatten up against the wall. I have to yank Froggy Girl with me because she just stands there, her head cocked.

"Those were Humvees, right?" she asks.

"Yep," I say.

"Doyles don't have Humvees," she says. "They have panel trucks, pickup trucks and Jeeps. No Humvees."

"Are you shitting me?" Audrey snaps and stares at the mouth of the alley. "Did those assholes jack our rides?"

The engines get loud again and the two Humvees come back into view as they reverse up the street. One of them must have seen us before we got up against the wall. At least Audrey's question is answered.

Those are our Humvees.

"God dammit!" Audrey yells and starts to pull her rifle from her back.

"Those are ours," Antoinette says, putting a hand on Audrey's arm. "We shoot them up and we don't have a way back to the Stronghold."

"Not cross country," Marcie says. "We'll have to use roads which means twice as long to travel with crazies and scavengers waiting to ambush us."

"God dammit!" Audrey shouts again. Men are yelling and getting out of the Humvees as she whirls on Froggy Girl. "Where can we go from here?"

"We can't," Froggy Girl replies. "That's the only way out."

We look down the alley at the blocked mouth. Doyles are coming at us with rifles raised.

"Shit, shit, shit," Audrey says. "Back inside?"

"Don't have much of a choice," Marcie says.

"We could try to shoot it out," Antoinette suggests.

"El?" Audrey asks me.

I look up and see how the light is changing. The sun is going to set soon. No fun running and fighting Zs or Doyles at night. But if we go back inside then we're trapped.

"El!" Audrey snaps.

"We stand and fight," I say. "See how that goes. If we don't make no ground then we go back inside and barricade the door. Wait until morning to make another move."

"Shit," Audrey says. "Get the Barrett ready."

Shots ring out and we hit the ground. I pull my .45s and fire at the Doyles coming at us. They scatter to the sides of the alley, hiding behind piles of old trash and a couple dumpsters down by the mouth. We don't have shit to hide behind except tossed out old play equipment and that shit is plastic. Plastic don't stop bullets worth a crap.

Antoinette is getting the Barrett off my pack as I keep firing. Audrey and Marcie join in while Froggy Girl just lies flat on the ground, her hands over her ears.

"My turn," Antoinette says as she sets the Barrett onto its bipod and flips up the scope's covers. "Dumpster."

That's all she says as she pulls back the bolt, takes a deep breath, and fires. A hole the size of my fist opens in the dumpster and a man screams. Only the one scream. You get hit by one of those .50 caliber slugs and you don't do much more than scream once and then fucking die.

There's some shouting and a couple Doyles lean out from behind their cover and open fire on us. We return the fire and they duck back fast. We may not have cover, but we have accuracy. One of the men cries out as he takes a bullet to the leg. Might have been my bullet, might have been Marcie's or Audrey's. Wasn't Antoinette's or the leg would be nothing but mist.

The Barrett barks again and another Doyle screams. Just the once.

Two Doyles jump out from their hides and run at us, yelling and shouting while they fire their rifles. Shit. Doyles is suicidal. They fall fast under our fire, but it gives the others time to regroup and come at us too. Antoinette turns a Doyle's chest into mulch, which makes the others pause, but it's easy as shit to see how things are gonna go.

Bullets ring out around us and I take some concrete chips to my cheek.

"Inside," Audrey orders. "If reinforcements come, we'll be overrun."

"Idiots ain't afraid to die," Marcie says as she puts down two more.

"I'd rather not," Antoinette says, her cheek resting against the Barrett's stock. She fires again and one of the dumpsters lurches out into the alley. She fires three more times, using the force of the slugs to move the dumpster so it blocks the alley mouth. "Go!"

I grab Froggy Girl and drag her to the playground's back door. I pull it open and shove her inside then step back out and provide cover fire for the other sisters. Marcie is first up and over to me. She takes up my place and I eject the magazines from my .45s so I can slap in fresh ones.

I have a fresh magazine in one, but don't have the other loaded before I see Froggy Girl jump back from the door that goes from the storeroom out into the playground. She tries to slam the door closed, but Z hands are reaching through the gap and blocking her.

"Shit!" I yell and run over to her. I jam my .45 into the gap and fire until it's empty. "Move!"

Froggy Girl falls back on her ass and I slam the door closed. It shakes and rattles in the frame as the Zs shove against it.

"They broke in through the front!" I yell over my shoulder as Marcie and Audrey hurry into the storeroom. There's another bang from the Barrett then Antoinette joins us. "Did you hear me?"

"We heard you," Audrey says as she slams the back door closed and makes sure it's locked tight. "Doesn't matter now. Two more trucks pulled up. That alley is full of Doyles."

"Dead Doyles," Antoinette says, setting the Barrett down, careful not to touch the smoking hot barrel.

"Still plenty of live ones," Audrey says.

We all turn and look at the door to the playground. It ain't gonna hold long. The back door to the alley is made of heavy-duty metal so folks couldn't break in back when that was a worry pre-Z. But the door inside, the one to the playground, is just wood. And it's shitty wood.

I look around and see a ladder off in the corner.

"Roof," I say. "Only chance."

Audrey nods in agreement and races over to the ladder. The storeroom is a couple stories high since it's the same height as the big room where the playground is. It takes Audrey a lot longer to climb the ladder than we'd like, but she gets up there and shoves on the hatch in the ceiling. It doesn't move for a few seconds, long enough for the door to the playground to splinter and crack.

"Audrey," Antoinette warns.

"I fucking know," Audrey says and shoves harder. The hatch pops free and goes flying out onto the roof.

Stupid design. It should have hinges.

Audrey puts her head up through the hatch then yells and pulls a pistol from her belt. She fires as a Z shows its face. The body tumbles past her and splats on the floor at the base of the ladder. Audrey holds the pistol on the hatch for a couple more seconds then quickly climbs through and rolls out of sight.

"Clear!" she calls.

The door to the playground splits down the middle and none of us hesitate. We run for the ladder and start to climb. Antoinette is last as she grabs the Barrett up, ignoring the hot barrel, and throws the strap over her shoulders so it's braced against her back.

I climb halfway up the ladder then hook an arm in the rungs and swing my body out flat against the wall so the others can get by. I fire down at the Zs that rush at Antoinette, giving her enough space to get a few rungs up and out of reach. It ain't easy climbing a ladder with a full pack and a Barrett on your back. I've been there.

"Thanks," Antoinette says as she passes me on the ladder.

I drop a couple more Zs just to trip the others up then swing back onto the ladder and follow Antoinette up onto the roof.

When I'm up there, Audrey shoves the hatch top back on and closes it tight. No way to lock it, but it don't matter. Anyone opens that hatch and tries to come through, they'll get a couple bullets to the face.

"Spread out and report," Audrey says.

We each take a side of the building and look down below. My side is the alley and I see a whole ton of Doyles running to the back door. They have rifles aimed and look like they are debating who's going in first as one of them pries at the door with a crowbar. A couple of them get to arguing, but finally one yanks open the door and opens fire without even looking inside.

Fire all he wants, one rifle at close range against a horde of Zs don't mean shit. He's buried in Zs before the other Doyles know what's going on. But they're survivors, so they figure it out fast. Every one of them starts shooting while they back away from the door. But, damn, if the Zs don't keep coming.

"Three trucks on the north side," Antoinette says as she comes up next to me.

"Nothing on the west side, but no way down either," Marcie says, joining us.

We watch the Doyles flee back down the alley and back to the Humvees.

"One truck on the south side," Audrey says. "Long-haul semi. I only see a driver and a passenger. Got a heavy wedge welded to the front. But it's way down the street, just watching the Zs pour inside this building from the front."

"They use that to smash through hordes," Froggy Girl says.

"Yeah, I figured," Audrey replies. "But they aren't smashing through the one below. Probably letting as many as possible get inside before they make their move."

"Burn us out?" Marcie asks.

"That's what I'd do," Audrey replies.

"They're gonna burn the building?" Froggy Girl asks.

"If they have any brains in their heads at all," Audrey responds. "We've shown them we can hack our way through a horde of Zs. We've also tipped our hand that we have a Barrett .50 caliber. With all the Zs already in the building, they'd be the stupidest crazies in the world if they try to come in for us. Toss some diesel around the sides of the building and light a match. Poof."