Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (Undead World Trilogy, Book One) (26 page)
Read Blood of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (Undead World Trilogy, Book One) Online
Authors: A.P. Fuchs
Off to the side, the dull thwacks of metal beating against bone forced Joe to aim his gun in that direction. Des stood there amidst five undead, slamming his pipe into their faces, the look of sheer rage upon Des’s face enough to make even Joe feel a tad uncomfortable.
Whoa, easy there, cowboy,
he thought. Yet at the same time he was proud of the timid lad for finally standing on his own.
Another computer monitor quickly followed by its processor flew out of the window above, whistling through the air. The monitor clunked one zombie in the shoulder. The processor missed its target and landed in between two others. When it broke against the ground, the sudden bang was enough to the get the zombies to stop, look down, and slow their advance.
From above: “Get close to the building! Hurry!”
Joe fired the X-09, dropping another creature. He took Billie by the hand once she was in reach.
“This sucks!” she screamed.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Come on.”
“What? Are you crazy?” she yelped as he tugged her closer to the building wall. “You wanna box ourselves in or something and die?”
“Des!” Joe shouted over the murmurs and groans of the dead.
Des turned and withdrew his pipe from a zombie’s eye socket. Blood coated the young man’s face. He didn’t seem to care. Grimacing, Des gave Joe a nod then whirled around and slammed his pipe into the temple of an old dead lady before stepping over the bodies to get to them. One large dead black dude stumbled toward him. Des didn’t seem to know the guy was there. Joe fired off another shot. The creature fell.
Des’s eyes darted toward the deceased then back at Joe, shooting him a cool glare. “I saw him.”
“Yeah, right,” Joe said. “Let’s go.”
The three made it to the building.
The undead closed in. Fortunately many were slowed by having to step around or over their fallen kin. Still, there had to be at least thirty coming their way.
Glass shattered above and rained down just to the left.
“Look out!” Billie said as a mammoth wooden desk tumbled over the window frame five stories up and crashed upon a few zombies; its now-broken-in-half-top squashed what was left of those who had already fallen.
“Is this guy nuts?” Billie said, eyes wide.
“Probably,” Des said. To Joe: “So, now what?”
“He said to get to the building. That’s all I—”
Cloonk!
Something nearly nicked Joe in the shoulder. The thing dangled beside him for a moment before he realized what it was: a fire hose.
The old coot leaned on his palms against the window frame above. “Grab on and climb up!”
The three just stood there. Was he serious?
“You wanna die!” the old guy shouted. He reached down to somewhere behind the window and pulled out his rifle. He took aim and fired.
Joe jumped just as something heavy landed on his toes. He looked down to see a teenage zombie draped over his feet.
“No,” he said to himself. Then as if in afterthought:
Not now, anyway.
“Okay, Billie, you go first.”
He grabbed the end of the fire hose and gave it to her.
“I can’t lift myself,” she said, eyes wet with tears.
“You’re gonna have to.”
“But . . .”
“Or you stay down here and get eaten.”
A creature appeared in his peripheral. He took it down.
Billie grabbed hold of the hose and began to climb.
“Use your legs,” Joe told her.
She intertwined her feet around the hose and began to ascend.
“Des, give her some space then it’s your turn. Push her up if you have to.”
“How?”
“Just push on her b—”
BOOMCRACK!
A chair crashed in front of them, scattering three more of the undead that had stepped hungrily toward them.
Billie was already half way up to the window. Probably all the adrenaline coursing through her gave her a boost.
Des stuffed his pipe into his belt loop then took hold of the hose. He jumped . . . and his fingers slipped and he fell to the ground.
Joe offered his hand to help him up but Des slapped it away.
“Excuse you,” Joe said.
“Palms are sweaty,” Des said.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Shut up.” And he tried again, this time grabbing on and working his way up.
A telephone spun through the air like a disc and knocked another zombie away. A gunshot took down another.
“Can’t hold them off forever, sonny!” came the old guy from above.
“Just do what you can!” Joe shouted. Then, pointing to Billie, “And help her, if you can.”
Billie stopped climbing and leaned her head against her palms.
“Keep going!” Des hollered at her from a few feet below.
She just hung there. A moment later, she began climbing again albeit this time much slower.
Joe cocked the hammer of the X-09 and took out another zombie before stuffing the gun away and wiping his palms on his pants. He took hold of the hose and pulled himself up.
Two undead ambled toward the bottom of the hose.
“No, not now,” he muttered and tried to reach his gun. His arms were already too rubbery from all the excitement. Holding himself up with one hand while trying to reach his gun with the other would be impossible, and he was already a good ten feet up so dropping wouldn’t work lest he wanted to risk twisting his ankle from landing on top of the corpses.
“Hurry! Hurry!” he shouted.
Billie had stopped again.
“I’m outta stuff up here!” the old man shouted.
“Des, give her a push,” Joe said.
Des reached up, arm slightly shaking, and tried to give Billie a nudge on her bottom. She was a half foot too high; he couldn’t reach her. He climbed up further and just as his fingers touched her sweat pants, the two undead below swung the hose and Des quickly snapped his fingers back and clung to it for dear life.
Billie let go.
She skimmed past Des, her hip bumping into his shoulder, sending her spinning to the left as she fell.
Joe shot out his arm and caught her around her small waist. She let out a choked gulp the second his arm wrapped around her middle. His fingers slipped on the hose and he skidded down a good couple of feet before the friction brought them to a stop.
“I got you,” he said, wincing at the searing heat blazing across his palm.
All she could do was nod.
Des peered down over his shoulder at them.
“Keep going,” Joe told him.
He grimaced, looked skyward, then continued his ascent.
Already Joe’s hand was shaking from having to support not just his but her weight as well. Billie just hung there off his arm like a rag doll. Below, a few of the dead grabbed hold of the hose and swung it side to side. One of them seemed amazed at the hose’s movement.
“I’m gonna need your help, Billie,” Joe said. He jerked her right up against his body and told her to take hold of the hose. His hand slid down another few inches.
The zombies swung the hose, sending all three to the right. Joe spun and his back and base of his neck slammed into the building. A dull
thwunk
echoed inside his head and the back of his neck throbbed.
“GRAB ON!” he shouted without meaning to.
Billie adjusted herself in his grip then reached up and took hold of the hose.
“I can’t . . .” she said.
“Yes, you can. You have to or we’re both done for.”
A couple stories above them, Des was now halfway over the window, the old timer above reeling him in by the back of his shirt.
“It’s okay, Joe.” She sniffled back tears. “Really. I’m finished. I can’t climb on my own. I’m—”
“Shut up and climb up!”
She shook her head.
“If you let go, I’m letting go, too, but so help me I’ll kill you before they do.”
Her blue eyes went wide.
“Yeah, not joking,” he said, locking eyes with hers. Then, pacing his words very carefully, “Start going up. I’ll be right behind you. I’ll give you a shove when you need it.”
The hose took a swing to the left then snapped taught as one of the zombies below grabbed on and tried climbing up. It took a few tries but the thing quickly caught on and slowly ascended.
“It’s either me or that dead guy down there. Your call,” Joe said.
Billie looked at the creature below; tears leaked out the corners of her eyes. She took a deep breath then started to move upward.
Good girl,
he thought.
Finally.
He slipped a notch and thought he felt the bottom of his boot skim the top of the zombie’s head beneath him. He kicked downward once and hit nothing but air. With his left hand he gave Billie a shove and ignored the pain in his shoulder as he helped push her up.
When he was finally able to grab hold of the hose with both hands, blessed relief washed through his aching muscles. Much easier.
The two climbed.
“Hurry! They’re right behind you!” Des shouted.
Before Joe could look, the hose went to the left again but this time not as much thanks to all the weight upon it. Billie shrieked.
“Keep climbing!” Joe told her.
If I could just reach my gun I could
—Billie slipped and landed rear first on the top of his head. She must have caught herself because he only slid down another inch or two.
He gave her a hard push where her tailbone met her bottom, renewed his grip on the hose, pulled himself up a little, then gave her a shove again. He kept repeating this till Billie was finally at the top.
“Grab her!” he shouted at Des. The old guy wasn’t with him anymore.
Des latched both hands onto her shoulders and heaved her in like a fisherman loading in a day’s catch.
Something grabbed Joe’s ankle and tugged him down. Both hands slid on the hose. His palms ignited and it wouldn’t have surprised him if he saw smoke waft out from under his hands. He kicked wildly at the creature below, slamming his boot into its face, all the while scrambling up the hose as fast as he could.
“Pull me up!” he shouted.
Des just stared at him, Billie at his side, tugging on the sleeve of his shirt, screaming at him to listen.
“What’s your problem!” he shouted, not knowing why Des wasn’t doing anything.
Again dead fingers curled around his ankle and yanked him down. He let go of the rope and plowed into a dead Asian dude who was on the hose a few stories above street level. The creature’s eyebrows drew into a point above its white eyes as it growled at him. Immediately the thing went to bite his neck. Joe jerked to the side and the thing’s teeth just missed him. Suddenly he had his back to the wall; the undead freak wasn’t letting up and clawed at him.
Joe shot out his fist and caught the creature in the jaw then snapped out another punch to the thing’s neck. That only dazed it for a second before it grabbed hold of him. His hand held the hose tight while the other was intertwined with the zombie’s. There’d be no way to reach his gun now.
BANG!
Blood and tissue splashed his face as a black hole suddenly appeared in the Asian’s forehead. The thing let go and fell on top of its comrades below.
Joe felt a tug on the hose and was jerked upward one foot at a time. Strength sapped from his arms, he maybe managed a few feet on his own till he felt several pairs of hands grabbing him on the shoulders and around the chest. The posh carpeted floor of an office came into view as he tumbled over the window’s edge, landing against someone’s shoe.
An old man with a scraggly head of gray hair and a gray beard loomed over him, a rifle in his hand. “You owe me one.”
28
Introductions
To see people again—real,
living,
breathing people—set August’s heart into a gallop, and it wasn’t from excitement. Reconnecting with the “real world” after being away from it for so long . . . well, he just didn’t know what to expect. The world he left was one where everyone fought for their own place, looked out for themselves and, as he learned over the course of a lifetime, didn’t care who or what they had to hurt to get themselves to where they wanted to be. Eleanor often told him he was being too cynical and that if he gave folks a chance, he’d see that despite their flaws most were, deep down, decent people.
“But you forget the human heart,” he told her. “Who can know it, right? The things we’re capable of . . . . How many times have you thought the path seemed right but then, a short time later, you found out you led yourself astray?”
She was usually silent after that. Deep down, he knew she agreed with him. It was one of the many things they both firmly believed. It was also one of the things that made them appreciate God’s Gift all the more.