The Adventures of Steve and Terry: The Zombie Chronicles (7 page)

“Uh,” Wilcox said, “sorry, but
no.”

“You will fight,” the man in the
suit said, “or I will kill your friends.”

“Uh,” was all Eli got out before
the man suddenly turned and shot the man in the wheel chair. The man fell from the
chair, dead.

“Do you see? He was a valuable
asset to our company; I don’t even care about you people. You will fight or you
will die.”

Eli looked to Julia and Wilcox. He
nodded and then walked over to them. “Whatever happens,” he said, “you two get
out.”

Eli suddenly spun, pulling his
shotgun and unloading three rounds into the creature. The beast collapsed to
the ground. “Hey, I won.” Eli threw his hands into the air in victory. But the
creature suddenly groaned and got back to its feet. “Oh crap.”

“No weapons!” the man in the suit
said angrily. “Hand to hand.”

Eli unstrapped all of his weapons
and dropped them to the ground. He flexed his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.
“Let’s do this.”

Eli and the creature approached
cautiously. The creature swung a heavy fist, but Eli ducked it and came up
quick, hitting the creature with four quick blows to the body. If the creature
felt them, it didn’t show. The creature swung again, and again Eli dodged,
getting three or four good hits. He started to bob on his feet, feeling better
about his chances. Suddenly the creature kicked out, catching Eli in the chest
and knocking him into a concrete pillar with such force it cracked it. Eli’s
broken, dead body collapsed to the ground.

“Holy crap!” Julia said in
disbelief.

“Well, that was disappointing,”
the man in the suit said.

Wilcox and Julia looked at each
other and then dropped to the weapons Eli had dropped. They grabbed two
submachine guns and opened up on the soldiers. The man in the suit ran for the
helicopter, but Wilcox cut him down before he made it.

The two had caught the soldiers
off guard and it was over quickly. The creature for its part stood stupidly by,
unmoving. They moved slowly around the creature and then rushed to the chopper
only to find a stray bullet had killed the pilot.

“That’s not good,” Julia said.

“Come on,” Wilcox said. “How hard
can it be to fly this thing? We just need to get past that wall.”

They pushed the pilot’s body out
and strapped in. “Okay,” Julia said. “We got a stick thingy, a lever that looks
like the e-brake in a car and pedals, we can do this.”

 Wilcox pulled the lever up and
the helicopter lifted into the air. “Alright, alright, we got this.” He used
the stick and the helicopter slowly went forward. He then, accidentally, hit
one of the pedals. The helicopter spun sideways, the rear rotor hitting a
pillar and shattering. The helicopter spun wildly out of control. Both Julia
and Wilcox screamed as the helicopter plummeted down the side of the Elks’
building to land in a fiery heap at the bottom.

Steve anchored the ladder against
the side of the wall surrounding the city.

“There’s no way it could be this
simple,” Terry said in disbelief.

“I’m telling you, it is,” Steve
said.

“It’s not gonna work.”

“It is.”

Steve climbed the ladder they had
looted from a hardware store and got to the top of the wall. He looked around
the countryside surrounding Squirrel City. He motioned to Terry who climbed the
ladder and joined him. They then pulled the ladder up and lowered it down the
other side of the wall. They climbed down and then looked at each other in
disbelief.

“That was it?” Terry asked.

“Why didn’t anyone else think
about this?” Steve asked.

“I don’t know,” Terry said,
looking at the ladder. “Obvious, really.”

“I sure hope Julia made it,” Steve
said. “She was hot,” he paused, as if thinking, “and she had ginormous
boobies.”

Terry just shook his head. “Come
on; let’s get out of here before the nuclear power plant ‘accidentally’
explodes in a blast that will be nothing like a power plant melting down.”

“I know. How stupid do they think
we are?”

The two men disappeared into the
dark night, leaving Squirrel City behind.  

V. The
Survivor Group

Day forty-one of my survivor’s
journal. The rumors have been confirmed, Squirrel City is gone. The nuclear
power plant melted down and wiped the entire city off the map in a horrific
nuclear blast. Reports are, the dead were vaporized, wiping the slate clean.

We are still camped just outside
Atlanta, high in the mountains were the dead have yet to venture. We have two
new additions, Steve and Terry, who claim to be survivors from Squirrel City.
Whether their wild stories are to be believed or not, really remains to be
seen. They have made some pretty wild claims, from secret underground research
facilities, to Squirrel City in fact, actually being taken out by a tactical
nuclear weapon. I guess we will never know the truth of what happened to
Squirrel City, since a nuclear meltdown and a nuclear bomb would look exactly
alike. As it is, we are preparing to once again enter the city, we need
supplies. Steve and Terry have volunteered to go with us. We will see if they
are worth their weight, which is surprisingly considerable. How they manage to
stay so well fed in these trying times is truly a mystery.

Robert closed his secret journal
of the apocalypse and stashed it away. He exited his tent to see Steve and
Terry waiting, both balding and slightly overweight, Steve standing just a
little shorter than Terry. Steve carried a pistol-grip shotgun, while Terry had
two pistols. Robert ran his hand through his own thinning hair.

“We ready to go?” he asked the
small group heading into the city. They all nodded. Eight people in all.
Dillon, small, quiet, and the only one who really knew the city, would lead the
way. Matt, tall, athletic, and vain was the grab man. Doyle, stocky with a
shaved head was their shooter, the man a crack shot with a rifle. Smiles, tall,
dark, and muscular, was the muscle. Angela, thin, blond, and attractive was
going for reasons of her own. Robert, cool, confident, and steady was the group
leader. And lastly, were Steve and Terry, whose skills and abilities were
unknown.

Robert nodded to Dillon, who took
point and led the way. The walk to the city took almost an hour. The sun was
hot, beating down on the small group mercilessly. They stopped frequently to
rest and drink water. Steve and Terry, surprisingly, were holding up well.

When Steve caught Robert looking
at him he smiled. “We’ve been doing this for awhile,” was all he said.

The group made good time into the
city. They entered through used to be suburbs, empty cookie-cutter houses that
now seemed more like an old fashioned ghost town. Dillon took point, leading
the way with certainty. Robert was right behind him. Bringing up the rear were
Steve and Terry. Terry carried both his pistols, his eyes constantly shifting,
looking for threats. Steve, on the other hand, looked around, wide-eyed, like a
kid at the zoo for his first time. He kept tapping Terry on the shoulder and
pointing at things.

“Yeah, it’s a house,” Terry said
after one such moment.

“But it’s a
nice
house,”
Steve said.

“Yeah, so?”

“It could have a pool, man.”

Terry rolled his eyes. “Seriously?
We’re in the middle of an effing
zombie apocalypse
, and you want to go
swimming?!”

Steve shrugged like a scolded
child. “It’s hot,” he said quietly.

Soon, the houses started to
recede, tall buildings becoming visible. Dillon led the group cautiously now.
He constantly stopped, motioning for the group to be quiet, or get down. As
they walked deeper into the bowels of the city, signs of the apocalypse became
visible.

They passed an army checkpoint,
nothing left but sandbags and old weapons. The group passed by quickly, except
Steve, who climbed into the gun nest. The group didn’t even know he had stopped
until a deafening gun burst cut through the silence.

Everyone hit the ground; a girly
scream echoing the gun blast. Everyone looked to Angela, but she shrugged, she
hadn’t screamed. The group looked back to see Steve holding an M-4 assault
rifle.

“Sorry, sorry, my bad,” the
balding man said. “Didn’t think the thing was still loaded.”

“Jackass!” Dillon swore. “Every
zombie within five miles must have heard that!”

“How far are we from the
department store?” Robert asked.

“Uh, couple of blocks maybe.”

“Then we keep moving.” Robert
looked pointedly at Steve. “
Quietly
.”

Steve nodded. The group continued
on, except for Steve who searched for more clips. He had found four when he
realized the group was almost out of sight. He hurried to catch up.

The group rounded a corner and
came to a multistory department store building. Another military nest had been
set up nearby. As the group headed for an alley on the side of the building,
Steve once again stopped to investigate. Terry noticed, and quickly went to
collect the man.

“Hey, look at this,” Steve said
when Terry got to him. The man held up a bandolier of grenades.

“Holy crap!” Terry exclaimed.

“There’s other stuff here, too,
man.”

The two started rummaging, like
two fat kids in a candy store. Terry found another assault rifle and ammo. The
two were so engrossed in what they were doing they didn’t see the zombie coming
up on them.

For a zombie, the thing was quiet.
Steve spotted it almost by accident when he turned around to look at a fifty
caliber machine gun on a turret. He screamed a high-pitched scream and stumbled
back. His girly scream got Terry’s attention, who spun.

Robert and the group were just
starting to move the debris blocking the entrance when the loudest gunfire any
had ever heard echoed through the streets. The group all looked at each other.
With a groan, Robert realized Steve and Terry were missing.

The group rushed to the end of the
alley to see Steve and Terry unloading on a growing horde of undead. Terry was
at a massive machine gun firing wildly into the group. Steve was behind him.
The group saw Steve pull something small from a belt he was holding and lob it
into the zombies. They all flinched as a fiery explosion scattered dead like
firewood. Steve gave a whoop at the blast.

To everyone’s shock, Steve and
Terry seemed to be enjoying themselves. The two pudgy men were both smiling
broadly. Terry stopped firing just long enough to look back at Steve and give
him a thumbs up. Then the man went back to firing his ridiculously loud machine
gun. Steve started to fire into the horde over Terry’s shoulder.

The group all looked at each
other. “Good god!” Matt exclaimed. “They’re insane.”

“They’ve got to be certifiable,”
Smiles agreed.

“I don’t know, darky,” Doyle said.
“I think they’ve got style.”

“I told you,” the powerfully built
black man said angrily. “I’m not gonna put up with your inbred, KKK bullshit!”

“Guys, guys,” Robert said, trying
to keep peace. “We have a bigger problem. Those two morons are drawing every
walker in the city on us.”

“Well then, let’s get the hell out
of here!” Angela urged.

“Yeah, leave their asses,” Dillon
agreed.

Another explosion rocked the
buildings. Robert considered it. “We can’t. They’ve got more firepower between
them than we have in our whole group.”

“Shit,” Smiles swore.

“He’s got a point,” Matt said.

“Who goes to collect the morons?”
Robert asked.

“I’ll go,” Dillon volunteered.

The lean man skirted out from the
alley. The two overweight men continued to fire on the growing number of
zombies like they were in a shooting gallery. Dillon reached the gun-nest the
two were in and hit Steve on the back. The man stopped firing long enough to
look over his shoulder.

“Hey little man,” he yelled over
the sound of the machine gun.

“What in the hell are you two
doing?!”

Steve tapped Terry on the shoulder
and the man stopped firing and looked back. “What?” he asked, yelling even
though he had stopped firing.

“What the hell are you two doing?”
Dillon repeated.

“What?” Terry asked loudly,
rubbing his ear.