The Undead World (Book 2): The Apocalypse Survivors (14 page)

"Bread," Sadie exalted holding up
one of the bags of flour as if it was the Super Bowl trophy. "We can make bread!"

The
y stood around the flour for a few minutes and talked about all the different types of food they missed the most, until Neil got them going again. From then on Mark was different. He laughed the most, worked the hardest, and finally Neil saw why Sadie was attracted to him. Even the afternoon irritability wasn't as bad.

Two hours after lunch they were traveling down a sunken road when they spied another house that drew their attention.

It was little more than a cabin in the woods and yet it yielded another trove, though not nearly as exciting as the last. It was clearly a man cave as demonstrated by the cans of beans, and the cans of chili with beans, and the cans of franks and beans...and the porn. There were other essentials as well and everything, minus the porn, was stowed in boxes, piled on the baggage carrier atop the Range Rover, and lashed down.

Tired now, the three argued whether to go on, spend the night, or try to make it back to the CDC. It was after four at that point and Mark
had grown sullen and wanted to stay since there weren't any zombies in evidence. Neil wanted to go back, but was quickly voted down by the other two.

"It'll be dark soon," Sadie complained. "
We shouldn’t travel in the dark. I say we go on for a little longer. We're on a hot streak, let's not spoil it."

Her logic won out over Neil's pining for Sarah and Mark's desire to get under cover sooner tha
n was needed. They bid farewell to the cabin and decided to go on along the sunken road to see where it led. Strangely it petered out after a mile or so. The road, dirt to begin with, turned into a rutted track and ever so slowly the ruts faded until the rover sat in deep heather.

"This doesn't seem to be going anywhere," Mark said in a voice slightly higher than normal. The forests edged in too close for his tastes.

"We can turn around," Sadie said, doing so without any debate. "There were a few houses back on the..." She stopped the Rover in mid-turn as something caught her eye. "I think I see where this leads."

She pointed to a barn not more than a half mile distant. It had been obscured by an arm of the forest. Even from a distance they could see that the roof was shabby and weathered, and that the red painted siding had faded
to a rusty grey.

"Do we bother?" Neil asked, still wanting to go back home and looking for any excuse.

Sadie shrugged with only a single shoulder. "I say yes. There could be an even bigger stash in there. Who knows? They might even have more porn!"

Neil laughed at her joke, but Mark only squinted at the barn and then back the way they had come. With the trail slunk lower than the surrounding forests and overgrown with shadows it didn't look all that appealing. "I say we go on, too," he said. "Even if there's nothing, I bet that barn has a loft we could spend the night in."

With the decision settled, and the trail apparently consumed by nature, Sadie took the Rover across country, heading directly for the barn. It was slow going despite the SUV's four-wheel drive. The ground was pitted with strange depressions and when they weren't thumping into one, they were bouncing over mossy tree trunks that were practically invisible in the tall grass.

Eventually as they came within a few hundred yards of the barn the land evened out. Here it had been properly tilled and cultivated the year before, but oddly
unharvested. There were still towering corn stalks—all yellowed and dry as bones. Rows upon rows of it. The ride became gentle, but slightly unnerving since visibility dropped to only a few feet in any direction.

Thankfully about fifty yards from the barn the old corn played out so that there was a wide circle
surrounding the building where they could see all around. Sadie stopped the Rover on the edge—half in the corn, half out of it. "Here's where I get out," she said.

She wanted to show off some more. Neil knew better than to argue. Mark did not. "What? Why?"

"I want to stretch out my legs with a little run," she said, turning off the engine and sliding out of the Rover. "Besides it's a good way to flush out any zombies hiding around here. Cars confuse them sometimes, but a choice piece of meat like me will have them rushing out for dinner."

"That's what I'm worried about," Mark retorted.

"I'll be fine. There ain't a zombie alive that can catch me. Besides, I have my
Tomb Raider
special, just in case." She held up her ugly pink and black Glock.

With a wave she began to jog in the general direction of the barn and she seemed so confident that both men settled in to observe. Sadie was a joy to watch when she stretched out her slim legs in a wild sprint, however she didn't this time. Instead she only jogged or skipped, warming up, until she came abreast of the barn. Then she peeked in and immediately hopped back.

Slower now she took a second look. When she turned back to them it was with a look of defeat. She held up both hands with fingers splayed.

Neil interpreted, "There at least ten zombies in the barn. We'll have to find a better place to..."

He stopped as he saw the cornstalks part all along the rows behind Sadie. Jumping out of the Rover, he pointed and shouted, "Look out behind you!" She turned for only a split second and then urgently she pointed back at him.

Confused, Neil glanced at Mark and asked, "What the hell is she..." Just then a zombie stepped out of the corn right next to Mark's window and stared in with unblinking yellowed eyes. And now the corn all around Neil whispered with the coming of zombies
—by the hundreds.

Through the yellow stalks, Neil could see them just feet away. He did the only prudent thing for a man to do, he let out a yelp and then
hopped back into the Range Rover, shutting the door against grey arms that reached out for him.

"What are we going to do?" Mark asked, shying back as the zombie at his window began to thump the glass with a heavy fist.

"Drive!" Neil ordered from the back seat. "Get over and drive! We have to get to Sadie." The girl had not budged save to spin slowly as the corn gave up the dead. She was surrounded by what appeared to be hundreds of them. They were closing, but there was still time to save her.

Mark, his face contorted and no longer handsome in the least, slid over to the driver's seat and then fumbled around groping beneath the dashboard as though he was blind man. "The keys...they're gone! She has them. Sadie took them!"

Both men snapped their heads around to look at the girl in black; with so many zombies advancing on her she was barely visible.

For Neil Martin, time slowed nearly to a stop for the span of two long breaths.
Air drew into his lungs, ever so slowly, and departed in the same manner as his mind went into overdrive as he analyzed the situation:

Question:
Was there time to hot wire the car?
Answer: No. Even if I knew how, it would take upwards of a minute to accomplish.

Question:
How much time did Sadie have?
Answer: assuming she shot the closest zombie to her at any one time, and did not miss, she would be overwhelmed in eighteen seconds plus or minus two seconds.

Question:
Can she escape the encircling zombies by running or fighting her way out?
Answer: No. There are far too many and she is not that capable with her Glock.

Question:
What are my options?
Answer: Only one. Kill as many of them as you can and then die by her side.

Question:
Why can't I hide here in the Range Rover instead?
Answer: That is not an option.

Question:
Why not?
Answer: It is not an option.

Question:
Why isn't it an option?
Answer: She chose to be your little girl and you chose to be her father. You love her and you won't watch her die and do nothing.

Question:
But I'm afraid.
Answer: Yes. Get out of the car.

Just like that, time snapped back into place and Neil knew all that he needed to know. "Come on!" he screamed
to Mark. His fear for Sadie was a black hunk of ice in his chest that made the rest of his body numb. He grabbed his gun and slammed open the Rover's door, smashing it into a zombie that had been right there. The creature was knocked to the ground by the force of the blow, yet the tactile sensation of it did not register on Neil's brain.

The
same was true with his Beretta. When it went off, seemingly by its own volition, it did not buck, while its report was muted. It seemed like a weak thing in his hands—like a gun from bad dream. Since the advent of the apocalypse he had many such dreams, the kind where his feet seemed to run in deep molasses, or his arms were so weak they were all but useless, or that his gun shot BBs or pellets and the zombies came on grinning, undeterred.

It was like that now, except the zombies did fall as he shot his way through them, only so many more sprang up to take their places that the world retained its nightmare quality all the way until he reached Sadie.

"Neil! Why?" she asked before shooting a closing zombie. It made a noise like a bullfrog croaking and then fell at her feet.

He had neither the time nor the breath to answer. His sprint, a mere forty yards winding through, and sometimes plowing over, an army of undead had
tired him. Instead of answering, he turned a tight circle, shooting those beasts nearest and searching for the part of the deadly ring that was thinnest.

It was only then that he discovered that Mark hadn't joined him
in his mad dash. It was a catastrophic let down; with his size and his skill with guns Mark might have made the difference. Neil couldn't spare a second to worry about that now. His notion that Sadie had eighteen seconds left before she was overwhelmed hadn't been correct. From the moment Neil got to her the pair was shooting nonstop, generally with great accuracy since the zombies were now within feet of them.

"This way!" Sadie cried, grabbing Neil's hand and turning him ninety degrees. She had caught sight of where the ranks of the zombies were only two deep instead of five or more. They shot their guns dry making a hole big enough for them to run through
. A second later they were in the corn, sprinting past skeletal stalks with little to cover their frames but a few old brown leaves. They had escaped the initial wave, however their salvation was short lived. The corn was rife with the creatures and everywhere they turned grasping hands reached through the stalks for them.

With no other option they ran, though they did so without aim or direction, fleeing
from
constant danger instead of
toward
some place of safety.

Somehow in the maze they were turned back to the barn clearing where a wall of zombies stretching across the view greeted them. "No, go...back," Neil gasped, grabbing
Sadie's shirt and pulling. She spun to the left and led them, zigging and zagging around the zombies. Neil benefitted from the confusion she wrought. With their limited brain power the zombies fixated on the human in front and, for the most part, didn't even seem to notice him. Sometimes he found himself running next to zombies or just behind them. After five minutes he was so exhausted that he could barely muster the energy to care.

The headlong escape could not last forever. Neil was flagging and dizzy, stumbling like a zombie himself, while Sadie was breathing deeply and sweating up a storm.

"Go...on," he wheezed. His legs were as stone and his feet unresponsive. He had not trained in years and the torrid pace threatened to explode his heart. It whomped in his chest, shaking the phlegm building in his lungs.

Sadie didn't bother to dignify the request. Instead she used her empty
Glock to smash in the temple of a zombie charging from their left. The creatures seemed unfazed by the nonstop running, however all the changes in direction had left them going every which way.

"Look!" Sadie said with some excitement. At first he didn't see what had her smiling. The corn ran to the edge of a neighboring property and all he saw was a sharp drainage ditch that he was sure he lacked the strength to jump across.

"Huh?" he asked, lacking the wind to form words.

She was already pulling him on. "We'll jump it. They won't be able to," she explained. It didn't look like much of an obstacle for anyone but Neil. It was four feet wide and three feet deep...and even that seemed like too much for him. "Go first," she ordered.

He stumbled on while she ran parallel to the ditch waving her arms getting the zombies to come after her once again. It was the only way he would have made it—and, even with the benefit of not having the zombies right on his tail, he didn't quite make the leap.

The further wall of the ditch was wet with mud and he smacked square into it. However he was no mindless thing and so grabbed a nearby root and pulled himself up. Seeing him somewhat safe on the other side, Sadie leapt the ditch with the grace of a gazelle, and jogged over to him.

Neil was only then getting to his feet, while not five feet away the ditch was filling with the grey bodies of the living dead. There were hundreds of them, maybe upwards of a thousand. They simply charged into ditch as if it wasn't even there and now they roiled in the long foul pit.