Total Apoc Trilogy (Book 3): Horde Ravaged (10 page)

            "Reload, Ralph," I shouted above the din of battle. "I want you to fire a few more down into the stairwell once we reach it."

            My magazine was empty at that point. I was forced to butt-slap and club them with it before I had time to reload. Somehow I managed to get the empty magazine back into a belt pouch.

            The grenade cleared the top of the stairwell down to the next level. No zombies were coming out, and the ones on the roof had spread out, so we had a clear path to the door. The other survivors mostly followed us. A few were cornered. I saw Phil go down. He'd be rising soon as a zombie.

            "Are you ready, Ralph?"

            "Yep!"

            I led the way through the stairwell door. Dead zombies were everywhere. Olivia and I leaned over the railing and shot down into the zombies still climbing the stairs. We cleared out a few more. I signaled her to back up.

            "Hit them, Ralph."

           
Ka-BOOM!

            "Holy crap!" I cried. The explosion was deafening in that stairwell. Instant numb ears. My ears rang like crazy. Ralph reloaded, leaned over the railing, and fired again. I put my fingers in my ears. "Damn!"

           
Ka-BOOM!

            "Follow me!"

            I stumbled down the stairs littered with dead zombies. Olivia, Ralph, and the others followed.

            "Close and lock the door behind you," Olivia called back.

            Whether anyone heard and would obey was doubtful. Every one of them was in a blind panic. My friends and I were probably the only ones who'd ever really fought the zombies.

            I shouldered my rifle and pulled the machete. We only had so much ammo, and it was going to be pretty close quarters. The first two flights were almost zombie free, but I glanced into the top floor lounge and spotted zombies wandering around.

            "Watch out for zombies coming at us from each floor," I called.

            "How many are there?" a woman asked.

            "A butt ton," I said. "Just kill any you see."

            The 9th floor door was closed, so I continued down without looking. I didn't really want to know how many were behind that door. Maybe I should've, because seconds later our survivor friends started screaming and shouting as the monsters came pouring out into the stairwell.

            "Keep moving!" Ralph shouted. "Grenade!"

            Ralph leaned over the railing, and shot down that small gap that went all the way to the ground floor.
Ka-Boom!
It was muffled just enough to not be killer on my ears like the first grenades. Or maybe my ears were already that numb.

            When I looked back there were less than two dozen of the high-rises survivors still with us. I couldn't think about it or I'd be sick. Their worst nightmare came true. I couldn't help but wonder if we in any way caused it.

            Olivia and I continued down shoulder to shoulder, hacking down zombies. They didn't really try to defend themselves, so it wasn't hard splitting their skulls. Well, our arms tired quickly. When Olivia wavered, Ralph took her place. Finally, by the 4th floor, I couldn't do it anymore. So I pulled my pistol.

            "Really?" Ralph asked.

            "Close quarters and the M16 ammo is more valuable," I said.

            Ralph and Olivia pulled their pistols. We continued down thrust-kicking and shooting zombies in the face. Only two of them could come at us at a time, and periodically Ralph would shoot another grenade down the stairwell.

            That's when a shit ton of zombies plowed into us from the 4th floor door. Olivia turned around so fast she tripped, taking me out as well. We continued firing at zombies, but just not as effectively. Ralph cried out and shot a grenade point blank into the landing below us. Shrapnel peppered all of us, but didn't help our friends above.

            I watched in horror as Mrs. McKinney was bitten three times. Her eyes widened, before she looked like she was going to puke. She seemed dazed a moment, and then rage filled her face. She was a zombie.

            Mrs. McKinney immediate turned on her own family. More of them were now zombies than not. I knew then they were all lost.

            "We have to get out of here NOW!" I screamed.

            All three of us opened up with M16A2s on that little horde of zombies. We mowed those zombies down hoping to find some survivors. There weren't any.

            "I think I'm going to be sick," Ralph muttered.

            "Be sick later," I said. "Come on."

            We pulled pistols again. And down we went. We could go as fast as we wanted now. No one was holding us back. Ralph used his grenade launcher until his bandolier of grenades was depleted.

            The 3rd floor door was open. Ralph fired his last grenade through it before we reached it. I peeked in as we passed and saw a fire through the open door into an apartment. The curtains were burning. Did the grenade do that?

            "Fire!"

            "Just two more floors until we're out of here," Ralph said.

            We moved past the door, pistols firing, feet kicking. I think we knocked as many down as we shot outright. They came up those stairs quickly, but a little unsteadily. It was the only thing that saved us. If the zombies even leaned a little forward we might not have been able to kick them back into the others. They would've overwhelmed us.

            "We have to escape off the next floor," Olivia said. "Remember, the ground floor was sealed off tight."

            I'd forgotten about that. The balcony we'd accessed the building was just to the side of the back door where the zombies were entering. So that route was denied us. We'd have to hope the front of the building was clear.

            "I'm on my last pistol magazine," Olivia said.

            I was too preoccupied to check, but I was probably about empty, too. We were halfway to the 2nd floor.

            "Switch to M16s!" I cried, holstering my pistol.

            I had my rifle in hand in a flash, and opened up. That cleared the area enough for my friends to switch weapons. Then we all unloaded a magazine on them. Changing magazines as we charged down the corpse strewn stairs wasn't easy, but we were ready for them when we reached the 2nd floor.

            Olivia led the way through the door. Ralph went next and to her left, and then me. I turned to the right. The hallway was filled with zombies testing locked doors. The apartment through which we entered was open.

            We sprayed the hallway for a few seconds, and then I rushed to the opposite door. I tried to kick it open, but it didn’t budge. Olivia used her shotgun to blow the knob away. But there was a deadbolt.

            More zombies were coming out of the stairs and two other apartments. We didn't have time to break through.

            "Shit, follow me!"

            I took off for the back of the building. We had to leave the way we entered. No choice.

            Zombies plowed into us halfway to the balcony. One of them chomped down on my shoulder, really hard. My heavy camo shirt protected me from broken skin. I pushed the barrel of the M16A2 under his jaw and blew his brain all over the ceiling. Ralph and Olivia managed to kill their assailants, too. Then we killed four more before we slammed the slider closed behind us.

            "That's only going to hold them about five seconds," Olivia said.

            "Jump!" I cried. I released the slider and climbed up on the railing. The closed dumpster was below us, so the fall wasn't that far. It was the dozens of zombies trying to get into the back door that worried me. "Now."

            We all pushed off at the same time. Our booted feet hit the dumpster with a resounding BOOM. That got every zombie's attention.

            "Over the fence!" I cried as I leapt off the dumpster.

            The eight foot high concrete wall wasn't far. We raced straight to it, jumped, hauled ourselves over, and dropped into crouches.

            "I lost my shotgun," Olivia said.

            "I'll get you a new one for Christmas," I said.

            "Promise?"

            Zombie hands appeared on the wall above us, so I took off toward the alley behind the strip mall. It was actually two strip malls, back to back, with an alley between them. We were committed to the alley before zombies stepped out from behind dumpsters and out of doors before us.

            With even more behind us, I opened fire and continued to jog down the alley. The landscape I'd seen from atop the high-rise filled my head. Was there a safe place we could go? Before us was a residential neighborhood, then a river, and beyond that more mixed retail and residential.

            A considerable horde of a few dozen zombies trailed behind us. An explosion made us and the zombies stop and look back at the high-rise. The bottom four floors were completely engulfed in flames. Smoke billowed out the top, and many of the balconies on the other floors. It there were any survivors or zombies still in that building, then they were dead from all of that smoke. Then I noticed the zombies seemed transfixed by the burning building.

            I pulled my friends over to a store's back door that was ajar. Damage showed a survivor had jimmied it open. We went in cautiously, quietly pulling the door closed behind us. Then we quickly moved boxes in front of the door. It wasn't enough to keep anyone out, but hopefully the not so bright walkers would move on.

            Ralph led the way out of the storage rooms in back and out into the main store. It was a sporting goods store. Most of the merchandise appeared to be apparel. Sweat suits. Running shoes. But weapons, camping equipment like gas stoves and such were already taken. We didn't find anything to help us.

            Several of the display windows up front were smashed, too. After checking to ensure the coast was clear, I led the way toward the darker residential area. It looked like an older, established neighborhood with lots of mature hardwood trees.

            "Keep your eyes open for possible transportation," I reminded them. "Pickups and full-sized vans would be best."

            "Not a jeep?" Olivia asked.

            "I've had enough open-air," I replied. "And I want to drive sometimes."

            "Fine. Steal my glory," she said with a grin.

            The homes had front entry garages, so no alleys. Zombies were spotted on the main street going west, so we moved over to the next, a smaller purely residential street. Cars lined that street, both on the curb and in driveways. Unfortunately, it was a wealthier neighborhood, so the cars weren't old enough to have survived the EMP blasts.

            "I bet a lot of these houses have ATVs in their garages," Ralph said.

            "We don't have time to search them."

            "Kyle, can we find a house to stop?" Olivia asked. "We all need to reload our empty magazines."

            She had a point. I didn't want to stop, but better safe than sorry. We went up to the front door of the next house. It was locked. We debated jimmying it open, or continuing until we found an unlocked door. Zombies could get inside unlocked doors. The vote to jimmy was two to one, Ralph and I outvoted Olivia.

            "Sorry," I said.

            The crowbar was in the pack. I pulled it out and went to work on the door. That door made a god-awful noise as the jamb shattered. Two zombies let out low wails immediately. Yeah, we took off running.

            "They're after us," Ralph gasped out as we slowed to a jog.

            "You think?" Olivia said.

            "Shut up."

            "You're stupid."

            "Tempers, children," I said. "Let's be angry at the zombies, okay?"

            I didn't blame them. We finally caught a break finding that high-rise, and it all went to hell in a flash. I couldn't stop thinking about all of those poor children.

            "What the hell is that?" Ralph asked.

            A ten foot cyclone fence stood before us. It looked like forest beyond. It took me a moment to realize what was behind that fence.

            "The river."

            "I bet the zombies don't bother climbing that fence," Olivia said.

            That was all of the encouragement we needed. Slinging our rifles as we ran across the street, we jumped up on the fence and started climbing. All our lives we joked that Olivia was a spider monkey in a previous life, because that girl could climb anything. She was straddling the top before I was halfway up. Ralph struggled with the heavy pack, so she reached down and pulled up on the pack to help him. He actually passed me on the way up.

            Ralph shed the pack and dropped it on the other side before we climbed down. Zombies plowed into the fence almost before we reached the ground. I actually pushed off to land on my butt to avoid them.

            "And of course they are going to climb over," Ralph muttered as he grabbed the pack and followed me into the woods.

            We rushed through the woods. The ground sloped downward. It wasn't long before we heard the frogs and crickets that lived along the riverbanks. After the relative quiet of the city, the riverbank sounded as loud as a crowd at a football game.

            There were gravel-paved trails woven through the woods along the river, so we figured out it was some kind of nature park. Then we reached the river.

            It was a deep, rain-swollen river. Even in the dark I could see and hear how treacherous it would be to swim in.

            "We can't swim across that."

Chapter 13

            "Look. Over there," I said. "A marina."

            I was being generous. There was a small shack or kiosk with a dozen john boats, canoes, and kayaks. There wasn't even a pier. The boats were all pulled completely up onto the grassy shore.