Z Children (Book 2): The Surge (3 page)

Of
course, easier for me meant easier for the monsters too.

Grabbing
ahold of the exhaust pipe, I yanked my body up and onto the side of the SUV. I
tried to move as fluidly as possible, not jerking about. My upper body wasn’t
as strong as it used to be, and suppressing a grunt of effort wasn’t possible;
my legs were iron from walking, but my arms weren’t quite in as good a shape.

Once I
was atop the vehicle’s side, I stayed flat against the dark paint. Lying face
down allowed me to look into the interior of the Rover through the passenger’s
side door glass. Z kid. Definitely Z kid. The windshield was nothing; the inside
was an insane asylum, one where the walls weren’t padded and the doctors were
used to stealing from the drug supplies.

Dried
blood, now a brown-black, spotted the cream leather—which was ripped and
shredded like a disgruntled ex got a little too happy with a pair of kitchen
scissors. Two adults, a male and a female, were still buckled. They weren’t moving.
They weren’t Z adults. Not unless Z adults slept and could operate without
faces, necks, and hearts.

In the
back of the Rover was a booster seat. My heart started beating a little
quicker. The doors were closed; the windows weren’t broken.
Maybe the kid
opened the door…maybe the little asshole is in the crowd near the hospital’s
entrance.

Prying
my eyes away from the guts and tattered flesh beneath me, I surveyed the
service entrance. To the left of the large double doors, was the emergency
support system. Two massive generators, likely a thousand-plus gallons of fuel
for a hospital this size, emergency comm tower, and a small block house.
Probably fiber optic point. A POP. Which I only knew about because one of my
retired friends snagged a job in the industry and tried to get me to tag along.
Should have taken the job, I guess, but the thought of settling into a ‘normal’
job after…

No.
My lean, hard life kept me ready, and now it’s paying off. Keep focused, dumb
ass, or you’re kid chow.

Where
I was, I could still see part of the entrance to the hospital. It wasn’t very
far really and I’d seen these bastards run. They could cover the distance in
ten seconds flat, I’d bet my life on it. That was disturbingly true…betting my
life on it. Not good. So, ten seconds to the fence, half a second over the
fence, two seconds to the small maintenance door where I’ll be next. (If I can
even get there without detection.) And it’ll take time for me to pick that
lock; I’m rusty as hell. Fuck.

If I’m
seen, it’s gonna come down to X number of rounds and an old rifle. Double fuck.

Relaxing
my body, forcing the anxiety and tension into focus, I stared back into the Rover.
Suitcases, blankets, gossip magazines, all the usual stuff you would normally
see in a typical vehicle. Squinting, the sun glare brutal against the tinted
glass, I spotted an emergency roadside kit and a bicycle helmet. The kit was in
the rear corner of the vehicle, almost against the hatch seam. Most roadside
kits had flares. That gave me an idea.

Low-crawling
to the vehicle’s rear, I silently dropped over the edge and back onto the
concrete. The tailgate latch was half-hidden above the vanity license plate. I
snickered at the bumper sticker to the right of the plate: ‘If you can read
this, roll me back over.’

My
fingers were curving around the latch, getting ready to pull, when something
stopped me. Instinct, some sound that I hadn’t picked up with my conscious
mind. I waited a moment, listening intently, scanning the area around me.
Nothing happened.
Shit, I’m getting jumpy. Gonna get me killed.

The
click of the mechanism unlatching was quiet enough. Silence would have been
better, but quiet would do. I started pulling the rear hatch upwards and as the
gap widened, the red canvas roadside kit fell out of the Rover and plunked
against the ground.

“Mother
Fu—” A small face slammed into the rear glass so hard that the hatch jerked
towards me. The Z kid, the owner of the pink booster seat, was pushing her face
against the clear barrier trying to get at me, her tiny legs flexing with the
effort. Her nose had busted on impact, it oozed obsidian blood.

I
pushed my entire body against the door, trying to get it to reclose, but the
Rover on its side meant that I didn’t have the leverage I needed. She knew what
I was trying to do and shoved her right arm through the gap before I could shut
it completely. Keeping my weight against the door, I drew the Blackjack Halo
out of the leather sheath on my hip. It slid out easily.

For a
long time, the knife had rested unused in the bottom of my pack. It was illegal
to carry a blade that long in many states I traveled through, but now that the
end of the world was in full swing, I just didn’t give a crap.

Ramming
the seven-inch blade between the ulna and radius of the zombie girl’s forearm,
I twisted the knife until I heard the shattering that meant I’d ruined the
bones for good. There’d be no setting, no repairing, no playing trumpet in the
band.

She
howled in pain, a piercing, bestial sound that was thankfully muffled by the
mostly-closed hatch. To my surprise, she was trying to yank her busted-up arm
back into the vehicle. She knew she was hurt. It surprised me every fucking
time to see the self-awareness in these monsters. I let her do it, and once her
busted limb was fully inside the SUV, I shoved the hatch closed.

I
could barely hear her continued cries of pain through the thick insulation of
the luxury vehicle and I was relieved to see that the roadside kit had fallen
to the ground. I had no desire to open that hatch again. One—because the
monster midget was screaming at the top of her lungs. Two—because I had just
used up all my luck. At least that’s what it felt like.

Bracing
myself, I glanced back at the hospital’s entrance. I fully expected a horde of
munchkins munching on brain matter to be running at me full-tilt. But they
weren’t. In my experience, the Z kids’ senses were heightened—smell, hearing,
everything. Luck. Maybe luck was still on my side.

Don’t
go counting on luck, dumb ass. Luck doesn’t exist.

Yanking
off my pack, I retrieved the lengths of torn hotel blanket. If Chris fought,
I’d just have to tie his ass up with something else. Pulling myself back atop
the vehicle’s side, I flipped open the hinged metal flap that covered the gas
cap and made short work of feeding the strips of cloth into the tank. They hung
against the chassis and frame of the vehicle, and it didn’t take long for the
gas to start wicking out and falling the short distance to the ground where it
began to pool.

The
sunlight refracting off the ever-growing puddle made the gas look like a
rainbow on the stained concrete. But rainbows are nice. This wasn’t going to be
nice. Not able to help myself, I glanced one more time into the Rover—there the
little bitch was, nursing her wound, but also, I knew, waiting for me to be
stupid enough to reopen the hatch.

Making
my way to the edge of the SUV closest to the fencing, I looped a leg over and
lifted my body, keeping as low profile as possible, over the top of the
decorative security fence; it wasn’t even chain link, no barbwire. The ‘spikes’
were dull. It was definitely for show, for honest people who’d never think to
bust in. Dropping to the ground on the other side of the barrier, I crouched
down and looked back at my work. The pool of fuel was sizeable now, and the
soaked blanket strips had stretched slightly. When I was ready,
bada-fricking-bing. Goodbye $50,000 in tires and mechanics. And goodbye
anything slinking around it. A little surprise for any monsters that got a
little too curious for my comfort.

I
moved around the generator and closer to the POP.

It was
only a few yards to the door from there, and I could have a look at the lock. I
kept the rifle against my shoulder, pointed slightly down so that it was ready
to bring back into play if I got jumped. My nerves were edgy and memories were
flooding into my brain—memories that I did not need right now. I just needed
the experience from the past, the skills that were keeping me alive. I couldn’t
stop them, though, the rush of images, so I used them. Terrorism. I could apply
that here. These things weren’t terrorists, but they were as dangerous. Maybe
more dangerous.

No,
definitely more dangerous.

After
checking my surroundings again—all good so far—I stared at the door.

Its
lock was a standard industrial lock, harder to crack than a household lock but
not impossible. It would take two, maybe three minutes. Problem was, I’d be totally
exposed during that time. Not directly in the sight of the hospital’s front
entrance but from every other angle aside from that, and there was absolutely
nothing I could do to hide myself. Once I committed to breaking-in, then that was
it—game on, balls to the wall.

I had
to relax, focus, and get the damn job done. Rapid entry was a matter of skill
and having a calm center. Hit it on the first try or bust the hell through with
sheer force. I got nothing to breach with that won’t bring all hell down on me,
so that left me with first try and quiet as a church mouse.

I was
better at the bull in the china shop method than the delicate touch.

Life
isn’t always accommodating though. It’s a bastard like that.

I
swung the rifle onto my back and pulled out the Bogota—lock-picking tools I’d
become proficient with by necessity. They were high speed and low drag. The
designers really knew what they were doing. Two little tools, not very impressive
to look at, but they could bypass most locks. Slowly, I crept to the door—each
motion keeping me acutely aware of my exposed ass. I dropped to one knee when I
arrived, sparing only a moment for a quick threat-scan of my surroundings.
Then, gently, like making love to a woman, I inserted the tension wrench end of
one tool and inserted the pick end of the other into the lock. Picking a lock
was all about feel and tension. I had to have finesse. Too much tension and it
would seize up, not enough and it wouldn’t open. The hot Dallas sun was making
me sweaty, and it was hard to manipulate the Bogota with slick hands. I felt
time slipping away…and also my safety.

I dried
the sweat as best I could on the rough material of my pants and started again,
but froze instantly when I heard banging from above me and to my right.
Glancing up, I saw an adult Z pounding jerkily on a second floor window. It was
looking straight at me—which freaked the fuck out of me—and…trying to get my
attention? I turned abruptly so my back was against the still-locked door.
Nothing behind me. But the Z adult was still banging insistently.

Then I
spotted it. I didn’t know if the adult was trying to warn me or alert the
sniveling little monster I now saw.

It was
in the building. Its face pushing against the glass of another second-story
window. Black and blood-coated. His mouth was open in a scream, and his teeth
were alarmingly white against the skin and crimson. A Z kid had seen me and now
it was trying to notify all his brethren that there was a hot meal on the lawn.

“Cats
out of the damn bag now.” I glanced down at the road flares next to me. Time to
light it up…as soon as I get this door open. “Hope those things still work.”

That
would be a kick in the crotch. Fuck. That possibility hadn’t dawned on me until
now. Now when I needed them to work or I was chow.

Splitting
my concentration between listening to my surroundings and feeling the pins in the
lock made the job harder, but finally, I felt the cylinder give and knew I was
almost home free. Well, not home free—free from the outside threats and
shit-deep in what was bound to be Z kid amusement land.

Just
as the tension wrench swung free and I heard the lock disengage, there was a
bestial cry behind me that made my blood go ice cold. Snapping my head around
and simultaneously swinging the M-16 into position, I saw the issue. The kid
had left the second floor. And he’d moved fast.

He was
clawing at the fence with an army at his back. He’d gathered “troops”, likely
the horde that had been loitering at the front of the hospital. Clever. Deadly.
Normal people—people who weren’t like me, with training and the constitution to
kill—they didn’t stand a chance, not a chance in hell without a goddamn miracle
to spare them.

How
smart are these fucking things
? my brain screamed.

The
surprise and amazement only lasted a second before my training took over. (My
brain, able to focus on physical action and separate thought, still focused on
how lucky I was to not be an average America. Uncle Sam did right by me in that
way. I was prepared, maybe not exactly for an end of the world scenario with rabid,
blood-hungry kids, but for the end no matter how it came.) The ancient rifle in
my hands began to bark as I laid round after round into the horde of kids still
on the other side of the fencing. They were trying to scrabble their way over.
Soon, they’d realize the vehicle made a perfect ladder. It was pure luck that they
didn’t realize it immediately.

Like
my thinking about the SUV “ladder” had made them see it, four kids started
clambering on top of the SUV.

My
brain calculated in a second that this was going to be a losing battle if they
got to my side of the world, so I flipped the selector switch to full auto and
let loose a sustained burst focused against the horizon of the car’s chassis.
The quick succession of bullets scared the fuckers long enough to give me precious
time.

In one
fluid motion, I dropped the rifle, its sling keeping it safe against my body, I
picked up the road flare, yanked the top off, and struck it, a prayer in my
head.
Light, damn you.

I
grinned like a madman when the flare ignited on the first try. I let it sail,
all the strength I had poured into the throw.