ROLL CALL
Carson
Ryder: Ex-police officer/Ex-marine/Lost his wife Caroline, and daughter
Charlotte/The unofficial leader of the group/Dying for a cigarette/Has mixed
feelings about Nikki Fox
Corey
Smith: Doomsday prepper/He was expecting and preparing for the zombie
apocalypse for years/Lives in a fortified compound with a tremendous arsenal of
weapons
Taryn
Mills: Survivor found outside the Starlight Hotel/Lost her boyfriend and her
family to the Biters/Former exotic dancer/Not afraid to use a gun
Nikki
Fox: Former registered nurse/Lost contact with her family during the first
initial weeks of the outbreak/Was married once but hid that fact from the
group/She is secretly in love with Carson Ryder
Reggie
White: Born and raised in Arkansas/Has never left the state before/He has a
criminal record, but he’s not a violent man and tends to avoid confrontation if
he can
Scotty
Loomis: Originally from Utah/Friends with Reggie/A perpetual fountain of random
facts and useless information
Luke
Chen: Runner/Competed in the Olympics/Knows how to use a gun but he prefers a
katana
Dominic
DeVito: Originally from New York/Not too bright/Afraid to use a gun for fear of
shooting himself or someone else/Former used car salesman
Amy
Greene: First survivor who was taken in by Corey/She is a recovering alcoholic
who manages with the support of Nikki Fox/Trying to take back control of her
life
IN THE FLESH
By Daniel Skye
PART THIRTY FOUR
WARZONE
Eli Carver, Mr. Jones, and their flock
had infiltrated the compound. And in the process, all hell broke loose.
Corey Smith had climbed down from the
roof of the manor and had taken his position next to Carson Ryder, his back
pressed against one of the outhouses. Bodies were scattered all over the
compound; some dead, others barely alive.
The busted gate had left them open to
the world and a horde of Biters the likes of which Corey had never seen paraded
down the hill, invading the compound.
Some of Mr. Jones and Eli Carver’s
brainwashed followers finally came to their senses and retreated. Others
stayed, refusing to retreat to surrender. Most of them were willing to fight it
out to the bitter end. But so was Ryder and his group.
“Cover me,” Corey said, dropping his
sniper rifle. “I’m making a run for the Quonset hut.”
Corey made his move and Ryder sprung
out from behind the outhouse with his Remington, firing at anything that moved
across the lawn. It didn’t matter if they were living or undead. He didn’t
discriminate. Everyone was fair game.
Dominic DeVito and Luke Chen had taken
cover behind one of the other three outhouses. DeVito was a disaster when it
came to handling a gun, and he had missed more than he had hit. But at least he
hadn’t shot one of his own teammates yet. That was considered a plus.
Luke was faring better, and had used
the pump-action shotgun Corey lent him to take out several thugs who were
trying to creep around the side of the outhouse.
DeVito peeked his head around the
outhouse, where two Biters loomed over the side. He fired three shots with the
handgun. Two bullets struck the first Biter in the chest and shoulder. The
third bullet hit the second Biter right between the eyes.
“Yes!” DeVito shouted. “I did it! I
capped that sucker!”
BLAM. There was a tremendous ringing
in Luke Chen’s ears. He looked at the ground, where DeVito’s body now lie. Then
he looked up and saw the culprit. Not a man, but a woman in a white tank top
who bared the same tattoo as Eli.
Luke pumped his shotgun, but
hesitated. The woman raised her gun to fire again and Luke had no choice but to
shoot. Her body skidded across the lawn and Luke dropped to his knees, checked
DeVito’s pulse.
It was too late for him. Luke glanced
towards the adjacent outhouse where Scotty Loomis and Reggie White were
positioned with their rifles. But there was trouble heading their way. Biters.
A whole army of them.
Amidst the chaos, one of their adversaries
had gotten a hold of the bazooka and had it perched over his shoulder, ready to
launch.
“Take cover!” Ryder shouted as the
rocket propelled from the bazooka, soaring through the air and reducing the Quonset
hut to debris.
“COREY!” Taryn screamed. Ryder had
covered him, but then he had come under fire again and had to take cover. He
lost track of him and never saw him exit the hut. Now all that remained of the
hut was a flaming wreckage, and Corey Smith was nowhere to be found.
The girls had stuck together, taking
cover behind the manor. Nikki Fox wasn’t a professional when it came to firearms,
but she was an ace when it came to adapting to her surroundings.
She held her ground and used the
Mossberg that Ryder had given her to blast anyone or anything that crossed her
path. But their foes were armed with Mossberg’s and firearms of their own. And
their seemed to be no quit in most of them.
Taryn didn’t need any help at all. If
she could, she would’ve been firing the Mossberg and the .27 Beretta at the
same time.
Amy Greene was no gun fanatic. In
fact, guns terrified her. But the semi-automatic pistol that she was armed with
had not left her side. Though she seemed to be firing more at the zombies than
their main adversaries.
Killing a person wasn’t Amy’s custom.
She didn’t have it in her like the rest. And that proved to be her downfall
when a young woman with dark curly hair snuck up behind the manor.
Amy was the first to see her. But she
hesitated. And it cost Amy her life. The girl shot Amy twice; once in the
stomach, once in the chest. And then Taryn proceeded to blow the young woman
away with a single shot from the Mossberg.
“No!” Nikki cried, falling to her
knees. “No, no, no, no, no! Don’t die on us, Amy…please stay with us.” She
tried to apply pressure to the wounds to slow the bleeding. But one of the
bullets had pierced her lung and she was bleeding internally.
Nikki cradled Amy in her arms and held
her until she was gone. By the time she had wiped her tears and dried her eyes,
Taryn was gone. Not dead. She just bailed on them.
A group of men were closing in on
Ryder when he dug through his pockets and came up with one of the grenades
Corey had passed along. He yanked the pin, flung it through the air, and sent
the men–the ones that survived–scattering from the explosion.
The second grenade seemed to finish
the job.
Scotty and Reggie tried to hold their
own against the Biters. But it was no use. There were too many of them and they
were closing in at all sides. That’s when Chen rushed over, discarding his
shotgun and pulling the katana from its scabbard.
“GO!” he told them. And White and
Loomis made a break for it before the Biters formed a complete circle around
Chen. They took cover behind the adjacent outhouse where Ryder was stationed.
“The fuck is he doing?” White asked.
“No clue,” Loomis said. “I think he’s
got more balls than brains."
Carson
Ryder could see nothing beyond the walls of rotted flesh that had formed around
Chen. Surrounded inside this circle of bloated corpses with their swollen,
distended bellies, their blackened teeth, and their charcoal grey complexions,
Chen had a moment of lucidity.
“Damn,” Chen muttered. “I fucked up on
this one.”
Most of Eli and Jones’s followers had
fallen back as the growing number of Biters threatened to consume them all.
Ryder, Loomis, and White could not intervene without putting themselves in
jeopardy. All they could do was watch from a distance as the mob of Biters started
closing in on Chen.
He heaved and gagged and fought his
stomach’s urge to recycle his breakfast. He knew the damned things smelled, but
up close was a whole different story. The rotting stench hit him like a punch
to the throat.
Some looking as though they’d been
dead for years. Loose, saggy skin and disintegrating bones that scraped and
grinded together with every move their made. Some had patches of flesh ripped
from their faces or torsos, exposing the muscle and sinew beneath.
“Can you see him?” Ryder asked.
“I can’t see anything besides the Biters,”
White said. “It doesn’t look good.”
A jet of blood spurted into the air, erupting
like a geyser. Then another fountain of blood sprayed up into the air. And
another and another. Ryder could see the source of this carnage as the katana whirled
through the air like a propeller, decapitating the head of every snarling Biter
that loomed over Chen.
When it was over, Chen was drenched in
blood and standing over the corpses of three dozen or more truncated Biters. But
this opening only led to more gunfire from their opposition. Luke, moving
faster than the wind, took cover behind the outhouse with Ryder and the rest of
the guys.
“What were you thinking?” Ryder asked.
“I wasn’t,” Chen said. “But Reggie and
Scotty were in trouble and I had to help them.”
“Noble,” Scotty nodded. “Stupid, but
noble.”
“Thanks for saving our asses,” Reggie
said.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Chen said. “Wait
until all this is over.”
The savage, brainwashed followers advanced
again, fanning out across the compound. But they were cut off in their tracks
from a barrage of bullets. The men turned and saw Corey beside the manor,
clutching an M60 machine gun with a 200-round bandolier attached. He didn’t
stop firing until the gun had been emptied and the trigger made that click
sound.
He tossed the M60 aside, joined the
men behind the outhouse. By then, Nikki Fox had taken cover with them as well.
But there wasn’t much gunfire to take cover from.
Corey had eliminated the remaining
followers that refused to retreat. The only threat that stood now were the
Biters. And there were still sixty or more spread out across the compound.
“Where the fuck were you?” Ryder
asked.
“Yeah,” Reggie said. “We thought you
were dead.”
“I thought I was dead too. I ran to
the Quonset hut to get the M60. Next thing I know, the thing got blown to
pieces. I barely made it out in time. Got thrown pretty far from the blast. I
must’ve lost consciousness for a little while.”
“Where’s Taryn?” Loomis asked.
“She was with me one minute, and the
next minute she was gone,” Nikki said.
“Hey, you brain dead cocksuckers!”
Taryn’s voice carried across the compound.
“Speak of the devil,” Corey said.
“Hey, over you here you bloated,
maggoty fucks! Come and get me!”
Taryn was taunting the Biters, luring
them all in her direction where she stood across from the manor. But she wasn’t
alone. She had backup in the form of Vern Sheldon’s flamethrower. The one
weapon Corey had left out of his inventory.
With the flamethrower strapped to her
back, she sparked the pilot light and squeezed the trigger. The torch released
waves of flames that jetted out in short, controlled bursts.
The fire spread fast, devouring the
Biters and sending others scrambling in every direction. This was the opening
they needed. Armed with whatever guns they had their hands wrapped around, the
gang opened fire, aiming for the heads. Between the guns and the flamethrower,
they finally had the situation pretty well under control.
Now there was only the matter of Mr.
Jones, who lie writhing in a pile of the dead. His leg was clipped by a stray
bullet in the fray, and he couldn’t pull himself back up to his feet.
“What should we do with him?” Corey
posed the question to the group as they were all reunited again.
“I say we cut him up into little pieces
and feed him to the Biters,” Taryn said.
Jones winced just at the thought. He
started crawling on his belly, trying desperately to escape. But with his
injury, he was crawling at the pace of a snail.
“I say we torture him, then we feed
him to the Biters,” Reggie suggested.
“I say we saw his head off and stick
on the top of the fence like a pike.”
“I love it,” Ryder said.
Corey wandered off for a few seconds,
and returned with an axe in hand. “I couldn’t find a saw,” he shrugged. “But
this will do the trick.”
“Hold it!” a voice commanded. And they
turned their collective heads to see Eli standing near the wrought iron fence,
Colt .45 pressed to Nikki Fox’s skull. “This isn’t over! Not until I get what I
want!”
“What the fuck do you want?” Ryder
asked.
“You,” Eli said. “Dead.”
“Even if you kill me, even if you kill
Nikki, you’re still outnumbered. You’ll never leave this compound alive.
Neither will Jones.”
“I don’t give a fuck about Jones,” Eli
said frankly. “You could kill him for all I care. But my work isn’t finished
until you’re dead, Ryder. If I have to sacrifice myself in the process, so be
it.”
“Your work won’t be finished until the
world is completely destroyed,” Ryder pointed out. “That was your real goal.
That’s what all this was about. The planning, the orchestrating, timing the
release of the virus, finding the perfect scapegoat. This is your legacy. This
is what you set out to do.”
“And I’ve accomplished my goals. The world is in ruins.”
“Have you?” Ryder asked sincerely. “You
took a little visit to that underground base in Texas. You and your buddies.
But you didn’t destroy every vial. We found a few of them intact. Brought them
back. Tested one out. It works, Eli. The cure works. What do you think of that?
All your hard work is about to be erased.”
“Prove it,” Eli demanded. “Show me the
vials.”
“They’re not here,” Ryder told him. “I
buried them somewhere, not too far from here. I can show you, but only if you
let Nikki go. Trade her for me. Look, I’m unarmed and I’ll do anything you say.
Just let her go.”
“Ok, deal,” Eli said. “Get your ass
over here and let’s get this show on the road.”
To Be Continued With Part Thirty Five (The
Last Chapter): FINITO
No comments:
Post a Comment