Zombies Apocalypse

Chapter 9

Mac turned his head to the left and looked out the window. Robert Cotton – the big, muscular man – had moved up and parked his car next to Mac’s. He was nodding his head to the words he had just spoken, eyes still focused on the distant hallway and the creatures attempting to force their way down it. He turned to meet Mac’s gaze and smiled. “What do you think?”

“Well, I see no reason why we should wait around here,” Mac agreed.

“Should one of us wait for the kid?” Elaine asked. She was sitting in the passenger seat of Cotton’s SUV, close enough to Mac that he could reach out and touch her. At the comment, he found himself wanting to reach out and strangle her. Comments like that, they only created more danger than they were worth. The kid had wanted to risk his neck. What should they care?

“Elaine’s right,” Robert agreed. “What if his car doesn’t work? We shouldn’t just leave him stranded here. Not after how he helped us.”

Mac gritted his teeth but said nothing. He knew what they were really saying, even if they didn’t want to come out and say it. He was the only one with a spare seat, so he was the one that would have to stay behind.

“Yeah, fine, I’ll do it.” Mac growled, tossing his cigarette to the ground outside. “Just get out of here, will ya?”

Cotton nodded, rolled up his window, and started off. Behind him, the others quickly followed suit. Mac watched all four cars roll by with a deep set frown on his face while a black feGabriel ng grew in the pit of his stomach. Once they’d disappeared out of sight around the bend, he pulled the gear into drive.

Ryan, who was sitting in the passenger seat, shot him a funny glance. “What are you doing? I thought you said we would wait for the boy.”

“We’re not waiting for Gabriel ?” Jake said, sliding forward in her seat.

Mac turned around, scowling. “Hell no, we’re not waiting. Not here, anyway. We already all agreed to wait at a strip mall down the street. If that kid wants to go off and get himself killed, that’s his business. We have kids of our own to worry about.”

He was referring, of course, to Charles and Tyler, who were both still sitting in the back seat. However, he was more thinking about Nancy, their mother, who sat in the middle seat next to Ryan’s brother Rob.

Nancy’s husband had been one of the first to turn. Or at least, one of the first as far as anyone in the group knew. He had been infected during the initial outbreak, before anyone knew what was going on. One night he had simply come home with a bad wound on his arm. Nancy had wanted him to go to the hospital, but typical of his nature he of course refused. Instead he opted merely to clean and wrap the injury, which he claimed he got from cutting himself on something – he was unsure what – after some jerk had pushed him down on a sidewalk. By the time he made it to bed that night, he was feeling dizzy and sick, but assured his wife that all he needed was a good night’s sleep. She had gone to bed next to him.

Come morning, he was dead.

She had screamed and pleaded for it to not be true, she had called the hospital for an ambulance, and then, with nothing else to do, she had cried.

That’s when he suddenly rose up, and tried to eat her.

Suddenly, the woman who had been devastated at his loss only moments earlier had found herself desperate for anything that would make him stop moving again.

She had barely escaped that situation with her life. Now, her two children were all that remained of what had seemed a perfect life with a loving husband and a nice, two-story house in a pleasant neighborhood.

Mac told himself that he would be perfectly willing to risk his life if those three hadn’t been in his car, but the truth was that he would probably have found a reason to avoid the danger no matter who had been sitting there. Still, the warm smile and the softly spoken “Thank you,” Nancy gave him made it all seem worth it.

“Oh dear God,” Rob said suddenly. All eyes turned toward him, and then followed his gaze out the front window to where a large group of the creatures were making their way out of a hallway. Though they had no way to know it, this was the same group that had followed Gabriel from the parking lot only minutes earlier. Now, attracted by the noise of the engines, perhaps, they came stumbling back, spilling out of the hallway and down the short path to the parking lot.

“Shit!” Mac yelled, turning back around in his seat. He slammed the gas pedal straight down to the floor as hard as he could, and the vehicle raced off. “See, this is why we don’t split up, and this is why we don’t wait!” he shouted.

From the other side of a parked car near the hallway lurched one of the creatures. None of the passengers in the car had realized it was there. Mac didn’t think, only reacted. It was a reaction that would have probably saved a life, had the creature been a living, breathing human being instead of what it was. Since it was not alive, it dove for the car and fell right into the front wheel.

Mac attempted to swerve away from the monster, but the undead corpse was caught up in the centrifugal force and lodged in the wheel well. With the engine running like it was, the vehicle so top heavy, and now a body locking one of the wheels in place, Mac lost control. They crashed down on their side, skidding across the pavement with a horrible racket.

For Mac, everything suddenly went black.

As soon as he exited the hallway, Gabriel knew something was wrong. He had gone around the outside portion of the complex, following the gate until he had managed to put some distance between himself and the creatures he was hoping were still attempting to get into the pool. Once he felt comfortable doing so, he cut through one of the buildings back to the parking lot. He didn’t see the overturned SUV immediately, but it was almost as if he sensed it. It was blocked from his site by one of the complex’s dumpster sites, where two large city dumpsters sat walled off by a brick enclosing. It was only a few steps before he noticed part of the vehicle, clearly lying on its side, sticking out from around the dumpster block. A few steps more, and he noticed something odd and reflective lying on the ground, and yet a few steps more made it clear what the object was.

Aviator sunglasses.

Mac’s aviator sunglasses, Gabriel knew immediately. Which meant… jake…

He broke out into a run. Run was hardly even an adequate description. Gabriel had quite possibly never moved so quickly in his entire life. Barely a thought entered his mind. He was no longer concerned about his exhausted body, his tired limbs. They were a thing of the past, long forgotten to the annals of history. The undead creatures roaming about did not even enter his consciousness. They, too, were now non-entities. All that existed for him was the overturned SUV, and what was inside the SUV.

He skidded to a stop right outside the front window, leaning in close so he could peer inside, hoping to get a glimpse of the passengers. There was some kind of moment, and one of the side doors popped open.

Gabriel straightened, and hurried over to the open portal. A hand and arm reached out from the inside. He grabbed it and pulled, helping the person climb out of the vehicle. It was Rob. With an annoyed grunt, he pushed the man to the side and climbed up to the doorway.

“I... I think everyone’s okay. We weren’t going that fast,” Rob was saying, but Gabriel paid no attention. He was too focused on the task at hand.

Through the opening, he could see jake. She was kneGabriel ng over the prone form of Nancy, whose window had been shattered, and whose head now lay in a small pool of blood. “jake!” he called, desperate to get her attention. “We have to go!”

Jake glanced up, tears welling up in her eyes. “She’s unconscious,” she replied, numbly. “I can’t wake her.”

Gabriel turned his head and gave a good look at his surroundings. The large group of zombies he’d lost at the pool gate earlier was making its way out to them, slowly but definitely. They would be upon them in a matter of moments. He dropped his head and peered back through the door, the look on his face making the reality of their situation all too clear to jake.

She stood up as straight as she could and bent over the side of the seat to look into the back of the car. “Help me with the kids,” she said. She squirmed around the seat and into the back, out of Gabriel ’s sight, and muttered several words he couldn’t quite make out. From within the car came the sound of the children sobbing quietly, their moans and whines the only sign they were still alive. Moments later, Tyler was in front of him, reaching up with unsteady arms.

With a grimace, Gabriel grabbed on to the young man and pulled. The effort was not an easy one as the boy had only precarious footing upon the sides of the seats, and it was an awkward angle he was forced to squeeze through in order to get out of the car. It took some doing, but the two finally managed to wiggle the young man free. Gabriel quickly handed the boy off to Rob, who thankfully was prepared to help.

“Okay, next,” Gabriel called, uncertain of what else to say. Almost immediately he found Mandy’s terrified face before his own. Smiling with as much assurance as he could muster, he reached down for her and pulled. To his surprise, this time the process was completely different. Her smaller frame and lighter body made for a much easier time, and he quickly pulled her free from the car. Turning, he handed her off to Rob, and then quickly turned back to the car door again. Jake was already climbing over the back of the seat, and he reached down to help her, but she clearly had other plans. Pushing his hands aside, she dropped back down to the ground inside the car. She looked up, frowning, and waved him away.