Losers vs. Zombies, page 5
They all nodded and got to work. I took a lookout by the side of the house where we drove in. Bob took the other side. We were leaving the front door closed so the zombies wouldn’t get inside too early and bite someone. It felt like it took forever before the stereo started blaring upstairs.
As I stood guard, I began to fret over the plan to ignite the fire. I planned on a pool of fluid both inside and outside the back door with a trail leading between the two. The back door would need to be shut to keep as many of the zombies inside as possible. Would it work? Could I hit that target well enough with the flare gun? Would it be better to leave a window open and try to shoot the flare through it?
One by one, the others finished their jobs and I sent them back to the trucks so we would be ready to pull out quickly. Once everyone was in the truck, I ran into the house to make sure all was ready. The front door was still closed so I opened it. One zombie fell into the house but I was already backing away safely. I could see many more zombies approaching the front. I was elated. This might work!
I headed out the back making sure to shut the door behind me and jumped into the Jeep. We drove out just as Susan was turning in toward us. She got in line and followed me as I led them away from the house.
“How long do we wait?” Steve asked.
“I’m not sure. I need to get somewhere with a view of the front door.” I motioned to the other trucks to stay where they were. I had led them almost a block down the side street. I figure we would be safe enough there.
I drove around the block and stopped far enough away to be safe. I could see a steady stream of zombies entering the house. Dozens of them entered as I watched. There were many more of them walking toward the house from the direction Susan came from. We sat and watched for some time.
Once the zombie numbers began to dwindle, I figured it was now or never. I backtracked to where the others were and then went to the house on foot. I kept to the shadows. I had the flare gun in one hand and my pistol in the other. Once I made it to the fence behind the house, I aimed and shot the flare. I missed. I reloaded and was about to try again when I saw a window and decided to aim at it. Hit! The flare crashed through the window and ignited the house. The flames roared to life. I didn’t stick around to watch. Once I knew the fire was going, I hightailed it back to the Jeep.
My feet were protesting my attempts at running but I soldiered through it. The others were cheering as they watched the flames light up the now darkening sky.
Chapter 5
The next day saw three houses get torched. We were averaging around fifty zombies killed in each house. Everyone else was happy with those results. I wasn’t. I knew it would take us years to get this city clean if we didn’t find a better way.
We went back to the police station for the rest of the guns and ammo. We piled the extras in behind the seats of the trucks. At least that was one less worry now. All of us would have a handgun and an assault rifle.
I came up with some ideas. If we could use a really huge building and lure the zombies in, we could kill many more. That would require a whole lot more accelerants than we had. I thought of using the Bankhead Tunnel. It was a more difficult proposition but I thought it could be done. Again, we would need something very flammable to use and we would be running out of charcoal lighter fluid eventually.
“Everyone, I need some help with a few new ideas.” I had gathered the others to help me think out the solutions to my better ideas. For some reason, we returned to the dollar store close to the park where we found Susan and Katy. “First off, we are going to need a different kind of accelerant. We need something that we can find in large amounts. We won’t be able to pull off bigger jobs if all we have are the stuff we’ve been using. Any ideas?”
“Gasoline comes to mind.” Amy said.
“No. We have a limited supply of that since the refineries won’t be making any more. We need to save it for our vehicles and generators. Any other ideas?” I asked.
“How about paint thinner? Hardware stores carry a ton of it. There are gallon buckets and five gallon buckets of it at the hardware store where I worked. That stuff is really flammable.” Harold suggested.
“Good! That will work. Secondly, we will need some way to power a stereo for longer than a generator can. Wait, I know how to do that now.” I wanted to slap my forehead for not thinking of it before. “We can use a semi for that. I drove a truck for a few years. You can let them idle for days. They can supply the batteries for what we’ll need.”
“What are your new ideas?” Steve asked.
“Well, the houses aren’t killing enough of the zombies. I figure we can use the same format on a larger building. Also, I think we could set something up using the Bankhead Tunnel. That tunnel would hold thousands of them.” I started explaining my ideas but they were obviously wanted to interrupt.
“What about the mall? If we could get them started coming into the mall we might be able to get ten thousand at once.” Bob suggested.
“I’ve thought about that. There are good and bad points to that plan. The main thing is keeping everyone safe while we set it up. We drove by there the other day and the parking lot was full of zombies. It would take hours to get the mall ready and the zombies wouldn’t wait. The good things are the number of them we could kill and that most of the stuff we would need is already there.”
“Hey! The Sear’s automotive place out in front of the mall. We could do a quick set up there and kill the ones in the parking lot.” Steve almost shouted.
“Good idea. Do we have enough materials left to set it up?” I asked.
“Yes. Plus there are a lot of flammables in there to help out.” Bob said.
“Ok. That will be our first target in the morning. The auto place as quickly as we can get it done, then we barricade ourselves into the mall to set it up. Everyone get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be a rough one.” I told them.
I painfully rose to my feet. If my feet get much worse, I will be slower than the zombies. That would be bad. I stretched out on my makeshift bed. We were using the clothes from the store to give us some padding from the floor.
We ate a quick breakfast before we set out for the mall. I was going over everything that could go wrong with this plan. It wasn’t going to be as easy as I would like. Everyone knew their jobs. It would just be a matter of getting the auto place done. The mall would take all day to set up the way I wanted it to be. Maybe longer.
As we pulled into the parking lot I groaned inwardly. There were more zombies than I remembered. They all started walking in our direction before we could come to a stop. We piled out of the trucks and went to work. I was on guard duty along with Bob, Tina, and Susan. Steve and Harold handled the stereo. The rest went to douse the whole inside with the last of our charcoal fluid.
We killed several who got too close. I knew the gunfire would only help to bring more of them here. That was a good thing now. They set up everything in record time. We were back in the trucks in less than four minutes.
We drove to an empty part of the parking lot and waited. A few of them walked to us instead of to the music. They would have to wait. We were safe inside the trucks so I didn’t worry about them. It didn’t take too long for the building to fill up with zombies. Steve and Harold had put the stereo up on the hood of a raised car. That was really smart of them since the zombies couldn’t knock it over now. I waited as long as I could before moving the jeep a little ways to get away from the few zombies that came to us. I got out and shot the flare into the auto place. It went up quickly.
The fire was impressive, the explosions were even more impressive. I figured it was the old oil from the cars they serviced. A huge cloud of black smoke billowed out. There were many smaller explosions that I attributed to the quarts of oil they had in stock. All in all, it was one hell of a fire.
I was about to get back into the Jeep when everyone jumped out of one of the trucks screaming and yelling. I ran to see what was going on.
David was finally moving.
Unfortunately, he was trying to bite.
“Did anyone get bitten?” I asked.
“No.” Laura answered.
“I’m sorry, Laura. You know what we have to do.” I told her. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and nodded. She turned her head as I opened the door and waited for David to come out. When he was clear of the truck, I shot him in the head.
We got back into the vehicles and drove them around to the side of the mall. There weren’t too many zombies there. We made sure to park the vehicles a good distance away from the mall itself. We killed a few zombies on our way into the building and locked the doors behind us. Now came the cleansing of the stores.
I split us up into groups of three, with Angie and me in a twosome. We separated and went through store after store. We made sure all the doors to the outside were locked. We regrouped at the other end of the mall with two new members.
“We found these two in Target.” Susan informed me. There was a boy and a girl. Both were in there early to mid-teens.
“What are your names?” I asked.
“I’m Eric and this is Wendy.” The boy said.
“How long have you two been hiding here?”
“Four days. We’ve been locked inside Target since our mother was bitten. We came here for food and she got bit. We didn’t know where else to go. I killed three zombies that were in the store. One of them was Mom.” The boy hung his head and I felt so sorry for him.
“You did the right thing, Eric.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“What were those explosions?” Wendy asked.
“We lured some of the zombies into the auto service center out front of the mall. We set fire to it to burn the zombies. Some of the oil they had there blew up when the fire reached it.” I explained.
We all took a few minutes to rest and relax before we started planning the mall fire. I looked around at our group of people. Two waitresses, two hardware store guys, a writer, a florist, a Burger King Manager, a substitute teacher, a customer service rep, three teenagers, and one mean ass Amy. The only one who would have been useful in this situation was David and he’s dead now. We were doomed.
I sat there thinking how we were lucky to have survived this long. We really needed to find as many other people as we could. We were a bunch of losers that were taking their lead from a man who was an unsociable loner. I didn’t know what I was doing.
“What are you thinking so hard about? “ Steve leaned over and asked me quietly.
“That we need more people.” I felt it was somewhat true anyway.
“What? We need fewer people not more. Your dumbass is going to make sure we run out of food. Why would you want more losers hanging around?” Amy said in her usual charming manner.
“The more people we have, the better. More people gives us a better chance at survival, as well as giving us more options on killing the zombies.” I tried to explain.
“Nope. More people means more mouths to feed and more idiots to get bit.” Amy was getting on my nerves.
“If we find more people, some of them might know what the hell they are doing.” I figured she could agree with that one.
“Your right about that, but I still don’t want anybody else coming along.” Amy stated in her usual smartass way.
“Seems like you are doing just fine to me.” Steve said.
“Thanks, but I know my limitations. I was never meant to be a leader.” I admitted.
“Personally, I think you’re doing a hell of a job.” Harold said. He was sitting on the other side of me and heard the whole conversation. “We’ve eaten three times each day. We’ve managed to kill hundreds of zombies. We have a plan and a direction to go in. There isn’t much to work with, but you’ve done well.”
“I appreciate the thought.” I said. Truthfully, I was a little flustered. No one ever talked like that about me before. I wasn’t used to it.
We continued to rest even though we should have been up and working. My back and feet were killing me and I wanted to rest. The others looked both tired and excited. They were lagging enough to show how much of a toll the last few days had taken on them. They were smiling and upbeat enough to show how excited they were about the mall plan. This mall had beds, food, and water. I wished we could stay here.
What if we did stay for a few days? We could barricade the doors and let more zombies gather. That might be the better plan anyway. Maybe if we went to the roof and shot a round or two every once in a while to attract more of them. Maybe we should find an air horn and save the bullets though.
“Guys, what would you think of staying here for a day or two while we let the zombies gather outside? We could play music from the roof to keep them here and use one of the guns or an air horn, if we can find one, to attract zombies from farther away.” I suggested. I looked around at their faces to see which way they were leaning.
“We could. It all depends on if the doors will hold.” Bob said.
“We can barricade them with whatever we can find. We should be able to make them hold for a couple of days.” Steve said before I got the chance.
The rest of the group all agreed with the new idea. Bob, Harold, and Steve all went to work reinforcing the doors. I sent some of the women to gather the food in boxes so we could try and take some of it with us when we left. We never went to the hardware store to get the paint thinner, so I sent the rest out to look for flammables. I knew Sears would have some of everything.
I sat there nursing my aches and pains. My thoughts were getting jumbled. I needed to concentrate but I didn’t have the clarity that I usually had. This rest would do me some good. I hoped.
As the day went on, I sent the guys out on different errands. Bob noted that while Sears had generators to run the stereo, we didn’t bring any gas with us. I told him to see if they would run off of the gas cleaners and fuel injector cleaners without burning up the engines. He came back later saying it worked fine.
Harold found the roof access. They set everything up and the music began to play. A huge debate over the type of music began. I let them argue for a few minutes before I stepped in with a compromise.
“I don’t want to hear no stupid country music! Pop music or R&B, those are the only two we should play.” Amy complained.
“I hate R&B. We need rock.” Tina stated.
“We will take turns deciding what is played. Each person will get one cd played, then we move on to the next person. We will be here for days so everyone will get to hear something they like.” I told them. I could see Amy about to say something else and I cut her off. “We will draw numbers to decide the order we get to choose.”
Everyone was okay with this, except Amy. She would complain if she won the lottery. Some people were like that.
I took a trip to the roof late in the day to see how many zombies were gathering. There were upwards of two hundred. I could see more coming in the distance. We were shooting a bullet into the air about every hour. I would have liked having the truck with the good stereo bringing them in from farther away. I couldn’t see a way to do that safely though. I walked to the rear of the roof to see if they were gathering there as well. Nope.
“Steve, do you think you could get to the truck and use the stereo to go draw more zombies? I would like to fill this place up with as many of them as we can. The back of the mall only has a dozen or so zombies. Almost all of them are coming in from the Airport Boulevard side. I think you could make a run to the truck and get away cleanly.”
“Sure if you think it will help.” He said readily enough. I hated to hear how much trust they had in me.
I gathered a few of the others.
“Tina and Cindy, I want you two to go out with Steve. He is going to take the truck with the good stereo and draw more zombies to us. I want you two to drive the other vehicles around to the back so we can load them with the extra food and water. The rest of us need to grab a weapon. Look for crowbars or hammers and such. We don’t want to use the guns in the back of the store. We need to keep the zombies at the front. It will help when we go to make our run for it. Any questions?”
“Nope. I like it.” Harold chimed in and started walking away to find some weapons. I liked him. Simple and to the point.
Everyone else followed Harold and looked for weapons. I walked over to where Steve was. He looked nervous.
“It will be fine. We will make sure you get to the truck safely. Now, try to go down a good ways until you find a large amount of zombies. Wait until you find them to turn the music up. You drive slowly enough for them to follow. Then when you get close, turn the music off and drive in a different direction. Try to gather them from all around here, not just from one area.” I told him.
“Got it. What about when I get back? Where do you want me to park?” Steve asked. He still looked nervous but I knew he would come through.
“The other two vehicles will be in back. Park beside them. We will be on the lookout for you. When you pull up, we will come out to make sure you have help with any zombies that might be there.”
“Okay, sounds good.” He was calming down a bit. Maybe it was just his resolve to do his part. I wasn’t sure.
We were armed with hammers, lead pipes, and crowbars. We headed out the back door in a rush. The trucks were on the side of the building so it took a minute or two to get to them. There weren’t too many zombies in that area but some from the outer edges of the front grouping saw us. They headed in our direction but they weren’t fast enough to stop us from getting to the truck safely. Once Steve was on his way, the rest of us piled in or on the other two vehicles and we drove to the back where we came out. Some of the zombies followed us so I had Bob, Harold, and Tina stay with me to help kill them.
