Pandora (Book 5): Behold A Pale Horse Page 23

  Dwayne nodded.

  Patrick picked up the cell phone. Looking at it, he saw that his battery was almost dead. Quickly dialing, he waited for his brother to pick up.

  §§§

  Mike and Sam walked out their front door. Turning, they saw their neighbor Jimmy do the same. As they walked down the front lawn to the street, Sam turned to look back at their home. A lump formed in her throat as she noted the damage done to her beautiful home. The front windows were blown out and the amount of bullet holes in the siding made her house looked like it belonged in Beirut.

  Mike’s phone rang and he answered it.

  “Pat?” he said.

  “Yes, Mike,” Patrick answered. “I’m here. Right now I’m sitting on Barlow Street watching the whole neighborhood here burn down.”

  “The fire got that bad already?” Mike said. “Crap. I can see the smoke and orange glow above the trees, but I didn’t know it spread that far already.”

  “There is a huge mass of undead heading your way,” Patrick told him. “The fires are driving them into your section of town.”

  Mike looked down his street. He could see the beginnings of the horde walking past. A few had started to turn into his block, attracted by the feast going on at the black SUV near the corner.

  “Find a way to get here quickly,” Mike said. “When you do, come up the driveway and drive around the house on the grass. Get close to the shed if you can. We’ll be waiting.”

  “Be there as soon as I can,” Patrick said before he disconnected.

  Jimmy was already in the road, checking the bodies. When Mike looked over, Jimmy glanced up and shook his head. Walking over to the young man that was wounded and thrown from the fleeing SUV, Mike came up and looked down at him. He was lying next to the parked car he hit. Its door was dented where his body had collided with it. He was still alive. Breathing in short, gasping pants, his eyes were unfocused and one pupil was blown. With every breath he took, more blood ran from his mouth. As Mike gazed down at him, the dying man seemed to notice him standing over him. He began to open and close his jaw as if he were trying to speak. Then his eyes lost focus once again, and he coughed a few times. More blood flowed down his face from his mouth and then began to run from his nose. The young thug made a choking sound. Then his body jerked and he stopped breathing altogether.

  Mike heard Sam call his name and he looked over at her. She was standing next to Jimmy and as he looked at her, she pointed to the end of the street. Several zombies had turned into their street and were shambling up the block, with more turning in to join them.

  As Mike hurried over, Jimmy said, “We’d better get back to our houses.”

  “Come with us, Jimmy,” Mike said. “I know that I asked you fifty times before, but it’s not safe here anymore. Please join us.”

  Jimmy shook his head and smiled grimly, “Thanks anyway, but I don’t think so. I can’t see myself living in a hole in the ground. Ain’t my style.”

  “If you change your mind, just come a’ knocking,” Mike said.

  “Thanks,” the old Marine said, “but I think I’m staying topside.”

  The three of them parted ways. Jimmy jogged back to his house, went inside and barricaded the door. Mike and Sam went into their backyard and walked to the far end. They entered the shed.

  Mike paused and said, “I’ll wait here for my brother. Why don’t you go down?”

  Smiling at him, she said, “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll wait with you.”

  He gave her a hug and they sat on some folding chairs to wait, keeping vigil by the window.

  §§§

  “Okay, Dad,” Dwayne said holding the map. “There’s Marshall Street.” He pointed toward the street sign. “Turn right there and Beverly Court should be a little ways up.”

  The Toyota turned into the street and they saw a steady stream of zombies entering from the next block.

  “We’ll have to drive right through them,” Dwayne said in a panicky voice.

  “I have no choice,” his father replied.

  “Just don’t stop, Mr. S,” Billy said, his nerves at their breaking point.

  Patrick pressed harder on the gas pedal and the bulky SUV picked up speed. A few zombies nearest them had turned and stopped. The Highlander, now doing fifty, hit pack of zombies head on. Patrick was gripping the wheel with white knuckles. As the undead bodies flew in all directions, he struggled to keep the vehicle straight. One zombie came crashing over the hood and smashed into the windshield, cracking it down the center. The body continued on over the roof. The SUV jolted back and forth as the zombies bounced off of it and the tires climbed over the bodies. Several times the backend started to fishtail around. Patrick struggled mightily trying to keep SUV on the road and traveling straight ahead. The mass of undead became thicker the further into then they drove.

  “I can’t see the street signs,” yelled Dwayne. “I don’t know where to turn.”

  Just then, another zombie was knocked onto the hood. He flew face first into the windshield. The impact caused another crack to form. This one was even larger. They were now moving forward at a slower pace. Though they were surrounded by the undead, they still kept rolling forward.

  The zombie on the hood had grabbed ahold of the windshield wipers and was hanging on tenaciously. His mouth full of broken teeth continued to gnaw at the glass; while his milky eyes stared at the passengers inside. Patrick was afraid to start swerving back and forth to knock him off. He didn’t want to wind up losing control of the car.

  Now, the zombie had started to hammer on the windshield with his fist. The other hand still gripped the wiper blade.

  “I can’t see out of the window,” yelled Patrick. “Are we near Beverly Court yet?”

  “Shit,” hissed Dwayne, through his clenched teeth, “I have no fucking idea.” He grabbed the bat and reached to open the sunroof.

  “What are you doing?” everyone screamed at him.

  “I’m going to knock this sucker off of the windshield,” Dwayne said.

  When the sunroof fully opened, Dwayne stood up on the passenger seat and squeezed through the opening on top. He held the bat but couldn’t get the proper angle to effectively hit the zombie.

  Already another crack had formed in the windshield from the creature’s relentless hammering. Then another appeared with a ping as the first two large cracks in the glass became connected.

  §§§

  As Mike looked out the shed window, he didn’t see any zombies entering the backyard. He couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening out there.

  “I’m going out,” he told his wife. “I want to see how many of them came onto our street.”

  “Be careful,” she said as he opened the door slowly.

  Mike stood in the back of his large yard. He could hear the moans of the zombies increasing. As he ran crouching across the yard, he could hear pounding start on his neighbor’s front door. They must have seen Jimmy go inside, he thought.

  By the time he had reached the back of his own house, the pounding had increased. He started to circle around, but thought better of it. Instead, he mounted the stairs of his deck and went into the back sliding doors of the house. As he crept through to the front, he hoped that the zombies didn’t start to wander into the back. He would be trapped then.

  Entering the living room, he peeked out of the smashed front window. What he saw made him gasp in fright.

  §§§

  Dwayne tried hitting the zombie with the bat, but he was swinging blindly and didn’t want to risk hitting the windshield. He knew that one wrong blow would completely smash the whole thing in. Instead he tried to climb further through the sunroof. He needed to see what he was swinging at.

  He pushed himself out past his hips and onto the roof. Leaning over, he was able to see the zombie holding on. Dwayne reached out and drove the end of the bat down on top of the zombie’s head. That didn’t do anything but get the ghoul’s attention. The zombie snarl
ed fiercely at him. The hand that was hammering the glass now reached out and pawed the roof trying to grab him. With his jaw snapping wildly, the zombie then started crawling up the windshield. He pumped his legs on the hood and grabbed the molding along the roof line. The creature finally wiggled his way up the windshield. As he hoisted himself up, his left knee struck the windshield and went through it. The passenger side of the glass spider-webbed out from the hole.

  The zombie at last raised himself up above the roof line. With milky white eyes blazing, he snarled at the human being in front of him. Broken teeth flew from his widening jaws. Bracing his feet inside the vehicle, Dwayne brought the bat to his shoulder and swung it as hard as he could. The wooden bat whistled in the air as the Toyota flew forward and hit the creature fully on the side of his jaw next to his ear. The force of the blow dislodged the mandible, shattering it and drove the entire lower jaw to the other side of his face. The zombie flew off the vehicle and into the air. It landed in the mass of zombies below, its forward motion sending it bouncing along the street like a cannonball scattering the other zombies as if so many duck pins.

  Staring unbelievably at the now empty space in front of him, Dwayne suddenly pointed and yelled out to his father.

  “It’s here! Beverly Court is the next turn. I remember the big yellow house on the corner. Turn left, turn left.”

  Patrick, looking through the splintered windshield, saw the yellow house and spun the wheel. The yawing of the vehicle almost threw Dwayne off the roof before he could slide back down into his seat. The Toyota swung into the street, almost completely spinning around, but he quickly got it under control.

  §§§

  The street was full of zombies. Mike couldn’t leave his eyes. He could see the majority of them descending on Jimmy’s house, pulled toward it by the moans of the zombies already there. If only we had a little more time, he thought. There’s no way Pat can get through this.

  Mike could now hear a great increase in the moans of the undead, but the noise seemed to be coming from the other end of the street. That was where most of the horde was. As he looked closer, he could see the zombies that were coming up his street suddenly stop and turn around. Something had definitely drawn their attention away.

  As he watched curiously, a Toyota Highlander swung into his street. The vehicle fishtailed around then righted itself as it drove toward the house. Its gore splattered grille tore through the pack of zombies.

  “Holy shit,” he gasped, “that’s Pat’s SUV. He freaking made it.”

  The undead swarmed toward the vehicle as it rammed its way up the block. Mike was mesmerized by the sight. It wasn’t until the Toyota was almost to his driveway that he realized that he had better get the hell out into the backyard. Mike turned and ran through the house. He had just burst through the sliding doors and closed them again, when Patrick bounced up the curb and into the driveway. Before they reached the garage, he cut the wheel to the right and the car left the asphalt, cutting through the grass on the side of the house. Mike had a wooden picket fence around their property in the back and the Toyota smashed through it, sending pieces of wooden slats flying in all directions.

  The mass of zombies in the street came staggering the up sidewalk and continued onto the driveway in pursuit. Their moans and snarls filled the air. Patrick’s Toyota ground to a halt in the middle of Mike’s yard, dredging deep furrows into the grass. Clods of dirt and sod were thrown up by the tires.

  Mike ran to the side of the house and put his rifle to his shoulder. He fired at the zombies making their way up his driveway. Meanwhile, Patrick and his passengers jumped out of the SUV.

  “Grab your stuff,” he said. “Take as much as you can.”

  Sam opened the door of the shed and stepped out. She gestured for everyone to come inside. Patrick already had his things and ran over. He dumped them at her feet, and then turned around and quickly ran back to his brother. He pulled out the Taurus and joined him in the firing line. They both continued to take down as many undead as they could.

  Dwayne, Erica and Billy frantically emptied the car and brought everything inside the shed. By now, Sam had the trap door open and was helping to haul everything down into the bomb shelter. The four of them formed a bucket brigade passing down the supplies to be stored underground. When they finished, Sam ran back up the stairs and out of the shed.

  She yelled to her husband, “Mike, we’re set. Get inside now.”

  Firing their last couple of rounds, as the undead came around the house, Mike and Patrick turned and raced back to the shed. A few zombies had come around the other side of the house from Jimmy Flynn’s place and we are just entering the yard. They knocked down the picket fence on their side as they awkwardly stumbled over. Running inside the shed door, Patrick ran down the cement staircase as his brother turned to lock the shed door from the inside. For a second, he looked out. His heart jumped in his throat as he watched the snarling zombies flood around both sides of his property. Then he sealed the door and double locked it. With one final, worried glance out the window, he went down to join everyone else.

  “Everyone inside?” Mike called out as he entered.

  They all nodded, too drained to answer. The six people inside then drew together and joined arms in an emotional and relieved group hug. They were so overcome, that no one wanted to break their tight embrace.

  “Oh my God,” Patrick said with a shaky voice, “I can’t believe we really made it here.”

  “We didn’t think you would be able to,” Sam said, crying. “Mike and I were so afraid that you wouldn’t get here in time.”

  They hugged each other even tighter.

  On the ground above them, the zombies started flowing into the backyard after the vehicle. The zombies that came in from the other side saw Mike and Patrick enter the shed. They rushed over and started pounding on the metal door. Soon, as the rest came into the yard, the shed was surrounded by dozens and dozens of snarling zombies, pounding and hammering at the metal shed.

  Within a half hour of relentless battering, the metal shed started to come apart. As the seams began to separate, the undead began to rip and tear at the metal. Ten minutes later, the entire structure collapsed in on itself; as the walls fell inward in a heap of dented and bent metal. The undead climbed on the remains searching for their prey. But, there were no victims to be found. The frustrated moaning and growling continued as the creatures roamed the grounds.

  Five weeks later…

  The hot summer sun, shone down on the still cul-de-sac. The sound of birds chirping and cicadas whirring filled the air. The idyllic sounds were broken by the roar of two military jets flying close overhead. This was their second pass over in as many hours. In their passing, the various birds and insects resumed their songs.

  Then a clang of metal sounded from the backyard of the house at the end of the road. Then came another metallic bang and one of the sheets of metal piled at the end of the yard slid away. More rattling started and another piece of wall slipped from the pile of corrugated metal.

  With a grunt of exertion, Mike flipped the trap door open. This pushed the doorway section of the shed off to the side. He climbed to the top of the stairs and looked around the backyard. It was completely empty. He walked up and gingerly climbed over the collapsed walls of the shed. Patrick followed him. Both men were armed with assault rifles.

  As their eyes carefully scanned the landscape, Patrick said, “It looks as though the horde moved on.”

  Mike walked to the side of his house and looked out into the street.

  “I don’t see a zombie anywhere,” he said in amazement, “not one.”

  They both walked around to the front of the house. The burnt vehicle and bodies were still in the street. Mike cupped his hand over his eyes and peered out to the end of his block.

  “There are maybe two or three of those things wandering around down there,” he said, “but, that’s it.”

  Patrick blew out a puff of air, “We go
t lucky.”

  Mike turned to Jimmy Flynn’s house. The front door was smashed in and hanging on one hinge.

  “Some of us, anyway,” Mike noted.

  Turning and trotting over, Mike motioned for his brother to follow. They both entered through the battered door into Jimmy’s living room. The inside was a mess. It looked as though a herd of cattle was let loose throughout the house. Cabinets and tables were knocked over and glass and shattered knickknacks littered the carpet. They were about to go upstairs, when a lone zombie stumbled out of the kitchen. He was wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms and his gums were already shrunken back from his teeth. He growled at them when Mike lifted the barrel of his rifle and shot him between the eyes. He collapsed in the hallway.