City of the Dead

Chapter Fourteen

Jill thought that she could make it out of the city, but she only made it twenty blocks. The side streets were all packed with abandoned cars and huge mobs of roving zombies, so she stayed to the main city streets. When she encountered yet another blocked intersection, she drove her car over the grass covered median in between the opposing lanes of traffic and tried to turn around.

A huge blue pickup truck roared down the street after her and slammed on the brakes when it almost reached the intersection. It skidded off the road, skipped the curb, and smashed into the back of Jill’s car, spinning it around. Her head smacked against the driver’s side window as the car spun around, stars flashing in front of her eyes. The car wound up facing the intersection once more, with the back bumper ripped off and trunk popped open. For a moment she was dizzy and disoriented, still gripping the steering wheel.

The pickup truck continued forward, sliding back off of the median and into the other lanes of traffic, skidding out of control and smashing into the side of the building on the corner. Glass shattered and flew up into the air like sparks, and the truck blasted through the corner of the building, crashing onto its side, dust and rubble scattering around it.

Barely thinking straight, Jill fumbled at the gear shift to put the car in reverse. She backed up right into the edge of the guard rail facing her lane of traffic. She tried to pull forward again and the car groaned ineffectively. Her dizziness passed and she shook her head to clear it. She hit the gas more forcefully, but the car just squealed its protest, refusing to move.

One of the rear tires was smashed inward from the impact, and the car’s frame locked up against the guard rail. Jill slammed her hands against the steering wheel and screamed, desperately trying to get the car moving. But the bent wheel made it impossible. Her car wasn’t going anywhere.

Zombies appeared all over, slowly coming in her direction, attracted by the sound of the crash. She glanced out the windshield and saw at least thirty of them converging on her car. She kicked the door open and got out, swinging her shotgun out in front of her. She squeezed the trigger and the gun boomed, knocking her back. The first zombie, a man wearing a fast food restaurant uniform, flew backwards, his head caved in.

Some of the zombies went to investigate the crashed pickup truck. Jill glanced back to see them drag out the limp body of the driver and begin to bite down on it. But most of the zombies were more interested in her, preferring live prey.

Jill had no choice but to leave the car behind. There was no way she could possibly attempt to carry any of her possessions, even the pictures and mementos she wanted so much to save. She abandoned her entire life and ran across the street. A female zombie reached for her, and she cracked the stock of the shotgun against the zombie’s face, knocking it away.

As she ran, she pulled a few shells from her jacket pocket and tried to load them into the shotgun. The last thing she wanted was to run out of ammo at the wrong moment.

She ran down a city street lined with shops and stores. Brightly colored awnings flapped in the breeze, and neon signs flashed “We’re Open!” in the large windows. Some of the windows were broken, some of the doors knocked down. Jill hurried past a barber’s shop, glancing inside to see a herd of zombies inside, feasting on the dead bodies sprawled on the floor.

A zombie lurched out of an alleyway right in Jill’s path, and she jumped out of the way to avoid its grasp. He clutched at the edge of her jacket and held on as she tried to rush past him. She pulled but the zombie held fast, his bloody hands holding the jacket tightly. Jill pulled and lost her balance, falling onto the street. One of her arms pulled out of the sleeve and she scrambled backwards, letting her other arm slide out. The zombie, pulling hard on the jacket, suddenly stumbled back when Jill let go, and tripped over the curb, the jacket flapping up over his head.

Jill pulled the pistol from her belt and shot him in the face, then quickly aimed her gun at two more zombies coming at her. The first one went down, but the second amazingly continued forward when she shot him in the head. She shot him again and he fell face first, only a few feet away from her.

More of them appeared, as if they just materialized out of nowhere. Jill wanted to grab her jacket to get the extra bullets and shotgun shells in the pockets, but four more zombies were already coming off the curb, in between her and the jacket.

She was almost relieved to hear more gunshots coming from down the street. She got up and grabbed the shotgun, turning quickly to shoot two more zombies reaching for her. But for every zombie she killed, five more appeared to take its place. By now there were at least fifty of them pouring into the street, all of them coming right for her.

She used the shotgun to blast a path in front of her, using two more rounds to knock down a trio of zombies. Only two more shots remained in the gun, since she had no more shells. She slung the weapon over her shoulder and ran for it, jumping past a zombie that still moved.

Up ahead there was another huge crowd of zombies, more than a hundred of them. On the corner was a large warehouse building, two stories tall, with five numbered dock doors facing a parking lot jammed with zombies.

She saw two men in the parking lot, standing back to back, each armed with a shotgun. As the zombies pressed in, they opened fire, blasting zombies like it was a gruesome shooting gallery. Behind them, four people cowered on a short set of steps around a narrow dock entrance door, one of them trying in vain to kick it open.

Jill ran across the sidewalk and drew her pistol. She didn’t know how many shots remained in the gun, and though her pockets were full of bullets, she didn’t think she had time to reload the clip out here in the open.

She aimed carefully and shot four zombies right in the head, giving her room to run around the edge of the crowd. She hurried past more zombies, shooting one more that was a little too close for comfort, and jumped up onto the dock entrance ramp. The people there helped haul her up as zombies tried to grab her legs.

“Move!” she shouted at the man in front of the door. He quickly backed away and Jill shot the door lock until the pistol clicked empty. She slammed her shoulder into the door and it broke open.

“Get inside!” one of the other survivors cried.

They all ran inside the warehouse and held the door until the two men wielding shotguns managed to get up the ramp and make it inside. They slammed the door shut and blocked it for the moment by shoving a broom through the door handle.

“This ain’t gonna hold!” one of the men shouted.

Jill looked around for something heavy to block the door with. One of the other men ran across the warehouse to a large yellow forklift parked on the other side of the building. The keys were already inside. He drove it over to the doorway and backed the forklift up right against the door. The crowd of zombies outside were banging on the door, but there was no way they were getting in now.

Jill leaned against two pallets stacked with cardboard boxes and allowed herself a moment of relief. She leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees, and took several deep breaths.

“What’s your name?” someone asked.

Jill looked up and brushed stray hair from her face. “Jill Valentine,” she said, holding out a hand.

“Eddie Thorne,” the man said, shaking her hand. He wore dirty jeans and a red flannel overshirt with the sleeves rolled up. His brown work boots looked as if he had walked through more than one puddle of blood. His face was drawn and unshaven, and a black trucker’s cap was tilted on his head.

One of the men carrying a shotgun came over. He was overweight, wearing gray sweatpants and a dirty green t-shirt. “Hey, you got more bullets for your shotgun?”

Jill slid the gun off her shoulder and handed it to him. “I think there’s two shots left. You can have them.”

“Thanks,” the man said, taking the gun.

“That was some pretty risky stuff you did out there,” Eddie said. “I mean, running through them like that. One of them could have gotten hold of you.”

“I was willing to risk it,” Jill said. “I’m just glad I found some other survivors.”

“Yeah, well,” Eddie rubbed his chin and looked around at the few people who made it into the warehouse. “Half an hour ago there were twice as many of us.”

“Does anybody have any idea what’s going on?” a woman asked, sitting down on some five gallon buckets stacked by the wall. She was an African-American woman wearing a blue blouse and large golden hoop earrings. “I heard it was some kind of disease, but how could anyone know that? I mean, this isn’t like any disease I ever heard of.”

“It’s got to be some kind of disease,” the overweight man with the shotgun said. He stood up on some pallets and looked out the window next to the door. “If you catch it, you get real sick and then you come back like one of those things.”

“How do you know?” the woman asked.

“Because my wife is out there somewhere,” the man said, his voice flat. “She was sick this morning. I tried calling an ambulance but the phones were dead. She just kept getting sicker and sicker and then she ... she just went crazy. She attacked me so I ran out of the house. That’s when I found out that it was happening to lots of other people to.”

In the uncomfortable silence that followed, Jill looked around and took account of the group of weary survivors. There were six of them, four men and two women.

The other woman was a thin, frail-looking blonde wearing flip-flops, a pair of flimsy shorts, and a white undershirt with no bra. They were probably the clothes she slept in the night before. Her hands trembled slightly as she sat down on another stack of pallets, and Jill wondered how she had managed to stay alive so far

There were two other men aside from Eddie and the overweight man. One of them was a young man in jeans and a blood splattered t-shirt, carrying the other shotgun. He was the one who drove the forklift into place, and he was currently at another window, staring out into the crowd of zombies. The other man was a middle-aged man with thinning reddish hair, wearing black slacks and a white dress shirt. He was out in the middle of the warehouse floor, pacing nervously back and forth.

Eddie looked around uncertainly and leaned toward Jill, speaking in a low voice. “Listen,” he said, “you seem pretty good with a gun. Looks like you might even have some training. I don’t mind saying this, but none of us are really that great. I was wondering if maybe you want to take one of the shotguns. Kyle over there ain’t a great shot,” he said, gesturing toward the young guy.

“No, that’s okay,” Jill said. “I’m better with a pistol.”

“Okay. How many shots you got left?”

Jill reached into her pants pocket and pulled out a handful of bullets.

“Great,” Eddie said, allowing himself a smile. “We need as many as we can get our hands on. I don’t think we’ll be making a run to the gun store any time soon.”

“Probably not,” Jill said. “I had more shells for the shotgun, but they were in my jacket and I had to leave it behind.”

“Jesus,” the young man named Kyle said. “Just look at that.”

No one moved, and Jill guessed that none of them really wanted to see what he was looking at. The two women sat by themselves, and the red-haired man ignored them all, pacing to himself. Eddie frowned and stuck his hands into his pockets.

Jill got up and walked to the window, sticking her pistol into her belt. She stood next to Kyle and stared out the dirty window, taking a deep breath.

The parking lot, which minutes ago was half-full of zombies, was now completely full, as was the street beyond it. Crowded in front of the warehouse was a gigantic gathering of several hundred zombies, maybe more than a thousand. The building was completely surrounded.

“Get comfortable,” Jill said. “I think we’re going to be here for awhile.”

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