City of the Dead

Chapter Twenty

Jill looked at the clock on the wall. It was past two o’clock in the afternoon. She’d been holed up at the warehouse for four hours now. Once they checked out the entire building to make sure there was no easy way for the zombies to get inside, there wasn’t much for anyone to do except sit around and wait. They propped up some of the wooden pallets in front of vulnerable windows, made sure all the doors were locked, and raided the vending machines for anything to eat or drink. Her pistol lying beside her, Jill perched up on top of a pile of pallets and looked disinterestedly at the mismatched group of survivors she found herself grouped together with.

The only one she felt had a chance was the man named Eddie Thorne. The rest of them would, at best, merely slow her down if they needed to run for it again. Eddie spent some time talking to her when they first found safety in the building, but he had since wandered over to one of the windows to keep watch. He seemed like he could keep his cool in a dangerous situation, and that meant a lot at times like this.

Jill wondered how the rest of them managed to survive this long. The young woman named Kayla was an emotional wreck who barely spoke, the overweight man named George was clumsy and slow, the redheaded man named Dario was totally antisocial and was apparently scared to hold a gun, and the black woman named Miranda seemed frantic and easily panicked. The last member of their group, a young man named Kyle, seemed like he would get killed trying to take on the zombies all by himself. He was angry and kept fidgeting with his shotgun, as if he wanted to just start shooting at will. Thankfully, Eddie spoke to him and warned him not to waste ammo.

Jill didn’t know how long they could stay at the warehouse. Once the candy bars, tiny bags of potato chips, and soda cans from the vending machines were gone, they would have nothing to eat or drink. The sink in the bathroom still worked, but none of them were willing to drink the water.

Eventually, the zombies would find their way inside, Jill was pretty certain of that. She didn’t say so, however, because she didn’t want to panic the rest of them. For now, let them catch their breath and calm down a bit so they could think straight, and then maybe they could work on a plan to get out of here. Of course, that was easier said than done.

First, they required a vehicle. And not a car that would get stuck in all the blocked traffic, they needed something that could smash right through the gridlock. A semi truck, perhaps. Or even better, a bulldozer. Something they could just drive right out of the city with, running over anything in their way. But something like that would be hard to find, especially here in the middle of the city.

And every second they waited, more zombies showed up. She glanced out the window a little while ago and there must have been a thousand of them outside, just wandering around the parking lot. Jill didn’t understand it, but the zombies seemed to flock together naturally. As more zombies would come down the street they would join the crowd and just remain there. The crowd didn’t disperse, even though many of the zombies there hadn’t even seen Jill and the others go into the warehouse. Jill expected that some of them would wander off randomly, but none of them did.

“Hey!” Eddie shouted. “Hey! There’s some people out there!”

Jill sat up quickly and grabbed her pistol. She hopped down off the pallets as the others ran to the window where Eddie was pointing. He suddenly ran from the window and toward the back side of the warehouse. “They’re going over here!”

Jill, Eddie, and Kyle made it to the door on the far end of the warehouse first, and Eddie braced himself against the door. Jill stood behind him, gun ready, and Kyle stood directly in front of the door, his shotgun against his shoulder.

Eddie shoved the door open and Kyle immediately blasted the zombie standing a few feet from the doorway. It flew off its feet and flopped to the ground, a smoking crater in the center of its chest. There were a few other zombies along the back side of the warehouse, which faced the back of a strip mall with an alley in between them.

Eddie waved his arm at the two men who were running along the edge of the strip mall, ducking behind a pair of dumpsters. At the shotgun blast, they looked toward the warehouse in shock. “Come on!” Eddie shouted. “Hurry up!”

Jill pushed Kyle out of the away and edged into the doorway, putting two more zombies down with careful shots. The two men ran hurriedly to the door, past a couple stray zombies who reached for them as they ran past. They both jumped through the doorway and Eddie quickly closed it after them.

“Thanks man, thank you so much,” the first man babbled, slapping Eddie on the shoulder. He was a thin man with graying hair, wearing brown slacks and a blue button-down shirt, now stained with sweat and splashes of blood. “I can’t believe there’s other people still alive. Thank God you saw us.”

“It’s okay,” Eddie said. “We’re safe in here, at least for now.”

Jill walked over to Kyle, sliding her pistol into her back pocket. “Listen,” she said, “If you’re going to shoot one of those things, aim for their head next time. Shooting them in the chest isn’t going to kill them.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kyle said nervously. He flipped the safety on. “I just got surprised. I didn’t think to aim.”

“Well, think next time. We don’t have many shells left.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll shoot them in the head next time. I promise.”

Miranda and George came over and met the two new members of their little group. Jill spied Dario standing among the aisles of shelves at the side of the warehouse, but he didn’t come over. She had no idea where Kayla was.

“Thank God you saw us. I didn’t know if we were going to make it,” the gray-haired man said rapidly, holding onto Eddie’s arm. He was a nervous wreck, so happy that he was still alive that he couldn’t calm down.

The other man kept quiet, leaned over with his hands on his knees, just catching his breath. He wore a pair of dirty jeans and a black t-shirt, his long greasy brown hair hanging down over his face.

“Listen, my name is Harold,” the gray-haired man said.

Eddie carefully pried the man’s hand off his arm. “My name’s Eddie. This here is Jill, Kyle, George, and Miranda,” he said, pointing at all of them in turn. He glanced at the other man, who was running his hand through his greasy hair. “And what’s your name?”

Suddenly, Miranda’s eyes went wide and she pointed at him, shrieking, “He’s bit! He got bit by one of them!” she screamed, backing away.

The man’s head shot up, a look of panic in his eyes. He lifted his hands defensively. “Hey, it ain’t nothing. It’s just a little bite, it ain’t nothing serious.”

George lifted his shotgun, glancing nervously at Eddie and then at the man. “If you got bit you got to get out of here,” he said.

Harold jumped in between them. “We’re safe here! You can’t make him leave just because he’s been hurt!”

“Let me see,” Eddie said, pushing Harold out of the way.

The man lifted his arm and there was a clear bite mark just below his elbow. It was a minor wound, but it was bleeding just the same. There was already a crusty smudge of blood across the bottom of his forearm.

“See?” the man said, trying to shrug it off. “It ain’t serious, it don’t even hurt. I’ll get a band-aid on it, and it’ll be fine.”

“No,” Eddie said. “You’re infected now.”

“You’re gonna turn into one of them!” Miranda shrieked. And then she turned and ran off, as if just standing near the man exposed her to infection as well.

George kept his shotgun up and jutted it at the man. “You gotta get out of here! You’re not staying here if you’re gonna turn into a zombie.”

Kyle lifted his shotgun as well, but Jill grabbed the barrel and pushed it back down. She glared at him and he backed away, keeping the gun pointed at the floor.

“I ain’t gonna turn into nothing!” the man shouted. “It’s just a little bite!”

“You’re infected,” Eddie said, his voice calm. “I’m sorry, man.”

“Only the dead ones come back!” Harold cried. “He’s not going to die from that little bite!”

“Yes, he is,” Jill snapped, and her voice shot through them like a bolt of ice.

She walked up to the man and grabbed his wrist. She lifted his arm and looked at the bite mark. It was just a small one, as if the zombie barely closed his mouth before the man pulled away. Given what the zombies were capable of, he was lucky to still have his arm. But he did not pull away fast enough.

She stared hard into the man’s eyes. “How long ago did you get bitten?”

“I don’t know, maybe half an hour ago.”

“Well, in a couple of hours, you’re going to get sick, and you’re going to die. And then you’re going to come back as one of those zombies. You have two hours, probably less than that.”

“Yeah,” George said, the barrel of the shotgun shaking slightly. “So you have to get out of here, right now.”

“Put the gun down, George,” Jill said, not looking at him.

“He’s dangerous!” George blurted. “I’m not gonna let him–”

“I said put it down!” Jill shouted.

George jumped backwards, and the shotgun slipped out of his hand and fell to the floor. Harold stared at Jill and then picked the shotgun up, cradling it in his arms. George stepped away from her, his fear evident in his eyes.

Jill looked back at the bitten man. He hadn’t even given them his name yet. “You want to stay here?” she asked, trying to keep her voice down. “That’s fine. You can stay. But you’re going to stay in a room by yourself. I don’t want the others to see you when you start to get sick. And when you turn, we’re going to kill you. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”

“You ... you don’t know that,” Harold said.

“Yes, I do,” Jill said. “And you know it as well.”

The man stared at her with wide eyes, his mouth trembling. He gradually looked down at the bite mark on his arm, his breath coming fast. He looked up despairingly at Harold, who could only shrug his shoulders and return his pleading look.

“Where can he stay?” Eddie asked after a few moments.

“The front office,” Jill said. “He can stay in one of the office rooms.”

“All right.”

Eddie took hold of the man’s arm and gently led him away. Jill and Kyle followed, with Harold coming behind them. George stayed where he was, watching them go. He fumbled with his hands, as if unsure what to do with them now that they didn’t hold the shotgun.

It occurred to Jill that somehow, in the past two minutes, she became the leader of this group of survivors. Until then, Eddie acted like the one in charge, but he didn’t like making decisions. He had just been waiting for Jill to take authority. It was inevitable anyway, since Jill was going to have to lead them out of the warehouse shortly, since she knew that no one else could do it.

They entered the office area to the warehouse, letting the door swing shut behind them. There were half a dozen cramped little cubicles with outdated computers, with a large printer and copy machine in the corner. Three small private office rooms with nametags on the doors were to the left, and to the right there was a bathroom and a supply closet. A door in front of them led to the tiny lobby and secretary’s desk. They knew the office was free of zombies because Eddie and George checked it out earlier.

“Come on,” Eddie said, leading the man to one of the offices. “You can stay in here.”

“I’m not gonna turn into a zombie,” the man said, but there was little confidence in his voice. “I’ll be fine. You guys are just ... you’re just overreacting.”

“Then you can wait in here for a couple of hours,” Eddie said. “If you’re still okay after that, then you can come out and join the rest of us.”

The man said nothing as he walked into the small office. He turned around and looked pathetically at them as Eddie closed the door.

“I wish we could lock it,” Jill said quietly.

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t think he’ll try anything.”

“You’re both being unfair about this,” Harold said, shaking his head nervously. “That bite doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s a disease,” Jill said simply. “And if you get infected, it kills you. That’s what that bite means. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to risk the other people here. He’s infected now, so he stays in that office.”

“He’ll be fine,” Harold muttered, walking away.

Jill looked at Eddie, but he just shook his head. It wasn’t worth arguing about now. Harold would figure it out on his own.

Kyle wandered over to the door leading to the lobby and paused, listening. He lifted his gun and reached for the door handle.

“Kyle, don’t–” Eddie started to say

Kyle opened the door curiously and suddenly backpedaled, swearing loudly and raising the shotgun. Eddie shouted for him to stop.

On the other side of the door was a small waiting room and a secretary’s desk, and a glass door and two full-size windows looking outside. And standing in the middle of the little lobby was a female zombie wearing a bloodstained sun dress. Most of the flesh on her face was stripped away, including her eyes, and she stood wavering in the waiting area, tilting her head as if listening to something.

“Kyle! No!”

Kyle pulled the trigger and the shotgun boomed loudly in the enclosed office, a flash of light erupting from the barrel. The female zombie jerked backwards as the spray of buckshot tore half of her head off. Behind her, one of the glass windows shattered. The zombie tumbled over and crashed through the bottom half of the window, the jagged glass slicing through her torso as she broke through. Immediately, the other zombies outside started walking toward the now-shattered window.

Eddie slammed the door and yanked the shotgun away from Kyle, who stood there petrified, pointing feebly toward the door.

“But ... there was a zombie ...”

“It was blind!” Eddie shouted. “It couldn’t see you or hear you!”

“Why didn’t you shoot it before?” Jill asked, listening beyond the door.

“I was afraid of hitting the windows behind it,” Eddie explained. “And I didn’t want the zombies outside to hear the shot. I didn’t tell anybody it was there cause I didn’t want to freak them out.”

Jill understood, although she didn’t think Eddie would believe her if she said so. Shooting the zombie with the shotgun would have resulted in the same thing. Some of the buckshot would have inevitably missed and broken the window. Even with a pistol, Jill understood how Eddie might have worried about the bullet could have passed through the zombie’s head and hit the window, or even missed completely if Eddie hadn’t aimed carefully enough. And if the zombie was blind and deaf, then maybe it posed no threat.

“You should have told me,” Jill said, looking at him.

“Yeah, I guess it slipped my mind,” Eddie muttered.

Jill backed away from the door when she heard noise on the other side. Something bumped into the door, and she heard a muffled groan.

“They’re here,” she said, backing away from the door.

Suddenly, the door shook as something on the other side pounded on it. Kyle backed away to the middle of the office, while Eddie stood his ground, shotgun raised.

“Kyle, go find Henry and tell him to get back here with the shotgun,” Jill said. “Get George too if you see him.”

“We’ve got to block that door,” Eddie said.

The door to the private office opened up and the bitten man looked out at them, his face covered in sweat. “What’s going on?” he asked, his voice trembling.

“Come on,” Jill said to Eddie. “Let’s get the desk out of there and block the door.”

The bitten man stood aside uselessly as Jill and Eddie ran into the office and carried the large wooden desk out into the office. Kyle returned with George, and they helped shove the desk in front of the door. When the desk thumped against the door frame, the pounding from the other side increased in intensity.

“I don’t know where that other guy went,” Kyle said.

“He has the other shotgun, so go and find him,” Jill snapped.

With George’s help, they took the desks from the other two office rooms and stacked them up in front of the door. The door shook with the force of the pounding on the other side, and part of the frame around the hinges splintered.

Eddie stood back and shook his head. “That ain’t gonna hold,” he said, wiping his brow.

“There’s got to be tools around here,” Jill said. “They’ve got all those crates out there. There must be a hammer and nails around somewhere.”

“I’ll go look,” George said, and hurried out of the office.

For a few moments, Jill and Eddie stood together, watching as the door banged over and over again. The desk on top shook a bit each time with the pounding, and in a few minutes would probably fall right off the stack.

“Looks like we’re shit out of luck,” Eddie said quietly.

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