Undead Ally
Issue #6
by Tom Zjaba
Chapter Six
Late Night Noise
In the middle of the night, Trish is awoken to the sounds of
roaring engines. The sound is loud and constant. She looks around the room, to
see it is still dark out. "What's happening?" she yells out to Fred, who is
sitting in a chair by the window, with his gun out. "A group of raiders has
stopped in." he says as he watches the dozen or so headlights illuminate the
road in front of the motel. So far, no one has stopped. He is worried they will
find their car full of supplies and take everything. But what he fears more is
they will find them and kill him and rape and kill Trish. He has a gun ready for
any visitors. To not draw any attention to them, he has only a small part of the
curtains that cover the front window open. He has watched at least a dozen
motorcycles and cars drive by, honking their horns and revving their engines. A
few shots went off down the road, probably at some undead or something else
moving on the side of the road or in the woods. He is hoping they will not stop
as this is not a store or gas station. So far he has been right.
Trish grabs a chair and pulls it up next to him. She looks
out the window and watches the parade of vehicles that heads down the street.
"Have you encountered raiders before?" she asks as she watches them drive by. He
grabs a gun and hands it to her. "Yeah, they are the only bastards that seem
happy by the whole end of the world thing." She looks at the gun and then back
out the window. A few more vehicles drive past. "Why do you suppose that is?" A
tense look comes over Fred's face. “Because in the real world, they had rules
that they had to live by. If you broke them, there were consequences. But in
this world, you can pretty much do anything you want, with no consequences. The
total breakdown of civilization.” She gulps as she watches a motorcycle pull
into the parking lot. It drives past the windows, shining a flashlight into
them. Fred quickly ducks down and pushes Trish down as well. The bike slowly
goes past the window, with the flashlight shining in. For a brief moment, a ray
of light pierces the darkness. The sound of the loud motorcycle engine
reverberates through the walls. Trish holds her breath as she waits for it to go
by. But with their curtain pulled most of the way, there is little they can see
in the room. After a few seconds, the light goes away and the room is once again
filled with darkness. They can hear the motorcycle driving away as the loud
exhaust get fainter and fainter. Fred slowly goes back to the window and watches
as the bike goes and joins the rest of the group. After a few more minutes, the
parade ends as the last of the vehicles drives past the motel. They both breath
a sigh of relief. “That was too close.” he says as he puts the gun back down.
She hands the gun back to him and says “If you don’t mind, I am going to try and
get some sleep.” He smiles at her and says “Go ahead. I am going to take a walk
and make sure they are gone.” She heads back to her bed and pulls the covers
over her body as she says “Be careful.” Within a few minutes, she is back to
sleep.
As he steps out into the darkness, he makes sure to lock the
door. The last thing he wants is for an undead to get in the room and attack her
while she is sleeping. He slowly walks over to the road and looks down in the
direction that the raiders went. He can faintly hear them in the distance, with
the loud exhausts breaking up the silence of the night. He looks the other way
to make sure no stragglers are coming down the road. With the road empty, he
breaths a sigh of relief. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a piece of
licorice and begins chewing on it. In a past life, he would have smoked a
cigarette. But they are hard to find now and a lit cigarette sticks out in the
darkness.
While he is chewing on the licorice, he sees a light burning
down the road. Not sure what it is, he heads down there. As he gets closer, he
sees that it is a flare that has been set off. The raiders probably set it off
for fun. As he gets closer to the flare, he sees a body writhing around by it.
Not sure what it is, he slowly pulls out his gun and aims it in front of him. He
slows his stride as he nears it. Once he gets close enough to see what it is, he
realizes it is an undead. The poor creature is laying on its stomach, trying to
move. The man is stripped to his underwear and his arms have been cut off from
the elbows up and his legs hacked from the knees down. There is this creature
with four stumps, trying to move towards the flare. Fred can hear it moaning as
it sees him. He walks into the light and the creature sees he is an undead. He
shakes his head in disgust at what the raiders did to the creature. Too often he
has seen them torture the undead. He has found them nailed to trees, dragged
behind cars, locked in trunks and other inhumane tortures. While he realizes
they are undead creatures and have no emotions and would kill them if they
could, he still feels bad for them. He aims his gun at its head and shoots it,
putting the creature out of its misery.
The next morning, the sun rises and rays of light start to
pour into the bedroom. Fred is sitting vigilantly in his chair. With nobody
outside, he pulls open the curtains and lets the light fill with sunlight. The
rays hit Trish's face and prompts her to wake up. Reluctantly, she opens her
eyes and sees Fred standing in front of the window. "Rise and shine!" he says as
he walks over and offers her a hand. She grabs his hand, feeling how cold it
feels, immediately releases it. She then pushes herself to the edge of the bed
and gets up. "Sorry, but I can't get used to how cold your skin feels." He looks
at her with sad eyes and says "I understand." As she gets up, she looks out the
window and checks to make sure their car is still there. She smiles as she says
"Glad to see the raiders didn't get our car." Fred looks out at the car and then
back at her. "Yeah, we will have to be more careful in the future. Bring some
supplies in with us and park the car out of view. Stuff like that." She nods in
agreement.
Once they are settled in the car, she looks at Fred and says
"What is there for breakfast?" He smiles and says "I would tell you bacon and
eggs, but I would be lying." He then reaches in the backseat and brings out two
packages of cupcakes and a couple bottles of Gatorade. "We are having a
Continental breakfast today." She looks at it and laughs. Then she reads the
expiration date on the cupcakes. "These cupcakes expired a month ago. Wonder if
they are still good?" Fred opens his and takes a bite out of the cupcake. "There
is not real to expire. They are all preservatives." As he swallows his, she
decides to eat one. As she bites it, she can taste it is a little stale, but
still tastes fine. "Would go better with some milk." she says as she takes a
swig of her Gatorade. "Yeah, but that would be really expired." he says as he
drinks his Gatorade. Taking another bite of the cupcake, she turns on the car.
"Remind me to keep an eye out for a cow. I would really like some fresh milk."
Fred laughs as he puts on his sunglasses. "Like that wouldn't slow us down."
They both laugh at that thought.
Riding down the road, they across a sign for a town up ahead.
The sign says "Crestwood 5 Miles." She looks at Fred and asks "Should we go
there?" Fred looks down at the gun he has on the seat between them and says
"There is a chance the raiders went there." She looks down at the gun too and
says "Yeah, so anything of value could be gone or we could run into them." The
two of them pause for a moment as they think about that. She then speaks up as
she says "Why don't we take the path less traveled? Turn right instead." Fred
smiles and says "Good plan, but unfortunately the supplies will be in Crestwood.
If we keep out of sight, we can wait for them to leave and take the scraps." She
shudders when she thinks about running into them. She knows what would happen.
"Tell you what? Why don't we go the other way for now and we can come back
tonight. Let's give them time to get out of Dodge, so to speak." Fred thinks for
a moment and replies "I can live with that. Or rather, I can unlive with that."
They both laugh at his corny joke.
In Crestwood, as they expected, the raiders have stopped.
They dropped in the previous night and went straight to the supermarket. When
you have forty well armed men and women, you don't have alot of fears. They
raided it for all the supplies they could get. They filled up their vans with
water, canned food and all the liquor they could grab. But they got careless.
They pulled the vans in front of the grocery store and blocked the doors for the
night. And with no way for the undead to get into the store, they partied the
night away. Batteries filled their boom boxes and they blared their music while
they drank beer and cheap booze. They tore open bags of chips and beef jerky and
feasted like it was Thanksgiving. They tore through the shelves and made a
complete mess of the place. And when they got too drunk to walk, they just
passed out and slept on the floor.
As the sun shines directly overhead, the raiders begin to
stir. They slowly wake up, feeling the effects of the previous night. One by
one, they stumble to their feet as they head over to the aspirin aisle or the
antacid section of the store. A few guys whose heads really hurt, go over to the
pharmacy and smash in the door, going in and grabbing whatever drugs they can
get. As they look around, one of the men notices the locked cabinet of
controlled substances and smiles. "I found the good stuff." he says as he grabs
the handle and pulls on it. The door is locked and will not open. Pissed off, he
takes out his pistol and shoots off the lock. "Just try and stop me." He then
starts grabbing all the pills and putting them into a backpack he has.
While the rest of the group is trying to wake up, one of the
guys stumbles to the back door and heads outside to relieve himself. With a
bladder full of beer, he needs to go badly and instead of using one of the
indoor toilets, he just stumbles outside. With a buzz still on, he is not
thinking too clearly. He opens the emergency door in the back, which is a one
way door. He laughs at the "Emergency Exit" that is posted in big red letters.
"This is an emergency." he laughs as he pushes open the door. He takes a step
outside and is immediately blinded by the sunlight. Shielding his eyes with his
hand, he looks for something to hold the door open. He sees big rock that they
team at the old drugstore used to hold the door open when they went outside for
cigarette breaks. He pushes it up against the door, holding it open as he
stumbles around the corner to take a leak. He quickly stops and begins to
urinate on the building. As he does this, he takes a swig of the bottle of cheap
vodka that he is carrying with him. What he does not see is the undead that are
coming towards him in the parking lot.
Inside the building, the sound of the boom boxes can still be
heard. The CD has long since stopped playing and someone accidentally turned it
to the radio. It is playing a loop message that the government put on awhile
back. "We are under a nation wide emergency. Please go to the nearest military
base with any supplies you have. We have soldiers waiting to protect you." One
of the raiders hears the message playing and laughs. "Hell if there are any
soldiers left to protect you. The zombies ate them all." He then switches it
back to CD and starts playing AC/DC again. He turns it up as he starts having a
little of the hair of the dog that bit him.
The raider outside has just finished and begins to zip up his
jeans. As he turns around, he is greeted by four undead that are only a half
dozen steps away. Usually he is more careful, but with the effects of the
alcohol still in his system, he became careless. And now he is going to pay for
it. He tries to run away, but he runs smack into an undead. He pushes it back,
but before he can get past it, another one grabs him. The creature sinks its
blood encrusted fingernails into his arm, ripping through his shirt and into the
skin on his arm. "Son of a bitch." he says as he turns and smacks the creature
over the head with his glass bottle. The bottle shatters, knocking the creature
back a step. Another one quickly moves in, grabbing him by the shirt as he
clings to him. He tries to pull away, but his greasy t-shirt hangs tough. He
grabs its hand and tries to pry its fingers apart. As he does this, another one
takes a bite out of his left shoulder. He screams as its teeth dig deep into his
flesh. Blood pours out of the wound and down his shirt, staining the shirt. With
the sight of blood, the other undead go in for the kill. They all start clawing
and biting him and soon he is pulled down to the ground, where he is easy prey
for the growing number of undead.
As the raider is being torn to pieces, a few other undead
notice the open door and start to venture in. The sounds of music can be heard
throughout the building and a handful of undead go inside to see the source of
the noise. Soon, more come and head through the door. Across the parking lot, a
dozen more undead head over to go into the building, with a few dozen more
coming behind them.
At the front of the building, there are over forty undead
trying to get in. They claw at the front windows and gnash their teeth at the
sight of the people inside. The moaning is so intense that it drowns out any
other noises in the area. Some of the raiders come up to the glass and laugh at
them and flip them off. One man drops his pants and moons the undead. They think
it is funny to tease the creatures, knowing they cannot get in. But as they do
this, they do not see the slow but steady stream of undead that are coming
through the back door. By the time they realize what is happening, it is too
late. The place is overrun with undead. Some of the raiders grab their guns and
start shooting the undead as they see them in the room. The first few undead are
easily shot, but more keep coming and coming. And the sound of gunfire and loud
music brings even more. The next group of undead get in and go after the
sluggish raiders, who are still feeling the effects of lack of sleep and
alcohol. Soon, hundreds of undead are heading towards the grocery store. The
undead that are at the front window see what is going on and start moving
towards the back of the store. They join the growing procession of undead as
they march through the backdoor. It is not long before the inside of the
supermarket becomes a bloodbath. The sounds of screams is mixed in with the
sounds of groans and the the song playing on the boom box, "Highway to Hell" by
AC/DC.
Trish stops the car across from the grocery store. She looks
at the vans blocking the front door and the large crowd of undead that are
slowly walking around to the back of the building. There is also a few
convertibles and a bunch of motorcycles lined up in front of the store. Some of
the bikes have been knocked over by the undead. Most are surprisingly still
standing. The undead do not notice the car that is running across the street. In
fact, an undead walks right past the front of the car as it heads to the grocery
store. Trish turns to Fred and says "They have more of a one track mind than
even guys." He gives her a look and says "Or women. Commitment. Commitment. I
want a commitment." He then smiles at her. She looks back at him and says "Sex,
sex, sex and oh yeah, more sex." He rolls his eyes as he says "Give me a break.
We also want beer and football." She rolls her eyes as she says "If men could
figure out how to have sex while drinking a beer and watching a football game,
they would be in heaven." He fires back "And if women could just marry their
credit cards, they would." Before they can argue anymore, an undead notices them
and hits the window next to Trish. She screams as she looks and sees the decayed
face looking at her. One of its eyes is hanging out of its head and it is
missing part of his face. She quickly puts the car in drive and takes off,
dragging the undead for a dozen feet before it's grip loosens. As she drives
off, some of the other undead turn to see what the noise is. They see the car
drive off and look at it. Then they turn and go back to trying to get the
raiders, who are now all either dead or in the process of being killed.
Undead Ally ©
Tom Zjaba 2008