Valley of Death & Zombies Read online

  “What was that?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “I said I feel like shit, Okay? That sweet girl fixes my car and I drive off like a bat out of Hell. I just left her there. Oh God, what was I thinking?” She reached for a guest towel and cried softly into it. “Who knows if she’s dead, alive or something in between.” she said, gesturing to the grunting noises outside.

  “Way you described the situation earlier, seems to me you didn't plan on leaving her. And she seems pretty smart, to me. I think she could handle herself in a pinch. Besides, didn't you say you left the shotgun in the garage?” He asked, gripping the support safety bar and pulling himself out of the tepid bath water.

  Holding his other arm she draped a towel around his neck. “I hope you're right. And I hope she can forgive me for leaving her there.”

  “Fuck that bitch.” Maria wheezed, as she looked around the wreckage of the attic. The explosions blasted the support beams, in the center of the garage to toothpicks, and the front concrete retaining wall was destroyed. The roof which was about twenty-five feet high, originally, was now shattered and twisted in a ruin surrounding her. Coughing on some smoke, she looked around trying to find it's source.

  “Fucking old bitch leaves me here. Now I'm going to be eaten alive or cooked in a fire and eaten like bar-b-que.” She said, pushing a big piece of wood that had her right leg pinned under it. The lantern was on its side, just out of reach in the small area she found herself in. It's really a crawlspace now. she thought, looking back to where the exit used to be. The hole she threw the grenades through was replaced by a large pile of shattered lumber.

  Coughing harder, she tried to lift the wooden beam pinning her leg again but couldn't budge it. She pulled on her leg trying to slide it from under it, but she was stuck. I’m doomed. I’ll burn or die from the smoke fumes. God help me. She thought. Feeling something hard under her back she reached for it. She pulled out a grenade, shook her head and set it aside.

  The smoke made her cough harder and she was having trouble seeing. Luckily, her ears still worked fine as she heard first the sound of grunting and then some shifting wood nearby. She picked up the grenade again as the grunting got louder and wrapped her finger around the fuse cord, thinking I'd rather be blown to bits than cooked alive or be your damn bar-b-que snack.

  A slight breeze coming from above made her look up where she saw a sliver of daylight just a few yards away. Maria prayed silently as she wrapped her hand around the Crucifix she wore around her neck. With her other hand she placed the grenade between her thighs, held the cord and started to pull.

  Faintly, she heard a sound that made her release the cord. A sound she never thought she'd be so happy to hear. A distant police siren slowly growing louder.

  The BB flew straight but only clipped the snake. Billy had a dead on shot lined up when he fired. But it lunged at the dog with it's mouth open in the same instant. The shot threw the snake off course, but it still struck the dog.

  The BB hurt and the snake tried escape back into the brush. Boris sensed victory and chased it. He jumped forward clutching the snake firmly in his mouth and bit down as Billy quickly pumped the rifle for another shot.

  The snake was in pain, confused, and extremely pissed off, as it felt the dog biting him and shaking it's body from side to side. It flailed and bit at the dog again.

  “No Boris! Let go of it!” Billy yelled, as he tried to aim at the snake.

  The snake felt itself dying. It felt very tired and confused as it continued trying to strike back at the dog, but after only a couple more attempts it became motionless. Boris whimpered and limped over to the boy, favoring it's right front leg.

  Billy got on his knees, hugged the dog and petted his head softly whispering “Yer a good boy Boris. Good boy.”

  Boris hung his tongue out panting and whined softly looking back at the remains of the snake.

  The deputy looked at the trailers nearest to the entrance as the squad car slowly rolled down the hill.

  “Should be about fifty to seventy in all according to the guys in the bus.” Captain Wyatt said. Deputy Holmes unlocked the shotgun, from it's cradle, and held it muzzle to the floorboard after checking that the safety was engaged.

  “Easy Rambo,” Wyatt chuckled. “We're just here in case they need us. They get to go inside, drag them out, and throw them in the bus for a free ride.” The squad car was on the last bit of road just before the wrecked cars at the bottom of the hill, when they heard two explosions one following the other after a couple of seconds. Wyatt saw part of Mrs. Remlap's roof collapse as smoke billowed up from the debris.

  “What the fuck?” He said, stepping on the brake. Staring across the trailer park at the old house he grabbed the radio handset. “You kids back there got this to yourselves we have to go check this out.” Not waiting for a response he hit the siren and sped off toward the burning house.

  Shoemaker parked the bus between the wrecked car and van, effectively blocking the exit. Sazera looked at his team, “We'll do this by the book, guys. No shooting unless absolutely necessary.” With that, he opened the bus door and they split into two teams running to the trailers. With their attention focused on the closest trailers no one noticed the group of men running toward them from Colonel Lester's trailer.

  The trailer door hung open as Shoemaker ran up the wooden stairs and yelled in Spanish “Hands up! Immigration!” Holding his flashlight and revolver he stared at the filthy room as the other agents rushed in and past him. Hadden stumbled and fell over the body a small boy. The boy's head looked as if someone had shot it and several good size chunks of flesh were missing.

  “Oh, good God.” Hadden managed to say before throwing up his breakfast.

  Puckett bent over to check on Hadden, and asked one of those clever questions that gave him the reputation as having ridden on the short bus every day of his life. “Are you okay?”

  Minarges ignored the mess, walked past his fellow agents, drew his stun gun, and shined his flashlight down the hallway. To his sometimes confused mind he saw as a dungeon corridor covered in blood and body parts. It reminded him of some of the fantasy games he played. He held the shaking flashlight and stun gun while shouting down the hallway in Spanish. “You down there, come out with your hands up!”

  A bloody man ran at Minarges grunting with his arms outstretched toward him. The man's face was streaked in blood, his eyes were glazed over, and his hands were nearly skinless. Minarges recognized it as a monster he'd often battled while participating in role playing games.

  “Hey everybody, we got zombies!” He called back into the living room as he fired the stun gun. Two needle-like probes attached by thin wires to the stun gun struck him in his chest. A brief discharge of electricity made the man stop in his tracks and collapse to the floor. Watching the hallway warily he trotted over to the face down zombie, quickly yanked out a zip tie and secured his bloody wrists together behind his back. After snapping in a new set of stun probes, he checked for a pulse and wasn't surprised the zombie didn't have one.

  Minarges laughed loudly as he yelled over his shoulder “Hey guys it’s just like a game, except it's for real.” And laughed harder as he shined the light up under his chin.

  Shoemaker stood near the front door and yelled “Minarges shut up and take your prisoner outside!”

  Hadden quickly recovered and, helped by Puckett, got back on his feet as Minarges went by dragging the bloody man toward the front door. With a disturbing grin on his face, Minarges smiled at Shoemaker who was standing in the living room watching Hadden and Puckett go down the hall.

  “Wanna see the zombie I caught?” Minarges asked, chuckling.

  “Just take him outside, keep an eye on him, and knock off that zombie crap.” Shoemaker said, watching Hadden disappear down the hall as Puckett followed him.

  “No, really he's a zombie. Don't let them bite ya or you'll be sorry.” Minarges said, going outside, down the front steps. He dumped the tied zombie to the
ground and wondered if this was all just a dream. Sure feels real. I wonder if this is a lucid dream where I can steer it the way I want. Zombies. This is cool. It’s just like a movie. Of course, in a movie they’d be a lot harder to deal with. This could be a lot of fun. He thought, smiling. The zombie on the ground started to moan and tried to rise to his knees. Minarges kicked him in the butt and continued to smile.

  There were three more doors- two open and the one at the end of the hall closed. Hadden held his night stick in one hand and his flashlight in the other as he lit up the first doorway. He shouted, in Spanish “Immigration come on out!” He still tasted vomit in his mouth and felt like he might faint as saw the filthiest bathroom he'd ever seen when Puckett yelled from behind him. Turning around he saw him running back to the main room. As Hadden tried to turn, hands reached out of the dark hallway clutching and clawing at his back.

  He swung the club and shouted “Get back!” frantically trying to run. Hadden felt himself pulled down by the weight of several people, some of whom were biting his leg. Another man bit into his arm as he reached for his pistol.

  “Puckett, you douche bag, help me damn it!” Hadden yelled from under the onslaught of attackers. He got his hand on the gun, but someone pulled and bit that arm too. Pulled down on the filthy floor he felt a brilliant flush of heat and his last coherent thought was very simple- Kill. He looked at the gun, clutched in his bloody hand for a second, then dropped it and screamed.

  Shoemaker and Puckett fired repeatedly as several bloody men charged out of the hallway. The shots threw the first man against the wall, but three more took his place. And more filled the hallway behind them. They both fired faster as Minarges could be heard screaming outside the trailer and Hadden screamed from down the hallway.

  “Shit! It's a horde of zombies! Run!” Minarges yelled through the doorway, before running from the dozen or more wild looking men quickly running toward him. He ran between the trailers and heard the men screaming and howling right behind him. Startled birds took flight as he ran behind the trailers.

  Stumbling over a large pile of copper pipes and cables that some of the more larcenous residents had previously stolen, Minarges fell to his knees. There were dozens of copper pipes, of various sizes, scattered on the ground and they clanged together as he got back up and continued to run. The pursuers also lost their balance. They fell in a screaming biting and furious heap.

  Minarges pulled his gun and fired back at the men who were scattered behind him. At the corner of the trailer he slammed in a fresh clip and continued to fire. Gotta hit their heads. He thought and tried to aim.

  It was one thing to be involved in role playing games, sitting at a table drinking soda and rolling dice with your friends, but real life encounters with monsters was much more difficult to deal with, he realized. Minarges fired at the closest man, but with his badly shaking hand out of eight shots he managed to hit him only once. The bullet severed the zombie’s thumb on his right hand but the rest of the pack had crawled past the pipes and started chasing him again. Where the Hell is everyone else? He wondered, sprinting back toward the front of the trailer.

  Shoemaker stared in disbelief as his shots hit them repeatedly, with no lasting effect. They were all direct center mass shots, but Shoemaker quickly stepped back toward the doorway as he saw first one then another get back up and come again. Then Hadden, or what had once been Hadden, ran out of the hallway. His eyes were bright red and his mouth snarled as he jumped on top of Puckett who was still firing. Shoemaker kept firing as he went out the door. He saw Hadden bite and tear at Puckett’s groin as the others scurried across the main room, grunting and pushing each other as they ran for the door.

  Leaping outside, he slammed the door shut and pressed his back against it. He saw Minarges running, being chased by several men. The door was knocked partly open and he leaned back harder feeling it slam shut again. He looked at the bus, then heard rapid gunfire coming from the other trailer.

  As he leaned against the door, and slipped a new clip into his gun, he yelled “Minarges, get your ass over here and help me!”

  Minarges leaped over a picnic table and ran while laughing wildly. Staring down the barrel of his gun, Shoemaker took aim at the closest man chasing him and fired. The trailer door was pushed open partly again, throwing off his aim. The bullet hit Minarges in his arm as he ran. He yelled, stumbled, and gave him a brief dirty look but didn't fall or slow down. He did however stop laughing.

  Coming out of the other trailer Sazera was trying to carry Crawford to the bus. He was having difficulty because she had woken up since she fell unconscious, after being attacked in the second trailer. She was screaming, biting and scratching at Sazera as he moved toward the bus. It's like trying to carry a pissed off mountain lion. He thought.

  Exasperated he finally gave up and said “Fine, bitch.” and dropped her to the ground. He looked at the shredded sleeves of his uniform and saw blood covering his muscular arms. Fucking cunt. I’m going to need stitches. What the fuck is going on? He wondered, as he fired at the bloody men coming out of the trailer behind him. Sazera saw Shoemaker running across the small clearing.

  “Get the bus started! Hurry!” Sazera yelled, while firing back at the ones who had followed him out of the trailer. Crawford was grunting on the ground at his feet, as the first trailer's door burst open and several people came running out including Hadden. His grunting and frothing mouth convinced him of the best option- he ran for the bus.

  Sazera fired as he ran. His shots were hardly aimed at all. They hit tequila and beer bottles, a few hit the first trailer, and one incredibly unlikely shot blew apart a vulture’s head. With each step he felt increasingly confused but gradually less terrified. He saw one of his shots shatter a man's head. His arm stung from where Crawford had attacked him and he ran faster as he heard Jerry start the bus. He made it to the bus and dropped his gun into the dust. The engine roared and Shoemaker was yelling something. He looked at the groups of running men, turned and staggered up the stairs feeling extremely shaky. Sazera felt nauseous and grabbed the back of one the bus seats to keep from falling.

  “Sit down! We've got to get out of here!” Shoemaker shouted, as a few men climbed up on the hood of the bus and others beat on the folding glass doors.

  Sazera felt more confused and shaky when he heard Minarges screaming outside, beating on the rear door of the bus. Staggering toward the back of the bus Sazera stared blankly at him. Extending a bloody hand toward the door his body shook uncontrollably before collapsing to the floor.

  “Don't leave me! Open the door!” Minarges shouted, as the bus drove away into the park.

  Minarges ran a few seconds trying to keep us with the bus, but quickly realized he'd never catch up to it. He turned and ran back up the road heading out of the trailer park while a pack of zombies chased and beat on the bus.

  “Sazera use the radio and get some help.” Shoemaker said, driving the bus in a big circle and headed back toward the exit, not noticing Sazera had fallen to the floor. A screaming man on the hood beat at the windshield with his bloody hands. Smears of blood made it difficult to see clearly. He flipped on the windshield wipers but the trails of blood smeared even more, making it even harder to steer. Pressing the fluid sprayer button the blood thinned as Shoemaker had the microphone up to his mouth and called “Wyatt! We need help! Can anyone hear me!”

  The bus picked up speed and was going almost fifty miles an hour when it clipped the wrecked van and sent it crashing into the nearest trailer. The bus jerked and shimmied as he shifted and sped up. He was fiddling with the radio knobs when he spotted Minarges in the middle of the road waving his outstretched arms over his head. There was no way he could stop in time. Dumb bastard. he thought as the bus ran him over with a large bump.

  On impact the steering wheel swung hard right and the bus careened toward the ditch He tried to correct the steering, but between the blood smeared windshield and the speed it was hopeless.

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sp; “Hang on!” he yelled, glancing in the rear view mirror. He saw Sazera, his mouth frothing, coming up behind him. “Shit!” he screamed as the bus went nose first over the embankment landing in a nearly vertical position. The seat belt dug into his shoulder and gut painfully yet he felt lucky in comparison as he saw Sazera fly through the air smashing headfirst almost all the way through the windshield.

  The bus teetered, and almost flipped forward upside down, before it stopped and slammed back against down to the road. It creaked for a few seconds and then all that could be heard was a series of screams from outside. Shoemaker unsnapped the seat belt and fell from the driver’s seat. His head struck the dashboard and he collapsed in the bus' stairwell.

  Agent Dudley stared out the bathroom window watching as the bus crashed into the ditch almost flipped over and fell back to earth with it's rear wheels spinning slower a good four or five feet up in the air. Pressing his forehead against the window he didn't know what to do next.

  “Stupid mother fuckers.” He muttered and sat back on the toilet seat, listening for sounds coming from inside the trailer. It seemed quiet. Pulling out his cell phone he saw the words; No service, on the screen.

  He considered what had happened, replaying it over in his mind, and feared he'd never get out of this alive. His wife would never know all he could think about was how much he loved her. He looked in his pockets for a pen or pencil and found none. Starting to get up and check the medicine cabinet, he slapped his forehead and flipped open his phone again. After pushing the video camera function, the screen indicated he had twelve and a half minutes record time. He looked at the camera lens and started to speak.