Mark Clodi - About a Woman, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

They raced around the side, but because of the rectangular shape of the yard they ended up closer to the zombies than either woman expected. Paige tossed a couple of pieces of wood on to the top of the shed and scrambled up the stacked pile to get onto the roof. Dora, followed tossing her own club up first, she had almost made it to the top, when she felt a cold hand grasp her ankle and start to pull her down.

"Paige!" Dora screamed. The younger woman turned and grabbed Dora's hand, pulling her hard, but the zombie would not let go. Dora kicked ineffectively, bouncing her bare feet off the thing's face and shoulder. This zombie was a younger man, probably sixteen or seventeen, Mike's age. He was wearing only dark green boxer shorts and they were torn open in a way that left nothing to the imagination.

"Hold on, Dora!" Paige said and then let Dora's hand go, she then turned around and hefted a chunk of wood in her hand, she threw it at the man's head, where an end struck it right square on the nose, ruining an otherwise good face. The thing might not feel pain, but having a three pound piece of wood hitting it in the face must have jarred it in some manner, because it let go and fell backward. Dora pulled herself up and turned around to look at the zombies milling about in her yard. They kept coming and were starting to build up at the back of the shed. The mob moved up and stomped on top of any who fell, which they all did when they reached the pile. Thus, the pile was getting higher as each pressed forward. Dora estimated there were now around forty zombies in her yard, with more streaming in from the open gate. Gunfire started in the street in front of her house. It was a rifle, Dora recognized the sound. Then a pistol started firing. Then everything stopped.

"You don't think…" She began, but a rifle started firing again. "What is he doing?"

"Getting to the gate from the front I bet. Get your club, we gotta knock heads."

The women began smashing the heads of the zombies that came close, this stopped the zombies from getting to them, but added to the pile, making it easier for the others to reach them. Fortunately the zombies were only able to get up on back side, where so many of them had fallen. On the other sides the zombies just pressed close and jostled each other, not able to reach up or threaten the women.

The gun fire continued, abating periodically, before resuming again. After what seemed like an hour of time, the firing started coming from the side of the house near the gate. The women smashed heads until Mike appeared in the yard. He moved forward, but didn't wade into the crowd of zombies. Instead he angled off to one side and when he was close enough he yelled, "Catch!" and tossed up a pistol.

Paige recovered it and Mike retreated back into the house to reload, several zombies followed him. Paige took slow aim at the zombies closest to the bath house and fired one shot at a time, which drew the zombies back towards them. After nine shots the pistol was empty, but by then Mike had reloaded and was using the grill as a place to steady the rifle he was firing. In minutes the slaughter was over. There was still some movement on the ground, zombies whose heads had not been fully destroyed, Mike tossed up a box of ammo for Paige and another pistol to Dora. The women climbed down on the pool side by hanging and dropping from the roof.

"Well that went well. Thanks Mike you did a great job." Dora leaned over and hugged the young man.

"Yeah, I think we need showers again. You two are splattered, uh, more like coated in blood." said Mike.

"You aren't much better yourself." said Paige looking Mike over. "What do we do with these? Some of them are still moving."

Dora pondered it over for a minute then said, "You know I think we better pull them out one by one towards the back, make sure each one is fully dead. I would rather not have them in the yard, but what else do we do with them?"

"They're gonna smell." Mike said.

Dora shrugged. "Better out there then around the pool. Could we bring them out front?"

"Uh. There are more out there. They just kept coming. I cleared a path, but there were lots of them. Maybe we can wait until tomorrow, maybe they will go away?"

"Fine." Dora said with resignation in her voice, "We drag em back here and put a cap in any of them that are still alive. At least they are easy to kill."

"I don't know Dora. Out in front. Well I missed one. Took two shots at him, he moved like…well, like us. Fast, he ran away when I started firing. None of the others ran away, they just came forward no matter what."

Dora looked at Mike, trying to figure out if he was putting them on, she decided he wasn't and said, "That's…not good."

"No." he answered.

Moving the bodies back to the back fence took them almost an hour and a half. They had killed thirty seven zombies in the back yard. Mike said he had probably killed that many in the front too, and when the women looked out the front windows there were still dozens of them wandering around in the street and on the front lawn. After the noise stopped they did begin to disperse, but not quickly. Some of them looked at the house in a way that made Dora uneasy.

In the back Dora got her garden hose out and washed all the blood and gore off of the patio and away from the pool. She turned the pools filtration system on manually and let it run while they checked the jerky and made dinner. The sun was near setting by the time they had dinner ready and were gathered around the picnic table to eat outside. They kept their conversation low and the television was muted, but on, providing a flickering light as the natural light faded.

"Do you think they are attracted to light?" asked Paige.

"We better not risk it. I think we should stay upstairs, we can tape paper or foil to the windows, to black them out completely, then barricade the hallway at the top of the stairs. I still don't think I am going to get a good night's sleep." said Dora.

"We still have electricity, that is a good sign right?" asked Mike.

"Probably, I mean if they are attracted to light maybe they will gather under the street lights?" said Paige.

"We should be so lucky!" said Dora.

"We were lucky." Mike said, raising his wine glass in a toast, "to us, new best friends."

The women clinked glasses with him and then drained the few ounces of wine out of them. Dora had opened a bottle of wine, some ice wine from an Iowa winery, as she expected, both of her young guests liked it well enough. She had told them they would only split the one bottle, which shouldn't be enough to do any of them any harm. She was surprised that she was feeling buzzed by the end of the meal.

The three of them cleaned up the dishes in silence and Dora shut off the patio television and came inside. She locked the door and braced a chair in front of it, wedged under the handle. They had already done the same thing to the front door and even to the door leading to the garage and basement. In the kitchen Dora gathered up her tin foil and some paper bags and the three of them headed upstairs with some duct tape from Roger's stash.

In the dying light from the master bedroom they looked outside at the street below, there were still a couple dozen zombies milling about out there. Dora sighed heavily and then put the foil over the window, Mike and Paige taped the ends up and then went down both edges, sealing the room against all light emissions. There were three windows in the master bedroom, two facing the street and one facing the side of the house. They sealed them all and even did the small window in the master bathroom. The three of them spent some time looking up at the sky light that provided extra light in the bathroom, but none of them could figure out a way to block it off; eventually they all conceded it probably didn't matter as it faced almost straight up and slanted towards the back of the house.