Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

Dinner was great, we ate steak, potatoes, even a salad, I don't imagine I will be getting that good of meal again anytime soon. Around 8 it was starting to get darker out and we headed back to the basement. I shut the door tight and propped my bat against it to hold it shut before we went down to our nest.

About halfway through the night I woke up, something was wrong, it took me awhile to realize it was the power out again. I mean, no lights on the tv or vcr, no lights on Alvin's smoke detector, nothing. I heard a noise in the bathroom then, heard Alvin doing his business in the dark, trying to be quiet. Then I heard the back door crash in, as I heard something running around in the upstairs part of the house I jumped up and whispered for Alvin, "Alvin! Alvin, come out of the bathroom man, somebody just broke in, sounds like a real guy." Then I remembered the short 2x4 that Alvin used to bar his back door, nothing shoulda been able to get through that, nothing normal. Upstairs I heard the bedroom door being opened and whoever it was did not fight with Shandra, they had to be dead already. "Alvin!" The bathroom door opened, and Alvin called out softly, "Kevin? That you? What is going on?"

"Somebody broke down your back door, they went into your old lady's bedroom and there was not a fight."

It took the old guy a second, then he said, "Okay Alvin, my gun is by the couch, the flash light is on the table, grab the light, I'll get the gun."

I had been quietly pulling on my jeans and shoes and grabbed up the flashlight and clicked it on so Alvin could see to get to the shotgun. He scrabbled over and picked up the gun, just as he got it up the basement door was pushed in, splinters came down the stairs and I heard one of the zombies doing that slow shuffle of theirs down the stairs. I also heard something else behind the first one and I heard my bat roll down a stair or two then stop. I nodded at Alvin and pointed his light to the stairs, where his wife was slowly coming down, behind her was another guy, a normal looking dude with a pretty clean t-shirt, worn blue jeans, Reeboks and he was carrying my bat! He was a white guy too, a normal enough looking man, with Sandy brown hair and what looked like he had been a couple of days since shaving, had a bit of a rough face. Something about him was not right though, he kind of gave off this, I dunno, 'aura' of power or something, like when you get a power up in a video game? Not really glowing, but he looked strong.

"Shoot Alvin! Shoot!", I yelled, only Alvin just stood there, he couldn't shoot his wife and the white guy was gonna get us because Alvin wasn't taking a shot.

He was backpedaling towards the furnace room and mumbling, "No. God, no. I can't, I can't!"

Shandra zombie rushed him towards the door and whitey took a swing at me with his bat, I ducked around and took a pretty solid hit to the back, it put me on my stomach on the floor and whitey just kept right on going towards Alvin, who dropped the damn shotgun and ran into the furnace room, I heard him tip the food shelf in front of the door and Shandra started beating on the door. The guy, and I swear this is true, the guy just shoves her aside and smashes his fist through the door. A solid wood door, like he was a kung-fu expert or something. The light was pretty bad, I had dropped the flashlight on the floor and it was pointed directly at the bathroom door now, but I swear his hand was all mangled and broken up, as I watched it seemed to pull itself back together and he punched again, then shouldered the door forcing it open a little at a time, I heard Alvin screaming as the guy broke in. I couldn't help him, I could hardly even get up myself, somehow I made it to my hands and knees and then started crawling up the stairs, whitey and Shandra didn't pay me no mind, they just kept working to get past the door and shelving and food and get to poor Alvin. I made it outside without hearing any screaming. Once I made it upstairs, I struggled to my feet and went out the back, the board that had been holding it shut was broken like a matchstick and the door was barely hanging too. I closed the back door as I left and pulled the bag of beer cans over in front of it. I know, I know, that wouldn't do shit to slow the guy down, but maybe he would trip on the bag and if it happened while I was close I could at least hear him pushing the bag out of the way, right? I edged slowly around the corner of the house to the front, the zombie crowd was still there and if anything it was larger than ever, a few zombies were even in front of Alvin's place now, I decided not to risk it and went back into Alvin's backyard, no one was out the back door yet, so I got over his fence into his neighbor's yard, it was hard, I thought at the time that maybe that bastard had broken a couple of ribs or something. I am damn lucky he didn't break my back!

Once in the neighbor's yard I went over his back fence to get to the other row of houses and spent a few minutes looking around for weapons and other fences that would be easier to crawl over. One of the houses had a couple shorty bats in it and I took the longest one, I figured at least I would go down fighting. Then, a few houses down I heard the crunch of a bunch of beer cans and someone cursing. I headed to the side of the house I was on and slowly opened their gate, it squeaked enough to wake the dead, but whitey didn't hear it, lucky me. Then I ran, back towards where I had ditched the car on Monday, no way I was going to get around the zombie mob and I didn't know the back streets that well, I could end up lost and trapped. In fact I was not even sure where I was now, the street I was on could end in a dead end or it might open up on Federal, like I hoped.

For awhile I ran, not even caring, I knew one thing and that was that I did not want to meet whitey again. Ever if I could help it. Eventually I hit Federal, I was tempted to go hide out in the car, then I remembered the mob around the car at Alvins', no way I could chance it. Heck I was closer to my neighborhood, I could go find someplace to hide out for awhile closer to home. I was jogging down Federal when I came across this mountain bike, a real nice one, with saddle bags and everything, looked pretty good, no blood on it or anything, we are talking a thousand dollar bike here. I looked around suspiciously, a few zombies shambled around not too far enough away, slow-zoms though. I picked the bike up. No flat tires as I had feared, nothing wrong with it all as far as I could tell. I got on and started pedaling, whenever I saw zombies I avoided them, I even saw a few faster zombies, some chased me, but the bike was faster than they could run.

I started thinking how funny this was, me riding a bike around town, no shirt, middle of the night. I hadn't done this since I was a kid, you know? I am not sure why I headed south, but it was always clear, at Colfax I decided to head east, probably not a smart move really as it leads right into the heart of down town, but I figured I would try to get to Colorado Boulevard and head south again, or keep heading east if the way stayed clear. What I didn't count on was getting so tired, by sunrise I was hardly able to keep pedaling and daylight seemed to make the zoms more active. I looked around for some place to crash after I reached Colfax. Man that is right where the stadium is, and it was crowded I had to pick my way through a dozen wrecks and past ten or twelve zombies, not good. I ended up heading further south until I hit eighth avenue, then I turned east. There was this dry cleaning place that still had power, it had a neon 'open' sign still light up, I tried the door, it was unlocked, I pulled the bike in and turned it around, in case I had to make a quick getaway. Then I checked the shop out, it was empty, but there were pieces of bodies in a back room. It looked like the room had been barricaded off from the rest of the shop, then broken into. I had found an office with a locking door while I was searching the place and decided to hide out there for as long as I needed. On my way back to it I snagged some white t-shirts, looked like employee shirts to me, only no names or anything on them. I lugged a couple of huge bags of clean clothing into the office to use as a mattress. Once inside the office I locked the door, then shoved the desk in front of it, along with everything else I could move, which was not much considering the pain I had in my back.