Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

I looked around and found a first aid kit, popped four of the ibuprofen tablets from it and quickly fell asleep. There was one window in the office, barred on the outside and high up on the wall, it let in light, but I didn't think anyone would be able to see inside to get a look at me. I woke up in pain, my back was killing me. I searched through med kit more, you know, hoping for something like morphine to kill the pain, there wasn't any. I found some aspirin and Excedrin and took plenty of both, washing it down with some Spanish drink I found in the bottom drawer, it was nasty, tasted like sweet rice or something. Then I just sat and waited for the pain to go away. Probably several hours had gone by since I broke in there, another half hour and I felt better, and hungry. There was no food in the office so I was going to have to go out. I had not heard anything while waiting for the aspirin to kick in so I slowly slid the desk back so I could open the door. Only I could hardly move the thing, my back hurt so bad! In the end it took me twenty minutes to move the damn thing out of the way and I threw up once. I forced some more aspirin down with the rice drink and moved out into the shop. Everything was the same, except one thing, no bike. Someone had stolen my goddamn bicycle when I was sleeping!

Looking out the front windows I saw the zoms were pretty sparse, across the street was a gas station, but I didn't have my bat anymore, I vaguely recalled having tucked it into the saddlebags on the bike and not bringing it with me into the office when I slept. In fact I had not even seen what was in those saddle bags, it could have been food, or a gun!

Searching the shop I found a metal rod about 3–4 feet long, it had a kind of 'u' shape in one end and I think they used it to reach hangers on the upper rack, it didn't matter it was pretty hefty and actually better than the bat anyway. I used the pisser, passed a little blood in my urine, that made me nervous.

I got out of the store quietly, trying not to draw attention to myself as I made my way to the nearest gas station or convenience store. Before lone0g I was outside of a seven eleven, but there were zoms inside and out, not too many, but enough to make me nervous. Still I was hungry and need food. As I went for the front door a zombie clawed out from beneath a parked car and grabbed one of my ankles and started trying to pull me under the car. I fell over twitching my back, still I managed to get my foot on the car and pulled my leg out from this thing's grasp. Of course while I was down, several others started crowding me. I used my rod as a stick and levered myself up. The first zombie died like a piece of cake in a fat man convention, it was gone so quick you wouldn't have know it ever existed. After that things got dicey. I managed to knock out a couple more and get into the store, then I had to deal with all of the store zombies, while the others crowded around the front door on the outside, not able to 'pull' the door open. Stupid zoms!

"Inside the store I clubbed the old clerk to death first, the pipe thing worked great, it was thinner than a bat and heavier, plus the end could poke really well, like a spear, even though it was not sharp or anything. The store had, like I said, maybe five zombies in there at least and after the first the others were a little easier, I had to put down one chick, man she was hot, had a bunch of wounds, like a shotgun or something, but she was still hot. You maybe understand that I waited to hit her last? Weird huh? Like I am thinking, hey this bitch will snap out of it and 'be normal' if she sees me kill off her friends. No luck there, I went around the store even looking for crawlers, but had to face the reality, the cute chica was gonna keep chasing me around. She was a little faster than most of them too, not much, but a hair, you know?"

Hank and Jaun nodded 'yes'.

"It seemed like she was like trying to tell me something, her in her baby pink t-shirt coated with dried blood. Short-shorts too, did I mention she was hot? The effect was ruined by the fact she only had on one shoe though, well that and the blood. Eventually I had to just club her.

I looked around the store, pulled open the cash drawer, grabbed the twenties, just in case. Hey I knew then money was worthless, but maybe I would run into someone who wouldn't know that. Then I grabbed a bunch of candy and chips and headed back to the back room. Then I came to my senses and dropped the trash I was carrying and came out looking for something with real value, you know, beef jerky, nuts, dried fruits, anything that was not shit. Eating with Alvin may have been a little boring when we were stuck in the basement, but it was real food, man, not sugar and fat. I took the food and went into the back room, out of sight of the zoms. It took about two minutes before I heard the glass break. I didn't even go look, just grabbed my Mountain Dew, stuffed the granola bars and jerky in my pants pockets and lit out the back door of the place. Funny thing too, the place was pretty well built, the back door was metal and all, with all these latches and stuff, seemed like it took me ten minutes to get it unlocked, while I heard them in the front of the store.

"Once out the back, well there was no stopping, after I left I kept looking for a quick car to grab, or even another bike. I found a kids bike, like one of those bmx bikes, way too small for me, but I took it and was riding it when I came to Speer, I followed Speer kinda south east, but when it got up to this park area, it was like a zombie fest, a bunch of messed up cars and stuff ahead so I turned down Washington or some other street there, Emerson? I don't really know, but I had some luck then, I came on these zoms finishing this guy off, three of them, pretty speedy ones too, but they had pulled this dude out of a car and the car was still running! I rode right up to them and swung the metal bar at the lead one, a guy dressed in a grey suit with a red shirt underneath, he had a nice tie too, like a bird or something, silk. Well when I swung he raised his hand up and I snapped his arm, just like a twig, went through his arm and smacked him in the head, I swear I heard him holler "SHIT!" as he went over. I lost the bar, it fell out of my hands when it hit him. I stopped the bike a little after I got past that guy and after hopping off of it I picked it up and threw it at em. The car was behind me and I backed up until my calves were right on the door, then quickly turned and got in. It was an automatic, my lucky day! I pulled it into forward and hit the gas. The seat was wet, had splotches of blood on it. Disgusting. I checked the rear view, they were not coming after me, barely looked up as I left them in the dust.

I got up to a good through street, Alameda and headed east again, followed that until it turned into Cherry Creek and then just kept on heading south. When I reached Colorado Boulevard I had to stay on Cherry Creek, Colorado was packed. I was lucky again, someone had cleared Alameda through the intersection, looked like they had driven a truck through the entire street, pushing all the cars sideways making a path that I easily drove through.

Cherry creek was pretty clear after that, until I hit…Holly street? I think it was Holly. The road kind of turned left real hard and right into a pile up, I was going a little too fast, ha! By a little too fast I mean maybe thirty miles per hour, positively speeding man. I slowed down, but skidded on, skidded on, well some bodies, all pieces and stuff in the road, it made it so slick! I ran right into the bumper of this old white Volvo, well almost into the bumper, I actually hit a couple of slow zombies, kind of cushioned the impact, but I still smacked my head hard on the steering wheel, put a fucking dent in it, the wheel, maybe my head. This old car didn't have any air bags or nothing, just steering wheel. I think I must have blacked out for a little bit, when I came to it was to see a zombie pulling itself up the hood, only it was trapped between the bumper of my car and the trunk on the Volvo. As I was sitting there all groggy, it started pulling harder, and harder and was separating itself from its own hips, it was not quite able to do it and I started to laugh a bit, then heard a voice next to my ear, just out the window.