Mark Clodi - Undead Advantage, a Zombie Chronicles Novel

The group he had his eyes on consisted of two women and one man. The one woman was usually in the lead while the man and woman lagged behind, Dave had seen them smooching quickly and his brain scorned the 'young love' that was developing between them. 'This' , he thought again, 'was going entirely too well.'

First bringing one of the brats back had been pure genius, with the kid up there with orders to crawl for a ways then stand up and walk for a ways, then crawl and never to stop moving, it was a great distraction, just like Dave thought it would be. The little girl seemed to come back pretty quickly too, she took less effort to bring back to some sort of intelligence and while she was not back to talking yet, Dave could see a cold fire of intelligence in her eyes. The little girl may have outlived her usefulness after this venture. Dave knew he could exert a form of mental control over her, but was not sure how much of one he had and suspected that given the opportunity, the girl would turn on him in an instant. She had no name, Dave hadn't asked, his thought was that you didn't name your tools, just used them until they broke and then replaced them.

The trio approached Dave's hiding place and were about three steps beyond him towards the next corner on their route when Dave quietly jumped up and smashed the back two, one man and one woman together. Now in the movies smashing two peoples heads together was a sure fire way to promote an extended period of unconsciousness with no blood and small effort. Dave found that using his enhanced strength it actually was a fairly quiet affair, though not bloodless. The lead woman had been about three paces ahead of the other two, and half turned at the noise. Dave leapt at her and was astounded to see her duck out of his way! Not only that but she smashed him in the face as he went by! The bitch! Reaching out with one hand he tried again to get a hold of the woman, she looked to be about twenty five, white with a figure that had appeared to be a little plump. Now Dave realized it was not fat, it was her hoodie and sweat pants, she was actually in shape; his first blunder of this affair. Fortunately for him she was making a blunder too, she was not calling out for help. In fact she stood there, eying him warily, waiting for his next move, while slowly inching back into the main encampment. She had a baseball bat in one hand, but was not swinging it like a slugger, just holding it steady. Dave lunged forward suddenly, starting high and ending low, he thought he had her ankle, but he didn't, she had jumped up, anticipating his move. Adding injury to this insult she brought the bat down hard on his left shoulder, they both heard it crunch and break. Dave rolled sideways, which did seem to take her by surprise, however she recovered quickly and smoothly moved further inwards. Suddenly she seemed to realize what was going on, smiled slightly and screamed for help!

"Fuck!" Dave spat out, pulling out his Glock he fired at the woman, who at least had the sense to dodge to the left as Dave brought the gun up. The gun jammed. It didn't even fire once, just clicked and did nothing. "Fuckin' gimme a break!" he swore. He put the Glock into his left hand and reached around back to pull out his revolver when the first shot hit him in the left arm. He quickly decided that he had enough of this adventure and vaulted back over the car barricade, he could not resist taking a quick shot the woman who had gone prone behind a tire on the ground. She probably thought he could not see her in the dark, not knowing about his ability to see the wonderful colors of human blood flowing through her veins. One quick shot and then he backed up, then he took a couple more deliberate shots at each of the groups with guns before he turned and ran.

Chapter 20

The screaming started just as Jeff was 'taking a bead' on the movement on the roof. Kevin jumped about six inches and turned towards the sound, pulling his gun out as he did so. Kevin had been given a pistol, a very small pistol in his mind, but it was better than a bat. He pointed it in the general area of the screaming, but could not see much from the lights between his position and the other corner spot.

Jeff said, "Looks like they came through the middle, get some lights on that area boys, then open up."

Kevin just ran forward hearing someone curse in the night, slowly a tall dark figure came into view, back light from the other position, with a chill Kevin recognized Dave. His gun came up immediately and he fired off a shot. 'A head shot!' he thought excitedly, 'I finished the bastard!'

Then he saw Dave reel and swing about, before he jumped out of the light that was directed to the area and back into the street beyond the cars. A second later three shots rang out, one came dangerously close to Kevin's ear and he immediately ducked down by the nearest car.

Jeff ran past where Kevin had taken cover then screamed, "Jesus Christ! The zombies have guns!" before reversing direction and running back the way he had come, apparently firing blindly into the darkness. Kevin was pretty sure it was one of Jeff's bullets that plunked into the fender of the car right next to his shoulder. Kevin had a second to look at the interesting pattern the bullet made on the car fender before the pattern started to run off in crimson droplets. It was blood, the next thought that ran though his mind was, 'Where did that come from?' then his shoulder felt like it was on fire and he knew he had been shot. His vision started to fade as the adrenaline kicked in, he started a mantra, 'I will not pass out, I will not pass out!'

His ears took in the sounds of a few more bullets, before he heard someone screaming to stop firing, after another second he realized it was him yelling for everyone to stop firing. A moment after that there were no more gunshots ringing out and Kevin rose in a half crouch from behind the car, more angry than hurt. Bright lights flooded the area from emergency spotlights running off of car batteries. The lights chased away the darkness and revealed three bodies on the ground between the corner posts.

Two were not moving at all, the third was taking cover behind a spare tire that had been left with other detritus inside the protected space of the parking lot. Now everyone seemed to be pouring out of the Mike's Club, one of them called for crew with the spot light to point it outside the barricade and the pool of light slide through over the cars into the street beyond, there was nothing there.

Kevin used this time to dart forward to the woman he could still see in the dim light behind the tire. She looked to be okay, the same could not be said for her companions. The woman knelt down and looked like she was checking their pulse, then shook her head 'no' to Kevin grimly. Still kneeling she thrust her hand out at Kevin, he pulled her up with his left hand and was surprised when she immediately kissed him!

"Thanks for that shot! I think you saved my life." she said.

"Oh. You are welcome, any time you need me, let me know." Kevin replied, he had been going to say, 'no big deal', but it was a testament of his maturity over the last few days that he didn't. Saving someone's life was a big deal.

"My name is Kristal, yours?" asked Kristal.

"Kevin."

Kristal's eyebrows went up a bit, "The Kevin? Hank and Juan's Kevin? I expected you to be ten feet tall with eyes of glowing fire!" Kevin laughed, then winced. Kristal noticed and said, "Well Kevin, you're bleeding."

By this time a group of people were up to them, including Jeff, who was 'leading' a small group of people from the corner where moments ago he had been advising Kevin on how to take care of the zombie menace. Kevin looked at him and the anger returned to his face.

"Hey Kevin, they got a piece of you man? Aw that sucks, not bitten…."