Mark Clodi - Outbreak

Tom was pulling with both hands as the zombie loomed up behind him, he yelled, “Fire Max! I don’t care if you hit me! Fire Steve!” his voice raised several octaves to an almost comical pitch.

The zombie fell forward onto the side of his body, Tom thought he was done and waited for the biting, briefly wondering how badly it was going to hurt, before he realized the thing was not moving. Looking down he saw it had an arrow sticking out of the back of it's head, in fact another one was down and several more had arrows sticking out of their necks and shoulders, following the flight of the arrows backward he saw a young man and a woman standing at the edge of the parking lot amongst the heavy vegetation firing arrows into the zombies, he made himself smaller and grabbed Stewart with both hands gaining a few inches on the zombie that was trying to pull her under the car. Steve finally reloaded and fired into the remaining zombies. He saw, better than Steve, the other young men and a woman wading into the parking lot with swords, a baseball bat and even an ax! They were cutting the zombies down and they were moving to guard the front door to the clinic. As he watched one of the ‘good’ guys was mobbed by three zombies, the largest one, and he shrugged them off and hacked at them with his sword, then had to drop it when it become wrapped up in one of the zombies insides, he reached back to his belt and pulled out a large dagger and continued to slash and hack as he was once again bowled over, his friends were busy fighting their own battles, but were quick to come to his aid as soon as they could, getting him to his feet and putting his sword back into his hand, then pushing him towards the zombies between them and the clinic. Steve could swear they were laughing.

Once Steve had the gun reloaded he pointed it carefully at the lead zombie coming towards them, it already had an arrow sticking out of it's back, but had not slowed down much, he hit it just about the left eye and it dropped quickly. Steve then rolled forward, his legs still in the car, his gun hand pointing under the car and using his other hand he supported himself and tried to get a line on the zombie that had Stewart trapped under the car. The position was awkward and he could only see the mangled thing past Stewart, it was not worth taking a shot, he might hit Stewart. Steve scrambled out of the car, paused to put another bullet into an oncoming zombie and then said, “Tom! Take the pistol! Gimme the shotgun!”

Tom let go of the gun and Steve pressed the pistol into his hand, “You have seven shots left.” Steve fumbled in the pockets of Tom’s coat and came out with the shotgun shells he knew were there. He reloaded the shotgun with five shells and ducked around the back of the squad car, looking for a better angle on the zombie that had a hold on Stewart. Tom fired the pistol at more approaching zombies, the rest ran back towards the cars parked on the side of the road. Steve could not see anything at the back of the car and continued around to the driver’s side. He noticed Max was slumped unconscious in the back seat and saw the zombie’s leg sticking out from under the tire of the car on this side. Ducking down he spotted the thing’s torso, on arm was on this side of the body and was holding onto the undercarriage of the car, the other had Stewart, the zombie was trying to drag her lower leg to it's mouth, but between Stewart and Tom’s efforts the leg was not getting any closer. Steve angled the gun away from the Stewart and Tom and fired one round into the back of the things head. The car gave a sudden jerk too.

“Aw shit!” he yelled, his shot, while angled away from his friends, had been angled towards the front passenger side tire, which had been shot out when he finished off the zombie.

Stewart was up, trying to walk and reload her gun at the same time, she was limping badly and had to lean on Tom for support, he transferred her to leaning against the car and took the shotgun back from Steve after he came around the car. Taking his original gun back Steve put in the last loaded clip he had.

“Tom you and Steve go help them out, they are just kids for christsake! Leave me the empty clips Steve I will reload them. I will stay and keep an eye on Max. Go!”

Tom and Steve moved forward towards the group of four people fighting in the parking lot, the people with the bows were not firing into the mob, probably to keep from hitting their friends. They were also not moving around to get a better angle either, but staying in place. Tom and Steve had no reservations; they moved around behind several of the zombies and finished several off before they even knew what hit them.

The rest of the zombies were either hacked or batted to death by the four medieval fighters or ran off around the corner of the building, leaving the parking lot empty of all undead in a few short seconds. Tom and Steve fired after the zombies and ran to the corner to make sure they were still fleeing, not regrouping. When they returned a few moments later the squad car was sitting in front of the clinic doors. The archers were helping a younger man along between them; his legs were coated in blood. Behind them came a younger boy and girl, carrying backpacks and baseball bats.

They all formed a little group at the front of the clinic where Stewart, naturally, took charge of the situation, ordering Steve and Tom to man handle Max into the clinic and directing the kids, teenagers really, to bring their wounded friend in as well. The rest would stay in the parking lot to keep the zombies away from the broken front door, except the smaller children, who Stewart directed to stand in the entry way to bring messages back and forth if shouting would not work.

Once Max and the wounded boy were inside Stewart turned to the youths and said, “Can any of you fire a gun?”

The oldest looking one said, “No.” then thought about it and added, “Not yet.” and smiled at her.

Stewart took the revolver that had been Max’s out of the back seat and showed him how it worked. She sent one of the kids in to snag the black belt off of Max for the extra ammo and showed him how to reload it once the bullets ran out.

“So who are you and what are you dressed up in those outfits for?” Stewart asked

“I am Michael, that’s John, Craig and Whitney, the little kids are my brother Matt and Whitney’s sister Lauren, the girl with the bow is Aggie, for Agnus. The guy is Ron and the wounded one is my friend and Ron’s older brother Jacob.”

Stewart passed along the names of the people traveling with her and prompted, “Where are you parents? And you still haven’t said where you got those swords and other weapons?”

“Oh, sorry, no, the weapons are from our houses, we are really into the SCAA, fantasy stuff, like Lord of the Rings and the medieval period, you know. Our parents never came home from work, the zombies, you know, they were breaking into the houses dragging people out into the street. I figured we had better band together and last night I got almost everyone to come over to my house. Today we went and got Whitney and Lauren. No parents, they were all at work, they called at first, then nobody called and nobody answered when we called them. We decided to get out of here. We were thinking of holing up in the mall or maybe a ‘club’ store somewhere.”

“So you didn’t even really know how to use the swords or anything? You just busted out with em and started hacking?” Shaking her head Stewart saw some measure of almost anger in the youth’s eyes before she continued, “That takes guts man, look at all of the ones you killed, that was amazing. How far have you come from home?”

“Well we live over on south Kilmore, about four miles east of here.”

“Four miles! That is freaking insane! Four miles with seven of you, plus two little kids? Good job Michael. We came from the Mac Co. building in the Denver Tech Center, not too much further than you have walked. What happened to your friend?”