Mark Clodi - Outbreak

Veronica turned, looked at the overall situation, picked Nancy up and hurled her out through the back patio doors onto the patio. Badly shot and now sporting a few deep cuts, Nancy was still clinging to her undead life.

Meanwhile Max scrambled to regain his feet. Steve, seeing Stewart fall back into the room, rushed to her side, Stewart said weakly, “I’m alright, Go help Max.”

“Sure, you just stay here and cover our asses.” Steve said proping her body up against the wall. He then pressed his pistol into her hand and asked, “Can you lift it? Stewart! Can you shoot it?!”

She nodded ‘yes’ and said, “That bitch was Nancy's girl, Veronica? I’ll be okay, I’m wearing my vest, I just. Got. The. Wind…” and she passed out.

“Fuck! Fuck! Stewart! Goddamn it!” hearing more shots and the sounds of fighting from the kitchen, Steve looked around the living room for any remaining threats, seeing none he made the decision to help Max. Crawling over to the shotgun he picked it up, stood and headed into the kitchen. Reloading the shotgun with extra shells he had in his own pockets.

Max stood up and leveled his pistol at Veronica.

“Fuck, don't move! You're Veronica, right? Don’t Veronica, don’t!” Veronica didn’t listen and picked up a chair to throw at Max. Max shot her, he missed her head, but she flinched when she threw and the chair ended up embedded in the drywall next to Max’s torso.

“Fine bitch, just die!” and he aimed more carefully and pulled the trigger, the first shot was loud and on target, striking Veronica directly over her heart, she staggered back through the patio doors, a second later she came flying back through them at Max, halting at the sight of his pistol about eight feet from her head. The silence was audible as he pulled the trigger. Click. He was out of ammo.

“Shit!” Max leaped backwards and pulled the chair from the wall, swinging it around he met Veronica's charge with it. He felt the stitches in his stomach rip out as he did this and let loose a feral scream as he turned with the chair.

Veronica surged forward pressing Max back, the force of her rush pinned the top of the chair to the wall behind Max and one of the legs slid into her rib cage impaling her with her own momentum. “Fuck!” she screamed, one of her hands did not seem to be working right anymore. Stepping back from Max the chair was pulled from his hands and she then tried to pull the impaled leg out of her torso with her one good arm. For all of her strength it was not working!

Max stumbled and tried to follow up on Veronica’s weakness, when he found moving around was too painful he fumbled in his pocket for the extra bullets he had there, remembering Stewart’s instructions he pulled the slide on the pistol back and carefully put a bullet in the chamber. Veronica went down on one knee, seeing Max reload the gun, she half rose and scrambled for the door, yelling, “Julie! Get in here!” Max popped the clip out of the gun trying to concentrate on three things at once which was not making his job any easier, first he had to load the clip again, there was no spare with the pistol, second he had to watch Veronica, and third he had to try and remain on his feet as blood poured down the front of his stomach. One bullet, two bullets, three bullets, four, Veronica reached the patio doors and lurched outside, still yelling for Julie. As she went Max could still hear her grotesquely pounding on the chair leg, trying to get it out.

Suddenly Max was pushed from behind as Steve rushed into the kitchen, he lost hold of the clip, tracked it with his eyes as it fell down in slow motion to the tile floor. Steve looked at Max, offered him an arm to steady him and said, “Sorry Max!” then headed towards the patio door.

“Hey Steve, wait! The clip man, I don’t think I can bend over, get me the clip!” Max yelled to no avail at Steve’s back. Max heard the shotgun go off and he went to his knees to try and reach the clip himself, he managed to reach it as another shotgun blast went off.

Outside Steve ran into a strange scene, Veronica was near one edge of the house, she looked to be running away, supporting Nancy as she went, two other female zombies were wrestling over a little boy, who clutched a tire iron in one hand, beneath the boys feet was the body of a woman, another zombie, Steve thought. He leveled the shotgun and fired at the woman holding the boys right hand, the shot took her in the chest and splattered the six foot fence with gore as it tore through her body, she did not let go of the little boy when she fell, but tugged him backwards, putting all three of them in a line. Steve walked forward to get a side shot on the other zombie, once he had her lined up he fired into her neck, decapitating her, she immediately let go of the boy and fell, the chest shot woman pulled the boy to her and used him as a shield. Steve did not fire for fear of hitting the boy and used the time to reload more shells into the shotgun.

“Shit! Max! One of them has a boy, looks like your kid maybe!” Steve shouted out.

Max heard Steve shout, he had just jammed the clip home and re-cocked the pistol when he saw the male zombie in the kitchen rise up, the zombie held out his hand, as if saying, “Stop” and Max did not fire.

“Where are my wife and kids?” Max asked him.

“In the attic, we didn’t do anything to them. Let me pass and I’ll leave, you don’t shoot, we both walk away. This was a dumb-fuck idea from the start. Revenge, why bother?” said the man.

“I can’t, you know I can’t let you go, you will just kill more people, I can’t.” replied Max.

“Wait, wait a minute, you’re Max, right?” Max nodded, “They call me Jimbo, and I don’t have a beef with you, even though you shot me I will just walk away and never bother you again, but if you shoot me again, well, you better shoot real good, ‘cause if you miss I will tear you limb from limb. Then, after you I will go and get your wife and kids too. You understand? You ain’t looking too good Max and that little thirty eight pistol you got there is not too accurate anyway, just let me go and we are even, you get your kids, I get to live, everybody is happy.”

“I…”

Max was interrupted by another shotgun blast, part of the shot passed into the kitchen through the back door and he heard Steve yelling, “Oh pig-fucker!”

Outside Steve was trying to get a shot on the zombie woman and was creeping closer to her when he was struck from behind by a lawn chair. Veronica had thrown the lawn chair despite still having one of the dining room chair legs thrust through her body. With a final pull the dining room chair came out and she raised it in front of her to fend off Steve's next shot, which came in her direction. Steve had spun around to see who had thrown the chair, which was too light to have really hurt him, he raised the shotgun as Veronica finally pulled the chair impaling her out, then fired a shot at her. The shot went through the chair, but missed her completely, it continued past to hit Nancy as she was trying to stand up on the patio. The effects of this shot were horrendous, it caught her at the right breast and literally blew her entire shoulder and arm off, spinning her around to face the house. Nancy stood there for a moment longer then fell on her face and lay very still.

Veronica tossed the remnants of the dining room chair at Steve and followed it up with a flying tackle. They went down in a heap, Steve dropped the shotgun to have the use of both hands, but Veronica was by far the stronger. They wrestled around ineffectively while Cory watched, he struggled but the woman holding him tightened her grip and stood up awkwardly. The zombie wanted to help out Veronica but did not want the boy to interfere again, so she tossed him over the six foot fence in the yard behind Max's house. Cory hit a pine tree, breaking off branches and spinning head over heels as he did so. He came to a rest in the dirt below the tree, winded, but otherwise unhurt.