Resurrection: A Zombie Novel by - (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📕

Kyle ran to Annie while Parker and Hughes slammed the door brace in place. Annie still sat in shock on the floor, drenched in Lane’s blood.

“Annie,” Kyle said and squatted so he could face her at eye level. She stared at an empty point in space over his shoulder.

“Annie!”

She snapped to alertness.

The roar of footsteps and screaming grew louder. Jesus, how many of those things were out there? They must have seen Hughes dart in the through the front door before closing it.

Annie heard them now. She turned her head in the direction of the noise and managed to look even more panicked and crazed than she had just a few moments earlier.

“They’re coming,” she said. “They found us.”

“They found us,” Kyle said and nodded. He had a pistol in each hand. He tucked one into his belt and offered his free hand to Annie. “Come on. Get up.” She took his hand. He pulled her up. “We all need to man the defenses.”

Everybody but Carol.

The screams outside reached a deafening crescendo as bodies slammed into the side of the building, shattering glass and shuddering the foundation.

“Fuck me,” Frank said.

Carol shrieked, loud enough to make herself heard over the screams of those things and their pounding and shattering.

Hughes, M-4 rifle in hand, took a knee in front of the door and aimed the barrel straight at its center in case the horde busted through.

Annie looked frozen, either lost in thought or going catatonic. Kyle couldn’t be sure.

“Annie,” he said. She shifted her gaze toward the front door, but otherwise remained frozen. The shattering changed to pounding now that most of the glass was out of the way, the sound like 10,000 hammers battering the boards they’d nailed up.

“Annie!” Kyle said. She startled and looked at him, her eyes finally focusing. “Can you shoot? Can I give you this gun?” He offered her his spare weapon.

She nodded. “Yeah,” she said and took it. “I’m sorry, I’m just—”

“Later,” he said.

Kyle watched Parker climb onto the counter in one of the checkout aisles and crane his neck upward to try to see out through the gap at the top of the boards.

“I can’t see them from here,” he shouted over the din. “So we can’t shoot them from here.”

They should have cut gun slots in the plywood. Jesus, why hadn’t anyone thought of that?

“Isn’t there a ladder in back?” Kyle shouted to Hughes.

Indeed there was, and Frank ran toward the back of the store.

The screams from the horde outside were lessening somewhat, but the banging, kicking, and scratching picked up. The plywood sheets couldn’t withstand that forever. If those things weren’t dealt with, stat, they’d burst in. Kyle was now glad that Lane’s boys had blocked the back door with a Dumpster.

Frank arrived with the ladder. It was a six-foot stepladder, the fold-out kind with a warning on the third step that you’re not supposed to stand any higher. But Kyle had to climb up and stand on the top to see over the lip of the plywood. And what he saw out there was unspeakable.

Hundreds of them swarming outside. Everywhere they banged and kicked the plywood. Some closest to the store were being smashed against the boards by the others behind them. They hadn’t done much damage yet except to the glass, but the pressure of so many bodies surging forward would be enough to break through eventually.

Parker wanted to see, too, so Kyle stepped off and Parker climbed up.

“Sweet mother of Jesus,” Parker said.

Yeah, Kyle thought.

One of those things must have looked up and seen Parker. It screamed and alerted the others, so the sickening war cries resumed. They didn’t even sound human anymore. More like a pack of vicious animals. The roar had to be heard to be believed.

Parker used the barrel of his pistol to knock out the remaining pieces of glass at the top of the windows. Then he awkwardly aimed his gun downward—the angle was too high for him to look down the sights—and fired into the crowd. The mob outside shrieked—in anger, shock, hatred, alarm, or what, Kyle had no idea. Whatever those screams were about, the sound was extraordinary.

The store had only one ladder, but there was a magazine rack along one of the walls. Kyle dragged it screeching to the windows and knocked the magazines off the top row so he could stand up there without slipping. He climbed up and could just barely see over the top of the plywood.

He watched, transfixed, as Parker reloaded and fired into the horde. They screamed in pain when shot in the arms or the shoulder, gasped and went limp when shot in the torso, and switched off in an instant when shot in the head. Most of the wounded ones would bleed out eventually, but in the meantime they kept coming as if the pain didn’t make the least bit of difference.

It was a gruesome business. Kyle still hadn’t gotten used to killing those things or watching someone else kill them. They looked and acted like creatures out of a horror movie, but they were still technically human.

Parker’s gun was empty. He patted his pockets, but he had no more magazines.

“You want to help me here, Kyle?” he said.

“Shit,” Kyle said and snapped to it. “Sorry.”

“Give me that gun,” Parker said. “And go get some cartridges for this empty.”

They traded guns and Kyle hopped down onto the floor. He held Parker’s empty. Parker fired more shots and Kyle heard more screams.

“Shoot at the ones nearest the windows!” Kyle said, but he wasn’t sure Parker could hear him.

Hughes kept the boxes of ammo next to him at his feet. He was still crouched near the front door ready and willing to blast away if the horde came inside.

“Take half those boxes,” Hughes said. He didn’t turn to look at Kyle, but sensed Kyle’s presence and needs. “Shoot as many as you can from up there, but don’t use up all of our cartridges. We’ll need ’em if those things get inside.”

There were six boxes of ammunition. Four for the handguns, a box of shells for Hughes’ shotgun, and another box for the rifle. None of the boxes were full.

“How much do we have here?” Kyle said and opened one of the boxes. Only a few dozen rounds were inside.

“About 200 cartridges,” Hughes said, “plus a dozen or so for the shotgun. Take two boxes for yourself and Parker and give the shells to Frank. Do what you can.”

Where was Frank? Annie had taken Kyle’s place on the magazine rack and was firing her weapon, but he didn’t see Frank.

Hughes seemed to sense his confusion. “Frank’s in back,” he said. “Doing what I’m doing. Guarding the other door in case they get in.”

Those things were not going to come in the back, not with the Dumpster blocking the way. Unless they thought to move it. Could they do that?

Kyle ran to the back and handed the box of shotgun shells to Frank.

Frank wasn’t crouched in a fighting position the way Hughes was. He just nervously stood there with Hughes’ Mossberg in his hands. It was quieter back there. Those things hadn’t seemed to notice the back door, but of course that could change at any moment.

“Thanks, man,” Frank said. “Y’all better hope I won’t need ’em.”

Kyle ran back to the front of the store. God, the noise was horrendous. Monsters were battering down their defenses. Monsters. Kyle didn’t care anymore that technically they were sick people. Those things were without language, without remorse, without reason. They even appeared to move without thought, as if they were drawn to murder and biting and cannibalism the way falling rocks are drawn downward by gravity. They formed a relentless force that functioned as a single organism with multiple parts, like a giant bacteria colony made of human bodies gone savage, an army of malevolent meat driven by a higher—or lower—dark power. Lane and his boys were Buddhists compared with those things.

Kyle handed a box of ammunition to Parker, who reloaded and started firing again.