After a minute, we had recovered and were moving again at a steadier pace. We passed several houses and businesses, and made our way to a huge condo complex at the end of the street. Walker Road was the intersection, and on the other side I could see the trench surrounding our portion of the town. While it worked great on keeping any outside zombies from wandering in, it was the ones still on the inside that concerned me. There were a lot of zombies and we had a lot of work to do.
I checked the area around the complex and didn’t see any activity.
“I wonder where all the zombies are?” Mark asked.
“What do you mean?” I said, looking into a garage that had been left open. There were some garden tools, but nothing of interest.
“I mean, this is a town with a population of over thirty thousand. We should have a lot of zombies here.”
I thought about it for a minute as I checked the inside garage door to see if it was open. It wasn’t. “Good question. I guess a lot of these people just bugged out as soon as they could, given their proximity to the interstates and the river and canal.”
“Where did they go?” Mark asked as he stepped up to the door with his crowbar.
I shrugged. “My guess is they went to the state centers. Who knows? I’m sure the ones we run into around here are the ones that got left behind by friends and relatives. This was a big commuter town, with a lot of people living here who worked in Chicago, and we all know what happened there.”
Mark nodded as he worked the crowbar. He and his wife had managed to get out of the city, but he would likely never forget what he had gone through to get out.
The door popped open and we both stepped back. We didn’t hear anything, but that meant nothing. Stepping into the kitchen area, I looked around and motioned for Mark to move forward. He stepped in and headed for the stairs, while I checked the downstairs and the basement. The first floor was clear, and showed signs of a hurried exit. Supplies were scattered around, and some of the items were personal.
I heard Mark moving around upstairs, but he hadn’t called for help, so I figured the upstairs was clear. I headed to the basement door and opened it. Immediately a decaying smell hit me, and I knew something was dead down there. Whether or not it was still moving was another matter. I grabbed a towel from the kitchen and threw it down the stairs. Nothing happened, and I didn’t hear any movement. I then took a fork and threw it down, the metallic clatter ringing up as it hit the concrete floor. Nothing. I stepped down three steps and bent down to look under the wall. I shined my flashlight around and didn’t see anything so I went down the stairs quickly, bringing up my carbine and scanning the area quickly. The basement was cluttered, but nothing was moving. I looked around and saw a shape in the corner. Looking closely, I saw the decomposing body of a dog. I shook my head. They probably thought he would get out on his own. Instead he died waiting for his masters to return.
I felt bad as I went up the stairs, wondering how many pets met their end that way. We had seen them in many homes, and I felt bad about all of them. They didn’t understand why they were abandoned, they just waited to die.
I went back up and met with Mark, who told me the upstairs bedrooms were clear. We went outside and checked the rest of the complex, not finding anything untoward. I let Mark kill a zombie wandering the street. He moved in quickly, brushed aside the outstretched arms, and planted the crowbar in the back of its head. It went down without a sound, and he gave it another whack just to be sure. I knew we couldn’t knock them unconscious, as some people claimed, but it never hurt to double check.
We decided to check out a recreation center before heading back to the school. We had secured a good piece of the area, and were going to wrap it up with the center.
I approached the glass front doors and tested one. It was open, surprisingly, and we stepped inside. Skylights lit the dim interior, and we could see the first floor clearly; the offices and back rooms looked empty. A sign read ‘Courts’ and pointed down a big flight of stairs. Mark and I approached and listened for activity. We heard nothing and stepped down the rubberized stairs into the darkness of the basement. The skylights’ illumination could only reach so far, and it got darker the deeper we went. I flicked on my flashlight and Mark did the same. At the bottom of the stairs we went right and checked the offices and bathrooms. We could see signs of activity but nothing looked recent.
We went towards the courts and froze at the doorway. There were about a hundred cots covering the gym floor and several aid stations set up around the gym’s perimeter. What spooked us was the copious amounts of blood splatter that covered the cots, the walls, and the floor. Bits of meat were scattered here and there, and under one cot I saw a severed hand. The gym had a huge canvas opaque curtain that separated it into two areas. I turned my flashlight off and Mark did the same.
We heard a shuffling sound. It sounded like it came from the other side of the curtain. I moved along the wall towards the side opening, my footsteps silenced by the rubber floor of the gym. I reached the doorway while Mark checked the aid stations for first aid supplies.
Peering around the corner, I looked into the darkness and didn’t see a thing. I clicked on my flashlight and illuminated about a hundred zombies covering half the floor. The sudden illumination caused the zombies to turn around and they immediately began a chorus of moans that echoed off the walls of the gym. As one, they started for me.
I didn’t hesitate, turning on my heel and running like hell for the stairs, Mark only a step behind. The zombies poured from the gym, clamoring for our blood. Mark and I bolted up the stairs and paused to throw the couches and chairs we had passed in the lounge down to the first landing to try to slow them down.
“Jesus, what the hell happened here?” Mark yelled as we levered a couch over the edge.
“I don’t know, but I imagine they set up a treatment center, not knowing what the virus did, then the first infected killed the rest and the workers too.” I said as I tossed my end. We threw another chair then ran into the offices to grab desks. We threw the first one down the stairs just as the first zombies were trying to climb over the furniture pile. The desk flattened one, and effectively blocked others momentarily. We grabbed two more desks and threw them down as well.
I motioned Mark to go and we ran out the front door. I looked over the parking lot and spotted the maintenance shed. Running to the shed, I pulled on the door and found it locked. Mark attacked it with the crowbar and we broke the door open. I flung the door open and looked around before grabbing two cans of gasoline stored there and ran back to the building. We checked inside and saw the zombies hadn’t made it past our barrier yet. We went to the stairs and poured gasoline down on the barricade and the zombies groaned again when they saw us. Mark emptied his can and I emptied mine. I threw the can down and bounced it off the head of a female crawling over one of the desks. I dug into my backpack for my matches, and lit the whole package. I stepped back and tossed the flaming brand down the stairs.
Thankfully, Mark and I were not at the top of the stairs when the gas went up. The building shook with the whoosh of the lighting gas and the skylight above the stairs shattered from the explosion. Mark and I fell back and headed towards the entrance. One zombie managed to reach the top of the stairs, and a flaming figure limped towards us for about twenty feet before succumbing to the flames and falling to the floor, setting fire to the carpeting. Mark and I left the building, and headed back to the school. The center burning brightly, with flames shooting out of the skylight. With luck, the blaze would consume the zombies for good. If not, we were going to have to search around for a few ‘extra crispy’ Z’s that had managed to escape.