Henry crossed the intersection and ran up the embankment on the other side. He turned around and pressed his back against the cold touch of the brick building. Meri was huffing beside him as she turned and placed her hand against the wall while spitting on the ground.
"You should not spit," Henry said as she looked up at him. "It's only going to dehydrate you faster."
Meri did not have the strength to reach out to give him the finger, and she did not have the breath to tell him what to do with his food. She just looked back to the ground trying to regain her composure.
Henry looked out at the road and saw the zombies moving uncontrollably as the pole electrocuted them.
"I'm glad we did not touch that pole then." Henry said, "I almost had to reach up to catch myself when Dennis almost hit me in the face with that crowbar."
Meri turned towards the intersection as another body fell to the ground.
He watched as the zombie dressed in the mechanic uniform then bent at the waist and stepped up to it's two fallen companions. His face never losing focus as it walked forward, all of its attention was on Dennis.
They both watched speechless as the mechanic bent down and walked underneath of the pole.
"Run!" Meri screamed at Dennis.
Dennis looked over his shoulder quickly and saw that Meri and Henry had their backs pressed against the back of the brick building. He returned his focus to the zombies that were making their way towards him.
The mechanic and a woman wearing a puffy fur coat had managed to make it underneath of the pole. Behind them, two more had ducked down underneath of it with another three waiting in the background.
One of the men walking under the pole currently was taller than the others, and he did not duck enough to make it clearly through. The clothes that he was wearing started to smoulder from the direct contact with the metal pole.
Dennis smiled briefly as he was backing up across the road, never taking his eyes from his pursuers.
Behind the first two zombies, the larger zombie suddenly burst into flames. The zombie had fallen to the ground and continued to crawl across the ground.
"I guess it's stronger than the others. That's not a good thing." Dennis said to himself.
Dennis peered around the lady in the fur coat in enough time to see the large zombie get back to its feet covered in flames. With every step that the zombie took a trail of melted rubber was left on the road from the creatures shoes. The large strides of this zombie gave it the appearance of walking faster than the others, it also allowed the zombie to catch up with the first two zombies.
The flaming man bumped into the lady wearing the fur coat which instantly began to smoulder and burn. Within seconds the faux fur coat began to drip liquid fire onto the road. Dennis could start to smell the burning flesh as they inched closer.
"We have to do something!" Meri screamed as she turned to Henry. "We cannot just leave him there."
She reached over to Henry and grabbed his arms and shook him.
"Let me think a second." He said as he shoved her hands off of his arms.
Henry looked over at the man that had saved his life probably twice already today, and if he could find a way to help him, he'd probably protect him a few more times before the sun went down.
"Fuck it." Henry put the bottle of water on the ground beside Meri. "Stay here. And if it goes wrong, run like you've never run before for the Wholesale store."
Henry turned his attention back towards Dennis who was getting closer to the embankment, he was no longer looking where he was going. Henry knew he was leading towards him to keep Meri safe. The rest of the zombies had managed to get through the obstacle and were starting to surround Dennis.
Henry took a deep breath and started running down the hill, towards a fight. Something he had never done previously in his life.
Henry raised his hammer in his right hand as he started running up the embankment and towards the group of zombies that begun to surround Dennis.
Dennis slowly started reaching his left hand behind his back while his right hand was waving the crowbar back and forth to keep the group of zombies at bay. His hand fumbled with the edge of his shirt as he reached for his gun. The one thing that Dennis knew that no one else did is that he had only one bullet in his gun and he was going to use it to end his own life to give his new friends a chance to escape.
Dennis' fingers felt the cool handle of the gun, and his breathing slowed down knowing that this torment would soon be over.
"I'm coming!" Henry yelled as his feet hit the pavement running as fast as he could.
"On your right!" This was a familiar phrase that he used a lot while running on the trails and streets by his house to let walkers know where he was when he was overtaking them. Henry had hoped that Dennis knew this phrase.
Dennis heard the footsteps coming up behind him. They were coming too fast to be another zombie laying an ambush. Hearing Henry's warning triggered an urgency within Dennis, he realised that he was not quite ready to put his life down right now. He had people to take care of and people who were going to take care of him.
Dennis released his grip on the handle of the gun and put both hands on the bottom of the crowbar and sneered "Let's dance."
Henry came whistling by Dennis' right shoulder faster than he could have anticipated but he was not running by him, he was sailing through the air after he had jumped from just behind Dennis.
Henry had made a last minute decision that the towering flaming zombie had to be the first one to be taken down. That was the one that posed the greatest threat to everyone. He knew that running directly at the man was a bad idea as he could be tangled in his arms or burned by the heat of the flames.
Henry aimed his body for the small opening between the tall man and the lady wearing the fur coat. He swung his hammer down on the top of the man's skull and caved it in with a resounding wet thud. The momentum of his body flying through the air pulled the man over and knocked two more of the group down at the same time.
Henry hit the ground still running and make a sharp turn ready to take on the rest of the crowd.
Some of the group had turned to face him, and that left Dennis with the mechanic, the lady wearing the fur coat and a pre-teen girl wearing a mini-skirt. Henry felt bad for what was about to happen knowing that they used to be people too. He did not have much time to worry about it as the two zombies knocked down by the tall man were starting to get up.
Henry almost did not see the little old lady coming at him from the right until her arthritic fingers tried to grab his arm. He turned his body towards her and gave her a solid kick to her stomach as she brought her mouth closer to his arm. The force of the kick knocked the dentures from her lips, and she tumbled to the ground, even in death her hands did not have much use anymore.
He jogged over to her and put his foot on her head, turning her eyes away from his body and brought the claw end of the hammer down jamming it in between her eyes with an audible crack. Henry wretched a little and almost passed out from what he had just done when he hear the growling noise coming from behind him.
He turned quickly to notice that the pair advancing on him were identical twins. Without even thinking about it, Henry was trying to decide who was the older of the two women, it was always a game that he liked to play with his mother on the summer days they spent travelling through the city when he was younger. The woman on the left was wearing a business suit with a grey top, while her sister was dressed in a flower pattern dress. Even with this much damage and blood on their faces, it was hard to mistake their relationship.
"I think you're the older one," Henry said as he pointed to the woman on the left. "So, you should go first."
Henry took a few running steps before jumping towards the older of the twins. He brought his hammer down with more force than before since these girls looked fresher than the others.
Henry's arm swung through the air and connected with nothing. The woman had ducked to the right and avo
ided his attack. He landed on the ground a few feet away and quickly turned to see the younger twin lunging for him.
He took a step backwards out of shock and narrowly managed to avoid the woman's hands as they tried to grasp his shirt. He brought his hammer upwards hoping to be able to catch the woman off guard and regain his advantage. His hammer connected with the woman's throat as she fell to the ground, her body was heavier than he was expecting and the hammer slipped from his hand.
Henry looked as her body landed on the ground with her arms stretched out towards him. The hammer sticking out from underneath.
He bent down quickly and pulled on the handle trying to dislodge it from her head as her sister approached him. Henry struggled with the hammer, the fall had lodged the claw end of the hammer in the woman's spinal cord, severing it. Her mouth continued to open and close as her limbs no longer worked.
The woman in the suit approached him with a sense of urgency, knowing that Henry was unable to defend himself, she snarled at him and reached out for him. A blindingly fast object scraped his ear and the woman's head exploded out the back of her body and fell to the ground. A loud explosion recoiled beside Henry's face, and he slammed his hands on top of his ears.
Henry looked over his shoulder to see Dennis holding the smoking gun in one hand.
Henry fell to his knees, landing on top of the still biting lady in the flower dress, and started to have a mild panic attack. His heart was racing, and he was unable to control his breathing, he was on the verge of hyperventilating. Henry could barely hear anything his eyes darted around the pavement trying to keep himself from passing o
A clang beside him startle him, and he looked over to see the crowbar sticking out of the back of the head of the woman he was kneeling on.
Dennis stood with his hand out. "Come on, we cannot stay here for long."
Henry took the man's hand and was helped back to his feet. Dennis bent down and pulled the hammer from the dead woman and gave it back to Henry.
"Thanks for that. I did not think I was going to make it." He looked over his shoulder to see Meri sitting on the ground next to the building. "To be honest, I was saving that bullet for myself if things went terribly. You saved my life right now."
Henry looked a Dennis and then over to the building.
"Do not worry, I won't tell her about it." Nodding towards the gun. "Besides, I was just returning the favour, I'm pretty sure you saved my life a couple of times today already, and the day is not even half over yet."
Henry took the hammer from Dennis and wiped it on the dress of the woman.
"These things are smart." He looked towards the woman in the suit that Dennis had shot. "That one ducked my attack when I jumped at her."
Dennis looked back towards the hill where there was a pile body smouldering somewhere behind him. "Yeah, I do not like this at all. That mechanic was probably the worst of them all. He actually stood back and tried to walk around me while I was fending off the other two."
They walked back towards the building, and Henry noticed the bodies were laying on top of one another on the bottom of the embankment.
"I did say tried to ambush me. I swept the group all into the ditch with the crowbar, and they landed on top of one another. That old lady caught them all on fire, and so it made it easy for me to spike them in the head all at once."
Henry stopped to look down at the mechanic.
Dennis noticed him looking at the man. "What's up with that one? You recognise him?"
"Yeah, I do." said Henry.
"He works on your car before or something?" Dennis asked looking at Henry.
"No, nothing like that. That one tried to kill me this morning and has apparently been following me since then." He pointed to the man's face. "He figured out a way to climb the razor wire on the other side of the highway once I got over too."
Dennis whistled. "Say that again? He's been following you?"
"Yeah, I do not know how he managed to do it, though. I had a problem getting all the way here myself."
Henry took a final look at the body and started walking up the hill towards Meri and the building, Dennis took another look around at the carnage and followed.
At the top of the hill, Henry bent down and picked up the bottle of water. He opened it and took a drink before handing it to Dennis.
"Should we just run to the Wholesale store now?" Henry said, "Seems every time we move slowly we get attacked."
"There is not much between here and there now, though. Just the backs of these two sets of stores and then the parking lot." Dennis said as he exhaled and passed the bottle to Meri who shook her head.
"You probably should," Dennis said as he encouraged her again.
Meri reached up and took the bottle from him. "Fine."
Chapter Seventeen