closer, Reidy lifted his gun to his shoulder and waited. Behind the monsters, Reidy saw what appeared to be runes and symbols painted on the walls. The first zombie rounded one of the shelving units. Reidy waited until two more turned the corner. Then he squeezed off one round after another pausing only long enough to aim at their heads. The silencer on the end of the Kriss turned the gunshots into quiet thuds. The closest zombie had his head cleaved in two. The next had its frontal lobe blown off. A third quickly fell when its dead brain blew out of the back of its skull. They collapsed on top of each other, creating a small hill.
Judging by the zombies’ clothes, Reidy knew they were the missing teens. He saw concert and school pride T-shirts wet with blood and filth. One of the undead monsters had braces with brightly colored rubber bands covering her bared teeth. It was likely that Austin Lowe was among the group shambling toward him.
Reidy hoped the mound of dead zombies would slow the rest enough that he would be given time to kill them. A fourth zombie, one that wore an expensive leather jacket, came into view. Reidy aimed for his head and just as he began to apply pressure to the trigger Drew screamed in utter terror. The kid pushed against Reidy, knocking him to the side, before bolting away.
“Becca! Run!” the kid screamed dashing down one of the aisles.
“Shit!” Reidy barked. His off-hand shot back and grabbed Becca before chasing after Drew. Holding onto the girl was not necessary—she still had a death grip on his shirt and was not about to let go.
He thumbed the gun to automatic and sprayed the group of zombies as he ran after Drew. As he feared, the shots were ineffective. Most of the rounds went wide and the few that hit the zombies only succeeded in blowing off chunks from their torsos, legs or arms. These shots failed to slow the monsters down.
Drew ducked down an aisle and Reidy was hot on his tail. The rows of shelving units, laid out haphazardly, created a sort of maze. Some butted up against another set while there were small gaps separating others. A few of the rows were parallel to each other while others were perpendicular. When Drew reached the end of one row, he dashed down another. Blinded by fear, he ran without a direction.
Dragging Becca behind him slowed Reidy and Drew started to pull away. A hand shot out through of the empty shelves. Green, decaying fingers seized Becca’s blouse. With the girl screeching in his ear, Reidy pushed at the shelf, toppling it over. The zombie hissed as the weight of the shelf fell on top of him, crushing him under the heavy metal frame.
“There’s a door!” Drew shouted. Just as Reidy and Becca broke out of the maze of shelves, they saw Drew pulling on a locked door along one of the walls. The boy tugged and yanked on the knob desperately trying to open it and escape. The boy, who was so focused on his futile escape attempt, did not see a zombie with golden brown dreadlocks lumbering toward him. Half aiming, Reidy fired a short burst of three rounds. The first missed and buried itself in the wall behind Dreadlocks. The second hit his shoulder blade and the third struck home, taking out the back of his skull.
Reidy ran as fast as he could with Becca staggering behind him to Drew. The moment he reached the kid, two pairs of dead hands reached out and snatched at them. Trusting that Becca’s grip would still hold, Reidy grabbed Drew by the neck of his shirt with his free hand and yanked him away from the door.
Dragging the two teens, Reidy retreated to the maze of rows. They ran through one row and turned down another. The hisses and growls of the zombies surrounded them. As they rushed down one aisle, Reidy caught a glimpse of the mattresses. The layout and positions of the rows showed a sadistic streak in Ben. If his victims fell from the trapdoor and broke their legs, they wouldn’t be able to run away from the zombies. Ben wanted them to run for their lives. He wanted the fear in the kids to grow and grow. That would explain the flickering lights overhead as well. The green fluorescents weren’t for the zombies. It was so that the victims would be able to see the monsters lumbering toward them. Ben highlighted his victims’ terror for his own sick pleasure.
They plowed down one row that turned out to be a dead end—the row stopped at a wall. As they backtracked, Reidy saw more runes and symbols. Even though he had no idea what the symbols meant, Reidy knew Ben had created his first zombie using dark magic. Where or how the man learned the spells necessary was irrelevant. Later, if he survived, he might consider tracking down whoever taught Ben how to make zombies and make them pay.
A thin wisp of a zombie in a long skirt jumped out and blocked the path a split second before Reidy and the teens reached the end of the aisle. Reidy fired and the slugs ripped through the zombie’s guts, cutting her in half. As her torso hit the ground, Reidy dragged his charges around the corner. The zombie clawed at the ground, dragging herself towards her next meal and leaving a wet trail of gore in her wake.
At the end of another row, Reidy stumbled across a pile of bones. There were several skulls buried in the mound of femurs, ribs and hipbones. There wasn’t enough left of these victims to be reanimated into zombies. Becca saw the pile and screamed at the fate that awaited her. Reidy didn’t know what would be worse: eaten alive or turned into one of the monsters that would be the one eating.
Dashing down another row, they broke free of the maze once again. Reidy looked to the locked door. No zombies were in sight.
“C’mon!” he ordered and dragged the kids toward the door.
Before they could get close to the door, a group of zombies staggered out of another aisle and blocked them. Quickly, Reidy double backed and ran alongside the maze. Skirt zombie dragged herself out of an aisle in front of Reidy and reached for him with her mouth open and ready to bite. Reidy jumped up as he reached the zombie and came crashing down on top of her, driving the heel of his boot into her cranium. The full weight of the man crushed the zombie’s skull like an overripe melon.
Reidy looked over his shoulder past the group of monsters to the locked door. There would be no way to reach it without dealing with the zombies first.
Dried hands with putrid strips of flesh hanging from the palms grabbed Reidy’s gun. The zombie in the leather jacket had staggered out of one row while Reidy had been distracted. Leather Jacket tugged at the weapon, pulling Reidy toward his open maw. Reidy yanked at the gun—grinding his heels into the floor and fighting against the undead thing. The zombie held fast and was inching toward his face. The monster hissed. The stink of death and decay washed over Reidy. Behind him, Drew and Becca screamed as the monsters that followed them closed in. Thankfully, Drew did not run away this time. Either the kid realized his best chances for survival meant he had to stay with the man with the gun or he was too terrified to run off this time. Regardless of his reasons, his hands joined Becca’s and grabbed Reidy’s shirt.
Leather Jacket’s teeth were a hairsbreadth from Reidy’s cheek. Reidy twisted the Kriss, forcing it to point up. When the barrel of the silencer touched Leather Jacket’s chin, Reidy screwed his eyes shut tight and squeezed the trigger. An explosion of flesh and bone showered Reidy. Even though Leather Jacket was dead, his hands still gripped the weapon. As his corpse fell to the floor, he dragged Reidy’s gun down with him.
A zombie with a plaid bandana tied loosely around his head staggered into Reidy’s view. There was no time to wrench the gun from Leather Jacket’s hands. Reidy had to let go of his weapon. Desperate for more time, Reidy kicked Bandana in the knee, breaking it backwards with a loud crack. He then grabbed the zombie by the shoulders and threw him at the group that was behind the teens. Bandana crashed to the floor after hitting the lead zombie in the legs. It bought Reidy one precious second.
Reidy ran, still dragging the kids behind him and reached into the gym bag. Pulling out the kukri, he tossed the leather scabbard to the side and turned. He called out to Becca and Drew, “You’re gonna have to run backwards!”
He hacked and slashed at the encroaching zombies. The curved machete, sharpened to a razor’s edge, sliced through dead skin and bone. The mindless monsters, devoid of fear, p
ain and self-preservation, reached for their prey losing fingers and chunks of flesh to the swinging blade. One zombie, who had dried, black blood covering the stump that used to be his right arm, lost his remaining hand when Reidy severed it in a single swipe. He swung repeatedly. The machete chopped through the crown of a zombie wearing glasses. As that one fell, Reidy finished off Lefty by bringing the kukri down through his head. A clang rang out as Reidy misjudged and cracked the machete against one of the nearby racks. A chip of metal flew from the damaged blade.
Back and back they pushed until the teens’ backs hit a wall, forcing Reidy to stop. The stack of mattresses was to their left and Reidy’s heel hit the glass bottle of vodka Drew attempted to steal. They had run around the cellar full circle and ended up almost in the exact same spot where they started.
Four zombies surged at them. Reidy swung the blade upwards, hacking off a massive wedge of the skull and brain of a zombie with a Mohawk. The blade of the kukri was dulling quickly. Cleaving through flesh and bone had taken a heavy toll. It no longer slid through the zombies with ease forcing Reidy to strain and put more effort behind each swing.
A growling zombie with a