AN: Sorry for taking so long to update. I've just been really busy lately.
I was actually going to wait with posting this chapter until late this week, but I pulled myself together to finish it a little earlier.
Again I want to thank those who have reviewed my story so far, especially Escape the Shadows, Seifer Almasy 1775, Tinkies and Dead-Hunter who have been really helpful so far.
I just wish that there were more of the readers that took the time to review. It don't have to be a long well-written review, I'm just asking you to leave a tiny little one. And it would be nice if you could mention what you like or what you don't like about my story. Then I know what to do and what not to do.
Also I would like to know what you think of the quotes. Is it stupid or is it a good idea?
Courage is doing what you're afraid to do.
There can be no courage unless you're scared.
Eddie Rickenbacker
US WWI aviator & businessman (1890 - 1973)
Chapter 9
Hell Fire
"Fire!" Pat yelled to Sean and Mike.
Mike aimed at the zombie and squeezed the trigger of the .357 revolver. It went off with a loud blunt bang. But when he looked, he noticed that he hadn't hit anything. The kickback was massive and it had caught him off guard.
Then Sean fired his gun and it was a hit. The bullet hit the zombies shoulder, but it didn't seem to care. That was when the next zombie appeared. Mike cocked his gun and fired at it. This time he hit it in the chest and it fell backwards.
More and more zombies kept appearing, and there wasn't much of the barricade left. Mike and Sean just kept on firing, but the zombies just wouldn't fall.
"This isn't working!" Sean yelled to Pat, who was growing impatient.
"Here, let me!" He said and both Mike and Sean stepped aside. They needed to reload anyways.
Pat took his time to aim and then shot a bullet right in the nearest zombie's heart. It twitched a little, but continued to walk forward. Pat fired again and again, but with the same result. Now it had almost reached the top and when it did, he raised his right leg and kicked the zombie as hard as he could. It flew backwards and took at least three more with it.
Sean had done reloading his .45 and stepped out to help Pat. But then a sharp smell of something burnthit him.
"Do you guys smell that?" He asked.
That was when a burning zombie appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
"Oh my god!" Sabrina said and covered her mouth.
Its entire upper body was lit in flames, leaving a disgusting smell of burnt skin. It started moving slowly up the stairs.
"Why won't they just fucking die?" Pat yelled and started firing at it.
Sean joined him and so did Mike. But first after about 16 shots it fell into the pile of chairs. In the mean time though, it had lit some of the other zombies, who was slowly rising again. They all fired their last bullets at them and then started heading for Sean's room. But they had forgot the shotgun in the hallway, so Sean ran back to get it. On his way he saw that almost the entire staircase was on fire, and the zombies started to succumb to the flames.
It was a relief to see that the zombies had fallen, but the fire would spread fast. Sean remembered that fire spreads upwards in seconds, sideways in minutes and downwards in hours. So they had to leave the house immediately or they would succumb to the flaming inferno too. He ran back with the Benelli in his arms and burst through the door to his room.
"We've gotta go!" He said and threw the shotgun on the bed. "The house is on fire."
"Shit!" Mike said and put both hands on his head. "Can't we put it out?"
"No, we can't! It's spreading too fast." Sean said and started to throw some stuff in his bag.
"Sean's right." Pat said and picked up one of the backpacks. "In a couple of minutes the entire house might be on fire!"
"Fuck!" Mike said.
Sean swung the backpack over his shoulder and grabbed hold of his bed.
"Pat! Give me a hand!" He said.
Pat grabbed hold also and started lifting the bed. Then they moved it aside and it revealed a hatch in the floor. Sean didn't really know why there was a hatch beneath his bed. It had been there when his parents and he moved in many years ago.
They put down the bed and Sean walked over to the hatch. He found the handle and pulled it, but instead of the satisfying feeling of it opening, the hatch just didn't move.
"No, no, no…" He said to himself pulling the handle again, this time a lot harder. So hard that it hurt his fingers.
"What's the matter?" Sabrina asked. "Is it stuck?"
But Sean didn't listen; his mind was only on one thing. That damned hatch.
He pulled as hard as he could, hurting his hands, arms and back. But the more he pulled, the colder the chill became. It was like ice cold water running down his spine as he realized that he couldn't get it open. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.
"Hey man, stop!" Pat said to him. "You're gonna pull your arms off if you continue like that."
Sean exhausted from using all his strength on that hatch, slammed his fist at it as an act of frustration.
"Fuck!" He yelled so loud that it shocked the others. He stood up and started walking around frantically, pulling his hair.
Pat tried to pull the hatch too, but with the same luck as Sean. It was really stuck. They were not getting out that way, that was for sure.
"How could I be so stupid!" Sean said to himself. "I've never actually used it before; I've always assumed that it worked!"
"Damn it, Sean!" Mike said, also getting frustrated. "We were counting on that hatch!"
"Don't you think I know that?" Sean sneered at him.
"Now there's no way out but the windows." Sabrina said.
"Fuck the windows! I'm not going out there!" Mike said.
Sean ignored the others arguments, and started thinking.
"Sabrina's right! Someone needs to go down there, get inside the garage and open the garage door." Sean said firmly. "Out through the windows and through the front door."
Everyone went quiet for a second. They all molded it over.
"All right…" Pat said, ready to sacrifice himself for his friends at any time. "I'll do it."
Of course Sean wasn't going to let his friend do it, because he had already decided to go himself.
"No, I'm going." Sean said, and Pat frowned. "I've already been bitten. Don't want to risk any of you getting bit too."
As much as Pat wanted to go, he knew that Sean was right. It would be dumb to risk them getting infected too.
"Are you sure?" Pat asked one last time.
"Yes, I'm certain."
"All right." Pat said and handed him the shotgun from the bed.
Sabrina wasn't okay with this at all, but they had no time to think. He had to go now, so she made it brief. She walked up to him and hugged him.
"Please stay." She whispered to him, trying not to weep.
"I'm gonna be all right." He comforted her.
She didn't say anything; she just kissed him and let him go. Sean then walked up to the window and opened it.
"We're gonna cover you from up here." Pat said to him, padding him on his shoulder.
Sean crawled through the window, stepped out on the thatches and slid down to the gutter. Then he turned around to look at his friends, who were standing in the window.
"I'll se you in five or less." He said like he was just going out to buy groceries or something. He then turned back and leaned forward. There were no zombies down there, so he jumped.
He landed with a thump and fell to the side, but he got up real quick to look around. Ignoring the pain in his feet from the landing, he went for the front door. He flipped off the safety and moved inside with the shotgun at the ready.
He had three rooms to go through. The entrance hall, the kitchen and then the hallway. Three rooms… but from where he stood that seemed like far away.
The entrance was clear, so he rushed on to the kitchen. The smoke ran over his head, across the ceiling. It stung his eyes, making them run. He couldn't cover his mouth though, because he had to use both hands for the shotgun.
His eyes were getting blurry, so he had to stop to wipe the tears away from his eyes. But as soon as he removed his hand from his face, he saw something in the corner of his vision. He turned quickly to see what it was, but the he couldn't see anything there. So he turned back, only to find a zombie standing right in front of him.
It lunged at him before he even got the chance to raise his weapon. But this time he was quicker than earlier. He quickly ducked under its raised arms and moved behind it. He then aimed the shotgun at its back and pulled the trigger.
The zombie fell forward, while its torso was ripped open by the hails.
Sean pulled the handguard back and the empty shell flew out, bouncing when it hit the floor. Pulling the guard forward again, he turned around and continued moving to the garage.
xxxxxxxxxxx
Upstairs they were waiting.
Sabrina sat in the bed with her hands folded. She wasn't religious or anything, but she did that everytime she got scared or worried. It somehow comforted her.
Mike was sitting next to her, staring at the floor. Pat on the other hand was getting ready to go. He took his backpack and Sean's and started moving to the window. That was when he noticed the smoke coming from under the door.
"Shit." He just said and turned to Mike and Sabrina. "We're going out the window. Rightnow."
They looked up, and saw the smoke. Without saying anything they just took their gear and went to Pat.
He crawled out the window as the first one and landed perfectly on the ground. Then Mike threw the remaining backpacks down to him.
"You're next, Sabrina." Mike said and forced a smile. He helped her through the window and down to the gutter. Then she jumped down to Pat who helped her land properly.
Mike stepped up in the window and was just about crawl out, when the door suddenly exploded into the room, engulfing it in flames. It startled Mike in such a degree that he fell forwards down the roof. Pat saw it just in time to catch him in mid air. But the weight of his brother made even a big guy like him fall to the ground.
"Got you, bro." He grinned at him and got up, helping him to his feet.
"Thanks, man." Mike said and wiped the dirt of his pants.
Pat quickly found his 9mm and checked the surroundings, but suddenly the garage door started opening. As it slid open they could see someone's feet in there, and as it went higher it revealed Sean standing there crying. Or that was what it looked like.
Sabrina ran to him and hugged him again. Even though it hadn't been more than four and a half minutes since they last saw each other.
"Don't ever leave me again." She said to him as he held her with only one arm.
"I promise…" He said and kissed her forehead.
Mike and Patrick took the backpacks and the guns and put them in the trunk. Sean also put the shotgun there. Pat looked at Sean's eyes, which were all red from the smoke.
"Are you okay to drive?" He asked him.
"Yeah, I'm fine." He answered and coughed a few times. "Let's just get the hell out of here."
His friends entered the car, but Sean waited for awhile.
Goodbye. He thought giving his childhood home his last regards. Then he entered his Honda Civic. Sean started the engine and the headlights went on. That revealed a couple of zombies heading towards the garage.
"Hurry!" Mike yelled from the backseat.
Sean released the emergency brake, put it in first gear, stepped on the speeder and removed his foot from the clutch. The tires screeched and the car rushed forward. He drove directly into one of the zombies. He could hear its legs crack, when it hit the bumper. It then fell aside and out of the way.
He turned hard to the right when he reached the pavement, and the tires screeched again. He then floored the clutch, put it in second gear and released it again while flooring the speeder. The car flew up the road and far away from the house.
The streetlamps were still out, but the cars headlights kept the road lit up. There wasn't much to see though. Occasionally they would spot a zombie or two, but no people were around.
"So where to?" Sean asked breaking the silence.
"Anywhere but this place." Sabrina said.
"Let us see if it's possible to get out of the city first, okay?" Pat said.
"All right." Sean answered, concentrating on the road ahead.
But after about fifteen minutes of driving, they had met a dead end.
"Damn! A roadblock." Sean cursed and slammed his fist to the steering wheel. He and Pat, who was sitting on the front seat, got out to take a closer look.
There were two police cars parked, and there were a couple of those signs placed in front of them.
"There's no way we can get around that." Pat said and looked at Sean. "Guess we're not getting out this way."
"That's the only exit around here. The next one is miles from here." Sean said shaking his head.
"We gotta go through downtown to get there. And that's going to be difficult, because of all the roadblocks." Pat said and frowned.
"Or we could take the highway." Sean said.
"That's not an option. The highways are closed." Pat said and shook his head.
"How do you know that?" Sean asked.
"Heard it in the news yesterday."
"Crap." Mike said as he stepped out of the car too. "Downtown is a mess. We can't go there!"
"It's our only chance, Mike." Sean said. "There is no other way."
"We can't get through this roadblock, bro. And it's not safe to travel on foot, so that's not an option either." Pat stated.
"Can't we just smash through it?" Mike asked.
"With what? The car?" Sean said and frowned at him. "You can't be serious. That's gonna total it!"
Mike looked down, embarrassed for even asking such a dumb question.
"Yeah sorry, wasn't thinking…"
Sean shook his head lightly and then looked inside the car to see what ever happened to Sabrina, since she hadn't stepped out of the car. She was sitting between the front seats trying to reach the radio. She turned it on, when she reached the button.
Sean couldn't hear if they were getting any transmission, so he stepped inside the car. But all he could hear was static.
"Try one of the other channels." Sean said to her. She then tried another button.
"Still static…" She said still trying.
Suddenly they hit a channel that didn't have static. But it was all silent.
"Fuck it." Mike said. "Just turn it off…"
Sabrina was just about to when Sean rushed over and stopped her.
"NO! Stop, wait!" Sean said and she removed her hand from the stereo. "Listen…"
They listened carefully for awhile. Someone was talking in the other end, but it was too low to hear. Pat stepped up to the car to listen too. Sean then increased the volume till it was loud enough to hear.
"If any one can hear me… seek to RCFM radio station… we are about 20 people who have barricaded ourselves inside… have plenty of guns… come if you want to live… the address is 147 Harvey Blvd 3rd floor…"
Then the transmission started over again, so Sean turned the radio off. There were some seconds of silence as Sean looked around to see his friend's reactions to this.
"You guys wanna check this out?" He asked them.
"Why not?" Pat said. "It's on the way anyways."
Everyone nodded agreeing with Pat.
"But I suggest we keep our guns at the ready, even when we are driving." Sean said and stepped out of the car so he stood right in front of Pat. "I think it's gonna be one hell of a ride."
That was when Sean spotted something over Pat's shoulder. It was a zombie that was coming up from behind him.
"PAT! Behind you!" Sean yelled and pointed towards the staggering undead.
Pat quickly turned around swinging his elbow back trying to hit it, and luckily he did. The zombie got hit in its right cheek, sending it staggering to the side. When it came to its senses, then Pat raised his hand, clenched his large fist as hard as he could and slammed it right into the zombie's face.
A loud crack could be heard from its head, and it fell backwards landing on its back. Pat shook his hand a couple of times and then massaged his knuckles. He looked back at the others who were glaring at him with open mouths.
"I-is he dead?" Sean said and walked over to Pat.
"Dead enough." He grunted, rubbing his elbow too as he walked past Sean.
"Uhmm, okay." Sean said looking at the others who were still glaring at Pat. "Let's go get the guns in the back."
At that everyone stepped out of the car and grabbed their backpacks and guns from the trunk. As Sean, Mike and Sabrina did that, Pat was keeping an eye out for other dangers. Mike and Sabrina quickly grabbed their stuff and hurried back inside the car. But Sean waited for Pat.
After some time he picked up both their stuff and handed Pat's gear to him.
"That was quite a punch you threw back there." Sean said to him. "Think you broke his neck or somethin'."
"Yeah, had to make sure he would stay down."
"He sure did allright!" Sean said and nodded. Pat smirked.
"It isn't the first time I've thrown a punch like that." Pat said and relieved Sean of the backpack he was holding out. "Broke a guy's jaw in a bar fight a couple of years back."
"Hmm…" Sean said, lifting his eyebrows while he nodded.
"Fuck it. Let's just go to that radio station." Pat said and swung the backpack over his shoulder.
"Yeah." Sean said and went inside the car, where Mike and Sabrina were waiting for them.
They felt the trunk being slammed closed, and Pat entered the car moments after with the shotgun in his hands.
"Better keep this close." He said and held it up.
"You best buckle up, guys." Sean told his friends. "Think it's gonna be one hell of a ride."
They all nodded and fastened their seatbelts almost simultaneously.
