Chapter 6: Backup for Brad
Following a stop by Cantonbury's, Chuck finally had some fresh clean clothes consisting of a white dress shirt and black tie, along with some gray dress pants, black dress shoes and a gray fedora.
In addition to the new clothes he had stopped by SporTrance and the warehouse for a few new items, followed by a trip to Paradise Plaza's maintenance room to craft some more combo weapons.
Now he stood just outside the Entrance Plaza's doors in Leisure Park looking over to the food court entrance across from him, surrounded by zombies. They must have heard the battle going on inside and it left him hoping Brad was still among the living. He wouldn't know until he cleared them out.
Leisure Park was a large enclosed space serving as home to a large clock tower in the center, several benches and ponds, flower gardens and a pavilion with picnic tables. On a normal day this looked like some place he would have taken Katey to, a place he would have expected to kick back and listen to the birds singing while she played with the other kids, maybe see some guy playing Frisbee with his dog, some artistic soul drawing a picture of the clock tower, a family grilling out, just normal mundane occurrences.
Now it was just another open graveyard filled with creatures straight out of a horror movie stumbling around drunkenly looking for their next meal.
"Let's hope this works," Chuck whispered to himself hefting a crude explosive device he crafted from a leftover propane tank and box of nails. With a mighty 'oomph' he tossed the tank into an area where a sizable amount of living dead had congregated. Pulling out the pistol Jessie gave him he took careful aim and fired a lone round, resulting in an explosion that sent nails flying in all directions and killed eight zombies in one sitting.
As expected, the explosion caught the attention of the other zombies and they started marching in the direction of the blast.
"Time to move," he told himself stepping onto his newly acquired skateboard and began pushing himself down the paved walkway, maneuvering his way around several zombies and even managing to bowl a few over before he drew closer and put away the board, drawing out a pair of boxing gloves he found in SporTrance now outfitted with bowie knives.
"Round 1," he called out running over to a nearby zombie and hacking across its face before driving his 'claws' through another attacker.
He decided to move on when the horde grew, charging forward along a narrow path using a nearby tree to create some space between himself and the zombies, only cutting down those who had gotten too close for comfort, delivering a gory uppercut that took the head off of a jawless man, mentally hearing a boxing bell's jarring ring.
He continued forth until coming to the food court's entrance, finding it surrounded by another group of the living dead. He was about to reach for his 'Defiler' (the fire ax and sledgehammer taped together) when he looked to the right of the doors and an evil grin crossed his features.
"Well what have we got here?" he asked himself aloud as he happened across a waiting lawnmower. "Time to have some fun," he said running over and pulling the cord.
The grating din caught the crowd's attention, but before they could react Chuck was mowing over most of them, sending blood and severed limbs flying all over and showering his new clothes with gore. He wanted to keep them coming to him for every one that died meant one less horror in the world. The bloody spectacle continued until the shredded remnants of forty zombies covered the once pristine grass and he continued until the mower had run out of gas.
Chuck heard a moan from behind him and turned to see a bearded man staggering towards him. Looking down to the ground he noticed a severed human hand and quickly picked it up. "Talk to the hand," he said shoving it into the zombie's mouth and kicking him backwards.
The former motocross racer pulled one of the gore-covered glass doors open and made his way inside before any more of those zombies could entertain the thought of showing up and making his day worse than it needed to be.
He cautiously entered the food court, finding it seemingly free of the zombies plaguing it earlier, yet still finding himself on edge as he crept towards the stairs leading to the inner food court. It was deathly silent and he was tempted to call out for Brad, wanting to make sure his trip was not in vain. Before his foot could touch the bottom step he suddenly noticed a shadow in one of the windows of the 'Wild Range' exterior setup and heard the clicking of a gun.
"Shit," Chuck hissed as he quickly bolted away, a volley of submachine gun fire following him until he dove for cover behind a partition. The motocross champion reached for his gun and listened for any additional movement as he crept towards the corner, peeking his head out only to be sent scurrying backwards as another volley of automatic fire pelted away at the wooden surface.
Gunfire came from his left and Chuck looked over to see Brad firing a few shots before ducking for cover behind the railing in front of Chris' Fine Foods. When he looked over to see the blond-haired man he could only shake his head in disgust. The former racer made a mad dash and joined him behind the railing.
"Your uh...girlfriend sent me to find you," Chuck spoke as agent reloaded his gun.
"Who, Jessie? Dammit! OK, we'll have to talk about this later. You know how to use that gun?" he demanded with a white knuckle grip on his own firearm.
"I've never fired at a person!" Chuck shot back, "At least not a living person," he muttered under his breath.
Brad sighed heavily before replying, "Alright, I'll cover you from here. You need to stick to the shadows. Try to get close to the target, okay?"
"And what am I supposed to do when I get close?" Chuck asked just as Brad popped out to fire a few more shots at their attacker.
"Well the best solution would be to shoot the guy, but if you can't do that keep him busy dodging your bullets and stay out of trouble. Are you up to it?" Brad asked looking directly into his eyes.
"I'm a lot better with a motorbike, but yeah, I'll give it a shot," the former champ replied, shrugging his shoulders as he found himself talked into another situation there was no backing out of.
"Alright, next time he reloads. I'll lay down a suppressing fire. I'm counting on you. Make your way over there," Brad said motioning towards the stairs at the far left-hand side of the room near Teresa's Oven.
"1...2...3!" Brad shouted before stepping out from behind the railing and opening fire.
The gunman focused his attention on Brad while Chuck ran to the side stairwell without incident and raised his gun, the shooter ducking out of the way and his bullets whizzing harmlessly past the man's head. Undeterred he ran into the dining area and raised his gun to fire again and it was there he finally got a good look at their attacker.
"I see we meet again, my friend," the shooter called out in his thick Latin accent.
It was the same creepy man from the rooftop and he had him locked in the sights of his FN P90.
Chuck rolled out of the way as the man's armor-piercing rounds tore through one of the tables near him before pulling out a grenade and tossing it in his direction.
"Dammit," the former motocross champ grunted as he vaulted over the front counter of the Frozen Dreams ice cream stand to avoid the blast, landing hard on his side.
"I'm gonna enjoy killing this fruitcake," he muttered using the counter to pull himself back to his feet, "Jesus Chuck, now you're starting to talk like a psychopath."
He looked up to see the man running back and forth between cover, still exchanging gunfire with Brad, a spray of crimson seen as the man was hit. Chuck pulled himself over the counter and fired off a few rounds at the shooter, one of his shots hitting the man.
"You're finished!" the man shouted stopping to fire another salvo of hot lead, one of his rounds catching Chuck in the side and sending him staggering. He reached for another one of his grenades and tossed it in the champ's direction, sending him ducking into Teresa's Oven for cover.
Chuck was still smarting from the gunshot and as he had leaped behind the counter he knocked over one of the cardboard boxes, finding an uncooked pizza inside.
"I'll be saving you for later," he said scooping the pizza up. Chugging down the coffee creamer given to him by Otis he could feel his health fully restored. Before making his way back into the open he noticed a box of baking ingredients and scooped that up as well, a plan developing in his head.
He made his way back into the open to find the man standing atop Central Tacos exchanging gunfire with Brad. While the two continued their back and forth battle Chuck rounded the exterior wall and used a table to steady himself before climbing to the gunman's level.
The nameless man took notice and fired upon Chuck, who ran along the upper catwalk returning fire until his gun clicked empty. Discarding the emptied pistol he pulled out the baking ingredients and tossed them into the man's face, temporarily blinding him. His opponent temporarily subdued, he pulled the Defiler and gave him a hard strike with the blunt portion and knocking him backwards.
"You'll pay for that!" the man cried pushing himself back to his feet and delivering a roundhouse kick that knocked Chuck backwards and sent him crashing through another wooden table.
The former champ's entire world shook all around him and once again he felt a crippling pain surge throughout his body. Yet as it always was, his indomitable will would not allow him to stay down writhing in pain and within seconds he was back on his feet, struggling to steady both his feet and his vision as he watched Brad continuing to shoot it out with the madman. Finding himself near Frozen Dreams again, Chuck notice of a milk carton and scooped it up, downing the liquid in one huge gulp. Looking down he also noticed some boxes of those ice pops Katey liked and grabbed them for her.
"You're all going to die!" the gunman shouted to Brad as he forced him into cover behind one of the main dining area's walls and was reaching for another one of his grenades.
"Not if I can help it!" Chuck shouted running over to Meaty's Burgers and grabbing a container of cooking oil and mustering all of his strength, chucked it at the man and caused him to drop his grenade, the explosive detonating at his feet.
Wounded, but not out of the fight, the gunman ran towards a rope hanging from the rafters and grabbed onto it. With a tug the rope pulled him up and out of sight.
"He got away," Chuck exclaimed catching his breath, "Who was that, anyway?"
"I don't know. Well, thanks for your help. The name's Brad," the bald man said formally introducing himself.
"I'm Chuck Greene, former motocross champ, and right now I'd rather have an explanation than your thanks Brad," he shot back.
Brad shook his head.
"Sorry, I've got nothing to tell you. Look, I don't know what Jessie told you, but as far as I'm concerned we're through working together. You go do whatever you have to and leave the rest to us," the man spoke with a dismissive wave.
"Typically government stooge. Always looking to keep the people in the dark," a familiar feminine voice called out.
Chuck and Brad both turned to find Rebecca Chang approaching them with her camera in hand.
"Well I've got enough footage recorded on here there will be no way you and your P.R. people can spin your way out of this. You might as well come clean," the reporter spoke in her boastful tone.
"Turn that damn thing off!" Brad shouted reaching angrily for her camera.
"I don't think he's gonna talk. Might as well go digging elsewhere," Chuck spoke up shaking his head.
A sly smile crossed Rebecca's features, "You obviously don't know your way around these people very well, do you Mr. Greene? You know what they want to know and you'll have them singing like the birds."
She then returned her attention to Brad, "You guys are looking for someone here, aren't you?"
The reporter held up her camera and rewound the footage back to their time in the Entrance Plaza, stopping when she came to the mysterious old man. When he saw the picture Brad froze in place.
"Who is that? Where did you take that?" he demanded reaching for the camera.
"You help me. I help you," Rebecca said drawing her arm back and shaking the camera threatening to drop it.
The agent was backed into a corner.
"Damn!" he bitterly spat walking away in disgust only to stop himself and turn abruptly.
"You're one hell of a journalist, aren't you Ms. Chang?" he said pointing at the woman, "A boisterous, loudmouthed, hotshot paparazzo with nothing better to do than to go around sticking your nose where it doesn't belong," he said getting in her face.
"What can I say? I try," she said smiling demurely, "You have a point?"
Brad sighed in defeat, "You win, both of you. Let's work together."
He took a deep breath before speaking, "Jessie and I are D.H.S. agents and yes, we're looking for the man in that picture."
"You're with homeland security? Is that guy a terrorist or something?" Chuck asked.
"We believe he might know something related to...unscrupulous activities," Brad replied.
"I recorded that footage in the Entrance Plaza. Right near the front door, some place called Everyone Luvs Books," Rebecca spoke.
"The Entrance Plaza? You're sure?" the agent asked.
"Plain as day," Rebecca said switching her camera off, "So, do I have your permission to cover this story...or not?" she asked with a playful pout.
"Ugh, fine. C'mon. We have to see if he's still there," Brad said leading the way.
Chuck and Rebecca both followed from a safe distance and it was then he looked over to the woman, "Surprised you decided to drop in here of all places. You're gonna have to tell me if you've been digging up anything else around here."
"There really isn't much else at this point aside from a bunch of zombies running around, but like the classic saying goes, you never judge a book by its cover," she said before leaning closer to him, "I seriously think we could be sitting on top of something major here and the zombies are only the tip of the iceberg. I don't know what, but there is something else lurking in the shadows here. If we can get to it, maybe we can find the cause of this entire outbreak."
"Would be worth finding out if it can prevent any other shit like this from going down in the future," Chuck replied.
The thought made Chuck pale. What if it was possible that some of those zombies could have made their way outside the confines of Willamette? With the way the 'virus,' or whatever it was, spread like wildfire he seriously began to wonder what would happen if this spread to larger cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas...the possibilities left the former motocross champion's stomach tightening.
"Hopefully we can find out whatever is causing this shit and make sure it doesn't get any further. It's bad enough one small mountain community has to put up with this, but an entire country? Damn," he thought to himself as he and Rebecca approached the doors leading to the Al Fresca Plaza, where Brad had already drawn his gun and was gunning down several zombies.
"Not exactly my idea of a romantic evening," Rebecca quipped drawing her handgun.
"Unless you find being covered in zombie brains to be romantic," Chuck replied pulling out the Defiler and readying himself for battle.
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Author's Note: And hot damn I do it yet again! As Chuck Greene once said to a burning Leon Bell, "Yeah, you're on fire."
Normally I wouldn't do this with one of my stories, but I actually did find myself getting a bit "cartoonish" with this battle in the sense of how Chuck can still battle on after being shot and thrown through a table. I hope that doesn't put off some of my readers, but then again I view this as one of my 'funner' projects, well that is if you consider a game filled with zombies and being able to kill them off with all sorts of mundane items to be fun, or being able to pull some MacGyver-type shit with being able to turn a cuddly robotic teddy bear into a killing machine armed with a light machine gun, or being able to rig a goblin mask up so that it can shoot laser beams with just a battery!
After all, I'm sure there are some who would question how a photojournalist can save the world from a zombie apocalypse, or be able to suddenly learn wrestling moves at the drop of a hat, or be able to take a round from a sniper rifle, be hacked with a machete, run over by a grocery cart fitted with sharp objects or be smacked by a flying bovine carcass and still walk away alive (and actually walk away) in the end, yet Brad and Carlito actually show damage when they are shot or stabbed in a cinematic sequence.
So yeah, try not to think too much of it if you see Chuck managed to survive worse in future chapters.
Well I think that's everything so until then read and review! This is Metal Harbinger saying SPREAD THE SICKNESS, ONE MIND AT A TIME! \m/