More Zombie Invasion

        Last night I dreamed that N and I were in a small town, one with a classic fifties storefront lined main street. We were eating lunch in a corner diner when N suddenly shouted “they’re stealing our car!”

        I ran out of the restaurant to see if I could at least get a description, but the car was all ready rounding a corner and I couldn’t make anything out other than there were at least four people in the car.

        When I got back to the restaurant, N was on the phone, angry, when a zombie jumped at her from behind. I managed to kick him away and pull N out of the restaurant. The zombie stopped at the edge of the doorway, throwing its arms up to block the sunlight.

        “We need to get out of here by dark.”

        “Someone stole our car!”

        An elderly gentleman approached us and told us he had a place where we’d be safe for the night, and in the morning they would be able to get transportation out of town. I doubted that the night would go smoothly.

        I was correct to doubt. A brunette sitting across from me lost her appetite in the middle of dinner, and every attempt at conversation with her resulted in shorter and shorter answers, until finally she was just grunting. I noticed that her eyes had taken on a filmy silver appearance. Apparently she’d had gotten scratched by a zombie, she turned at the dinner table, but not before getting the man next to her. We managed to lock the two of them in a small room. It wasn’t long before I could hear the zombies outside trying to get to them. They apparently had a kind of herd sense and were coming to “rescue” the woman, or at least share the meal she’d found.

        We’d barricaded the doors and windows, but it didn’t look like that was going to hold, so we retreated upstairs, filling the stairwell with random furniture. It only took an hour or so for the zombies to break into the lower floors of the house. While people tried to take turns napping, I scouted out the third floor, just in case we had to retreat again. I discovered an armoire with sturdy hardwood doors that were tall enough to reach across the little window sitting balcony to the roof of the building  next door. That building seemed to be empty. At least I couldn’t hear anything moving around.

        I told everyone what I’d found, but only a few people wanted to risk the trip over to the other building. I suggested we wait until dawn when we would be protected by the sun.  (Later we saw that the sun didn’t kill the zombies, just seemed to completely blind them.) We got some calls out, and the local car dealer agreed to let us use his courtesy shuttle to get out, telling one of the men on the phone where the keys were kept.

        A group of men made Molotov cocktails and tossed them into the buildings across the street, hoping the fire would scare the zombies off, or something. It didn’t, they just milled about downstairs, breaking things, and hitting the stuff on the stairwell. Good thing they weren’t smart enough to try pulling, except accidentally when they got a handful of something.

        The zombies didn’t managed to clear the stair well by morning, but they were still working on it, even after the sun came up. I don’t know why I expected them to stop and rest. We got everyone over to the roof of the other building and a few of us ran to the car dealership to get the courtesy van. It really wasn’t a van, more of a SUV. I didn’t think that all ten of us survivors were going to fit. We loaded it with the elderly, children and women. Except N, it was obvious that as the strangers in town, we weren’t on the priority save list. N was very angry, but I asked her to stop yelling at them. We were going back to the car dealership. All the keys were on a board in an office and we had time to break it open and get a car and get out.

        The other two locals who got voted out chased the van down the street, shouting obscenities after their fellows.

        Bad idea.

        The Zombies couldn’t see, but they could hear, and they came boiling out of the house, swarming after their lunch bell. A woman stood up in the SUV, through the sun roof, and shouted at them to go back. Then saw that was hopeless and yelled at the driver to stop. He didn’t, but floored it instead, almost toppling the woman out of the SUV. If people in the van hadn’t grabbed her she would have become Zombie chow as well.

While the zombies were distracted. I helped N down the ladder from the roof and we ran as quietly across the street to the car dealership as we could. The building was locked up, and breaking the showroom glass looked like the only easy way in. I didn’t want to do it, because of the noise. But before I could make that clear, N tossed a metal garbage can through the window.

        Most of the zombies continued to gnaw on their screaming prey, but a couple at the back of the pack turned to follow the sound of the breaking glass. Two more glass walls went down before we reached the manager’s office with the board of keys. Only, there were no keys on it, just a small safe below the board. Next to the safe was a shotgun. With a trigger lock in it.

        N and I started rummaging through the drawers looking for a key to the trigger lock. I gave up and let N continue. I ran over to the small service bay and found a pry bar. One good whack and the trigger lock was off. The shotgun was loaded. Our first good break.

        I took the shotgun out into the street and blasted the zombies who were coming for us. Unfortunately, that sound drew the attention of several more. I continued across the street. The fire smell was strong, but there were no flames in this shop yet. Breaking into the small shop. I found a couple of long extension cords and wrapped them around some display cases. I went to the end of the wire, moving as quietly as possible back out towards the street. I gave it a yank.

        Display cases full of glass knick knacks toppled in the shop. The zombies turned towards the sound and entered the shop. Seeing no more zombies paying attention to me, I ran back to the dealership in time to see N trying out different remotes on a bright yellow sports car. I scooped up the remotes at her feet and ran around until I found a car with “keyless entry” printed over the door latch.  I pulled the door open just as N started the other car.

        I hear her yell something and ran over, not bothering to open the door but diving through the sun roof as she pulled out of the show room. Zombies started to follow us, but I resisted the urge to shoot.

        “Gas Station, this one is almost empty!”

        We headed out of town towards the freeway and the gas station there. We’d gone by it the previous day, but didn’t think it would be safe to stop in town to fill up. I just hoped we had enough gas to get there. N accelerated to high speed, figuring we could coast in if we had to. Hopefully there would be no zombies there. As we rolled I checked the shotgun, only 6 rounds left.

        We did run out of gas, and as we coasted up to the gas station we saw the SUV, it was parked, doors open, canted up onto the sidewalk. No sign of the occupants. There was smoke at the front of the gas station. I told N to stop at the pump farthest from the fire. I jumped out and checked for zombies while N fished around for a credit card. I saw one of the women from the group in the SUV, she was in the burning gas station clutching her child, and the child was gnawing on her. She looked out the window, past me, past pain, nothing left but horrible sorrow.

        I looked behind me. N was holding her credit card out of the sun roof. I ran back to pump gas, one handed, I wasn’t letting go of the shotgun.

        Figures ran towards us from behind the burning gas station, one of them had a flaming bottle in his hand. I heard the car struggle to start up.

        “Stop right there!” I shouted.

        The man threw the bottle. Unbelievably, I shot it out of the air, but flaming liquid splashed towards us. I shut off the fill nozzle and closed the door to the tank, tossing the gas cap into the car. N had pushed the door open so I jumped in as she continued to try to start the car. I  fired a round from the lower barrel, more bird shot, but it slowed the men down.

        From the way some of them were moving I figured they were all turning. I hoped N and I weren’t infected.

        The car started and we drove off over the curb and out into the street.

        “I don’t know how they were all infected. We need to hole up somewhere, just in case.”

        N wasn’t happy, she wanted to go to a military base, but I convinced her that we needed to isolate ourselves for a day or so, at least;  in case we were infected. I was actually more worried about food and water at this point. Until we came upon our car by the side of the road. It had been abandoned, and in the same fashion as the SUV, all the doors were open and it was just sitting there. N didn’t want to take it, though, so I got out and got our water and snacks, the ones that were still sealed, from the back of the car. I didn’t know if it would help, but I wiped everything down with the sanitizer gel N handed me when I got back to the car.

        Neither of us wanted to be the first to try anything, though.