The Rot: Book 2

Chapter 13

Two more corpses hopped up onto the vehicle and were trying to pull themselves into the warehouse. I heard Cynthia shout from behind me, "There's too many of them! Get back here!"

"We can handle it," Mick replied, swinging his chain at the two eaters trying to get inside.

I turned around and looked at the back door; everything was still intact. The only worry we had, at the moment, was the garage door. After Janice and Mick took care of the biters atop the van, things fell a little quiet as the three of us returned to the rest of the group.

"Carter and his buddies are out there," I whispered to the others.

"Where?" Maurice asked me.

"Looked like they were standing in the middle of the vacant lot, watching the festivities."

Maurice broke from the group and went up to the van. He looked over the top of the vehicle, "Yep, you're right, Reid."

"Fuckers," Cynthia muttered.

"Do you see anymore biters, Maurice?" Carla asked him.

"Nothing right here. But I can still hear them. I think they're on the sides of the building. We have to take them out."

I really didn't want to venture out there with that asshole Carter and his goons standing around and watching us. Not only that, I didn't want to move our door barricades away.

"You think that's safe, Maurice?" I asked. "I mean, we'd have to move one of the stacks away from the front or back door."

"Or the van," Mick said.

"We pull the van away, get out there and close the front gates," said Maurice. "Then we deal with the rest of the dead things."

"Carter will shoot at us the minute we head out there," Phil said.

"You don't know that."

"Maurice, watch out!" Cynthia shouted.

From underneath the van, one of the biters was reaching out, and trying to bite on Maurice's ankles. Maurice made it away from the eater before she could sink her teeth into Maurice's Achilles tendons. Maurice sent the blade from his pocket knife into the biter's left eye socket, putting down the undead creature.

"Thanks, Cyn," Maurice said as he made it back to us.

"I guess that shows we don't have to start the van. We can just crawl underneath it," I said. "At least we're saving on gas."

Cynthia sighed. "I hate you, Reid."

"I'm going out there. Who's coming with me?" Maurice asked the group.

Everyone fell quiet for a few moments. Finally, Carla volunteered as did Phil.

"What the hay, I'll go too. Everything's been a hoot this far," I said.

"I want the rest of you to stay here," Maurice said. "Keep things safe in the warehouse."

Before anybody could raise an objection, Maurice pulled the lifeless body of the eater out from under the van, got down on his stomach, and crawled underneath the vehicle. Carla, Phil, and I followed.

Phil and I went right over to the front gates and slammed them shut before anymore biters could make it inside the lot. Before the gates closed, I got a glimpse of Carter standing there and watching us. I badly wanted to give him the finger, but since he was holding an assault rifle, I thought better of it.

Carla and Maurice took one side of the building while Phil and I took the other. There was only one biter on our side. The undead man had his back to us, and he was wandering away from Phil and I, heading for the back of the building.