Rick jumped up and grabbed the talkie attached to the radio.
“Hello? Where are you? Can you see us?” Rick asked hastily.
“Yeah, I can see you,” the man said calmly. “You’re surrounded. That’s the bad news.”
“Any good news?” Rick asked plainly.
“No,” the man simply said. Rick shook his head in frustration.
“Look, whoever you are, we’re a little concerned in here,” he said still shaking his head.
“Oh, man. You should see it from here.” I scoffed at this. We are stuck in a tank and this guy really isn’t helping. Rick just looked at me as he continued talking to the man on the outside.
“You got any advice?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’d say make a run for it.” I scuffled over to Rick’s side and starred into Rick’s eyes.
“Make a run for it? Really? That’s it?” Rick couldn’t believe what he just heard and neither could I.
“It’s not as dumb as it sounds. You’ve got eyes on the outside. There’s one geek still on the tank but the others climbed down to the feeding frenzy where the horses are. The street on the other side of the tank is less crowded. If you guys move now while they’re still distracted, you stand a chance. You guys have ammo?” he explained quickly.
“I’ve got some in the duffle bag I dropped. Can I get to it?” Rick asked.
“It’s not an option. What do you have on you?” I crawled over to our guns and checked the chambers then I noticed a grenade on a shelf above where our guns were. I showed Rick and he replied to the man.
“A Beretta with one clip. That’s 15 rounds.”
“Make ‘em count. Jump off the right side of the tank and run in that direction. There’s an all about 50 yards up the street. Be there.” And with that Rick and I grabbed what we could. He climbed out the top of the tank and smacked a biter with his gun before helping me out of the tank. We jumped down to the street and took off with Rick in front shooting whatever biters he could. We turned the corner and Rick’s gun pointed to a skinny Asian boy.
“Whoa! Not dead!” he yelled and Rick lowered his gun. He must be the guy who helped us out of the tank. We followed him to a ladder with Rick still shooting away. They rushed me to the front and I climbed the ladder first before the Asian and then Rick. We stopped on a ledge about halfway up the building.
“Nice moves, Clint Eastwood. You the new sheriff? Riding in to clean up the town?” the Asian said sarcastically. I smiled at him since it was funny.
“It wasn’t my intention.”
“Yeah, whatever. Yeehaw. You’re still a dumbass.” I giggled a little but the boy didn’t think it was funny at all.
“Rick. Thanks,” Rick stuck his hand out to introduce himself. “This is Abby,” he said as he nodded at me.
“Glenn. You’re welcome,” he nodded to me and shook Rick’s hand. I nodded back at him with a smile. He turned to get back on the ladder and Rick and I followed with me going second after Glenn this time. Once at the top Glenn led us down a ladder into the building we just climbed. We ran straight through across another alley. Glenn spoke into a talkie and two ninjas came out of the door we were headed. They beat the few biters in the alley as the three of us ran across and the ninjas followed. As soon as the door way closed a blonde woman threw Rick against the counter and pointed a gun to his face.
“You son of a bitch. We outta kill you,” she said as serious as a heart attack.
“Chill out, Andrea,” one of the ninjas who was Hispanic took off his helmet and told her.
“Seriously, back off,” I shoved her. The other ninja grabbed my arm tightly. He was a bald black man with a serious look on his face.
“Are you kidding me? We’re dead ‘cause this stupid asshole.” Her eyes never left Rick’s. I pulled my arm out of the black man’s grip and walked up to her.
“I said back the Hell off.” She waited a minute then put her gun down and repeated that we were all dead.
“I don’t understand,” Rick said confused. I shook my head at him as I remembered he did just wake up from a coma yesterday and still has no idea what’s going on. The Hispanic man grabbed Rick’s arm and led him across the building. I stayed on his heels and the rest of the group followed.
“We came to the city to scavenge some supplies. You know what the key to scavenging is? Surviving. You know the key to surviving? Tiptoeing. Not shooting up the streets like it’s the O.K. Corral,” he snapped as we walking into a department store.
“Every geek for miles heard you popping off rounds,” the black guy said. There were dozens of biters banging on the windows outside to get to us.
“You just rand the dinner bell,” the blonde girl piped in. “What the Hell were you doing out there anyway?”
“Trying to flag the helicopter,” I told her and she rolled her eyes.
“You must have been hallucinating. It happens,” a skinny black woman said in a soft tone.
“No. We saw it,” Rick snapped. I put my hand on his shoulders to calm him.
“Hey, T-Dog, try that CB. Can you contact the others?” the Hispanic guy asked the black guy who grabbed my arm earlier.
“Others? The refugee center?” Rick asked them all.
“ Yeah, they’ve got biscuits waiting in the oven for us,” the black woman sarcastically told him. Neither of us had any chances to respond because we heard gunshots from the roof.
“Oh, no. Is that Dixon?” Andrea turned and ran for the roof and the rest of us followed. The gunshots continued as we reached the top.
“Dixon, are you crazy?” The Hispanic guy who I’ve figured out is Morales asked the redneck on the roof.
“Hey, now. You outta be more polite to a man with a gun. Only common sense,” he said casually as if he drawing more biters to us wasn’t a big deal.
“Man, you’re wasting bullets we ain’t even got and you’re bringing more down on our asses! Just chill!” T-Dog shouted in desperation to get through to the man known as Dixon.
“Hey, it’s bad enough I have this taco-bender on my ass and now I gotta take orders from you? That’ll be the day,” Dixon told T-Dog.
“That’ll be the day? You got something you want to tell me?” T-Dog asked him. Morales tried convincing him to just leave it alone but T-Dog wasn’t having it.
“I’ll tell you the day Mr. Yo. It’s the day I take orders from a nigger.” T-Dog instantly went off and attacked him but Dixon easily got on top. Dixon beat T-Dog relentlessly until Rick smacked him with the butt of a riffle and got on top of him. He whipped his hand cuffs out and cuffed Dixon to the roof. “Who the Hell are you, man?”
“Officer Friendly,” Rick said plainly.
“Guys like you give rednecks a bad name,” I told Dixon as Rick checked out Dixon’s gun.
“Screw you,” he said.
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Rick quickly defended me.
“Yeah? Well screw you, too,” Dixon spit back. Rick instantly put his gun up to Dixon’s head.
“Outta be polite to a man with a gun. Only common sense,” Rick looked him dead in the eye and Dixon finally shut up. Rick walked over to the edge of the building and Morales followed him.
“What’s his deal?” I asked the two women beside me.
“He’s got an attitude problem,” the black woman said.
“She’s right. But if you think he’s a handful, wait until you get him and his brother together,” Andrea followed. The three of us walked to the edge of the building and looked down.
“How’s that signal?” Morales asked T-Dog. He and Rick came up beside us with Rick standing beside me.
“Like Dixon’s brain. Weak,” T-Dog said plainly.
“Well keep trying.”
“Why?” I can tell Andrea has no problem with hearing herself talk. “There’s nothing they can do. Not a damn thing.” Morales just ignored her as she walked away.
“Got some people outside the city. There is no refugee center,” Morales told Rick and me. We just looked at each other with disappointment.
“Well then we have to find a way out,” Rick said taking charge.
“Well good luck with that. The streets ain’t safe in this part of town from what I hear,” Dixon piped in uninvited. “Ain’t that right, sugar tits?” He was talking to me. I put my hands on my hips and waited patiently for him to finish. “Hey, honeybunch, what do you say you get me out of these cuffs and we go off somewhere and bump uglies? We’re gonna die anyway.” He smirked like he was actually getting somewhere. I smiled at him and kicked him as hard as I could in the knee.
“I’d rather,” I told him as he just groaned in pain. Rick laughed at my usual attitude.
After a while of trying to figure out a way out of this department store Rick spotted something with a pair of binoculars.
“Those trucks on the construction site always keep keys on hand,” he told the group as he passed the binoculars to me.
“We’ll never make it passed the biters, Rick,” I told him. He turned to look at Glenn.
“You got us out of that tank,” he said.
“Yeah, but they were feeding. They were distracted,” Glenn told Rick in frustration.
“Can we distract them again? They’re drawn by sound right?” I asked him.
“Yeah, like dogs. They hear sound, they come,” Glenn answered me.
“What else?” Rick asked the group.
“Aside from they hear you? They see you, smell you, and if they catch you, they eat you,” Morales pointed out the obvious.
“They can tell us by smell?” Rick asked him sincerely.
“Can’t you?” Glenn asked him.
“They smell dead and we don’t. It’s pretty distinct,” Andrea said with her classic attitude.
Rick rushed downstairs. His plan was to grab a biter and use his guts to disguise his and Glenn from the dead as they slowly made their way to the construction truck. The rest of us watched from the roof as they inched their way closer and closer to the site. T-Dog was explaining to their base camp our situation but the reception on both ends was bad and we weren’t sure if they heard him. The dead weren’t noticing Rick and Glenn almost at all but it started to rain and the guts started washing off of them. Morales told us it would pass quickly but it might be too late. The dead were noticing them and you could tell Glenn was panicking while Rick tried to stay calm. They were forced to run from the dead and the both of them were beating them when they could. They jumped a fence and hopped in the truck and were driving away before the dead could get to them. After a few minutes, we heard a car alarm echoing and Glenn’s voice over the CB.
“Those roll-up doors at the front of the store facing the street meet us there and be ready,” he said rushing his words. We all looked at each other for a minute. As soon as what he said sunk in we quickly made our way to the door leading back into the building. Dixon started screaming at Morales and T-Dog but I was most of the way down the stairs. We waited by the door with the car alarm getting louder outside. There was a banging on the door and Morales and Andrea pulled the chain to open the door and we all dove in. The dead rounded the corner just as Morales shut the back door to the truck and we all just sat in silence catching our breathe until T-Dog spoke up.
“I dropped the key,” he said, disappointed and between breathes. We grew silent again all sad for the man stuck on the roof.
“Where’s Glenn?”