Z: In The Heart of the Queen City

Chapter 20

Warning signals were just going off in my head. I was dazed and confused from hunger and the world was spinning like crazy. I could hear yells from behind me calling my name and from beyond there were screams and pleas for help. I turned my head upward, “Elise!” I called then I saw the group that was in a struggle. There were a lot of zombies, all excitedly making their way towards the center where the Elise and her friends were surrounded.

I spotted Elise and my heart dropped. She was running towards a hardware store with a pencil skirted zombie running after her.

“Elise!” I yelled, Elise turned to look at me then she continued sprinting still weaponless. There were soldiers so shots were being fired randomly everywhere. I dodged some and narrowly missed one that almost got me. Zombies were lunging too, throwing themselves at me so I shot them in return. I spotted a hotdog kiosk then knocked it over pushing with all my strength. The zombies screeched at the steam from the machine when it pierced at them. I made my way to hardware tripping when and reaching out to a display tray for support. “Emma! Help!” It was Elise, she was behind the counter and holding an electric drill playing a little blocking game with the zombie. “Behind you!” She screamed, her shriek startled me causing the handgun to fall to the floor. I quickly reached out for the rake on my left and knocked the zombie's heads over causing their blood to splatter everywhere. When another one began to charge I took a jack hammer and slammed my body to collide with the zombie's when the sharp tip encountered it's mushy skin I switch the on button so it drilled through its whole body. Boo Yeah! Elise was doing great too, she rolled over to the ground when the zombie attempted to tackle her down. As soon as she was on the floor I ran over as fast as I could and went all kung fu knocking the Z to land on its ass. But before I could do anything else, the zombie made a go for my leg I had little chance to move away that I too fell to the floor. I helplessly backed off as it cornered me. She was a pencil skirted zombie but amazing how quick she was in moving. Her mouth was drooling with blood and her gums were a horrible shade of purple, her blonde hair disheveled and nose (which I would have sworn was fake) was ready to fall off. On her left boob was a bloody ID which said, HI I'M ANGELIE. Well, hello Angelie make sure you eat me quick. There was no weapon behind me and I felt my body was numb after falling down so I closed my eyes. Hello there, angel from my nightmare. I sang in my head.

To my surprise, the zombie shrieked. I opened my eyes to see Angelie the Z's eyeball pop out and a sharp drill was sticking out from it. Behind her, Elise was giving a victorious battle cry. When she was done, Angelie the Z's body slouched then fell on my knees. I quickly pushed her away and ran over to my sister giving her a warm hug. “You wreak pretty bad.” I told her, but before she could return with an insult she clutched her stomach and threw up.

Like sister, like sister.

“Emma,” Elise said wiping her tears and puke. “How the fuck did you get here?” Oh kids these days, they never know how to express how happy they really are to see their family in the middle of an apocalypse. “Long story, I thought you were making your way to the bridge?” I asked her in return. “We did, when an army car arrived.” Elise paused trying to recall everything. I spoke before she could continue, “I thought they stopped the recovery operation?” “They did, this group didn't make it back to their camp on time so they decided to get to the bridge themselves.” Elise replied sadly. There was a shatter of glass from behind her, and several zombies were already running towards us. “Emma! What do we do?” She asked me. “You know what I'm sicking of running.” I told her looking at the soldiers who were fighting off zombies. “Hand me over that sledge hammer will you sis?” Elise took one from the shelf and I began to swing at the zombies spilling their brains over. “Fuck whoever did this to us.” I cursed pinning one to the shelves and then taking a pair of pliers to pierce it in the head. The zombie wailed as I turned to Elise wiping the blood off my chin. “Your a changed woman.” She said shocked by what I did. “Hey! You over there!” We both turned to see a soldier for a minute I thought it was Officer Lauron but it wasn't, he was younger then Lauron and had ragged foreign good looks. “Watch out!” I warned when a zombie almost got him, he shot it point blank. He had three soldiers left with him and all the zombies were gone, it was a small consolidation though who knew how many more were out there. I glanced at my watch again, five hours remaining. “I'm Carlson, this is Skipper, Jedson and JR.” The soldier introduced himself shaking my hand. “Emma and this is my sister Elise. You think you could send someone out to check if my friends are still there? There's a blonde boy, a girls with glasses and a tall limping one.” I said and Carlson send Skipper out. As he left, Elise ran to see the wreck. All her friends were gone now, some turned into zombies and shot dead while other had fatal shots from the struggle a while back. “Oh Emma,” She said sadly her eyes brimming with tears. I turned her away from the scene and motioned the officers to a nearby store. We all sat down quietly, I noticed that they had a weird patch on their arm that didn't look anything like the emblem for the national army of any country. I didn't push any questions as my previous hunger issue began to creep onto me again. “You'll need this,” Carlson gave me a granola bar which I greedily took from him. I looked at Elise then cut it in half, “No need for that. Hey Jedson, JR.” He called a tanned boy who was built like Adonis and a short muscled man. “Think you can get the ladies something to eat? Watch out for more zombies groceries are skimming with that shit.”

“We need to get out. We have five hours before...” I began but the officer put a hand up to stop me from continuing. “No use moving in an empty stomach.” Then I remembered our fight in the car I wondered if they finally took my advice and left without me. As thoughts of a moving vehicle with the three of them onboard filled my head I was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. “Emma!”Karen entered with Skipper right behind her, she bent down to hug me. “Fancy a granola bar?” I smiled. “You guys never listen do you?” I said implying to what I had thought earlier. “Neither do you Em! You totally almost got yourself...” Then Karen paused. “Oh my goodness! Elise!” She hugged my sister. “You did it Em! I can't believe you really did it!” A furious looking Martin and a still limping Jaycee entered holding a couple of sharp knives and all. “I see you've made a couple of new friends.” Martin said looking at Carlson coldly. I rolled my eyes, “This is Officer Carlson.” “I thought the rescue operation was over?” Martin asked, Carlson began to explain how his company was attacked my zombies and how they couldn't make it back to the helicopter in time when the soldiers were pulled out from the city. “How much are they paying you guys for risking your life with no assurance of getting back safely?” Jaycee asked he and Martin were assembling what looked like medieval maces. “What are you doing?” I asked. “What does it look like? We looted from this place when you sent out your soldier to motion us in your highness.” Martin answered still focused on what he was doing. “We need as much weapons as we can if we're going to make it in five hours.” The two soldiers Carlson sent out came back, this time they held food from the grocery. “How many in there?” Carlson asked. “Around twenty to thirty mostly shop clerks,” The soldier answered. I shivered, they were all around us just waiting for our movement to signal their attack. “How did you make it out without waking them up?” I asked feeling curious. None of them answered, instead they handed over the food they had gotten. A couple of canned tuna and some biscuits.Jedson took out a can opener and opened the tuna cans. Everyone hungrily dug in opening the packs and started drinking from the bottles that the soldiers managed to savage too. I stared curiously at the symbol wrapped around Carlson's arm it seemed like a familiar picture like the ones they used in movies or... Biological warfare. I blinked away when Carlson looked at me and smiled. This was when I regretted it because when I looked back to really stare at the symbol;

It was gone.