Breakout
“Looks like tourist season is in full swing, boss,” Hutch shouted, as Ramirez led the others out onto the deck. The former biker had been firing his Stoner over the rail when they arrived, alongside Muriel and the others on deck duty. “We got Hahm inside just in time.” He lowered the smoking weapon and caught the backpack that Ramirez tossed to him. “We leaving?” he said, uncertainly.
“We are leaving,” Ramirez said, hoping she was making the right decision. “How’s it look?”
“Lots of floaters. Not as many as out front.” Hutch turned to the others on the deck. “Muriel, do me a favor and pop a flare.”
The old woman set her bow aside and lifted an orange flare gun. She let one pop off into the sky over the lake. The light of the flare turned the shore red. As it flickered and shone, Attila began to bark frantically.
Ramirez could see shapes wading – or crawling, in some cases – onto the docks and pushing through the open gate to stumble towards the courtyard or beneath the deck. Others were pressed against the sagging chain-link, prying it loose from its posts through sheer, insistent weight. “Maybe more than I thought,” Hutch said, as the number of floaters was revealed. “What’s the plan?”
“Hutch, with us,” Ramirez said. “Everyone else – inside, bar the door. Then head towards the evacuation point.”
“Where we going?” Hutch asked, shrugging into his backpack.
“Boating, apparently,” Westlake said. “Whatever that means.”
Hutch grinned. “Under the deck. You’ll see.” His grin faded. “Of course, there’ll be a bunch of them waiting for us down there.”
“Which is why you and Calavera are going to clear us a path.” She glanced at the masked man, who nodded brusquely. He’d said little since she’d woken him, but he was fairly vibrating with restrained energy.
“A pleasure,” Calavera said.
“Took the words out of my mouth,” Hutch said.
“And try not to draw any more attention than you have to,” Ramirez added. “Labrand, Ptolemy – cover them. And conserve ammunition. What we’re carrying is all we have.” She paused and looked at Ptolemy. He was clutching the Benelli M4 semi-automatic shotgun he’d brought with him like a drowning man holding onto a life preserver, his gaze absent. “Ptolemy – you still good?”
He jerked, nodded. “Yes. Yes, I… Yes.” He raised the shotgun and went to the rail. Labrand lifted the CDX camo-pattern hunting rifle he’d confiscated from the supply room and made to join him. Ramirez caught his arm.
“Watch him,” she said, under her breath. Labrand nodded.
Calavera and Hutch had already reached the bottom of the steps. Floaters lurched towards them. Calavera caught the first with a big kick, knocking the dead man back against the fencing. As the zombie rocked back upright, Calavera punched it in its soggy features – knocking its skull clean out of the sloughing sack of skin that was its head.
As the decapitated zombie collapsed, Hutch uncoiled his whip and gave it a snap. A bullwhip was a nasty thing. It could split muscle from bone, if you knew what you were doing. Someone, probably Kahwihta, had told Ramirez that the Romans had used them as weapons. And some Inuit hunters used them to kill caribou.
Hutch cracked the whip and tore a rotting head from frayed neck. Another crack took the legs out from under a floater. A third sent two of them stumbling back into the water in a tangle. Hutch let the whip play out in a wide arc, splitting flesh and tearing loose meat from bone. The sting of the whip wouldn’t necessarily put a zombie down for good, but it would make them less of a threat.
Those the whip missed had to deal with Calavera. He’d snatched up a broken oar from the pile of scrap wood near the bottom of the steps and almost casually thrust it through a floater’s chest. He lifted the zombie with no apparent effort and swung it around, smashing another flat. He jerked the oar free, spun it, and then drove it through two more floaters, pinning them to a mooring post at the end of the dock.
Ramirez led Westlake and the others down the steps. Between them, Hutch and Calavera had cleaned out all the immediate threats, but there were more floaters at the fences, and walkers wandering around from the front. Crumpled bodies littered the shoreline, in heaps and drifts. Many of them had arrows sticking out of them.
“Under the deck, let’s go,” she said, as she quickly led them all to where the lodge’s few boats were stored out of sight, hidden beneath tarps. They’d permanently stowed most of them when the floaters had gotten too numerous to bother with. But they kept a few of them gassed up and ready, just in case. “Labrand, find one that’s ready to go. Calavera, you help him get one out. Hutch, get the fence. The rest of us will cover you.”
Hutch hurried towards the fence, raising his Stoner, as Calavera and Labrand uncovered one of the boats. The fiberglass hull was painted camo, and the go-fast boat was big enough to hold four people – five, if one of them was small. Ramirez felt her heart sink.
“Bit small,” Westlake noted.
Ramirez shot him a glare. “Really? Had no idea.” She took a breath. “We’ll just have to make do. Labrand?”
He gave her a thumbs up. “Gassed up and shipshape, boss.”
“Good. Get it into the water – quick! Before any more of those bastards arrive.” As if the thought had been an invitation, she heard a hiss to her left. A smell like a leaking septic tank hit her as a water-logged zombie, clad in the flopping remnants of a wet suit, lurched towards her. It gripped the struts of the deck, shoving itself along. Its eyes gleamed in the darkness as it flung itself full upon her, knocking her to the ground.
Ramirez heard the others cry out, but had no breath to respond. It was all she could do to keep the walker’s teeth out of her throat. It was strong – stronger than most of them – and it dug pulpy fingers into her shoulders as it ducked its head towards her jugular. She fumbled for her collapsible baton, cursing under her breath. Anger was good – it kept the panic at bay.
She caught hold of the zombie’s scalp and tried to pull its head back, but the rotten hank of hair and flesh tore away from the skull like wet paper, and she only just managed to interpose her forearm between its teeth. It gnawed at the thick leather of her sleeve, giving her time to snatch her baton out and crush its head.
She rolled it off her and looked towards the others, ready to chastise them for not helping, until she saw what had distracted them. Walkers clambered over the junk strewn beneath the deck, coming from the direction of the gate. Labrand, Ptolemy, and Kahwihta were handling them, while Calavera bodily hauled a boat towards the water as quickly as he could, with some help from Westlake.
Ramirez pushed herself to her feet just in time to meet a second walker – this one wearing a football helmet – and slammed her baton into its head, knocking it to its knees. It fumbled back to its feet almost immediately. She heard Hutch’s Stoner roar, and the sound of a section of fencing tumbling into the water.
“Fall back to the water!” she shouted, hitting it again, as hard as she could. The worn plastic of the helmet cracked, exposing the maggot-infested scalp beneath. The zombie swayed, and her third blow with the baton knocked it down. It didn’t get up again.
Panting from her effort, she checked to see if the others were falling back as she’d ordered. They had – all save Ptolemy. He swung his shotgun one way, then the next. Each shot was powerful enough to knock a zombie down, if not out. But Ptolemy wasn’t going for headshots. They were hard to do under these conditions. Instead, he was clipping spines and necks, reducing walkers to crawlers and creating obstacles for those behind. But they were getting too close, too fast. And he wasn’t retreating.
Ramirez heard a sound, turned, and sent a walker in priestly vestments to meet its maker with a swift thwack. She turned back and saw that Hutch and Calavera had gotten their boat to the edge of the shore. “Get going!” she bawled. “Don’t wait! Ptolemy, fall back!”
He ignored her. It was almost as if he were in a trance. She hurried towards him and caught his shoulder, shaking him loose from his reverie. He seemed to come to his senses, and then together they fell back towards the boat. By that time, Hutch had managed to rip down a large enough section of fencing for the boat to pass through.
The runner came out of nowhere, sprinting over the bodies of its crippled fellows with a pantherish yowl. It was clad in the remnants of a sundress, though the bright colors had been dulled by weather and grime. It sprang for Ptolemy, and Ramirez shoved him aside.
Lacquered nails, sharp as razors, sank into Ramirez’ coat, and she was borne backwards onto the ground, losing her baton in the process. She gave silent thanks for the thick leather gloves she’d thought to wear as she pummeled the dead woman. She hit it again and again, dislodging pearly white caps from cracked teeth, tearing apart what had once been expensive plastic surgery, forcing it off her. The runner didn’t seem bothered, as it clambered to its feet. It just kept snapping at her like a rabid dog.
Ramirez crouched. It was between her and the boat, and from the sound of it more walkers were on the way. She dropped a hand to her pistol. The runner darted forward, smashing into her before she could draw the weapon.
As she fell, she heard an engine growl to life. The runner straddled her, snarling. She flung the zombie with a convulsive heave, rose to one knee, drew her pistol, and shot a walker dressed like an escapee from a John Waters film. She turned the weapon on the runner, took aim, and the gun made an unfortunate sound – jammed.
The runner’s eyes were fixed on her hungrily. Ramirez saw its withered muscles tense. Time slowed. She saw Frieda’s face in front of her eyes, felt the other woman’s lips against hers. She wanted Frieda to live – she wanted all of them to live. If that meant she had to die, some part of her was content in that.
The runner hissed and leapt, but stopped short as Westlake caught a handful of its hair and yanked it back. It turned to snap at him, and he drove his knife through its eye. He gave the knife a twist, popped it loose, and let the runner fall face-first into the water at the edge of the shore. “Time to go,” he said, indicating the idling go-fast boat with a nod of his head. “We’re on a schedule, remember?”
“I thought I told you to go,” Ramirez said. She snatched up her fallen baton and waded out towards the boat. Westlake followed.
“You did. We didn’t listen. You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you,” she said, as she climbed onboard. It was a tight squeeze. Calavera took up a lot of room, despite his best efforts. Hutch wasn’t much smaller. Kahwihta and Attila crouched in the stern, beside Ptolemy. There wasn’t much room for either her or Westlake, but they made do.
He shrugged as he joined her. “Even so.”
Ramirez nodded to Labrand, who was at the wheel. “Hit it.” He grinned, and the go-fast boat ripped through the water, heading away from the lodge. Behind them, walkers waded into the water, following. Floaters turned, their hands grasping uselessly at the sides of the boat as it whipped through their ranks.
She looked at Westlake. After a moment, she said, “Thank you.”
Westlake smiled like he’d won the lottery. “Anytime.”