Fighting to Survive (As the World Dies #2)(20)

It seemed everyone was shouting at once: Mike ordering people to hold the tables in place, Katarina screaming that her table was slipping, Nerit telling everyone to be calm, Felix and Shane were shouting as several zombies were trying to topple their table, Katie screaming because the zombie was dragging her leg out into the open. It was chaos.

Travis continued to slam the candlestick downward, blood and gore flying everywhere. One of the zombies grabbed his arm and, for a horrible moment, everyone panicked. Nerit put a bullet through the zombie’s head, but more were grabbing at Travis’s arm.

“Jacket off!” It was Katarina’s voice.

Travis yanked his arm through the sleeve as fast as he could, Katarina helping him pull the jacket off. It was ripped off him and dragged into the mouths of the hungry zombies on the other side of the barricade. Jenni grabbed Travis' arm and saw that he had escaped without a bite.

“Shit! That was close! You're fine!” she said, and went back to firing at the very frustrated looking zombies.

Katie, meanwhile, was on the floor and trying to pull her leg away from the zombie. She had trouble getting leverage to yank her leg back.

“Some help here!” Katie tried to aim at the zombie’s head, but it was out of view behind her captured foot.

“Keep the tables in place!” Shane roared.

Beside him, Charles and Ned struggled with a table.

Mike’s voice was fierce over the shots and screams. “Hold the line! Don't let them through!”

Nerit kicked Mike in the shoulder. “Katie’s in trouble!”

Mike looked over to see what was happening. “Shit! Travis! A zombie has Katie!”

Travis turned to see what was going on and went very white. He grabbed the first thing he saw on the bar. Falling to his knees, he began to stab the dead hand as hard as he could with the corkscrew.

“Fuck!” Roger was beginning to lose his fight to keep one of the heavy tables up as four zombies growled and reached for him.

Jenni turned and fired as the table was righted. She and Roger ended up staring over the table at the zombies.

Katie struggled to find anything to grip onto as the zombie kept pulling on her foot and drawing her leg closer to the gap that would bring it into the open.

Katarina picked up a chair and hurled it at one of the zombies trying to climb over the tabletop toward Jenni and Roger. It was hit square in the face. It rolled off the table and tried to crawl under it. Roger shoved the table back over and pinned the zombie under it. Jenni fired point blank into its head, then aimed over the edge of the table at the remaining ones, firing a little wildly, but managing to kill them.

“Someone shoot this sonofabitch!” Travis kept stabbing the grayish dead hand as hard as he could, breaking bones and tendons. Still, it pulled Katie’s foot. It almost had her whole booted foot in the open now and was obviously aiming to get to the more tender calf.

“I can’t get a clear shot,” Nerit responded.

More shots, more growls, more people swearing.

Katie grabbed hold of Travis, trying to pull herself free from the unrelenting grasp of the zombie.

Suddenly, there was silence.

“That’s it,” Katarina whispered in awe.

“Gawddamn, f*ckin' zombies!” Shane cursed and threw his table over onto the dead creatures.

“We have this f*cker left,” Travis shouted.

The zombie’s other hand slid through the gap, grabbed Katie’s ankle, and yanked her leg out into the open with one swift pull.

“Fuck!”

“Travis!”

Travis shoved the table over onto the zombie. Mike and Roger grabbed Katie and yanked her free.

An enormous zombie was growling, still after its prey as it reached for Katie desperately. It wiggled back and forth under the table.

Jenni ran over and jumped on top of the table and began hopping up and down on it. Roger laughed and joined her, the table seesawing dangerously. Katarina got on the table, braced herself on the wall and jumped up and down as hard as she could.

Mike added his weight as well, grinning.

The others joined in, almost hysterical smiles on their faces, as the adrenaline rush in the veins spurred them on. As they slowly crushed the zombie beneath the table into mush, its bones cracking under their weight, they did a jovial little dance of death.

Nerit let herself down from the bar slowly, cursing in Hebrew, while Travis helped Katie to her feet.

Looking across the room, Katie was overcome by the stench of death and the gore that was splattered everywhere.

There was a loud, sickening popping noise from under the table, and the zombie’s growls ended.

Katie ran into the kitchen and threw up in the sink. She was shaking hard, her hands trembling, her stomach recoiling at what had just happened, and her near death.

“Well,” Jenni’s voice said from the other room, “I’m glad I’m not cleaning up this mess.”





4. Words are Dangerous

Juan helplessly stood outside along with everyone else that was not part of the original entry teams. There was an utter sense of horror and desperation that gripped them as they listened to the gunfire within the hotel and the unholy sounds that accompanied it.

Like the others, he could not take his eyes off the closed door into the janitor’s closet. Through the padlocked gate, the painted bluish-gray door, splashed with dried blood, seemed ominous. What if it cracked open and those things poured through into the small courtyard? Suddenly, the wrought iron gate seemed inconsequential.