Fighting to Survive (As the World Dies #2)(66)

Five hours later, Phillip stumbled up to the far corner of the fort. It was an isolated point, one that was always manned. Breathless and terrified, he called up to the guard on watch.

“Help me! They are right behind me,” he cried out frantically.

“Where’s your friend?” the guard asked.

“Shane? I don’t know. Our car broke down and we tried to make it back here. We got separated when zombies attacked us. Our guns didn’t work. I barely escaped and ran here. Let me in for god’s sake,” Phillip said in breathless desperation.

The guard’s head tilted. “I don’t think so.”

Philip looked up at the guard in shock. “You can’t do this. You have no right. You know me. You know I didn’t do anything. It was all Shane!”

The guard’s head shook from side to side. “Sorry, but it ends here for you.”

Slowly, the truth dawned on Philip. “It’s you! You set it up! You killed Jimmy and Ritchie! You rigged our guns so they wouldn’t work.”

With a slow sigh, the guard nodded. “Yeah, I did. You should have died out there with Shane. Good thing you came to my post.” Then the guard’s gun barked and Phillip toppled over, screaming and clutching his leg. With satisfaction, the guard watched as the zombies finally caught up with Shane’s sidekick and began to pull him apart, feasting with ravenous hunger.





3. The Aftermath of the Verdict

The next morning when Katie came on duty, she looked down to see Philip staring up at her with one eye.

“Shit,” she said, and pondered putting a bullet through it. “Ah, dammit. Seriously, dammit.”

Phillip's horribly mutilated form moaned low in its throat as one badly chewed arm lifted toward the fort. He was torn in half and his torso was propped up by one arm. His legs lay nearby. The zombies that had eaten him wandered around in the street below, not aware of Katie on top of the wall. As always, the zombies seemed listless and confused unless they saw their prey.

The Phillip zombie let out another anguished cry and his undead brethren slowly moved to where he stood. As Katie lifted her walkie-talkie to her mouth, a few looked up, saw her, and began to moan.

“I’ve got Philip outside the wall,” she said.

“He came back?” Peggy’s voice answered in disbelief.

“Yeah. But not alive,” Katie responded and sighed.

There was a burst of static, then, “Shit. I’ll let her know.”

Jenni bounced up the wood steps to the platform with two breakfast tacos wrapped in foil in her hands. “Hey, girlfriend, what’s up?” Her hair was up in a ponytail and she wore a T-shirt that read “Zombie Killah” in red puff paint. The women of the fort had a t-shirt-decorating party a few nights back. While most of the T-shirts were decorated with flowers, animals, or cowboy paraphernalia, Jenni’s had fake bullet holes and a nice slogan.

Katie pointed down into the street.

“Whoa. It’s like Ritchie, Part Two,” Jenni said, her eyes widening. “But like, grosser. It looks like he was a big ol' wishbone.”

“Nice way to put it,” Katie said, and rubbed her nose. The fragrance of the tacos mixing with the decaying reek of the zombies was not very palatable.

“He is seriously chewed up,” Jenni set the tacos down and leaned against the wall. This made the zombies howl and began to beat against the concrete bricks. “Gnawed down to the bone in some places. Wow.”

Katie slid the new crossbow Jason had made into position and aimed it downward. It was a huge contraption that slid on a track along the side of the wall. It was loaded and ready. The crossbow was already aimed downward. A small lever let the person firing it adjust the angle. The trigger always remained in the same position. The sight was rigged up with mirrors and was very accurate. It was an easy way to kill the zombies without wasting ammunition. Katie personally thought the thing was monstrous in size, but it was effective. And it made Jason very proud that he had designed and built it.

The zombies below were banging against the wall with their decaying hands, or in some cases, gnawed stumps. One was moving its arms and legs up and down, as if it was trying to swim or climb up the concrete wall.

“Don’t kill the Phillip one. Nerit and Bill are going to want to see that one,” Jenni said as she ate her taco.

Katie nodded and began to fire down at the other dead creatures. It was hard to look into those once-human faces and feel anything other than stark fear. The gapping maws, pale eyes, and decaying flesh were the stuff of her nightmares. As the crossbow fired, there was a satisfying thwank! as the bolts slammed through the skulls of the undead beasts below. Katie gave in to her grim duty and pushed away thoughts of who the zombies had once been.

“Let me see, Katie-girl,” Bill said as he lumbered up onto the platform.

Katie slid the crossbow away and stepped to one side.

Bill looked down at the dead man in the street below surrounded by his now truly-dead brethren. “Yep. That’s Phil.”

“I like him better this way,” a voice called out from a nearby sentry platform. It was Lenore.

Jenni gave her the thumbs up.

Lenore nodded.

“Zombies definitely had a field day with him,” Katie sighed. “Any ideas of what may have gone wrong?”

“Maybe Shane ditched him to lessen his load,” Bill said in a low voice.