Siege (As the World Dies #3)(91)

The Senator looked out her window at the mall and the burning zombies.

“I hope the doors hold,” Raleigh said softly.

“I’m sure they will,” the Senator answered. The trucks roared into the gray dawn.





3. The Floodgates Open

Thomas jerked his head up when he heard a distant thud. The zombies at the wall were instantly whipped up into a frenzy. Some of them stumbled toward the sound, while others quieted down and continued to stare at the barricades and moan.

“Did you hear that?” he asked the soldier next to him.

The young private with the shocking red hair tilted his head. “Yeah. What the hell was that?”

They both looked toward the direction of the noise. The mall rose up in front of them, imposing and silent with its blacked out doors. Thomas looked over the huge back parking lot with its many vehicles and National Guard helicopters. “Something is wrong.”





*

The first zombies staggered cautiously past the remains of their burning comrades and into the wide drive in front of the mall. Huge white letters over the front doors read “Madison Mall,” but none of the zombies looked up. They staggered to the front doors and began to claw at them. Some instinct deep in their reptilian brain told them that food lay beyond the doors.

Struggling to get to the doors, the zombies jostled each other, their masticated limbs sometimes breaking off. Pushing and shoving, the first wave of the zombie horde struggled to get to the doors.

The doors did not give, but blocked the dead outside securely. Desperate for food, the zombies clawed and pounded on the doors. In the melee, one zombie stumbled into the bright blue button sticking out from the side of the door. The white outline of a person in a wheelchair was on the button. Long ago, in the first days of the mall, all the doors had been secured and the key copies were used by the guards on duty. But someone had forgotten the handicap door. It had stood unlocked all this time.



Now, the button was pushed.

The handicap door opened silently.

Several zombies immediately lurched through the opening and into the mall corridor beyond.





*

Poor Robert. He lived his life in obscurity. No one ever noticed him. No one seemed to ever see him. He had nothing to set him apart. He would never be known for anything special.

Even his death that morning would never be noted as the first causality in the mall.

He was dragged down on his way to the bathroom. So blinded by sleep, he had not even noticed the decaying man stumbling toward him.

Poor Robert; he was even robbed of a zombie afterlife. So thoroughly devoured, even his brain was plucked from his head.





*

The zombies filled the first two stores and set about devouring the sleeping people. The first few people died silently, they were killed so quickly.

Then the screams began. Soon the entire Left Corridor was filled with people running and screaming, trying to escape the dead still pouring through the handicap door.

“They’re in!”



“Zombies!”

“Run!”

Chaos descended.





*

Thomas reached the back doors and pulled them open in time to hear distant screams. Turning toward Arnold, he said in a horrified voice, “Get the trucks ready!” then raced inside.





*

Valerie dove off her cot and grabbed her gun and flack jacket. She could barely see, but she struggled to wake up. Located halfway down the Left Corridor, she stumbled into the mall to see zombies down at the far end greedily devouring people. In front of the oncoming zombies, terrified people were running her way. More soldiers appeared out of side stores.

“Stupid puta bitch,” Guadalupe hissed as she was wheeled past Valerie in her wheelchair by a teenage boy running at top speed. “She did this!”

Valerie motioned to the other soldiers and they began shoving cots and anything else they could use as a barricade out into the corridor to slow down the zombies. Thankfully, they were not running zombies. Sadly, the newly fallen dead were keeping them distracted as the zombies greedily stuffed their ruined mouths. Their hunkered forms further slowed the onslaught of zombies pushing into the mall.



Then, slowly, some of the zombies rose.

Valerie opened fire.





*

Martin wasn’t known for thinking ahead. He heard the screams and the gunfire from the other side of the mall and ran to the nearest exit. Desperate to get out, he pushed on one of the doors and found it unlocked thanks to the Senator. With relief, he opened it and immediately had his throat torn out. The zombie tried to bend down to eat Martin, but the undead throng pushed him over then trampled him. Soon the Right Corridor began to fill with the undead.





*

Arnold was breathing heavily from running around the parking lot and turning on the trucks when the first of the people from the mall ran out into the parking lot. Behind him the helicopters were already rising to try to help defend the mall.

“Get to the trucks,” Arnold ordered. He pointed to the nearest ones. “Just get in!” People ran past him, women, men, and children. All of them were screaming with terror.



Inside gunfire continued.