Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Simpson, A. (new books to read .txt) 📖

“Stay where you are.” He said. “We’re coming.”

“What are you doing?” Natty asked after a moment as Jessie kept driving slowly along. “We have to help them.”

“We are.” He said grimly. “We’re leading the horde away.”

“But…”

“Do you know the route? You memorized it? You know where the cutoff is for the scenic view?”

“Yes, but…”

“I’m getting out at the next intersection.” Jessie continued, talking over her. “Go to the pull off, get the kayak and go to the pickup point on the other side of the river. It’s about a mile down but it’ll come up fast, the current will move you along pretty quick. Make sure you put your life jacket on.”

“But what…”

He drove up on the sidewalk next to a building and rolled out, not giving her a chance to protest any further. More undead were coming down the side street and he met them with steel. Natty scrambled to release her harness and slide over to the driver’s side, cursing the whole time. She caught a glimpse of him running into a doorway, bodies littering the road all along his path before she turned her concentration back to the car. The ones behind were catching up and more were coming out of an alley, knocking trash cans out of their way.

Jessie put a shoulder into the wooden door, splintered it then rushed inside. He was in the hallway of an old apartment building. Metal mailboxes were set into one wall, a riser of stairs led upward on the other. He heard excited footfalls above him and ran for the back entrance. He peeked out carefully, saw the horde doing their best to run after the car and moved jerkily into the alley. He was half a block away, far enough they shouldn’t smell his tainted blood and if he didn’t make sudden moves, he wouldn’t draw their attention. He shuffled down the cobblestones away from the moaning mob and moved in a slow, foot dragging gait towards the hospital.

The trucks were lined up at the docks, their camper shells open and partially filled. He could hear them inside, fast and deadly zombies in a frenzy. They had tasted fresh blood and the scent was driving them mad. He hopped up on the dock, kicked the wedge from the door, closed it behind him then slipped down the darkened corridor. He didn’t want any unwanted visitors from outside deciding to see what all the fuss was about. He checked each of the hallway doors to see how the plywood was holding up. They were fine, he could hear slapping and snarling behind some of them but there were only a few trying to get through. The nails would hold. He saw the busted one hanging loosely on the entrance to the intensive care wing. There had been a lot of people crowded into the ward and they had shoved hard enough to pop the nails out. He followed the sound of frenzy to the pharmacy and wished he had his Mark 7’s. They would have made short work of the thirty or forty undead packed like sardines trying to claw through the big steel door of the safe. He recognized a couple of them from the island, volunteers whose wounds were fresh and their blood was still red. There had been a gun battle, bullet holes peppered the walls and ceiling, the glass above the counters had been blown out and trails of intestines dangled from a few of the shards. Dark liquids dripped from the countertops and the pharmacy was in shambles. Shelves were tumbled, thousands of bottles of pills were strewn among the dozen dead bodies.

He zipped his jacket all the way and turned up the collar. He wished Bob were here to help him. He wasn’t much worried about dying, there weren’t enough of them to overwhelm him. Even if he got bit, he was immune but they could still do a number on his face if one sank teeth into it.

It would have been easier with his dog.

He debated strategies. Pull them out of the big open room into the hallway or just jump in with both knives. He nixed using the Glocks unless things got out of control. Too much noise. The gunfire might get more of the zeds frenzied enough to break through doors. He hoped he wasn’t doing this for nothing. He hoped one of them hadn’t been bit and had turned in the darkness then killed the rest of them.

He grimaced.

He hated getting messy.

It had been a while, technically a few thousand years, since he’d waded into a knock down drag out that would leave him soaked with other people’s blood. You couldn’t try to be clinical in a fight like this. You couldn’t be dainty and try to keep your hands clean. He’d be up to his elbows in reeking innards as soon as he started. With so many coming at him from every direction there wasn’t time to be precise and surgical. He smiled his half smile and stepped forward. In for a penny. In for a pound.

He picked his way across the bodies and medical debris and almost made it to the back of the crowd before he was noticed. Some of them were patients, some doctors and staff but all turned dead black eyes on him and snarled. Jessie swung his trench knife and sank it to the cross guard a half inch above the closest one’s nose with a crunching sound of breaking bone. The others turned and he swung on the next withered face. Yellowing teeth snapped then went still when six inches of steel sunk into its brain. More came at him and more bones broke, more teeth skittered across the floor and yellow-black bile covered his arms. These zeds were still fast, they weren’t shriveled husks like the ones outside. They didn’t weigh sixty pounds soaking wet, they still had