Zombies Apocalypse

Chapter 7

"That is a piece far," Gabriel answered, his glare extending. " Can you make that before it gets dark, are you positive?

Muscles and Mac exchanged uneasy glances. Mac responded, "Well, we have to."

Gabriel's eyes lit up, and he grinned with excitement. He had just had a thought that probably would not have been appreciated on any typical day. However, on this particular day, this crazy day, it was a thrilling thought.

He pointed to a location on the map that was close to town. This location has a hotel. It had quite recently shut down around fourteen days prior. He stopped and waved his hand in a circle, "I would venture a guess that they found themselves with more important matters to worry about." They were supposed to demolish it, but that hadn't happened as of yet.

The big man replied, "All right, we'll try to get there." Show the others, Mac. Mac quickly nodded and left. Gabriel was the big man's next target. We will already have reached our objective if we fail to reach it. Have fun. You will require it.

Jake quickly followed Gabriel as he nodded and dashed back toward Mac's vehicle. He decided it would be best to let Jake drive this time, so he stopped just before getting in. She began to enter, but she stopped, turned toward Gabriel, and grabbed his arm. She responded, "Hey, don't make me regret saving you." His eyes narrowed in disbGabriel ef as he cracked a small smile. She replied emphatically, "No, really," adding, "I'm going to be really pissed if I wasted a bullet saving your ass just to have you immediately go and get yourself killed." She climbed into the truck and made her way to Charles' seat without saying a word. Gabriel turned to look at the rest of the group, where Mac was frantically giving directions to another driver. As if a great weight had fallen on his shoulders, he let out a sigh and felt his shoulders droop.

What in the world did he just get himself into?

The clunky, white SUV rounded the corner of the parking lot and crept along, steady but wary. Inside, seven pairs of eyes were glued to the windows, on the lookout for the slightest hint of danger.

As Gabriel expected, this area of the lot was almost entirely clear, as most of the creatures that had been there had followed him earlier, and were probably still trying to push their way through the gate leading to the pool area. At the far end, however, the parking lot curved around a building toward the front entrance, and from around this bend several of the creatures were already stiffly making their way deeper into the complex.

“I don’t want to get too close,” Mac said nervously, eyes locked on the front-most creatures.

“Yeah, obviously,” Gabriel agreed. “Just pull up to that red car. That’ll be fine.”

The truck slowed to a stop and Gabriel quickly launched himself from it. With quick steps, he rounded the side of it and approached his car, the little red one he had mentioned. The dents in its side and along the rear bumper were definitely not good, but it didn’t look like the car had been damaged enough to not be drivable. Quickly pulling the keys from his pocket, he found the appropriate one and slipped it into the driver’s side slot and unlocked it. The minute ‘click’ that resounded echoed in his ears like the thundering of a drum. He glanced up to see if any of the creatures had noticed, but they seemed to simply be continuing their aimless staggering.

He let out a long sigh of rGabriel ef, and only then realized he had been holding his breath. He hadn’t wanted them to notice him too early. They might surround Mac’s car and try to get in, or he might have found some waiting by his car when he got back to it at the end. It was best to avoid that situation, if at all possible.

As quickly and quietly as he could manage he hurried off in the direction of the entrance, bending over in the hope it would help maintain his stealth. About halfway to his destination, he realized this was probably a stupid notion and he was just making himself look ridiculous, so he gave up on it and straightened up. A few steps later, the nearest creature seemed to notice him, turning in his direction and starting after him. Gabriel ignored it, dodging away a few steps as he passed it by.

A boxy, dark green car marked his destination. It was near enough to the gate that all the creatures would have to pass it to get in the complex, but also near enough to some of the apartments to provide a means of escape. Most importantly, many of the creatures were already nearing it, and he was hoping if he could grab the attention of enough of the ones in the front the rest would simply follow behind.

Several of the things seemed to already be taking note of him, and in their stumbling, awkward way tried to turn in his direction. However, since he was running past them, they had to keep turning, a task proving too challenging for their stunted movements, and a couple of the creatures even fell over just from the attempt.

He reached the car, and with a couple quick leaps climbed up onto the bumper and then the trunk. Glancing around, he took stock of the nearby creatures and took another step, climbing up onto the top of the car. It buckled slightly under his weight, and he took a few seconds to try and ensure his balance. Looking up, he began to feel very stupid. Less than an hour ago, his biggest concern was what he was going to eat for dinner. Now, he might be dinner, thanks to his idiotically rash plan to throw himself into the greatest danger he’d ever known in his entire life. Who does this? He wondered distantly. Who is this stupid?

Just a couple dozen feet away he could see the front gate. Sure enough, it had been forced open, with the doors hanging loosely on just their bottom hinges. There was just enough space for the cars to all fit through single-file. The space was slowly growing larger due to the intake of creatures, but, both fortunately and unfortunately, their numbers were thinning, and not that many remained outside the gate.

Gabriel ’s hands opened and closed, and he found himself wishing he’d had the common sense to bring some sort of weapon with him. Anything, really, would probably have been good enough to help him survive the next several minutes. His nerves were getting the better of him. His common sense was telling him to run, to get out of there as quickly as he could while he still had the chance. He turned his head and glanced back to where the group waited, to a certain, white SUV wherein waited the attractive young woman who had saved his life mere minutes earlier. He sighed, cursing himself and the things he would do just to impress a girl. He turned back toward the gate and took a deep breath, steGabriel ng himself for the task ahead.

Raising his hands, he began waving frantically and bobbing up in down on the roof of the car. “Hey, over here!” He called out, despite being fully unaware and unsure of whether the creatures were even capable of hearing him. “Fresh meat!” he continued. “Come and get it!”

Whether it was his ridiculous behavior, some natural sense in the monsters, or something else entirely, he seemed to be grabbing their attention. Slowly, but purposefully, the creatures were turning in his direction, hurrying toward the car and raising their arms to grab at him. He remained there only a moment longer, giving a couple extra bounces and shouts for good measure, then turned and jumped off the far side of the car, away from the creatures.

Some were already coming around either side, so he quickly broke out in a dash for several steps, trying to move himself a couple feet out of their grasping range before turning back around to make sure he was being followed. Once he did, the site greeting him was horrible, almost overwhelming. It was like looking down an endless sea of monsters, in the middle of a tsunami, with one of the waves headed straight for him. Somehow, their numbers hadn’t seemed so great from the top of the car. Now, the mass seemed to stretch on into infinity.

He turned and climbed up onto the nearest sidewalk, and began a sort-of quick step down the path toward one of the apartment buildings. His heart was racing, but the terrifying part was that his feet could not. Every few steps he had to stop and glance over his shoulder, in order to make sure enough of the group was still following him. If any broke off from the main crowd, he would began hopping up and down and shouting again, until it seemed like the stragglers resumed their hunt.

Moving in this way, it took a few minutes to finally reach the nearest building. Down the center of the building ran a long hallway. On either side it was lined by doors leading into apartments, and all twelve of the ground floor apartments were along this one hallway. If this worked, it would serve his purpose wonderfully. Not more than six or seven of the creatures would be able to squeeze down the hallway at once. If he was lucky, he could use the hallway as a sort of bottleneck to not only slow the creatures down but keep them from easily maneuvering back to the parking lot and the vehicles.