Resurrection: A Zombie Novel by - (ready player one ebook .TXT) 📕

Parker banged on the cooler door. “Carol!” He banged again, a little harder this time. “We’re leaving!”

“I’m not going out there!” Carol said, her voice muffled.

The store reeked of gasoline. The horde outside screamed. Another sheet of plywood ripped and started to split.

“We’re setting them on fire and running out to the truck. If you stay here, you’ll die.”

The door opened. Her tear-streaked face appeared.

“You’re setting them on fire?” she said and flinched from the sheer volume of sound in the main part of the store. Shrieks and banging and pounding and wet sounds of thwacking followed another awful crack of splitting wood.

“We’re going,” Parker said. He grabbed her hand and yanked her out. “Now.”

“Parker!” Hughes said and ripped his gasoline-soaked shirt in two. “Take this.” He handed Parker half the shirt and a book of matches. “You get the north side. I’ll get the west side.”

Annie—blood- and gore-soaked all over again—took Carol’s hand. “Come with me, honey,” she said.

Parker climbed onto the ladder on the north side of the store, gas rag in hand. Frank and Kyle, each with a pack of supplies strapped to their backs, stood ready at the door with guns in their hands.

Wait, Parker thought. What was the plan exactly?

“Hold on,” Parker said. “Are we running out the door right after we light them on fire?”

“We let them burn as long as we can,” Hughes said. “But we don’t have much time.”

Parker set his fuel-soaked rag on the ladder’s top step. He peeled a match out of the pack and swiped it, but it didn’t light. He swiped it again, and this time it sizzled and popped into flame. He touched it to his ripped half of the shirt, and with a whoosh it was ablaze.

He heard an even louder whooshing sound from Hughes’ direction, following by shrieks from the horde. They were burning.

Parker picked up the burning shirt and pitched it over the gap.

Flames erupted outside the store. Parker felt the heat on his face.

He also felt heat on his back.

The western side of the store was on fire. The inside of the store was on fire. The spilled gas had ignited and would burn right through the plywood. And when the fire spread to the ceiling, their sanctuary would turn into a death trap.

The air filled with smoke.

“Are they burning?” Frank shouted.

“They’re burning,” Hughes said. “We’re going to burn too if we don’t get out of here.”

“We’re going to have to run through them,” Parker said.

Carol looked like a cornered prey animal.

The flames licked the ceiling now, and the whole western side of the store was on fire. Those things would be able to bust through at any second.

“We open the door,” Hughes said, “and run for the truck. Jump in back. Don’t bother with the passenger door. That will just slow us down. I’ll drive.”

Parker gripped the crowbar like it was a handhold on the edge of a cliff.

“Okay,” Hughes said. “Let’s do it.”

Frank unlocked and opened the door.

They ran. Parker and Hughes took the lead.

At first Parker thought they might be okay. At least half of those things were on fire. Some were already dead, either from fire or gunshots. Most of those left alive were still heaving themselves onto the walls of the store even though the walls of the store were on fire.

Not one of them noticed that the people they wanted to kill had just run out the door and were on their way to the truck.

Not at first, anyway.

Some of the infected on the fringe seemed dazed and disoriented by the flames. They had lost focus and were shifting around aimlessly in random directions. A sickening stench of coppery blood, burnt hair, charred meat, and rot made Parker want to throw up, but he breathed through his mouth and ran for the truck.

But first one and then another spotted him. They screamed.

And they screamed in a certain way, different from those screaming from pain and from rage. This sound, a more urgent one, was a sound Parker understood perfectly. It said, I see them.

Others turned.

“Go!” Hughes said. “Don’t stop!”

The Chevy was thirty feet ahead. A half-dozen of those things stood in their way.

Parker opened fire. He did his best to shoot at their center of mass, but he didn’t aim down the sights. No time. He just fired and hit maybe two of them, and then he was empty.

Hughes opened fire and took out some more.

But there were still at least two dozen left who hadn’t been burned, maimed, or shot. And they were charging from both sides and converged like a vise made of meat, hands, and teeth.

Parker’s gun was empty, so he jumped in the back of the truck. Kyle and Annie took up the rear. Each had a crowbar. They swung in wild arcs, breaking hands, arms, and skulls. Frank swung at one with his hammer, but he swung too early and missed.

Hughes was out front ahead of everyone, including the horde. He took cover behind the truck and—crack—dropped one and then another with the rifle.

And then Carol screamed. One of those things grabbed her.

Hughes pointed his rifle at it, but he didn’t have a clear shot. He might hit Carol.

Frank swung his hammer and hit the thing in its back and probably caved in its spine, but it was too late.

It had already sunk in its teeth.