Episode 36: Saving Private Sally

Waldo was the first one to regain control of himself when they arrived at Mina’s zombie laden house. Sylvie was next, and then Todd. The three of them climbed out of their respective vehicles in a hurry, weapons in hand, but didn’t take any action.
“Shit,” Todd said sadly and loudly.
Faint sounds of gunfire erupted from within the house.
“Less shit ” Waldo announced bravely, snapping his solid black semi-automatic pistol out of his sweater pocket. He prayed to nothing in particular that it had enough rounds, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled the trigger twice more, futilely. He cursed, and looked at it. He hesitated before reaching for the space between his belt and pants, grabbing the oversized clip that he had been struggling to carry without slipping for the last few hours*. He flipped the gun over, gave it a look, and jammed the clip in. He pointed and began squeezing the trigger at the house. Two zombies fell, and another stumbled.
Todd pulled out his own pistol and began firing into the crowd. He didn’t have one of those super-clips like Waldo, but he had grabbed a couple of magazines or clips; he wasn’t sure which. He didn’t much care. He just wanted to kill the zombies and save Marty, Dawn, Jack, and Sally.
Sylvie was third to begin firing, due to the circumstance that her gun required adjustment and aim. The particular rifle she had picked had been constructed to hold thirty rounds; she had spent about twenty-five so far, and had only one magazine-a ten round one-available to replace it. She did not know how few she had. She kneeled with her right leg, bending her left leg to keep balanced, held the gun in two hands, left hand farther forward and the right on the trigger, pressed it against her body in a way that no one else could have, which was sensual without her actively trying to make it that way. She pulled the trigger.
Elli rolled himself out of Waldo’s backseat and surveyed the scene. He personally didn’t think that it looked good. But he wasn’t quite ready to let yet another friend die without doing anything. But he didn’t have a weapon. He looked into Waldo’s car and saw nothing; He couldn’t bother anyone who was shooting to get a spare weapon, and he wasn’t sure that any of them had one to spare. And from what he could tell, Jennifer and Mina were paralyzed by whatever was bothering them. He froze and took another survey of the situation. This time, he dove into the passenger seat of Waldo’s car, pulled a lever, and scrambled back out. He regained his footing and sped to the trunk, slamming it open immediately on arrival. It bounced back at him, but he stopped it deftly. He lifted the mat and began unscrewing the tire from its place.
Mina had much more internal conflict than Elli did, and about as much as he should have had. She knew exactly what she would have to do. She knew that her secret would come out. She knew that the weapon sitting in her back seat would be useless. She knew that Dawn would remember. And, perhaps worst of all, she didn’t know what would happen when a zombie killed her or after Dawn was okay. She opened her door. But she didn’t unbuckle her seatbelt.
Jennifer was too confused, in every way, to do anything. But she did something anyway. She let her root instincts take control, just as she had earlier. She stopped thinking with her brain, she stopped thinking with her heart and in a general sense, she stopped thinking. She grabbed the Glock that she had stashed in the cup holder, stepped out of the car, and began firing into the horde. No sound came from her save for the sound of her gun fire. And no zombie that she aimed at didn’t fall.
And yet the tide wasn’t turning. Or, rather, it was turning-from the inside of the house to the crowd with the guns. And the zombies were beginning to advance. Only a few, here and there, fell. All of those that Jennifer targeted (plus, due to the power of her gun and her particular form of aiming, a notable number behind those) fell; about half of those the others targeted fell. They missed often, whether it be hitting the torso, the arms, or not hitting anything at all. And the gunfire within the house grew louder.
Todd reloaded his gun. Jennifer did the same. Waldo didn’t have to. Then Todd reloaded again. And Jennifer did.
And Sylvie ran out of bullets.
She stared at her gun, terror filling her heart first, and then her eyes. She reached into her pocket which she knew already was devoid of ammunition. She stood all the way, and stared at the zombie horde, approaching at a speed only slightly slower than shambling. She took a deep breath, exhaled it with a moaning wail, and, though tears began to stream down her eyes, she firmed her muscles, and took a stance holding the rifle like a baseball bat. A tire rolled past, knocking down a single zombie who tripped a small number of others, all of whom slowly got to their feet. Sylvie ignored it, knowing deep down that she would never think about it, for she would be dead too soon.
Elli had unscrewed the tire and rolled it with as much force as he could into the zombies, using his slight skill in bowling to angle it between Sylvie and Waldo. He didn’t even hesitate to watch what it did, and returned to the trunk. He pulled out a tire iron, examined it carefully, horribly, and slowly advanced to a position just to Sylvie’s right.
“This is it,” he said, his voice level and grave.
“Sorry,” Sylvie whispered to him, not looking, meaning it.
“For the zombies? You really do have a big ego.” He allowed a hint of the old Elli in. Sylvie couldn’t help but smile, and she lost her composure for a moment. Elli didn’t look at her, and she didn’t have any way to tell it, but her mascara was running. She firmed herself once more, and prepared to charge alongside Elli.
Jennifer ran out of bullets, save those that she couldn’t carry from the van. She didn’t even pause to curse. She dropped the pistol and pulled out the thing she had in her belt loop. It curved, almost pointedly, and she could feel its barbs poking her hand gently. She didn’t pray for it to work. She didn’t even hope for it to work. She threw the boomerang, much like one would throw a frisbee, a way that anyone who knows boomerangs would have the greatest disdain for. It spun through the air, towards the advancing horde, at about Jennifer’s neck level.
A rifle identical to Sylvie’s, as well as a largish box of bullets, crashed to the ground just in front of her and Elli. This gave them pause. They both looked to the left, and on Sylvie’s side stood Mina, her jaw more set and her eyes more teary than both of them combined. Without looking, she reached her hand out to Elli. Confused, but somehow sure of what she meant for him to do, he handed her the tire iron, knelt down, and picked up the gun. Sylvie didn’t move, but stared at Mina.
“I won’t say goodbye,” Mina sobbed suddenly. “I’ll be back before you know it.” Sylvie dropped her own gun and reached out to stop Mina, but it was too late. She had vanished into the horde. Todd and Waldo both stopped firing for a moment, out of pure shock. A series of violently soft “splats” could be heard over the continuing din of gunfire inside the house. Todd smiled faintly and began firing again. Waldo accepted Mina’s sacrifice and began firing again himself.
The boomerang reached the army. It began slicing cleanly through skulls and heads. Few zombies in its path escaped its direct wrath. Most of those who did were dead children, though some were incredibly tall. Those who were incredibly tall began losing what little bodily fluids that they had left through the tops of their chests. It only slowed them down because an occasional one of their number would stop to look curiously at it.
Sylvie lifted her gun back up, more focused than ever, out of sheer anger. She slid the box of bullets that Mina had dropped for her to a point between herself and Elli, reloaded the rifle, and retook her position. She and Elli fired at the same moment, and continued firing at their own speeds until they had to reload.
The boomerang began to curve its path, but not before it reached the house. Mina, half watching from just short of the stoop because of the zombies surrounding her, trying and failing to take a good bite, saw it saw through the front wall of her house, shattering two windows and halving what little was left of the door. She smashed a zombie head and dove through, just before the front of the house could collapse all the way.
The boomerang finished its curve and, fortunately, came out through the back of the zombie horde. It mowed them down, just as it had before, except this time from behind. It would have been a much more satisfying sight than the away-trip, had anyone who was observing it been at that time satisfiable. The heads, necks, and torsos that it passed through exploded forwards, splattering the remains on whatever was directly ahead of them. But it’s hard to enjoy such sights when you’re worried that your friends and companions may be amongst those exploding.
Todd loaded his second clip of three. He began firing mindlessly and hopefully once more. He wasn’t concerned with how many zombies he killed, just that he killed as many as he could.
Waldo guessed that he had fired about fifty rounds. He also estimated that he had killed about 30 zombies, but he worried that he was estimating high. He worried that he wasn’t doing enough to kill them all. He worried that maybe he had accidentally hit Mina-something that now, unlike before, he was honestly concerned about-or that Mina had just lost it and thrown herself into the fray for no reason. He worried that the zombies would get through, and kill him, Todd, Jennifer, Elli, and most importantly Sylvie. He worried that his dad would escape his personal crisis and come after him. He worried that maybe Jennifer was psychotic and was doing things to Todd. He worried that maybe he had wasted the last year and a half pursuing Sylvie. He worried. And he fired.
The boomerang was still on its return path; it had just now escaped the sea of zombies, and was approaching Jennifer. It showed no signs of retracting its barbs; Jennifer allowed her intelligence to take control of her once more and ducked as it flew past her head. She spun and watched it go through the windshield of her van, shattering it messily. She didn’t see it go through the back of the van, but she heard a “clunk” that was to her the sickening clunk of metal cutting through metal. She cringed at the sound. She didn’t stop to wonder where the boomerang was going.
Mina first noticed that there were only about a dozen zombies left in the slowly crumbling house. She smashed one, then another. They began to turn away from the door leading to the basement in the kitchen and converge on her. She smashed a head or two. The gunfire stopped. She bit her lip.
Elli stood, and watched the front of the house’s facade crumble. He wondered just what the hell had happened, not to mention whether Dawn’s family had made it out alright. He kneeled and began firing again.
“We’re going to run out of ammo!” He screamed over the din of gunfire.
“We’re not going to retreat!” Todd yelled back at him. He fired once more and reloaded for the last possible time.
Mina died for the seventh time. But then the zombies around her fell to the ground, holes clean through their heads. Dawn stood just outside the basement door, smoking gun (a Desert Eagle, for gun connoisseurs) in hand, facing Mina with absolute severity. Marty, Jack, and Sally stood behind her, watching both of them in bewilderment.
“Back door,” Mina said, standing up, completely devoid of wounds. The three nodded urgently, clutched their guns in tight, and ran away from the crumbling of the house. Dawn stared into Mina’s eyes for a moment, then turned and followed, with the latter directly behind her.
Todd watched the entire house crumble. He cursed.
Jennifer got into her van, eagerly brushing the glass off of the seat first. She started the engine and reloaded her Glock, promptly exiting the van once more and shortening the number of zombies from about 5 dozen.
Elli and Sylvie stood up as one entity; Elli continued firing as Sylvie reached down to pick up the box of rounds.
“Todd, it’s over!” Waldo yelled, carefully sidling to his position.
“It’s not over,” Todd yelled back, ignoring Waldo’s movement.
“We have to escape!”
“We came back for them, we’ll have them!”
“No, we won’t!”
“Yes, we will!” Jennifer yelled, startling Waldo.
“Go!” Mina screamed, looping around the back fence of the collapsed house. The five stared as she, moments behind Dawn and her family, ran towards them. “Start the cars!” She screamed once more. Todd, Jennifer, and Elli continued firing, but Sylvie and Waldo ran to their cars and started them. Marty, Jack, and Sally were the first to reach the group; all three piled into Waldo’s car. Jennifer grabbed Todd and pulled him to her van, forcing him to cease firing. Waldo began to pull out as Elli stopped firing and made for Sylvie’s car. Jennifer pulled out after Waldo, and Sylvie was right behind.
Both of Mina’s doors were still open. Mina dashed into the driver’s seat, and Dawn leapt into the passenger’s seat. They shut the doors just as zombies reached the hood; Mina started the car just as zombies reached the door; and she drove away just as zombies had begun to force the doors open.
It had been seven minutes since the convoy had arrived back at Mina’s house.