Chapter 23: Never a Dull Moment
There was something about her that could not be explained. The dog loved her from day one. Jackson got his furry neck snapped back as he uncontrollably urged for the strange girl.
"Aw!" Annie squeaked, as Jackson barked frantically while Marcus reeled him in. Annie soothed the pup and scratched his head. Jackson stopped barking, he loved it. The first thing Annie couldn’t help but think upon meeting Marcus was what a dashing man he was. As far as first impressions go; she had trouble looking him directly in the eye, and blushed when he smiled at her.
Samuel ran over to Annie. She was smiling and crying all at the same time and looked at him, waiting to say hello. Samuel examined her from head to toe. “Are you bit? Are you hurt at all?”
“Nope,” she squeaked in giddy excitement, “I’m the last living human in this lovely capetown.”
“Your accent…”
“Oh! Roight! I’m British. Weird, huh? You’re probably thinking… How did this brit get all the way to Jersey? I’ll tell-”
“Who’s this?” Atticus interrupted.
“Hi! I’m Annie. Plesha!”
The rest of the group surrounded Annie and she laughed. She was nervous and excited. Annie went from feeling like the last person in the world to the new girl in town. She remembered what it felt like to be special, a feeling she had lost with the loss of her fiancé. Everyone introduced themselves to her.
Quinn loved Annie's curly brown hair, having straight hair herself. Rebecca acted like a mom and a doctor as she immediately felt Annie’s forehead for a temperature. She was very careful with her behavior after the bridge incident. Rebecca felt terrible about Corey’s death, taking responsibility for his sacrifice and blaming it on her, causing conflict within the group.
Chambers looked like an ‘80’s hairband guitar player and scared her a little when he strung his bow with an arrow and shot it right at her, just narrowly missing her face and colliding with the head of a zombie leading a full-on charge at them.
“RUN!”
The zombies from in front of the hotel had heard all the gunshots at the cemetery and made their way around the town to the road before the hill. There were so many of them. Samuel turned to Atticus. “We don’t have enough ammo!”
“What do we do!?” yelled one of the girls.
“RUN!” Chambers screamed again as he got in between the horde and the survivors.
The dog took off from Annie’s side and instead of running with the rest of them, she just stood there, yelling, “HERE BOY! COME BACK! NO!”
Marcus grabbed Annie’s hand and told her quickly, “Don’t worry, he always comes back. Right now he’s the safest out of all of us.”
Annie was already taken by Marcus and unbeknownst to him she would have most likely done whatever he said anyway. Atticus and Samuel led the front of the group with Rebecca close in-toe.
The zombies were slow but not as a horde. They seemed to gather energy from each other and in masses were quite often unstoppable. Outrunning them now was not an option; they needed a shelter or means of escape.
“Annie! Where did she come from!?” Yelled out Samuel from the front.
“Is he talking to me?” Annie asked Marcus, all in the rush of running.
“She must have been holed up somewhere, right!?” Samuel went on when he got no answer from Atticus, who was a little preoccupied putting down a couple zombies trying to flank them on the right.
“I think they are,” Marcus answered Annie, “Is it nearby, your hideout?”
“The Cape May Inn! I closed the door when I left. It should be-”
“Tell them!” Marcus interrupted.
“It’s the Cape May Inn!” Annie tried to yell with her polite British accent.
Marcus amplified with his own shout, “CAPE MAY INN!”
Samuel and Atticus looked back at them, “WHERE?”
“Down the market, and up to the left, right before the boardwalk!”
“DOWN THE MARKET!” Marcus yelled, “TO THE LEFT!”
Marcus gave up trying to scream it all, “Can you run?”
“Whot?”
“I mean are you tired? Can you run faster?”
“Why? Are you-”
“We need to lead them there; we should lead them, right?”
Annie was confused and scared, but not tired, “Roight, Yes!”
They sprinted while still holding hands and together passed Tyrell and Jill, and Quinn. Annie was almost having fun. They got to Samuel and Atticus, with Rebecca now slightly in front of both of them.
“She can show you!” Marcus let go of Annie’s hand, and she ran up to Rebecca who was turning a corner.
“No, it’s this way!” Annie grabbed her shoulders and they both ran across the street to an unseen path. It looked like a town-block too small to be a road. It was the marketplace. And it served as a funnel for the horde following them.
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The brainless undead had a lot of trouble in the marketplace, comically tripping over all of the benches, tables, and chairs from outdoor dining restaurants. This gave the survivors some much needed time and space as they left the market and crossed the street. The last block before the beach and boardwalk was sparse with zombies.
Annie showed them down the alleyway to the back door. Before they got to it, Annie climbed up the fire-escape, into a window that was slightly propped open, and crawled inside, letting the window close and lock behind her. When the rest of the group got to the back door it was locked. Everyone caught up to each other and took time to catch their breath.
“What are we gonna do now?” Jill panicked.
The zombies turned the corner down the alleyway.
“NO!”
Chambers pounded one last time on the door before walking away from it and Marcus. The girls backed away as he stepped forward with Marcus, Samuel, and Atticus, all wielding their melee weapons. Chambers clipped his bow onto his quiver and unsheathed his machete. He threw the first one against the wall and sliced up into its cranium. Atticus used his tactical knife to put the zombies down that Samuel knocked over with his shotgun.
Marcus let the girls bang on the door while he stood between them and the zombies. Too occupied to help it, one slipped by. Marcus held the fire ax tight. The axe closed in on the grotesque face and implanted it into the wall. The fire ax wouldn't come free, as the strike was too high, and the zombie was starting to wiggle free, its bottom teeth still biting for Marcus who was unwilling to leave the ax behind.
Their feet got tangled and Marcus fell back with it on top of him. He freaked out with it squirming above him, blood pouring out everywhere. Marcus broke free and moved back only to find it nipping at the girls' legs. Mustering what strength, he had left, Marcus pulled the carnivorous corpse by the pants back towards him.
It's a good thing zombies are not picky, because it came right back at him.
With one hand keeping its head above him by a firm grasp of the neck, his other hand frantically searched for his screwdriver. His fingers wrapped around the screwdriver caught in a tear of his jeans. It slowly shook free, sliding out from his belt. Unable to focus it slipped through his fingers and rolled away on the floor towards the feet of another approaching zombie.
Marcus would hold this thing up by the neck until his arms gave out if he had to. As the other got closer he hoped it would knock his screwdriver back over but that never happened. Instead the walking corpse was on one knee leaning in for Marcus.
A wave of kicks freed Marcus of both zombies. The girls came to his rescue while he grabbed the screwdriver. He swiped it up and immediately put down the one that he had by the neck. Before Marcus or any of the other men could tend to the last one Rebecca had bashed its skull in with her pistol.
Chambers laughed and clapped for his girl. Rebecca looked unimpressed and Atticus' blood-pressure rose slightly. But Chambers had it out for someone else, "You see, Marcus, that's a girl. Not some worthless limey chick."
“I wouldn’t say worthless,” Marcus said as he lodged the ax free from the wall and the kitchen door unlocked, and opened. Annie popped her head out as it swung open, looking for someone in particular. Once she found who she was looking for she turned and ran back inside leaving the last one to close the door.
Tyrell closed the door and locked it with time to spare. The door was solid, you had to put your entire weight behind it to move it; and you had to crank the lock. As Atticus and Samuel finished locking it, there was no need to barricade the door. But they did it anyway, pushing one of the refrigerators over.
Annie took them upstairs. There were two corpses on the floor in the lobby, with a shattered chandelier covered in blood all around them. Annie laughed as they walked by, and blushed, “Yep. That was all me.” She laughed again flexing her arm.
“There’s food and hot water. But the electricity goes in and out.” Annie told them all about the Inn, having made it her home as of late, “Every time, I think it’s not coming back, but so far it has.”
Everybody dispersed to go indulge, all except for Chambers who looked around at all the glass windows and doors. Mostly everybody went upstairs to the rooms for a shower, before the hot water was all gone. Annie stayed downstairs with Chambers.
“Whot’s wrong?” she asked.
Chambers put his hands on the glass windows that were only a couple of feet off the ground outside. “We can’t stay here.”
“Why not? I’ve survived here for over two weeks now, or was it three?”
“They didn’t know you were in here. One girl, not making much noise, we led a whole horde of them to this place. In a couple of minutes they’re gonna smell their way around here and get to these windows. We need to get upstairs and get everyone out of here now.”
“What if they’re taking showers?”
“You warn the women. I’ll warn the men.”
Marcus walked down the stairs as they were running up them. “What’s goin’ on?”
“We gotta go now!” Chambers yelled. “Get them out!”
Marcus followed them back upstairs and they ran into the rooms. Annie heard a tapping on the windows as she made it to the top of the lobby stairs, but she could not brave a look back. Marcus and Chambers got Atticus and Samuel out before they even made it to the bathroom. They were also still on alert like Marcus and Chambers.
Annie had trouble though, as Quinn was already indisposed, and Jill was sharing a shower with her man. Rebecca was the only one not caught off guard when Annie came in. She was sitting in a chair silently looking out the window at the ocean. Annie recruited her help in getting the rest out when suddenly a noise was heard.
Muaaaaaaargh!
They're inside.
Atticus and Samuel charged out of the rooms followed by Chambers and Marcus.
But how?
“WAIT!” Rebecca commanded them.“Is there another way out?” she turned to Annie.
“There’s another staircase at the end of the hallway that leads to a fire exit.”
“And we need to get Quinn, Tyrell and Jill!”
“Okay, okay,” Samuel had to think, “You two gotta get them out. You get to the boardwalk, find a marina, find a boat,” He told Atticus, Annie, and Rebecca.
Samuel turned to Chambers and Marcus, “We hold them back.”
Everybody nodded their heads in agreement of the impromptu plan and they split up. Rebecca ran to the other end of the hallway as Annie and Atticus got Quinn, Tyrell, and Jill out. Samuel and Chambers both held their guns out at the top of the grand staircase with Marcus wielding the ax between them. From every corner of the lobby-windows branching cracks disassembled the glass after a bludgeoned hand made final contact.