The Dead Rising: The Beginning

Dennis and Henry stepped out from behind the edge of the building and looked over the vast swath of roadway and parking spaces in front of them.

  There was almost a kilometre of running in front of them to make it to the front doors of the Wholesale store with a five-lane roadway providing another entrance to the area from Princess Street. On the other side of the road was an empty parking lot. Luckily there was just a few employee cars on the far end of the parking lot and not a single zombie roaming around that they would have to be concerned about.

  It was the hidden area on the other side of the building that they would have to be worried about. There were no glass windows along the side of this building that they could use to peek through to look at a small area in front.

  "Meri, there's nothing between us and the door. No zombies or cars. Just run!" Dennis shouted. "And do not look behind you. No matter what you hear. Just keep moving."

  With Dennis' words in the back of her mind, Meri started her long run across the hard surface of the parking lot. She was not much of a fan of sports growing up, and even this amount of walking and running was already doing damage to her feet.

  Dennis and Henry started carefully walking sideways away from the building, never taking their eyes off the front corner of the building, waiting for something to come out after them.

  The men had made it no more than 4 feet from the building when the first of the zombies came around the corner and started walking after Meri. The two men froze in horror after 6 zombies began to go after her.

  Henry started to approach them when Dennis' hand shot out and grabbed onto his arm.

  Henry turned towards him to see Dennis shaking his head at him while putting his finger to his lips.

  Dennis wanted to be able to sneak up on the zombies and take a few of them out before the entire group noticed that they were there and turned on them. They watched the zombies travel across the roadway and waited until they were halfway across before they started after them.

  Henry had taken only a few steps when he heard Dennis gasp and hit the ground beside him.

  He turned around to see a zombie climbing on Dennis' back trying to bite through his shirt. Henry lifted his hammer and brought it down on the head of the zombie a few times before it caved in. The zombie stopped moving, and Henry kicked it off while pulling out the hammer.

  Dennis lifted himself to his feet and turned around just as two more zombies had come around the corner behind them.

  "We waited too long," Henry said as he readied his hammer.

  Dennis stood next to him with his piece of metal at the ready. "You take a left, I'll go right."

  "Yup." Henry agreed and lunged at the zombie on the left with his hammer.

  Henry's hammer grazed off the front of the zombie's skull and slid down embedding itself in the fleshy meat of the zombie's shoulder. A flap of skin hung down over the zombie's eye after the hammer tore the skin free. The zombie reached for Henry now that he was closer.

  Dennis did not have much of a problem with his zombie as the man already had plenty of damage done to him. He was missing part of the right side of his face, as it appeared to have been ripped off in a skirmish with a weapon of some kind. Dennis lunged out with the crowbar and placed the tip of it where the right eye should have been. The zombie crumpled to a heap on the ground.

  Dennis turned to help Henry with his zombie when he was grabbed from behind but another set of hands. Henry could feel pressure on his shoulder. This was it, he thought to himself. He steadied his breathing and waiting for his painful death.

  Henry started to pull on his hammer and push the zombie away from him at the same time. The zombie grabbed his arms and started reaching for them with his mouth. He turned the zombie towards the building and began to walk him towards it when he saw Dennis in the clutches of another one.

  He began to focus on his own zombie and trying to free his hammer to help Dennis before it was too late. He took a few step towards Dennis and brought the zombie towards one of the crumpled ones on the ground and pulled his hammer hard. The zombie got caught up in the body on the ground and fell over it dislodging the hammer in the process.

  Henry started to fall backwards as his hammer came free from the force of the pull. He landed on his backside and immediately shot up to put an end to his zombie. He swung his hammer using the claw end of the hammer to make quick work of it while he turned towards Dennis to see if he could help.

  What Henry saw puzzled him, Dennis was standing in the arms of the zombie with his eyes closed looking towards heaven as the zombie was biting him. A few more zombies were standing off to the side waiting for Dennis to fall before they moved in.

  Henry took a step towards Dennis when the three zombies waiting for the easy meal started towards him. He took a quick swing at the back of the head of the zombie holding Dennis and managed to sever its spinal column. The legs and arms of the zombie stopped working as it fell to the ground.

  Dennis huffed as the weight of the zombie fell from his shoulders.

  "You OK?" Henry glanced at him as he turned towards the new assailants.

  "I think so, I don't know that one had any teeth to bite me," Dennis said as he readied his own weapon. "I figured I was going to die there. Thanks for the rescue."

  "No problem."

  "I think that makes us even," Dennis responded with a grin.

  "Probably not yet." Henry shot back.

  The three zombies approached the two men and split into teams as they intended to surround them.

  Henry and Dennis began to turn as they followed the zombies as they walked around them. To Henry, it looked as though the zombies were just giving them room as they wanted to keep going without getting into a fight with the armed men. He was surprised when one of them stopped while the other took a few more steps before stopping and facing him.

  "Uh oh," Henry said as he clued in what was happening. "This is not good."

  "Yeah, I can see that," Dennis responded. "They're using some battle strategies on us. This is not what's supposed to happen with zombies."

  Just as Dennis finished his sentence the zombie lashed out at him reaching for his face with one hand and using his other to knock the bar from his hands. Dennis caught what was happening quick and jabbed the zombie in the throat with the bar slicing it open from one side to the other. His head fell forward as the muscles in the next could no longer support the head anymore.

  Dennis kicked the zombie in the chest and sent it flying across the area and down the little embankment.

  He turned around in time to see two zombies holding the hand that Henry was using to hold his hammer. Each of them was pulling on the arm and his fingers trying to make him drop the hammer. Henry was swatting at the zombies and trying to pull free when Dennis came thundering over, he jammed the bar into the mouth of the closest zombie and yank it's head back and away from Henry. The zombie released Henry's hand as it tumbled to the ground and Dennis walked up to it and stood beside it and kicked in its skull as it was trying to get up.

  Henry was pulling away from that zombie as Dennis had pulled it free of his arm. The force that he had been using to hold off the zombie caused him to smash his forearm into the nose of the other zombie. The blow had knocked that zombie off balance, and it fell away from Henry. Henry fell in the opposite direction and landed on his bum.

  He saw the zombie land on it's back and begin to turn over when he jumped up and ran over to it. He raised the hammer above his head and brought it down just as he thought he had noticed a look of forgiveness cross over the zombie's eyes before his hammer disappeared in one of them. His hammer vibrated slowly as the flat end of it made contact with the cement of the walkway.

  Henry turned his head and started to dry heave again.

  "I'm never going to get used to this." He said in between coughing and spitting. "How's Meri doing?"

  Dennis looked towards the Wholesale store and saw something he did not want to see. Meri has been leading t
he zombies in a large circle since she did not have any weapons.

  "Not good. We have to go help her." Dennis reached his hand down and put it on Henry's shoulder. "We'll be inside soon enough, and we can forget about this stuff for a while."

  Henry wiped the spit from his face with the back of his hand as he stood up and looked over towards Meri. She was jogging in a large circle in the middle of the parking lot, leading the zombies in a never ending chase to getting their meal.

  Henry could see a subtle change in the zombie's pursuit, one of the zombies was starting to separate from the others moving to get a better position on the fleeing meal. The zombie began to head towards where she was running to, it was no longer chasing her, it was now hunting.

  "Shit!" Henry exclaimed as he started running.

  "Wait for me," Dennis shouted as he tried to keep pace with the now sprinting Henry.

  Chapter Twenty