Just Another Day at the Office: A Walking Dead Short by Robert Kirkman, Jay Bonansinga Page B
Authors: Robert Kirkman, Jay Bonansinga
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in?” the father wants to know. The roar of automatic gunfire bounces off the sides of buildings behind them, punctuating their conversation. The father jerks at the noise.
A line of heavily armed men circle the SUV, keeping the biters at bay. The town is closed up now, as tight as a miser’s purse.
Philip comes over to the dad and gives the man a pat. “Just keep the biters away from your barracks…and let me worry about the wall.”
Martinez comes over, slamming a magazine into his M4. His dark-skinned face gleams with stress sweat under his bandanna. “What do you have in mind?”
Philip looks at him. “Is the south side still secure?”
“Yeah, I guess…. The buses and trucks are still there, blocking ’em from getting in…but they’re also blocking them from getting out.”
“Good. You know the gas station up on the hill? Just beyond the fence?”
“The one by the radio tower?”
“That’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“I need five minutes.”
“Five minutes for what?”
Philip nods at the commotion in the streets. “Just keep the biters occupied—keep ’em bunched in the center of town—in five minutes, everybody ditches inside. It’s duck-and-cover time, you understand what I’m saying?”
Martinez stares at Philip for a moment. “We’ll give it our best shot.”
Philip gives him a nod, goes around to the SUV’s driver’s side door, and climbs in.
The engine fires, the rear wheels dig in, and the vehicle roars away.
Over the course of those next five minutes—most of which Martinez keeps close track of on his watch—the heartier souls of Woodbury go through fifteen hundred rounds of metal-jacketed, armor-piercing shells. The makeshift militia consists of eleven men and two women, most of them parents, most at the end of their tethers—former middle-class working people with equal parts fear and madness in their eyes.
Thirty magazines’ worth of 5.5-millimeter slugs taken from the National Guard station are sprayed across the boundaries of vacant lots, into alleys, through tangled knots of zombies that have clustered together near the racetrack, and across rows of storefronts in order to shake the biters out of hiding and ultimately herd them into the center of town. Side roads are blocked with cars. Gates are swung shut. The zombies change course like sheep.
Martinez calculates that four and a half minutes have passed when they finally see the shift in the tide of walking dead. The main road that runs through the heart of Woodbury becomes clogged with a virtual traffic jam of upright corpses. They crowd intersections and mill about in their slow, retarded manner, craning their necks up at the rooftops, where the echoes of automatic gunfire slap back against the clouds.
At almost precisely the five-minute mark, as Martinez is climbing a fire escape ladder, he begins wondering if the stranger with the dark hair has up and vanished. Maybe it was all a scam. Maybe the guy just wanted to steal the SUV with all the goodies from the Guard station.
Right then Martinez hears the amplified voice reverberating in the distance.
“YYYYYOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Philip Blake stands on the roof of the idling SUV, parked on the edge of a Marathon station two hundred yards north of the downed fence. The wind whips his pant legs, and the brilliant cold sun shines in his eyes as he screams into the bullhorn that the guardsmen had tossed into the carryall, probably earmarking it for crowd control.
“COME AND GET ME, YOU BRAINLESS SMELLY STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!!”
The megaphone crackles and rings with feedback, the volume turned up to ten. In the distance Philip can see the first dribbles of dead things coming this way, about twenty or thirty of them, drawn to the sound of his voice. Philip starts jumping up and down, waving his free hand while he clutches the bullhorn and presses the transmitter button.
“I WILL SKULL-FUCK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU PATHETIC
A line of heavily armed men circle the SUV, keeping the biters at bay. The town is closed up now, as tight as a miser’s purse.
Philip comes over to the dad and gives the man a pat. “Just keep the biters away from your barracks…and let me worry about the wall.”
Martinez comes over, slamming a magazine into his M4. His dark-skinned face gleams with stress sweat under his bandanna. “What do you have in mind?”
Philip looks at him. “Is the south side still secure?”
“Yeah, I guess…. The buses and trucks are still there, blocking ’em from getting in…but they’re also blocking them from getting out.”
“Good. You know the gas station up on the hill? Just beyond the fence?”
“The one by the radio tower?”
“That’s the one.”
“What about it?”
“I need five minutes.”
“Five minutes for what?”
Philip nods at the commotion in the streets. “Just keep the biters occupied—keep ’em bunched in the center of town—in five minutes, everybody ditches inside. It’s duck-and-cover time, you understand what I’m saying?”
Martinez stares at Philip for a moment. “We’ll give it our best shot.”
Philip gives him a nod, goes around to the SUV’s driver’s side door, and climbs in.
The engine fires, the rear wheels dig in, and the vehicle roars away.
Over the course of those next five minutes—most of which Martinez keeps close track of on his watch—the heartier souls of Woodbury go through fifteen hundred rounds of metal-jacketed, armor-piercing shells. The makeshift militia consists of eleven men and two women, most of them parents, most at the end of their tethers—former middle-class working people with equal parts fear and madness in their eyes.
Thirty magazines’ worth of 5.5-millimeter slugs taken from the National Guard station are sprayed across the boundaries of vacant lots, into alleys, through tangled knots of zombies that have clustered together near the racetrack, and across rows of storefronts in order to shake the biters out of hiding and ultimately herd them into the center of town. Side roads are blocked with cars. Gates are swung shut. The zombies change course like sheep.
Martinez calculates that four and a half minutes have passed when they finally see the shift in the tide of walking dead. The main road that runs through the heart of Woodbury becomes clogged with a virtual traffic jam of upright corpses. They crowd intersections and mill about in their slow, retarded manner, craning their necks up at the rooftops, where the echoes of automatic gunfire slap back against the clouds.
At almost precisely the five-minute mark, as Martinez is climbing a fire escape ladder, he begins wondering if the stranger with the dark hair has up and vanished. Maybe it was all a scam. Maybe the guy just wanted to steal the SUV with all the goodies from the Guard station.
Right then Martinez hears the amplified voice reverberating in the distance.
“YYYYYOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”
Philip Blake stands on the roof of the idling SUV, parked on the edge of a Marathon station two hundred yards north of the downed fence. The wind whips his pant legs, and the brilliant cold sun shines in his eyes as he screams into the bullhorn that the guardsmen had tossed into the carryall, probably earmarking it for crowd control.
“COME AND GET ME, YOU BRAINLESS SMELLY STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS!!”
The megaphone crackles and rings with feedback, the volume turned up to ten. In the distance Philip can see the first dribbles of dead things coming this way, about twenty or thirty of them, drawn to the sound of his voice. Philip starts jumping up and down, waving his free hand while he clutches the bullhorn and presses the transmitter button.
“I WILL SKULL-FUCK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU PATHETIC
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