The Zom Diary by Eddie Austin Page B

throng of pests.  Granted, if they corner me, they could tear me to bits and then eat those bits, but I am perched above their means of harm.  Not so the reverse.
         I begin to load clips; ten rounds each, four clips.  Then I slide the first clip into the rifle pulling the lever back seating a round.  Crack!  The loud snap of the .22 going off is nothing compared to the explosion produced by the AK.  It barely moves the rifle and only a small dirty puff of smoke drifts lazily from the tip of the barrel.  Dirty ammo; cheap, cheap stuff. 
         The effect is what I want, though.  Below me the old lady I’ve aimed at slumps her head and slides slowly down into the throng, supported by the press of bodies.  I take aim carefully and begin picking off the ones in the back.  I don’t want the fallen to create a ramp for the rest to climb.
         So I spend my morning; shut up in the workshop picking off the backyard crowd.  They are thinning nicely when the sound of the entry room door cracking open sends cold electricity racing to my fingertips.  Panic.
         “Oh, shit!”
         I drop the .22 and dart to the sliding door of the workshop.  Half out the door I can see the entrance.  The small clapboard door that I use every day is swinging open; the press of bodies the only thing slowing the tangled mass of death that is entering the room.
         I push a shelf over hoping to slow them some and turn closing the sliding door and looking for a way to lock it.  At the top is a small iron hook that slips into an eye bolt in the frame.  That is it.
         Turning, I look around frantically for something to block the door.  I hear the first zombie press against it.  I wait a moment.  They aren’t trying to slide it open; just pushing against it.  The sliding door is not heavy, though.  Will there be enough room for them to press against it and to break it?
         The only object that I can move is a shelf; contents spill to the floor as I do.  All else is too heavy or not suited for the purpose. 
         I can see the door pushing in, its bottom rollers straining against the track in the floor.  Then I notice the old chainsaw.  The big room is secure. Could I cut through the wall?  I bend over the saw, woefully unmaintained, and pray that it will start.
         I hold the cord and drop the chainsaw again and again hear it putter but not start.  The small tank is half full of two-cycle.  I have pressed the clear plastic bulb to prime it; throttle set low.  I fiddle and get mad.  Yank, yank, yank.  It growls to life sending a small cloud of blue smoke into the air.  I squeeze the trigger and the blade whirs.  I cut.
         I want the hole to be small enough so I can fix it later.  Even now in a near panic, I think of repairs.  Chest high, I saw a rough square roughly three feet by three feet in size on the left side of the back wall where the shelf had been.  I kill the saw and push at the square.  It falls through, ripping the maritime chart hanging on the other side. 
         I grab the .22 and box of ammo and drop through the hole.  Bracing myself on the waist high hip of the hole, I let myself tumble forward into the big room.  I get up quickly and run to the side to the door that leads to the entry room.  Shut but not locked, I throw the bar, turn, and grab the .22 and ammo.  I throw the box up into the loft and hear the bullets spill, some rolling back over the edge onto me.  I grab the .22 and climb up pulling the ladder as I hear the sliding door to the workshop pop out of its track and spill open like a cat door.
         I tie the nylon rope holding the ladder and look down over the railing.  A torso leans through the hole; awful face turning toward me held tight to the other side of the wall by its waist and the push of bodies behind it.  Good lord, that was close. 
         I pick off the zombie leaning through the hole I have cut and he