EYEHEARTZOMBIES

The sun was setting as we reached the street. This part of town wasn’t prosperous enough to demand streetlights, so there was only one on every other block. The more well-to-do buildings — relatively speaking, of course — had lights in front of them, but that was only the one beside our watched building. This made approaching the building unseen much easier. We walked across the street in a loose group, Lucca out front with his shotgun held inside his coat. Simon, in his suit, seemed to glow red in the shafts of sunlight that reached between the buildings.

We hurried across the sidewalk on the other side and down the side of the building, into the alley that joined the back of this building to the one next to it, the one with the security light. When we got there, we saw that the van from last night was parked behind the building. They must have had a lot to drink the night before, as both tires were slashed and the windshield had been caved in. I know that a trashed car doesn’t mean they were drunk, but it was still parked in the way of the rear garage door, effectively eliminating any chance they had of leaving that way. We felt a lot safer knowing they couldn’t easily sneak up on us from behind.

“OK, kid, here’s where you prove your worth. Go find us another way in,” Simon was looking at me in a way that said “Don’t fuck up” and promised to eliminate anything that might get him caught or killed. Even a nineteen-year-old kid like me. I swallowed a lump that wasn’t in my throat a moment before and nodded. I ducked back out of the alley and crossed in front of the building, my gun held tightly in my sweating hand on the side away from their building.

I shouldn’t have been so worried about being seen. We’d been watching the building all day and I remember noting that there were no windows on the front of the building. Fear’s funny like that, though. Windows suddenly sprout out of solid brick walls, and those new windows always have men shooting guns at you, the bullets pricking at your skin. Logic has no place in the mind of someone about to kick down the enemy’s door.

I managed to pass the front of the building with no incident and I slipped into the side alley on the opposite side from Simon and Lucca. There was a door on this side with a security light on top of it. It must have been hooked to a switch on the inside, though, or blown out, as it wasn’t on and that side of the building was already very dark. I softly turned the knob and it turned halfway with no resistance. I went further into the alley, hopped the fence into the back alley and sped across it to where the van had been killed.

The back of the building did have windows, though. A second door, too. Luckily the shadow of the van and the deepening gloom of twilight kept me hidden from anyone that might have been peeking out. After whispering to Simon that I was coming over, I climbed over the van’s hood, hopped the fence, and dropped down next to Simon and Lucca.

“Well, find anything?” Simon asked, seeming to know I had.

“Yeah. Door and windows on the back.”

Simon waited a second for me to go on, then asked “Well? Are they open or closed? Locked? What’s up with ‘em, kid?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t check. But there’s a door on the other side, just about opposite of where Lucca’s standing. It’s open. At least, the lock turned halfway ’round. If it’s not open, it’s probably an easy lock to break.” I looked at Simon to see if this news would at least make him smile.

It didn’t. He nodded at me, then tapped Lucca and they started over the fence. “What? Why are we going that way?” I said, a little loudly.

“Shut up, kid. While you were running around, brave as Superman, the garage door opened again. We didn’t hear any engines, but there were people in there talking. It hasn’t closed yet, so we’re not going around that way.” Simon said quietly.

When he said the garage was open, I jumped. If I had been just a bit slower, they might have seen me and the whole thing would have been bust. Luckily I had kept my feet walking and nothing bad had come of it. I started up the fence, too.

Just then, we heard the garage door close and a couple of men’s voices drifted to us over the calm, dusk air. I couldn’t pick out what they were saying, but I scurried over the fence as fast as I could and crouched on top of the van’s hood. I wasn’t ever a religious man, but I held my breath, rubbed the medallion with my free hand and said as many prayers in my head as I could think of. The voices got a bit louder, they were talking about the World Series, the Yankees had beaten the New York Giants. One of ‘em must’ve lost some money on it, ’cause he was cursing the Yankees with every breath.

I looked behind me. Lucca and Simon were already down off the van. Simon was crouched between the front tire and the wall at the back of the little alley and Lucca was standing against the wall on the far side of the garage door. Simon had his pistol out and Lucca had both hands on his shotgun.

I began to ease myself back toward the edge of the van. My foot slipped and the toe of my boot scraped an awful scratch in the hood of the van. The scratch was the least of our worries, for a horrible screetching noise came with it. I heard both men go silent and then I could hear their footsteps in the alley.

“Kid! Get over here!” Simon hissed at me and I jumped off toward him. He pushed me toward the far side of the garage, to where Lucca had been. Lucca was stepping toward the van, shotgun raised and ready. I slammed myself against the brick wall and held my breath. I pulled my gun up and held it next to my face and started praying again.

“Hmm. Nothing back here.” I heard one of the men say. Then the other chimed in.

“Could have been a cat. Maybe it went over the fence. Take a look, Giovanni.”

Giovanni muttered something about cats and pulled himself up to peek over. As soon as his head cleared the fence, Lucca unloaded the barrel of his shotgun at him. Giovanni disappeared into a haze of red and dropped out of sight. I heard the other guy scream “Shit!” and, a few seconds later, fire twice at the fence.

“Get ready, kid!” Simon yelled at me and I remembered the people in the house. I heard a window go up on an upper story and someone yelled out to Giovanni and the other guy, Pete. “What the devil’s going on out there?”

Pete didn’t say anything. Quick as lightning, Simon had jumped on top of the van and shot Pete in the back of the head. Simon looked up at the upper window, but it was too far for his pistol to get an accurate shot. He jumped back off of the van, grabbed me, and ran for the far fence.

Lucca followed us, but only as far as the back door. He waited on the van-side of it, shotgun raised and ready again. Simon jumped and nearly cleared the top of the fence. He pulled himself over, I was on his heels. We ran for the side door and it opened just as we approached it. Simon cracked the guy on the side of the head with the butt of his gun and kept running inside. I followed, scared to be on my own. The guy slumped to the side and slid down the few steps to the ground.

The guy at the door wasn’t completely out of it, though. When he hit the ground, he turned and fired a shot at me. It nicked my right shoulder and I screamed. I turned around and ran back to the door. I shot him three times, standing right above him. Twice in the chest, once in the head. When I turned around, Simon was gone.

I decided to stay where I was and watch the door. That decision lasted a whole thirty seconds. I heard something crashing over in a nearby room and ran towards the noise. The whole room was a mess. A table in the middle had been turned over, spilling several bags of off-white powder onto the floor. I could see foot prints leading toward a staircase on the far side of the room and I followed them.

When I reached the second floor, I found Simon slumped by the staircase. He was bleeding from a hole in his stomach. He pointed up the next flight of stairs and I ran on, telling myself I’d get him help on the way back. The third floor was one big room, completely empty and I ran on up to the fourth floor.

When my head poked up over the landing on the fourth, and last, floor, I saw a blur of black coming at me. I ducked and slipped back a step or two. The billy club that had been aimed at my head missed and smacked the side of the stairwell. I yelled and ran up the last few steps as hard as I could, colliding with the arm and owner of the billy club. It was the man I had seen getting out of the car. I yelled in his face again, grabbed him by his lapels and pushed him down as hard as I could. He toppled over backward but used my momentum to throw me over him and into the room.

He rolled over after I was off of him and scrambled to his feet, his hand going inside his jacket for a gun. When I hit the ground, the gun left my hand and flew into a corner of the room. I got to my feet as fast as I could, but he already had the drop on me.

“Sit down, kid. You don’t have a chance,” he said. His voice was oddly high-pitched, almost feminine. No headlights, though, so I knew he wasn’t a dame. “What are you doing here?” He asked when I was seated on the floor. “I don’t know you. Why are you here?” He repeated the question much more loudly and with his gun pointing at my head.

I just sat there, playing dumb. He was approaching me and a plan was growing in my head. I looked at him, trying my best to look dazed from the fall.

“Don’t give me that. You didn’t hit your head. Answer the goddamn question!” He took a few more steps toward me, he was about five feet away. “Answer” another step “the damn” another step “question!” He was only a foot away; I could feel the spit on my face.

I shot up towards as fast as I could, my shoulder hitting him just below his ribs, my head going into his stomach. He flipped up and over me, landing hard on his back. I could hear the air explode out of his chest.

“I’m here for Joey,” I said, picking up a two-by-four from a broken crate off the floor.

“Joey?” A look of complete confusion crossed his face. I didn’t care. Whether he knew Joey or not, whether he was the one that had done it or not, he was going to pay for Joey. And he was going to pay for Simon, too. I raised the two-by-four over my head….