El Paso Under Attack - 01 Read Free

said Dudley. “Let’s call the cops.”
    We backed up rapidly to the front door. Merrick instantly followed us. I thought this odd in a distant sort of way. Normally, if something caught her attention she was quite difficult to get back into the house. I ran to our home phone and tried to dial 911. The line was dead.
    “Use your cell phone.” I told Dudley. “This one’s not working.”
    The 911 operator picked up her end of the line after what seemed to me, a long pause. I didn’t hear what was said, because at that moment the neighbors finally broke through my front gate. I heard the cracking of stucco and the twisting of metal from beyond the walls of my home.
    Seconds later, they were banging on my front door. I ran forward, jumped over Merrick, and slid the deadbolt home. It was a heavy wooden door. It should hold… for awhile at least. Dudley was off the phone and not looking happy.
    “The operator said that it’s happening all over town. She said that we should lock ourselves inside the house and barricade all the windows.”
    “What about the cops?” I asked. “Are they coming?”
    “Not anytime soon.”
    I looked around the house. From where I was standing in the living room, I could see the entire layout. We were in a very bad position. The place was filled with windows and sliding glass doors.
    We had no protection. We had nothing that could possibly come even close to barricading all the glass.
    Dudley must have realized the same thing. He was staring over at me with the same worried expression that I must have been wearing on my own face.
    “They’re gonna get in here aren’t they?”
    I didn’t answer him. I was just now realizing that my wife was out there somewhere and I didn’t know if she was safe or not.
    I took the stairs to my bedroom two at a time. Merrick was right next to me. I grabbed my cell phone from the night stand and called her number. She didn’t answer. I slapped the phone shut and called again. She still didn’t answer.

    I repeated the process over and over until Dudley walked into the room.
    “We can’t stay here.” He said. “They are going to get inside the house soon. We gotta leave man.”
    “And go where?” I asked.
    “I dunno…let’s go to Georgie’s.”
    It was a good idea, but first I had to see how bad the neighborhood was. How many of those things were out there.
    “I’m going to check the view from upstairs,” I said. “I wanna know how bad it is.”
    “I’ll go with you.”
    My bedroom has yet another sliding glass door. This one led to the backyard balcony, which stood over the kitchen.
    From here, we could see over our back wall and across the open field behind it. They were there unfortunately. Crossing the field, four of them at the moment…easy to identify since their clothes were torn and bloody and they walked in a sluggish sort of shamble.
    “Oh fuck,” said Dudley.
    “Relax; they’re not headed this way. They’re going to end up farther down the street.”
    I climbed up from the balcony to the roof. From here I could see my entire street. I didn’t like the view.
    “Oh hell,” I grumbled.
    Dudley cursed and climbed up to join me. The previously empty street was now in a state of utter chaos. I had neighbors packing up cars. I had neighbors running from other bloody neighbors. I had neighbors fighting neighbors and last, but by far not the least, I had neighbors eating neighbors.

    The screams, both human and inhuman were loud. For a brief moment I thought that I could actually smell the metallic scent of blood in the air.
    “They’re dead aren’t they?” asked Dudley.
    “I don’t know.”
    “That woman out front, with her throat all torn up…there’s no way she could have been alive. Did you see how cloudy her eyes were?”
    “Yeah, I saw.”
    “We need to go. We need to get out of here.”
    I agreed with him. I didn’t voice it, but I most certainly agreed. I climbed back down to the balcony and glanced over to