Free Entombed by Brian Keene

speaker as George Laidlaw, a fellow employee of the Pocahontas and up until this point, a fairly decent guy.
    “No.” I knew that soft-spoken voice, as well. It was Jim Mars. “Ain’t nothing here.”
    “He could be behind those skids.” A third speaker. Male, and judging from the accent, a local, but I still didn’t recognize the voice.
    “Pete,” Jim called, “come on out if you’re there. I don’t like it any more than you do, but there’s no helping it. Come on out. You’re only making this harder on yourself.”
    My nose suddenly began to itch. I resisted the urge to move. When my stomach gurgled, I thought for sure they had heard it.
    “Go on back there,” George said. “Let’s make sure.”
    “He ain’t there,” the unidentified third man said. “I still say he’s probably hiding out in the power plant. That’s sure as hell where I’d go if it was me.”
    “Well, it ain’t you.”
    “I’m just saying, is all.”
    “And I said we need to make sure, Clyde.”
    I silently thanked George for filling me in on the third man’s identity. It was Clyde Osborne, a shifty little runt from Punkin Center who worked at the hotel as a greens keeper. ‘Worked’ was a relative term, since all Clyde had ever seemed to do was take smoke breaks. He’d weighed about a buck oh five before we ran out of food, and weeks of starvation hadn’t improved his condition. He’d be no problem, if it came to a fight.
    “Come on,” Jim said. “The sooner we get this over with, the better. My stomach is in knots. This don’t sit well with me.”
    The footsteps shuffled closer and there was a subtle change in the lighting. Without turning my head, I looked to the right and saw shadows on the wall. Whoever it was, they were close enough that I could hear them breathing. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. My entire body tensed.
    “Got him,” Clyde shouted. “He’s hunkered down back here behind this—”
    Without thinking, I jumped up from my hiding place and thrust the spear at him. The jagged point stabbed the fleshy part of his shoulder, right between his arm and his chest. There was a brief second of resistance and then the spear sank into his skin. Clyde wailed. I heard the other two men holler. Something slipped from Clyde’s hand and clattered onto the floor. I glanced down and saw that it was a length of pipe that he’d apparently intended to use as a club.
    “Goddamn,” he screamed. “The fucker stabbed me.”
    Jim and George stood just outside the cul-de-sac, gaping at us both. George was armed with a pocketknife. Jim had a piece of two-by-four. On the closed circuit television, the zombies seemed to be watching the action, as well. I wondered if they could sense the struggle going on beneath the mountain. Grunting, I yanked my spear free. Clyde stumbled backward, his free hand pressing against his wound. Blood welled from between his fingers. I thrust the spear at him and he scrambled away. He bumped against the nearest forklift and fell down. Despite everything, I laughed. At first, the noise confused me. I wasn’t aware that it was me making the sound. Then I saw the panic in Clyde’s wide eyes, and I laughed harder. I lifted my head and stared at Jim and George.
    “Who’s next? How about you, George? You want some?”
    “Fuck you,” George said quietly.
    “No, fuck you, you cocksucker. It doesn’t have to be this way, George. None of this has to happen. I mean, have you guys stopped for just one second and thought about what you’re doing here?”
    Jim sighed. “You killed Krantz, Pete.”
    “Because you guys were going to kill me. It was self-defense, man.”
    “So is this.”
    I groaned with frustration. “Are you really so far gone that Chuck’s idea seems like a good one?”
    “It’s better than starving to death,” George said.
    Jim nodded in agreement. “I want to make it back home to my family, Pete.”
    “I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime