Chaos Theory

by Rich Restucci

  “Never did like that spook son of a bitch. Saddle up, we’re moving back through town.” The sergeant and two of his four man fire team got back in the Hummer. “One of you can fly a plane right?” Ship nodded. “Good, because I happen to have one, but I came up shit-short on a pilot.” He looked at Ship. “Follow us. You’re the half-back, I’ll block.”

  I looked at the Sergeant. “What the fuck just happened?”

  “I just cut my own throat. We’re not north of Bethlehem’s Gate, we’re south of Pinkton, which we now have to go back through to get to Arlo. Ten miles in the other direction.”

  I was as lost then as you are right now.

  He saw that and elaborated. “Lynch wants you. Don’t know why, don’t care. He probably wants to kill you for something, and I’ve seen enough death, especially concerning that bastard. We’re going to get in that plane and get the fuck outta Dodge, comprende?”

  I nodded.

  We got in the truck, and true to his word, the soldier’s vehicle spun around and headed toward the undead on the road behind us. They were now much closer. Ship followed closely behind as we made our way toward the infected town.

  The first bloody jumble of parts that came tumbling out from under the Hummer and struck our front bumper scared the ever-loving shit out of me. I still wasn’t feeling well, and when I noticed the bloody, hairy thing moving across the corner of the windshield, I initially thought it was some great spider skittering in to attack me. It was some undead guy’s scalp, or part of it. I swear I saw an eyebrow. He had dark hair.

  The things were all around us as we moved forward, but we were traveling at speeds upwards of twenty five miles per hour, and we were right up the military vehicle’s ass, so it was hard for those rotten pus sacks to get to us.

  We got through the first, largest wave, and Ship had turned on the wipers and squirted some fluid to clean off the goo. The scalp-spider flew up and over the windshield, and I almost puked as I saw the inside of it. Almost might be a tad disingenuous, but it’s my effing story. If you tell me that after all this time that you haven’t tossed a cookie here and there after witnessing some of the things this new world has to offer, I righteously call bullshit.

  The second wave of them wasn’t nearly as bad, although the stink had mounted. Have we discussed stink yet? I’m pretty sure we have, but just in case you need a reminder; the undead stink. They smell bad. Their aroma, or bouquet, or odor, scent, fragrance is something that you simply can’t get rid of.

  I heard someplace that the only sense you can’t forget is a smell. I agree. Zombies are scary to look at; rotten and bloody with bits of them missing and filthy clothes. The sounds they make are absolutely terrifying. Mewling, screaming, moaning, growling. Ugh. The really rotten ones are squishy to the touch, and that’s just nasty. I’m thinking I’m the only living human to have actually tasted one of the things and lived, even though my infected dude was still alive. I can’t speculate on the taste of a rotten one. (I actually had to swallow a gag as I wrote that.) But the end-all-be-all of the zombie is the smell. None of the other senses can compare to the smell of them. If you’ve never smelled them, and I can’t see how that’s possible, then you have no idea. A five days dead raccoon, on a ninety degree day in coastal Florida, covered in maggots isn’t even close. The smell of a zombie, even a relatively fresh one, is just…more. It somehow smells worse, an all-out assault on your olfactory tract. And it stays. It won’t go away even after you wash whatever was touched by the offending stench. At least for a while.

  I can’t imagine the terrified soldiers in the cities who had set up defensive perimeters, only to have that stench attack them prior to the claws and teeth. I wonder how many men and women died because they couldn’t stand the smell, doubled over retching, and were caught and eaten, unable to even fire their weapons. Yuck.

  I think we’re on the same page now about the smell. It was awful. This had only been the second town I had been in since the start of the plague, and the town in New Hampshire had been frozen. Huh. I wonder why the zombies didn’t freeze? Anyway, this stink was beyond anything I had yet encountered. It must have been pretty bad for Kat too, because she climbed over me to get to the window and spew. She didn’t make it, as the windows were up. Hey, it was cold and there were dead things reaching for us. A pane of safety glass was better than nothing against both of those adversaries so don’t go getting all high and mighty.

  Did she fight off the urge to vomit? Nope. Do you think she puked on Ship? Nope. I sat forward in that truck, arms held out, palms up, dripping someone else’s mostly digested breakfast, feeling that wetness seep in, and all I could think was that the smell had gotten better.

  Kat wiped her mouth with her jacket. “Sorry.”

  What could I say?

  Ship coughed too, and he wiped his poncho across his mouth and looked at it. He didn’t get to pull it away before I saw a smear of red. My buddy was hurt, and I was immediately flooded with concern.

  We blew through the town quickly, and continued down the road for about fifteen minutes before the Hummer pulled over. I got out and wiped myself off as best I could. My jeans were soaked with vomit and there were some errant chunks to get rid of. One of the soldier kids in the Hummer was standing there looking at me, his rifle slung, and barely able to contain his mirth. He chuckled and I pointed to Kat. She raised her eyebrows, looking at the kid, then folded her arms, her eyebrows arching slightly higher. He stopped laughing instantly and suddenly found something he needed to stare at intently in the area of his left boot.

  The sergeant stared at me for a sec, then busted out a laminated map on a ring with other maps, like I was, in fact, not covered in vomit. “We’re here,” he said touching the map. “Arlo is a little town north-north west of here. It has a small airfield and a tower, which until recently was manned. There’s a fuel truck here,” he said, pointing to a spot on the map near a hangar. “I’m not going to screw around with gas cans, we’re taking the truck and we’re going to drive it to your plane.” He produced another laminated map from the attached ring, and put it on the hood of the car. He put his finger on a spot on a totally different runway, twenty miles in between. “Here.”

  The sarge pocketed his maps and looked at me. “Any questions?”

  “Do you have any spare BDU’s in there, Sarge? I stink.” I indicated the vomit on myself.

  “Sorry son, no.”

  I had a spare pair of jeans, but my jacket was just gross, and we would have to live with it. A shot from the front of the jeep had us all looking north. A wayward shambler had crept up on us through the woods, and the guy up front had done his job in eliminating it. It was scary, but not nearly as terrifying as the wicked loud sound that came next.

  Two jets screamed over us just above the trees. The sound and subsequent concussion blast from the jets throwing my injured noggin into fresh spasms of agony. I had my hands over my ears as I asked the sarge where they could have come from, but he just shook his head like he didn’t know. A series of distant explosions reverberated through the trees, and though we didn’t see them, we could all feel the air change around us. They had been big booms.

  “Hades?” asked one of the soldiers nervously.

  “No, too small. Definitely came from the direction of the compound though.”

  I took my hands off of my ears. “Guess those guys in the truck should have stayed with us, huh?” I may have said that a little loud.

  “Fuck em,” said the sarge, “they would have killed us and stolen our shit the moment they realized their protection was gone. I’m more concerned with the spook. Saddle up, we’re moving out now.”

  We did. We followed the Hummer for a few miles until the Now Entering Arlo sign was behind us. The bottom of the sign had said: Best Little Town in Tennessee! Pop 655.

  They may have nailed the population part, but the first portion of that little notification was a fucking lie. I still have the scars to prove it.

  Outside A
rlo

  The sarge looked through his binoculars at the town we had to pass through before we could get to the airfield. “Holy shit,” was all he said.

  There was one road. One. How can you call a pathetic, one avenue rural center a town? Looked like a friggin spaghetti western. I mean, what’s the definition of a town? I don’t have a dictionary with me right now.

  Maybe fifteen buildings, mostly businesses lined the single street. There was a stoplight, but there was no other road! WTF is that about? Who has a stoplight without a reason to stop? I wonder if the city taxes in this shitty place went from eight bucks to nine per year when they installed the damn thing. Technology had reared its ugly head.

  The most important thing to us right now was that directly under that ridiculous stoplight were an absolute shitload of people, all of them dead. Well, kind of dead. They moved around, bumping into each other like filthy bumper cars. I sat in a bumper car at a fair once, and it had a dead seagull in it. It was gross. How the hell did a dead seagull get in my fucking bumper car? Yes, I drove the shit out of it anyway. Hurt my buddy’s neck, dead bird and all, when I ploughed into him doing at least seven miles per hour. I didn’t see the dump-duck until I tried to get out of the ride and crunched down on it with my boot. Bumper cars and avian flu notwithstanding, there were a ton of dead people to deal with in the here and now. Actually, that was almost a year ago, so it was the there and then, but if the sign just outside of town (I scoff) was correct, then all six hundred and fifty five people were down there, every single one of them. It didn’t make sense that over six hundred people lived in that little pissant place. Something didn’t sit right.

  Sarge and one of his guys were looking at the laminated maps, flipping through them and talking in low voices. “No, remember that pile up? We couldn’t get through there, then there’s the fuel truck. That’s the mission now.”

  The kid swallowed hard. “There’s no other way?”

  “I’m open to options.” Sarge put his maps away and looked at us. I didn’t need binoculars to see the dead milling about, crammed in like sardines between the buildings on the main street, which was undoubtedly called Main Street.

  “No,” I said to him.

  He raised his eyebrows and I continued, “I choose life.” I pointed at the mini-swarm. “That’s all kinds of the opposite of life. If we were in a tank, maybe, but not in these.” I indicated our vehicles. “I don’t want to be canned spam.”

  “Son, we’re not going through that town, we’ve got to go around, but there aren’t any roads but this one. We have to go through the woods unless you have any better suggestions?” He honestly looked like he wanted them. I don’t think he thought travelling through Arlo was the best plan, but I had nothing.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was Ship’s notebook. It had one new word written and underlined: STEALTH.

  I showed it to the sergeant.

  “Gonna need more than one word, son.”

  My nothing turned into something as I thought on the Sasquatch’s suggestion. I used hand motions that followed my words. “We sneak around town on foot. Get to this fuel truck, create a diversion to bring the dead running, and drive through when the town empties of pus sacks.” I looked at Ship expecting monumental stinkeye, but he looked…pleased? Proud? Satisfied? I don’t know, but I felt better.

  “Um yeah. That’s what we just said. Almost word for word. The only issue is what kind of diversion?”

  ***

  What are the cardinal rules that keep you alive in a horror movie? What do you never, ever, EVER do?

  Go off alone to check something.

  Run upstairs instead of outside.

  Put your weapon down.

  Have sex.

  Split up.

  There was nothing to check, we were already outside, and my weapon was attached to me via sling, possibly forever. I had recently been released from prison, albeit somewhat shy of the time I was court ordered to put in, so when I tell you that the wildlife in the woods of Tennessee may have looked good in booty shorts or a miniskirt and heels, you can understand that I was constantly thinking about sex. I’m a guy, we do that. Nonetheless, I wasn’t having any, and with my injuries it may have been difficult anyway. But that last one? Good old number five? Yup, we did it. We split right the F up.

  Three of the soldiers were to create the diversion outside of town to the east, and the sarge and my peeps were to go west, then north to get the truck. We would all meet back where we first looked down on the infested town. Grade A plan. Top notch.

  The soldiers did their hooah’s, shook mitts, and we walked off in different directions leaving the vehicles where they were. The truck team (the one with me in it) worked our way around the town (again, scoff, not a town) to the west as planned. This was where the plan went to shit. It seems that the six hundred or so dead folks that lived in the area didn’t all live in the town, or if they did, they had relatives that liked to play hide and seek in the woods. Oodles of them.

  This particular forest was fairly thick with trees, which blocked a lot of the light that otherwise might reach the ground, but that having been said, it was in the area of two o’clock in the afternoon, so we had good visuals. The shadows thrown by the trees and the almost leafless canopy were spooky, and now and then Sarge, who was leading, would throw up his fist and we would all stop. Usually he would point, and we would see a lone zombie standing a few dozen yards away, admiring the foliage. Sometimes they were in twos or threes.

  We got maybe a mile into our trek when we heard stirrings around us. Sarge did the hand thing and we all stopped again. A dead woman, all torn and gooey stepped out from behind a tree not three feet from us. She had her back to us, which I took as a kindness. We were all frozen solid, even the zombie. She turned her head a little to the left, but still didn’t see us. Sarge could have reached out and touched her, I shit you not.

  Ultimately, we were undone by a squirrel. I had liked squirrels until that moment. They were cute little critters that sat on their cute little asses and ate cute little acorns with their cute little paws. Now squirrels can suck it. Difference between a squirrel and a rat? No, not the tail. Existentialism.

  That little shit might have been sitting there terrified in that bush next to zombie lady for hours without making a sound. We stand next to him, and the little fucker bolts through the winter leaves, making a racket that sounded like a busted chainsaw in the woodland quiet. Prick ran up a tree, perfectly safe too. All four of us living people looked up that tree and that fucking squirrel looked right back at us. I think he shrugged before he dashed into his nest in the tree.

  Dead lady looked at him too. Then she turned in super slow motion and looked right at us.

  Bitch drooled. No lie. It was black and nasty, and her equally black tongue darted out and caressed her upper lip. Her lower lip was missing. All five of us, living and dead, were frozen for a second, and I honestly thought the sarge was going to K-Bar her into true death when that fucking squirrel tittered and it was on.

  Without any ado whatsoever, dead broad snapped her rotten paws out like a striking mamba and latched on to the soldier, with a…well…a death grip. She leaned in but before she could fasten her jaws around anything soft, a crashing blow from Ship’s massive right hand hit her in the forehead and sent her sprawling. It must have stunned her because she did something zombies simply do not do. She let go. She skittered to a stop about four feet away in a crumpled heap. Several of the shadows moved when this happened, they seemed to want to investigate the sound.

  We all thought dead bitch was truly dead or had a zombie concussion, but she looked back up at us and gave that mournful wail. Then all those shadows really came to life, or un-life, and suddenly the woods we were currently traversing absolutely filled with pus sacks, and it was really on.

  I stood there for a nanosecond looking at the dead people coming from every possible direction and I thought of the compound and how quickly that had fallen. Tha
t nanosecond was all it took for Ship and the sarge to vault into action. Ship raised his rifle, and the sarge hissed: “No guns!” The big dude nodded his exceptionally large cranium and we ran. More to the point, they ran, I hobbled awkwardly, close to passing out. My head HURT. I was instantly nauseated, and I had a cramp in my right arm. Yeah, I don’t know why the cramp was in my arm, it just was. That hurt too, and suddenly the area was awash with the permeating stench of zombie. I stumbled on a root, and went down, skinning my knee on pretty much nothing. Kat came to my rescue, and suddenly she was grappling with a teenage boy she probably would have thought was cute six months ago. Another punch from the Sasquatch felled the zombie, but this one held on. Both Kat and dead high-schooler were on the ground and before the thing could bite our friend, Ship brought one of his size twenties down on its melon, which burst like its namesake.

  Sarge had outdistanced us, probably as intent on the mission as remaining uneaten, but I think all the deaders in the area had focused on the three of us. Their cries were terrifying and the stink was debilitating. Fear and tension were mounting as more and more of them came into view. A runner sprinted in from in front of us, fighting its cousins to get at the good stuff, and that sealed the deal. Kat raised her rifle and put a round through its chest. Now we were in it. The shot echoed through the trees, and the wails of the dead picked up exponentially. They were inbound to our position as fast as they could shamble.

  The guy in charge of adrenaline opened all valves, and I yanked Kat to her feet. “Run!” Renewed vigor had all of us sprinting and dodging grasping fingers and snapping mouths. Zombies poured from the forest, behind every tree and bush. Both Ship and I had pulled our machetes, and keeping Kat between us, we hacked anything that got close. A huge specimen with half a beard (and half a face), naked below the waist grabbed Ship from the side. I brought my machete down hard on its wrist and Ship was free almost before he knew he had been caught. The zombie looked pissed and growled at me. I don’t know if it was because its hand was still attached to my buddy, or because I had denied it its prize.