by James Barton
“Let me in!”
“Solo, your leg. I told you not to go, but you just had to poke at it. You’re not coming back up here. Just stay down there and we won’t have to …” she trailed off.
“Have to what? Fucking shoot me?”
“Look,” she began.
Amanda’s words were interrupted by the thundering sound of rifle fire followed by an explosion of splinters. There was a second and third sound as bullets ripped through the floor and lodged into the wooden ceiling.
“He’s shooting at us!” Walker screamed.
“Stop! Stop! We’ll let you in!” Walker screamed. In the lull of gunfire Amanda was touching at her body, amazed that none of his rounds hit her.
“Okay, open up then,” drifted from below.
Before Walker could kneel to remove the lock, Amanda planted her rifle firmly into the wooden hatch. She pulled the trigger four or five times, adjusting her aim only slightly each shot.
She threw the hatch open and looked down. On the ground below was Solo, his body posed in a way that only a dead man could make.
“Why?” Walker screamed and turned his weapon on her. Amanda put her hand on the barrel of his gun and lowered it. She glared at him in only a way a woman could.
“He tried to kill us. Oh, come on movie buff, don’t play stupid. You know what I did was right.”
“Yeah, but … he was one of us.”
“Stop saying that.”
Walker looked out into the horizon. He looked like he was fighting back tears.
“Holy shit,” he whispered.
Amanda looked through her binoculars and saw a mass of individuals shambling toward them. There had to be hundreds, if not thousands. Their walk was inhuman, it was the march of the dead. Could the whole city have fallen to these monstrous creatures?
“Fortress, 41,” she said slowly and sadly.
The watch tower began to sway slightly and there was a groan that rose up from the ground and echoed in her ears. Walker looked over the edge and then peered through the hatch.
“That group we, that group from earlier is on their feet. They are trying to climb up,” he said with a tear in his eye.
Amanda glanced down to see the mob of flesh-eating monsters reaching up for her. There was a stillness in her. Maybe it was her military training, or maybe it was just a silent acceptance. Their job was to hold the line. At this point she knew they would eventually fail, but they had two options. To go out fighting against a tide of undead or die as a coward. Amanda chose to go down fighting, even though her name would never be entered in a book or put on a stone wall.
“They were infected. But, why doesn’t that make me feel any better?” Walker asked.
Amanda looked at him and held back tears.
“Fortress, 41,” she repeated into the radio. There was only a low level of static. Looking back toward the smoke-filled sky in the direction of the town, she realized that it had been hours since they heard anyone on the radio or any sounds of gunfire. Amanda wondered if they were truly alone. As the smell of smoke began to cut through her numbed senses, it occurred to her that the wind had changed … or perhaps more accurately … the tide had turned. The horde of zombies was growing closer, soon their small watch tower would be a buoy in a sea of arms and teeth.
“Any position, any position, this is Sergeant Black, please respond.”
“*Static*”
“Alright, Walker.”
“Huh?”
“Today’s our day,” she said calmly.
“Wait, what?”
“Might as well make our last moments count for something,” she said and slammed down the ammunition box onto the floor. It jingled as spare rounds tumbled out.
“I’ve never had sex,” Walker blurted out.
Amanda paused before responding. After a moment she smiled and slapped a fresh magazine into her rifle’s receiver and replied, “Well, looks like we’re both gonna get fucked today.” Then she began to fire into the horror below. The roar of her gun blasts almost covered the sound of Walker’s sudden laughter before the staccato blasts from his own gun joined hers.
The first group went down for the second time just as the tidal wave of undead townies crashed against the fence. While many were drawn to the Airmen in the tower, a larger majority pressed themselves against the fence. They were clearly more interested in the prizes that resided beyond the thin barrier. The Airmen fired round after round into the crowd and the bodies began to pile up so badly other zombies were crawling over them to get to the shooters.
In the fray, the woman in the white lab coat was again on her feet, her arms still resting at her sides. A strange smile was on her face. She had taken so many bullets and yet, still stood unphased. There was something about her that seemed different from the rest of the creatures. There was still a sliver of humanity hiding inside those eyes of hers. She looked right at Amanda. It made her uncomfortable, well, even more than she already was. Amanda looked away and began firing at the others.
During the shooting, the horde continued to pile up against the fence, a hastily constructed barrier that was never designed for such an onslaught. When it gave, it was more due to the sheer numbers pushing up against it, than any willful effort by the mindless mob. As it flattened in front of them, a collective sigh seemed to roll through the creatures, which now probably numbered in the thousands … and they began to flow out into the world.
For Amanda and Walker, there was one hidden blessing: zombies couldn’t climb ladders for shit. You might think that a footlocker filled with 5.56 mm rounds might last a long time, that in their final stand they could put down thousands of undead. Unfortunately, that was not the case and in under eight minutes they had put down about a hundred zombies and put the rest of their rounds in shoulders, chests, and legs; all places that meant nothing against the dead. Now, as the bulk of the mob began to spread out into the countryside, the two airmen paused, the echoes of their gunfire drifting off to be overcome by the low-key groans and endless plodding of the crowd below them. For the first time, Amanda noticed another mob of zombies several hundred yards down the fence line as it too pushed its way through the now-useless barrier.
Wiping sweat and tears from her stinging eyes, Amanda picked up the radio and announced that the fence had been breached, that someone should alert the public. She doubted that anyone was listening at this point, but she had a duty to try. Thinking of her useless cell phone, she expected that it would have done no good either … some idiot probably was blocking cell signals by now anyway.
Beside her, Walker reached into the canister and slowly pulled out one round. He held it out as if to present it to her.
“Last one,” he said.
“I have two left,” Amanda said and shot one zombie in the head. “One, now.”
“Wait, save the last one.”
“Please don’t suggest to me what I think you’re about to suggest.”
“I mean, just save it,” he said sadly. “We might need it for ourselves.”
Amanda frowned. She stood up and with an overexaggerated motion fired her last round into the horde.
“Whoops I’m out,” she said and pulled a combat knife out of the supply box. She leaned up against the corner of the tower, facing the hatch.
“I’m saving mine. I’m not going out like that. Eaten alive, turning into a monster.”
“Your choice,” Amanda replied.
That night they talked and Walker seemed to slip deeper and deeper into guilt and depression. Amanda tried to comfort him, but part of her was angry and depressed too. She hadn’t quite reached the stage where she had accepted how bad the situation was. She was used to pushing against the current and in a way, this made sense to her. Sitting up in the tower, safe for the moment; it felt like giving death the middle finger.
Amanda tried to get Walker to take the first sleep shift, but after all his tossing and turning he finally convinced her to go first. She had barely slept since this a
ll started and she wasn’t thinking clearly. She told him good night and unknowingly said goodbye in the same sentence.
Amanda woke to the sound of Walker shooting himself in the head. He had climbed onto the ladder and pulled the trigger, releasing his body to the flood below. Amanda scurried to her feet and gazed down the hatch. There was an empty feeling in her head, or maybe it was really in her chest, like something was missing. She felt that she should cry, but nothing would surface. Perhaps she was still on military autopilot, or perhaps she just didn’t have any emotions left. Walker was a good guy and he deserved better. As Amanda prepared to sit and potentially starve to death in a makeshift tower, only one question lingered in her mind. Did he just skip all the bullshit?
As she looked down, even through the swarm of zombies, she could see the body of Airman Walker. She never even got his first name. In the fields, more zombies managed to squeeze under the fence. They wandered off in every direction, whether it was random or controlled she had no idea. She was so incredibly tired, but she was unable to sleep at all. Each time one of the zombies would put its hand on that first ladder rung her eyes would pop open. She waited for it to suddenly wise up and start climbing. Each time though, they simply fell back into the horde.
Amanda stood up and walked over to the edge of the tower. Down below, the doctor in the white coat stood out among the rest. She extended an arm toward her. She continued to smile, but it was as if she was looking through her. Amanda shivered and dropped to her butt.
A day went by and hunger pains began to stab at her like knives. Even worse, the smell from the bloating corpses outside was so thick in the air that she could hardly breathe. Below, the sea of escapees was down to a trickle, with small clusters appearing every hour or so, and lone individuals staggering by with uneven frequency. Men, women, children of all ages made their way past the ruptured barrier, often torn and bloody, carrying nothing with them but death. Only a few remained at the bottom of the ladder, tirelessly moving about, bumping into each other and the ladder itself, their eyes often turned sightlessly upward toward the sound and smell of a trapped young woman.
But even then, Amanda felt that she was supposed to stay at her post. Where exactly would she go, anyway, if she managed to slip from here unseen? With narrow reasoning, she supposed that there was a chance that military rescue teams would make the rounds by heavy truck or even helicopter to pick up surviving sentries, but if she wandered off, then she was definitely on her own to be picked off by the first dumbass zombie that came by when she went to sleep in the wrong place, or simply mistaken for another zombie and shot by one of her own people. But how long, she thought over and over again, can I wait this out?
Almost as if someone was reading her mind, Amanda heard a faint humming coming from outside the tower. Amanda questioned her sanity, but to her, the humming was to the tune of the song by The Clash – “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” It startled her so badly that she nearly screamed. Holy fuck, she thought wildly, feeling goosebumps rising across her entire body.
She stood up and looked over the edge. The sound was coming from that damn doctor, who was still standing exactly where she had last seen her, swaying ever so slightly to a beat that was going on only in her own head. In frustration, Amanda threw her rifle at her and the empty box of ammunition.
“What do you want from me?” she screamed.
The woman immediately cocked her head slightly and her mindless smile faded into sternness. She had spent the last 30 hours frozen in a trance and her sudden lucidity frightened Amanda.
“I came for you,” she said sweetly.
“Yeah, you already got the other two. You’re not getting me!”
“I didn’t come for them. They weren’t compatible.”
“What do you mean?”
“As you can see around me, the introduction into the human system has yielded more failures, than successes. I promise you the successes are quite amazing though.”
“Introduction, you mean the virus?”
The woman let out a heavy sigh. “Virus is such a harsh word. No, not a virus. But you, I can sense it, you are compatible like myself.”
“Who are you?”
“Doctor Abigail Baxter, at least I used to be. Now I’m more. I am her; I am me; I am … everyone. If you want real answers to your questions, take my hand and come with me,” the woman said as her eyes rolled into the back of her head. The small cluster of zombies below ceased their moaning and swatting at the air. They staggered away from the ladder leaving a perfect open path as they swayed dumbly. The doctor walked with a smooth, confident stride and climbed the ladder with ease. Amanda gripped the combat knife with white knuckles. She then found herself face to face with a freckled, smiling woman.
“Take my hand and let’s go,” Dr. Baxter said.
“Go … go where?”
The woman paused for a moment and smiled, “Anywhere you want.”
Stay at Home Mother
Laura never watched the news. She tried to avoid it, lately it only put her in a bad mood. It didn’t matter much anyway, hardly anything ever happened in the quaint little town of Le Nord Côte. Her husband worked long hours and she used to get lonely, that was before baby Fiona came into her life. Now things were different, things were better.
Her friends had told her she was living in the past; something to do with progressive rights and how being a stay-at-home mother was basically akin to indentured servitude. Laura’s only response was to smile and let them talk. She was happy; it was what she had always wanted.
The blue and white baby monitor that rested next to their old hand-me-down lamp had a sudden spike of red dots. There was a rustling in the crib, followed by a frustrated grunt. Laura put one hand on her chest, all the breast feeding caused her a slight tinge of soreness. As she sat on the living room carpet with her back against the couch, she peered between the slats of the blinds. The sky was so blue, Laura wondered if she had ever taken the time to appreciate it.
Laura looked up at the monitor and the small red dots lifted and then disappeared as Fiona moved, the sound of a crinkling diaper drifted mechanically into the room. Laura had been a good mother. She would normally have already been in the room ready to change and feed her, but today, today she put it off. The television still played one of her favorite soap operas. Today she was hoping to find out if Sabian’s twin would finally admit that he was in love with Veronica. She looked up at the TV and it was a scene with some of the characters she didn’t care too much for. This was normally her chance to fold laundry or make a second cup of coffee. At the moment there were only commercials on her television.
Laura took a deep breath and blinked hard. She was so tired and if she didn’t have Fiona to care for, she would have taken a nap right there on the carpet. Mothers don’t get to take naps, they have responsibilities and too often their own needs come second, or even third. There was a loud and sudden crash against the door. It shook the small apartment hard enough to make the family pictures shake on the wall. Laura would have jumped or been startled, but this had been going on for … minutes, maybe hours? She couldn’t remember anymore.
Paul, her neighbor always walked his dog at the same time every morning. She would wave to him as she checked the black mailbox that hung on the exterior wall. He was the one slamming into her door. Only Paul didn’t have his dog with him, and he was very sick. When she saw him, she raised an arm to wave to him, but the polite smile quickly faded from her face. There was something … wrong with him. It all happened so fast. Laura struggled to remember the details; it was so long ago, she thought. All she knew was that he was outside, and she was inside. For now, that was good enough.
The red bulbs lit up and stayed red as baby Fiona began to cry. Laura looked at the TV and the end credits were scrolling across the screen. She rolled her eyes as she realized she wouldn’t ever see what happens to Sabian. The digital crying from the baby monitor made her wince. Laura extended her arm to check the tim
e and her eyes grew wide in surprise. When had that happened? Again, she couldn’t remember. Her arm was covered in cuts, scrapes and what even looked like a vicious bite wound. As she examined her arm, her eyes focused on the carpet below her. She could have sworn the living room carpet was blue, or had it always been red? Her memory was foggy. She staggered to her feet and despite the wounds on her arm, she felt no pain. The crying from the nursery grew louder and she squinted at the hands on her petite watch. As absent-minded as she had become today, she was sure of one thing. It was feeding time.
Prepared
Wesley Bryant sat in the dark and listened nervously to the grunts, moans and scratching coming from the locked metal hatch only six feet above his head. Although Mandy’s screams had died out nearly an hour ago, his heart still felt like it was going to flutter right out of his chest.
She should have moved faster.
He didn’t want to admit to himself that her hesitation may have actually saved his life when he bolted for the bunker.
Wesley was an awkward man, both in stature and mannerisms. The portly 36-year-old phone salesman had the complexion of craft glue, and small eyes that looked much larger behind the thick lenses of his thin gold-framed glasses. As a teenager, his hair had begun to recede into an uneven widow’s peak that continued to get worse as he grew older. Bad genetics might have been the only thing his father left him, prior to running off, well before Wesley was born.
Wesley didn’t talk often, and he didn’t speak to a lot of people. When he spoke, he often got carried away with a whirlwind of conspiracy theories. But the painful truth was, he really had nothing to offer to the world, except now, when he was sure he had been right all along.
It gave him little comfort as he looked around the dimly lit steel shipping container that had just become his new home and wondered, was all this effort going to be enough?
Wesley had no idea yet how dire his situation actually was. Sitting there with sore ribs and a throbbing wrist, he was still feeling a bit vindicated for following his instincts in putting this plan together. Who’s laughing now, he thought as he let his mind wander back to what brought him here in the first place. It had taken a long time to get to this moment.
