Thor's Hammer

by Dan Yaeger

Rob reloaded and continued similar work on the window. The bodies were piling high and no sooner was Rob out of ammo and stepping back to reload his already exhausted alternate magazine, the first zombie made it through and into the room. There were screams of terror as the people realised this was going to be close. But in those moments of fight or flight, more joined me at the breach; Lakshmi, Angela, Alicia, Shiva, Wayan and others. For close-quarters fighting, we had just one shotgun, bats, knives and clubs. We fought shoulder to shoulder. We fought as a team.

  Through the decisive defence, a mess of blood, limbs and bodies, not another single zombie made it into that room. “I have a team,” I smiled proudly as there were booms and bangs, bites and wounds, cuts and blades; a raw decisive battle. We won that round. We had fought, chopped, shot and pruned for what must have been an hour, into my utter exhaustion; literally in the breach and in the thick of it.

  The mess of maimed, writhing bodies formed a barricade and we were inside its protectorate. They were still out there; those zombies wailing and moaning and pushing, trying to get through but the mass was too great and they turned their attentions back to the front, the quadrangle where the squads had once lived. We all looked at each other and I smiled like I hadn’t for some time; a smile I would share when I had that sense of community. “Thanks, you did a great job,” I looked in their eyes and warmth and humanity was shared. “Get back now, I’ll hold this mess,” I turned, knives at the ready.

  The team fell back to the barricades behind me and checked each other for injuries and readiness for whatever came next. I glanced back at them a few times and Lakshmi just stared at me with her big, deep eyes. She reminded me of someone; deep brown eyes. “No, not now,” I turned and shook my head. “Not now, my love,” and I wasn’t thinking about Jen, rather a much older memory I was not yet ready to deal with. I got back to checking myself and my gear, trying to hold it together and forget the unforgettable.

  I was wounded with a nasty cut on my upper arm. Blood seeped through the camouflage jacket I was wearing. Everyone was breathing hard, checking themselves and getting ready for the next wave: but not Lakshmi. She was thinking of others and came over to me, right in front of the writhing mass of lopped body parts.

  “Let me help you.” I looked into her innocent face, with the backdrop of the wall of horror behind her. I wanted to speak through exhaustion but allowed her to help, despite something niggling at my logic. She began to dress my wounds and I felt a moment of care and peace. I would later feel selfish and lazy for that.

  Suddenly and to my horror, Lakshmi was grabbed and pulled into the morass by a severed leg with half a foot. That appendage passed her into torsos, faces and arms; receiving and absorbing her voraciously. She had been standing too close to the writhing mess while helping me. We all screamed in horror, utter horror. Everyone else was paralysed by the shock and horror of what had just happened. I threw off my coat and pack and tried to dive into the morass after her.

  I fought hard, trying to move and get to her through the moving organic mass. But there was no hope. It was like swimming through a sea of writhing eels; a disgusting, slimy feeling with bites and blood.

  I remembered a similar sensation, a much nicer sensation that didn’t have the sting in the tail. I recalled being a child in a ball-pit. I was that kid again, ignoring the danger and the awfulness, rolling around, floundering, burrowing and trying to almost swim through the chaos to find the warm, living person that was Lakshmi. Lakshmi was selfless in my defence but we all hadn’t stuck to the plan.

  The shotgun went off in reasonably quick succession while I was immersed in there. The concussion, like a shockwave and the sound of the firearm’s discharge were muffled. I couldn’t work out which direction it came from. Smothered and disoriented, I would never know exactly what she hit or if it had helped her in any way in her last, horrific moments. I liked to think that she had saved me from something.

  Perhaps she had just saved me; I would never know. Like with the Samurai, I wore that loss in a moment and blamed myself for not being meticulous enough. As the wall ingested me and I was sent through the veritable washing machine of writhing zombie parts, heard my friends fighting the mass. I struggled like a buck stag that had fallen through an ice lake; helpless and awaiting death.

  I had a moment of revelation in that experience. “How can you think that was your fault?” I said to myself in lucidity. It was almost as if I was in slow motion in a bloody amusement park ball-pit of zombie parts and zombie torsos. “You are doing your part; keep trying. It will be OK.”

  I circulated around the writhing slimy parts until friendly hands grabbed my heels. I was pulled from the wall of wounded. It wasn’t a quick movement, more like a tug-of-war. I eventually emerged from the mess and saw faces around me; “I couldn’t find her, I could get her,” I said with exhaustion and a hint of despair. “You did your best; who would have thought such a thing could happen!” Daniela, one of the ladies from the group said. “It’s OK, you tried your best” someone else said. The words were of appreciation and encouragement. More tears rolled as people bitterly wiped away tears and stood there, to action and ready to defend. I appreciated their strength. Others rallied to my side and I could hear Angela firing off a few .22 rounds to keep at bay, whatever tried to emerge from the cocoon of death. No-one blamed me for Lakshmi’s death or ever would. I almost had myself killed trying to save their friend and sister; for all to see and appreciate.

  A ring of resolute, ready warriors was around me as I stood up and tried to regain my composure. I took off my shirt and dropped the greasy, smelly pile on the floor. The shock was still there, in a daze; “Another wonderful valuable person was dead. Was it my fault?” I wore the guilt again, like a familiar cloak that shrouded my happiness and consciousness. I had to stop this and I would look to the group, my community to prop me up where I was feeling weak. And they did.

  The group kept on helping as I gathered myself. They hacked away and smashed at limbs that emerged from the wall of carnage. Angela had little Manila, the .22 rifle, and fired rounds into the moving morass.

  With the wall holding, people got on with it; survival was everything. One of Penfould’s Champagne buckets full of water was brought and I was being cleaned up with a fresh towel. As I stood there, devastated at the loss, the loss of life we all faced, they wiped away the blood, the sweat and the tears. It was like a doctor getting a newborn into life for the first time. It roused me from the horrors and trauma.

  They needed me to be back to myself again, to lead them to safety. “Focus Jesse,” I told myself. “This will no longer be a battle, but an escape.” I knew we had a dubious enemy on top and around us, but Siro had shown us the way. “Just go,” I said aloud as I was being redressed, lovingly having my coat put over my bare, naked chest, wrapped and protected. “Let’s just go.”

  “What’s that Jess?” Steph asked me. The fog cleared as she said my name like a loved one had once uttered it. My mind was back and I was warm again, quickly swinging my pack on my back and Old Man over my shoulder. Jesse the survivor was ready for a hike like so many times before.

  “We are going now.” I said with a sigh behind it, showing everyone that I was coming out of the funk that had overcome me. There was no disagreement.

  Elsom and his team were raining fire on the zombies until it became evident the machine-gun was running out of ammo. The bursts were shorter and more conservative. The noise stopped and an eerie silence pervaded over all. We stood there in a circle, me at the centre, the eerie silence more scary than the occasional attempt at our lives by a feeble zombie limb reaching at us hungrily.

  Then, all of a sudden, there was a loud bang which made everyone turn away from me. Leon was dead. He had found the nickel and gold-plate gun of Doctor Penfould and taken his own life. Instead of helping us earlier, he had been paralysed. The battle, the stress, it was too much to take. In retrospect, some of us thought that seeing Lakshmi die was too much for him. He had
admired her from afar and perhaps held some flame for her. She had perhaps been some sort of a hope for his future. That dream and his life were forfeit.

  I walked over to him, felt for a pulse and stated the obvious “He’s gone,” the others, keeping an eye on threats made a general acknowledgement but didn’t alter their mode. Leon was a jailer and an enabler for the Doc; no friend to them.

  My hand reached down and grabbed the pistol; a custom Browning 1911; “the General”. Leon had three full magazines on him too. I marvelled at the weapon; mirror-like finish on the nickel and gold. In some remarkable turn of events, it had been undamaged by the grenade Sam had detonated. It was like a sign or a gift from Sam. It was as if I could hear her whisper “Get them out of here.”

  “I need to be their General; time to lead out. ” I told myself. The pistol’s former owner, the general and peace-keeper, would have been proud. My mind raced and the next stage of a plan formed in my head. I didn’t have any time to tell anyone, I just had to go with it.

  I would lead them out and fight like hell to get them free. I had my mojo back and the zombies or anyone else that wanted to get into our way would pay. First, I needed to take care of a cunning and dangerous enemy, the enemy within: Elsom. He was part of my new plan.

  “Everyone; I have a plan. Go with me on it. Ange, give me your radio.” I had a captivated audience, on edge and ready to fight or die with me.

  We were but four men and 12 powerful women, Valkyries all, and I would lead hem out in a flight from the dark. If not for those women, I would have been dead. They would do me proud.

  Chapter 14: Flight of the Valkyries

  “Elsom, over,” I was nervous and hoped the plan would work. “We are holding for now but have been breached and will be overrun without support. We need you to distract the zombies.”

  I looked at Ange and Alicia who were nodding at the thought of my plan. “You read, over?” Elsom responded coolly. It was strange, as though he was losing his head. “Yessss, Owwwww-K.” I figured he was turning.

  “I need you to get that fifty-cal onto the av-gas tank.” I said. I remembered seeing it once out at the nearby airfield when being walked to one of the Doc’s dinners. It was that attention to detail and observation that would mean survival or death in the post-apocalyptic world.

  “Yeeeeah. But I need some milk or that, that, -um, vaccine.” Elsom was turning and my plan may just work.

  “We will get some up to you once you blow the tank and we can stop fighting them off. The fire will lure them to the airfield and we can fix you up. Deal? Over.” I was hoping he would just comply like a good soldier. True to form, he did. “Roger, uhhhm-roger that Jesse. Elsom: over.” How prophetic those words would be.

  I realised that I was not dealing with a mastermind, rather a foot-soldier trying to maintain control. He saw nothing more than the obvious. As Divine took hold of him, he and the two men left in his squad would be less and less lucid and less and less effective. I was a survivor, an opportunist, and I would take advantage and maximise what I had in the situation in order to survive.

  “OK people!” I clapped my hands together. “We are leaving the Rock!” There were looks of fear so I explained quickly and clearly. “Elsom is going to explode a big gas tank on the airfield. The zombies are fascinated by noise and fire. They won’t go too close but they will go toward it, I am sure.” Everyone was nodding and getting the picture. “While they enjoy that bonfire, we walk out. Simple.” Ange began to shake “No Jesse, no, no…Out there?” Steph chimed in too “I’m not going out there with a bub you crazy man!” Things were falling apart-I cut her off and raised my voice to a cold but emotive bellow.

  “If we stay here, we will eventually be overrun. The zombies may already be inside. We have to go, when the tank goes off, we go. I am going. All those who want to live will come with me.” I said with resolve and a touch of passion. It was survival time. “Are you with me?!” I shouted. I did a quick gear check and showed everyone I was ready.

  “How do we know when-“Alicia’s naïve but lovely question was answered with an enormous explosion. The force shook the building with such a seismic wave that a few roof-tiles fell in and things smashed down from shelves. The shockwave was our starter’s pistol. Elsom had taken his last order and it was time to go.

  The explosion was massive and the sky was lit like twilight and lightning. The writhing mass of zombie corpses that surround what had been the Doc’s chambers was buffeted by the force of the explosion and corpses that held on to whatever sick life they had were taken. Other maimed zombies left, limbless, hopping, without arms, rendered in two or with other grievous wounds headed toward the big noise and lights of the explosion. What was left, a wall of rancid body parts fell away, enough to leave us with a way out.

  Those zombies that were strong enough to move on their own steam observed the flash, fire and smoke and headed toward that marvel like moths to a flame. The plan was working.

  “Rob! Ange! Grab that dining table. We are going to ram our way through!” I yelled, sweating and pumped up with both adrenaline and excitement. They were with me in an instant; rob in the middle, Ange grabbing the table legs on the other side. We slung rifles and picked up the front-most legs of the antique table and ran at the wall of the zombie morass. The first impact smashed the carnage everywhere and spilt it into the room. Without having to be asked, Daniela and Wayan took up the rear of the table and put their strength into it. A zombie that was little more than a torso and head gnashed at our feet. Angela placed her lovely white sand-shoe on its neck and put a round through its skull. Truly dead. The women were cold to it and seemed to now be mentally ready for what we would face.

  Rob and I took another run-up and smashed the timber into bone, teeth and rancid flesh. This time the table lost one of its legs and I had to swap sides. Without asking, Daniela and Angela proceeded to shoot and carve up zombie bits that posed a threat. Amongst the horror, I couldn’t help but smile at the sense of team. I was proud of these people and I would get them out so they would be proud of me.

  “One last run!” I said as we propelled ourselves and the table at the morass of carcasses and carnage. I was sweating profusely and I felt a mix of water and zombie blood drip down my face. My leg muscles felt the load and my shoulders flexed as we smashed into the wall of zombie parts and smashed it to pieces. “People, we have an exit.” I said between breaths.

  I knew we had little time and looked to my team, my new people. While I had been weak, they were strong. Now I would be strong for them as fear gripped them, I could see it in their eyes, in this most important of moments. I moved the cupboard again, removing chairs that were bracing it and a display case someone had moved in front to assist. Rob helped and we heaved the stuff out of the way in quick time.

  “Angela, You-nice to meet you- and I will get us out in a front line.” I was solemn but smiled, extending my hand to a person I had not met. I had pointed at a lady who was strong and fit who had been with Sirocco and Alicia in the earlier run-around. “Jude,” she said. “Nice to meet you Jude,” I shook her hand. ”I don’t know you but I need your help to get us out. Can you use this?” She nodded at the sight of one of Barlow’s many wicked knives. I could see Angela was ready, Rob too. The ladies hugged each other, not knowing what the next few hours would bring.

  “Daniela; you will be in the second row. You work with Wayan and Shiva. You are the second line of defence,” Daniela got her team of three organised. The two emaciated students were not nearly as vital as Daniela but I was sure they would have her back. Daniela’s dark eyes were intense and ready; a good feeling about her. I organised the other rows quickly and then the last two people to cover the rear of our group.

  My voice seemed to pierce the night “We are out of time and have to move,” I said with haste. “Our front line will lead and try to take out anything that comes up on us. The second line comes in if we miss. I want us walking in lines of three. Mothers are in the middl
e,” people were in position already. “Alicia: I need you to stay calm and keep anyone who falters moving with us. OK?” she smiled at the recognition of her value. It was set and we were moving.

  I could hear the machine-gun going off and the impacts were on the other side of the building; they were nothing if not predictable those beasts: zombies. I could hear the ricochets off the concrete and asphalt. There was a war on. Through the breach we marched. Over the remaining, writhing, dangerous mass of zombie carnage, smoke cleared as the wind changed direction. Through it all, we were captivated by a clear starry night; hope.

  I had Orion and my new pistol, “the General”, at the ready, and led them out. “Don’t look back and keep walking no matter what!” I hissed. We stalked out with trepidation and purpose.

  As we moved, all was strangely still and the crackling of fire muted all around us as we walked. Elsom obviously didn’t see or hear us as he continued to fire and take down zombies in the quadrangle. I looked around as others moved forward with me. It was dark but visibility was good enough for what we embarked upon.

  I could see that the airfield was ablaze and it appeared that part of the Rock was then alight too. The shadows of the intense flames flickered and shadowed our group as we moved out. The radio squawked “Hey, um. Hey-um. Jesse?” I said nothing and switched it off. Everyone knew we had tricked Elsom for our own gain but it had to be done. This was a survival march and we had to leave Elsom and the legacy of the Rock behind. We would survive at all costs. We were committed now and, even if some of us fell on the way, others would endure and walk on. We were all committed to this hope in an unsaid bind that took us forward.

  We kept walking and I looked back again, walking backwards as I scanned with my binoculars. I could see zombies, hundreds of them, pouring through the breach and into the Rock. The Rock had well and truly fallen now and Elsom was a dead man. While zombies didn’t attack infected if they had the choice of uninfected, bloodlust would turn them onto anything that moved. That anything was Elsom and his team.