ZNIPER: A Sniper’s Journey Through The Apocalypse.

by Ward III, C.

  What he wasn’t ready for was the enormous explosion that brought down half the village block. They could only guess that what happened was three months of rotting and decaying organic materials had gathered in the sewers, fermenting massive methane pockets, creating a subterranean shape charge that had been ignited by Curtis’s bait bomb.

  As soon as Michael pulled the trigger, the roof heaved violently, then gave way, sending them into a free fall. The front of the two-story bridal store caved in, causing the entire building to collapse forward at an angle. Before Zavier could cry out, he hit the roof as it came crashing to a forty-five-degree angle. Dust and debris filled the air, stinging his eyes, so he squeezed them shut tightly as he rolled and slid on the falling roof gravel until his tumble came to an abrupt painful stop on solid ground.

  Remarkably, his gear landed tangled-up on the sidewalk next to him. In a daze, he picked up his dust-covered pack and swatted the dirt off it. Hanging off the pack was his yellow walkie-talkie, completely smashed. Looking down, he saw his rifle snapped in two. Ohhh, man. I’m going to be in so much trouble, he thought, holding a broken stock in one hand and a bent barrel in the other. Next to that, his shorty AR pistol looked to be in good shape.

  Zavier covered his mouth and coughed, looking around the rubble at his feet and finally coming to the understanding that the building had fallen down. Just like a snow globe, the thick dust cloud surrounding him slowly began to settle. Resembling a horror movie scene, the image of his brother lying facedown in a pile of loose debris came into view, emerging out of dense fog only five feet away.

  Zavier pulled and tossed away chunks of brick and rubble until he was finally able to roll his brother over. Michael’s eyes were closed, and he wasn’t moving. Zavier began to panic, not knowing what to do, trying to remember what his dad had taught him about emergency first aid. Stop the bleeding with pressure, his dad had always preached. He looked over his brother; there didn’t seem to be any bleeding. What else did Dad always say? Breathing. Thirty and two. Thirty chest compressions and two breaths. Even in this moment, terrified his brother was dying, the thought of locking lips with him made him shiver. Zavier moved his face to Michael’s and was happy to feel his warm breath on his cheek. He sighed in relief; he wouldn’t have to lock lips with his brother, but why wouldn’t he wake up?

  An eruption of gunfire echoed in the distance toward the east, and his relief turned to confusion again. Who was shooting and at what? Now he began to worry that his dad was in trouble too. A thousand thoughts and images went through his imaginative mind, and none of them were good.

  Zavier’s eyes went wide and his stomach flopped when a moan came from behind him. He jumped up with his rifle, suddenly remembering just a moment ago that there were hundreds of Grays in the street. Zavier looked through the thick dusty haze, inspecting the rubble pile composed of half roof, half storefront. The moan was getting louder. Not wanting to leave Michael, he had to wait for the dust to clear. Starting to get nervous again, his heart began to drum. He reached down to shake his brother’s shoulder.

  “Michael. Michael. Michael,” he said in a loud whisper while shaking his shoulder. “Wake up. Michael, wake up.”

  The moaning behind him was getting louder. Zavier started to get scared. He looked around frantically. The air around the building was clearing. He could start to make out shapes in the rubble. A large metal dented square, maybe an air conditioner or air filtration box of sorts, was in the middle of the pile. Something odd drew Zavier in to give it a closer look. The big metal box was sitting on something familiar. The longer he squinted, the more clearly he could see through the haze, looking at the wreckage until he realized it was a squished human under the big metal box—one of his security guys.

  Zavier gasped, pulling in a lungful of dust. He took an unintentional step back, tripping over his brother. The moan was louder now, almost a cry. “Michael, wake up. Michael, I need you,” Zavier yelled, shaking his brother. There was a new sound in the air. Not of moaning or crashing bricks settling into position. It was a growl. A low bark. The sound of Grays. Zavier studied the dust-filled street, straining to see past the sidewalk he’d landed on.

  A Gray came darting out of the haze. Zavier shouldered his shorty rifle and fired into the creature, putting three rounds into its upper chest and one final round into its ugly face as it landed with a thud beside him. Zavier turned to find the moaning that had turned into a painful cry. It was Grumpy; his legs were pinned under a slab of concrete.

  “Help me!” Grumpy pleaded.

  But looking at the size of the concrete, Zavier knew he’d never be able to lift it.

  Another Gray charged in. Zavier ventilated that one as well. The more Grumpy cried out, the more Grays came. The more Zavier shot, the more they came. “Michael!” Zavier cried, reaching down and slapping his face, trying to wake him up. He knelt over his brother in a protective straddle. In between gunfire bursts, he screamed for Michael to wake up, slapping him harder.

  “Shut up!” he yelled at Grumpy. He knew the man was in pain, but the sound of a wounded human was drawing the Grays in faster than he could shoot. Zavier was reaching a level of fear he’d never experienced before: a fear for his brother, a fear of not knowing what to do, and a fear of being bitten by a Gray, not to mention his dad was also in trouble. A sinister thought briefly came to mind as he turned around, pointing his rifle at the wounded man, his uncommitted finger hovering outside the trigger guard. But instead of silencing Grumpy, he climbed up the rubble to him and handed him a rifle that had landed just beyond his reach. “We need to fight them off!” Zavier said, pointing down the street.

  The scenery of the village street had changed dramatically from a few minutes ago: Every building on the right side of the street had completely collapsed. Cars had been flipped over and were now on fire, spewing thick black smoke into the sky. Where the storm drains had once been were now huge smoldering craters. The road was completely unidentifiable.

  He slid back down to his brother and gripped his shirt, attempting to drag him, but being only eight years old, he didn’t have the strength. He was budging him only an inch at a time when two more beasts charged through the dust. Zavier emptied his magazine into one, made the fastest reload of his life, and put five rounds into the second before the empty mag fell, bouncing off Michael’s face.

  “Ow. That hurt. Get off me, squirt.”

  “Michael, you’re awake!” he cried out with tears streaking down his dirt-covered face. “We need to go. Now. Can you get up?”

  Michael slowly rolled over, coming up to his knees, then fell over again, his head swimming with confusion and vertigo. Zavier was in continuous engagement, firing back and forth, shifting left and right, finding one sprinting target after another. Like horde waves on a video game, the Grays kept coming, faster and thicker. This was one game Zavier didn’t want to play to the end.

  On his hands and knees, Michael dug his own rifle out of the rubble, using it to help himself up. Standing on wobbly legs, his vision cleared as he grasped the severity of the situation they were in. “Zavier, we need to go!” He grabbed his little brother by the backpack and started tugging him backward up the inclined fractured roof.

  “Reloading!” Zavier yelled, running up to where Grumpy was pinned.

  “Go, kids, get out of here! I’ll cover you!”

  “What? Wait. No, we have to dig you out!” Zavier said, blasting another Gray.

  “You can’t. Even if you could free me, my legs are broken,” Grumpy yelled. “Give me another mag, and you boys get moving!”

  “Z, he’s right!” Michael said, shaking his head with wide eyes. “We need to go right now!”

  Down the street between the blown-out buildings, Grays were pulling themselves out from beneath the rubble. There were at least a hundred shapes taking form in the dust cloud that floated between the huge wreckage piles.

  Grumpy had started shooting into the incoming mass of Grays as Z and Michael
quickly climbed up the rubble pile. Michael stood at the edge, rubbed his eyes as he tried to focus through a fog of dizziness, and then leapt across a deep gap, landing on the roof of a one-story building. Right behind his brother, Zavier also made the leap, then turned around to see Grumpy load the last mag into his rifle as the swarm was almost upon him. Zavier’s conscience was torn; they couldn’t leave him like that. Michael yanked Zavier’s arm, pulling him toward the fire escape, and screams of pain echoed off the surrounding buildings as Grumpy was attacked by hundreds of infected teeth.

  Sliding down handrails had always been fun, until today. Zavier landed hard in the alley, almost stumbling into a trash can. He looked left, then right. “Let’s go!” he yelled to Michael, who was still coming down the fire-escape stairs. He obviously hadn’t recovered fully from being unconscious.

  Zavier grabbed his hand. “This way, hurry!”

  Stealth had always been their best defense, but right now they needed speed and diversions. While running at full speed toward the end of the alley, Zavier reached down, swiping up a couple of loose rocks. His brother, stumbling to catch up, suddenly stopped, quickly looking both ways for a clearing as he spewed into the crossroad. Z took his slingshot out of his back pocket, loaded a rock, and sent it flying high down the alleyway. Just as Michael had caught up to him, Grays began spilling off the rooftops. They had been spotted, but some of them went the opposite direction as the rock projectile bounced off several dumpsters and trash cans.

  Michael raised his rifle to shoot, but Zavier pulled him toward the sidewalk. “Come on, we need to run!” At the next alley, they changed direction, hoping to lose the pack, and continued to zigzag through streets and alleyways, changing direction several more times as Zavier continued launching rocks behind them, hoping to hit a window, trash can, or anything that would make a clatter.

  Michael kept coughing up dust and blowing snot rockets out his nose, but he must have been feeling better, because he finally began to outpace his little brother. They were exhausted; their lungs were on fire, burning with every gasp of air; their muscles ached and threatened to cramp, yet they kept running as fast as they could. If they hard pointed in a building too soon, they would have been swarmed by Grays. It only takes one nearby creature to spot you sneaking into a hiding spot to ruin it. After several blocks of changing directions, they seemed to have lost the swarm.

  Noticing an open front door to a house across the street, Zavier pointed and ran straight for it, bounding up all five porch steps at once. They ran down a musty hall with their rifles up, ready to blast anything that jumped out at them. They rounded a corner into a foul kitchen, then opened a sliding door into the back yard. Michael sprinted across the backyard to the tall wood-plank privacy fence. He squatted down with his back against the fence and clasped his cupped hands in front of him.

  “I’ll give you a boost. Hurry!” he said.

  Zavier put one foot into his brother’s cupped hands as he lifted him by standing upright and thrusting his hands upward at the same time. Zavier almost flew over the wall, but he grabbed hold of the top just in time to steady his fall. Michael chicken-winged the top of the fence, flopped a leg over, then rolled, landing on the other side.

  “Up there!” Zavier said, pointing toward a backyard tree house. “We’ll be off the ground and will be able to see what’s coming.”

  They quickly climbed the rickety wooden ladder—ignoring the “Zeke and Julie’s tree house: STAY OUT!” sign—up through a tight hole in the floor, quietly shut the hatch, and then collapsed in the safety of a ten-foot-high tree house. Zavier looked around while lying on the floor, breathing heavily. It was probably the coolest fort he’d ever seen. He felt a sense of security being elevated, and it had a feeling of familiarity that reminded him of his old tree fort back home. But at the moment, he didn’t enjoy the tree house. He only wanted to go home.

  “We need to figure out were we are,” Michael said after a few minutes of catching their breaths.

  “What happened back there?”

  “I don’t know. I shot the propane tanks. Next thing I know, you’re on top of me. My face hurts; did you slap me?” Michael asked, holding his jaw.

  “I was really scared, Michael. They’re dead. They’re both dead. And I thought you were dead too,” Zavier said, looking down, beginning to sob deeply. “I almost shot Grumpy because he wouldn’t be quiet. I tried to drag you, but you’re too heavy. I thought we were going to get bit and turn into monsters. They got Grumpy in the end. Maybe I should have shot him.”

  “Grumpy is a hero. He saved us. And so are you,” Michael said, trying to comfort his brother.

  Zavier surprised Michael by hugging him. For the first time in their lives, they embraced each other in a heartfelt, emotional hug.

  “I was so scared, Michael. And Dad’s in trouble too. I heard a firefight over in that direction. Maybe we should go that way to find them. I really want to go home.” Zavier sniffled.

  “Dad said to stick to the plan no matter what. And what was the most important part of the plan?” Michael asked.

  “That we take care of each other and come home safe.”

  “And that’s what you did for me. And we’re going to stick to the plan just like he told us to. I lost my stuff, and your radio is busted. That means we initiate Plan B. When Dad doesn’t reach us on the radio and we’re not at the pick-up point, he’ll know we’re escaping and evading. We stick to Plan B so we can get home.”

  “OK. But which way do we go?”

  Michael sat up, then slowly raised his head over the windowsill until he could see out. He pulled a small compass out of his cargo pocket, shook it, tapped the lens, and put it away. “OK, if we’re not at the coffee shop, we’re supposed to go to the gas station, but we know there’s a hundred Grays in a hunting frenzy back that way, so I vote we don’t do that. That means we need to go all the way to the third pickup point on the west side of town.”

  “Yeah, it’s the first farmhouse on Route 55 with a big yellow barn at the edge of the village,” Zavier said helpfully.

  “Correct. At the edge of this backyard, there’s a stream running toward the west. Looks like we can use the stream bank to sneak most of the way there. What do you think?”

  Zavier nodded his head.

  “You didn’t answer my question: Did you slap me?” Michael asked again.

  Zavier wiped the tear streams and snot hanging from his nose away, then looked up with a guilty grin. “Maybe. Maybe a couple times. By the way, I won the bet. I get your dessert tonight.”

  “Not fair; I was unconscious.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I shot more Grays than you did. A bet is a bet.”

  They hid in the tree house for another half an hour, looking out for Grays that could be heard howling through the streets. When Grays caught wind of or set their beady eyes on a human, they whipped themselves into a frenzy. Zavier and Michael had done just that, making this horde extremely dangerous. They took their time eating a couple of snacks that Zavier had brought in his backpack along with a bottle of orange-flavored water.

  When it seemed to be clear, they slipped down from the tree house and scurried across the yard into the stream. Water flowed through the stream about shin-deep, making each step slow but quiet. If it had begun to rain, they’d be in trouble, because the steadily flowing stream had cut a head-high crevice into the soft soil, which if flooded, would be terribly hazardous.

  For now, the shrub-lined crevice with sporadic clumps of trees provided perfect concealment for their escape. Zavier, with his AR, was walking point, and Michael, with only his bolt action, walked rear. They stopped often, whenever a strange noise was heard or when they crossed a clearing. The original plan had them linking up at the third pickup point right at dusk. Which meant they had all day to get there. No need to hurry.

  Even by taking their time and having to low-crawl through the stream at some points where the ravine shallowed, they still made it to Route 55 by n
oon. The farmhouse was on the other side of the road, so they decided to slither through a slime-filled culvert instead of going over the road. They plopped out of the tube like turds into a toilet bowl, landing in a chest-deep marsh. Zavier’s boots sank into the mud, causing him to lose balance and fall over into the nasty-smelling gunk. Michael lifted his foot, losing a shoe to the muck’s suction.

  On their elbows, they crawled free of the swamp mud onto solid ground. Looking back on Route 55, they could view the still-smoldering village. A simple walk in the park had turned into a nightmare. Zavier decided right then; he never wanted to visit this village again. He turned to face toward the farmhouse with its large yellow barn which had its big wooden doors open. Deep within the shadows was a familiar pickup truck waiting for them.

  “Michael, look! They’re here. Let’s go!”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. There could be Grays in the woods over there. Let’s not just run out in the open and get ourselves tackled right before the end zone.”

  They took their time crossing the expansive front yard. Michael would walk slowly toward a tree, then kneel next to it, looking around. Once he established it was safe, Zavier would do the same thing, slowly leapfrogging forward. As they got closer, he noticed their dad in the hayloft covering them with his scoped rifle. When they finally made it inside, Victor came down to greet them. He walked up to them with sad, knowing eyes. He could sense what had happened, and his heart ached. He blamed himself for putting them in danger.

  “Grumpy and Deuce?” he asked.

  Michael shook his head. Zavier looked down.