by Javan Bonds
Looking over to my copilot, I fearfully shouted. “The children!” Before the sentence left my mouth, he was already up and moving.
“Just fucking kill me!” Priscilla yelled from her vertical perch, being carried away by several blunatics.
Trying to stay close with Devin, I could see her carriers were too far within the horde to be shot by the other residents. Just a few more steps up, she would be out of my sight. It pained me to do it, but I sent a three round burst of 5.56 from my M4 at her head. She would no longer have to worry about watching her body parts being slowly carved up and masticated.
More than one of the damn monsters couldn’t resist a free lunch. Priscilla’s carriers dropped her corpse and began ripping meat apart like starving orphans from Oliver Twist. Thank God I wasn’t able to see what I could distinctly hear. Somehow I was able to make out the sound of ripping meat over the cacophony of the catastrophic chorus cluster fucking my ears. Had I just committed murder?
Though it was the only merciful thing to do, I have to keep reminding myself that she’s now at peace and would be thanking me. Were Dr. Kevorkian’s patients thrilled getting what they sought? Was he able to sleep at night without their faces haunting him? One day, maybe I’ll have told myself that it was the right thing to do enough times, to believe it.
In the thick of battle, I couldn’t focus on the loss or the guilt. I begrudgingly continued scanning the mass of undead; looking for any poor souls I could assist. Thankfully, I didn’t find any.
Glancing back, I noticed my girlfriend, Amy, right on my six. We hung close enough to the wall to be safely clear of incoming fire from behind us. Well, unless one of the friendly shooters inopportunely takes this moment to start having some kind of a seizure.
There was one more level and an empty store before we reached the kids behind the security cage. Peevies had pulled back the thin fencing nearly to the point one could squeeze through. Maybe none of them were willing to slice themselves to ribbons on the severed steel. They were just ignoring the food trapped in the box when prepared meals presented themselves out in the open. Those inside were safe, at least as long there were tastier dishes set out like a July 4th picnic! Damn the fates!
☠☠☠
Two of the children, Arya, and Nyobi, whose names we learned later, clung to the inside of the damaged security gate. Arya, the younger girl in the farthest corner from us was able to glimpse our approach. She looked back to the others. “Someone’s coming!” she screamed. She immediately began worming her way out of the ragged opening.
“Help us, help us!” she was yelling at us but before she made it halfway through, a sharp piece of metal gashed her leg. She wasn’t the only one to immediately notice the cut.
The kid squealed and launched herself back into the store. She was now protected by the security gate, with a gaping hole in it. The injury was on her lower thigh just above her left knee. It ran like a faucet. Even before being pulled to the back of the store, I could see her sock starting to become soaked in blood.
Peevies hooted and howled in delight. A fresh plate of veal had been served! When they turned as one to face the store, the three of us started unloading on the ones leading the charge. Our backup thankfully and wisely decided to stop shooting and move up. Either that or they just ran out of ammo. Our rate of fire decreased to that of only three rifles. The ebb in the number of rounds being sent at the enemy would decide the battle.
Emptying mag after mag, we weren’t able to stem the tide. Zombies continued rushing at the improvised entrance. Finally, the three of us simultaneously dropped our rifles on slings, closing on the horde.
Time for a brawl!
Two of us were both able to keep some distance from the blunatics. Devin was equipped with his logging chain, and I had my bullwhip. Amy, though, had to get up close and personal to stab and slice with her katana and sai. For some reason, there was a sense of calm watching my girlfriend move into a massive undead herd. Unsure why but I knew she would come out of it alive.
As she came beside me, ready to charge forward, I smacked her leotard covered ass. “You ready for this?”
Smirking, she pulled both sais from their holsters. “Totally!”
Before she could start slinging blood, my copilot was slamming his heavy metal whip into the peevies nearest the ripped open security door. He wasn’t lassoing beasts, but merely slamming links into them. Several were knocked unconscious and surely received brain hemorrhages while others received broken legs or hips. His chain was sent flying at one of the monsters moving to the hole. Solid steel impacted the side of the skull which broke open behind the ear, sending blood and grey matter trailing. The airborne animal came to a crashing heap against the cage, angled far from its intended destination.
My weapon must have been magically augmented by The Tech. The whip didn’t simply lash targets, they just exploded upon impact. The unexplainable genius of Gene Stanley turned a tool used to corral livestock, into a device of deviant death!
The whip snapped in my hand, slamming into a former human that was running on all fours. When it was struck just below the ribs, meat and blood plumbed from the wound. For the briefest of seconds, I was certain I could see inside the gash before crimson began squirting for several feet. The yellow-eyed creature collapsed in screaming agony. For all the unbelievable horrors of living infected, the fact that they are susceptible to pain is the one good thing when comparing them to classical reanimated shamblers. Why do they have to be so damn fast though?
With Landers standing at my left and both the weapons only being projected straight in front of us, Amy had a pretty wide field to loose gallons of infected blood. She jumped forward, extending her folded knees in front of her. She landed a blow into the crotch of a peevie. It had just stopped and turned to see the blonde girl in a red suit flying at it.
An instant after rotating, Elektra’s knee came in contact with pelvic bones. Two sickening crunches could be heard before she drove the beast down. Lifting a three-pronged sai with her right hand, she slammed it into the bridge of the nose. The body of the creep went rigid as both eyes and nose were all simultaneously pierced. Amy launched up, ready for more.
Until this point, I had not realized our backup had moved forward, fighting the monsters hand to hand. They were slashing enemies with their machetes, stabbing at them with hunting knives, or simply beating them to mushy detritus with the butts of their rifles.
Brittle, malnourished bones of the starving cannibals splintered and shattered under each brutal slam from the defenders. Regardless of the heavy amount of protective denim, flannel, and leather, every single Guardian became infected; one after another. It grew obvious when zombies suddenly and visibly ignored each defender. Speaking volumes of each man’s character, they continued fighting.
One of the fighters fought valiantly until the end. I later found out from Neal that he was John Carter, the brother of Chris Carter who had just died in the crossfire incident. As he fought, the open mouth of a nudist caught just inside John’s glove as he struck it with a billy club. Filthy teeth pierced his skin and tore open the radial artery so cleanly he barely noticed any pain. When the glove began filling with blood, he cleared the crimson enough to make out what happened.
John was a doomed man who knew the score and that there was little time. Charging into the horde of monsters, he slammed his club into every beast he could reach. He used his gushing hand to stab and slice into the backs of the revenants completely overlooking him, and kicked in blue knees or smashed infected toes into oblivion. It was easy to see that John was growing weaker by the second with the fountain of blood shooting from his glove.
He made it just to the right of the line of my bullwhip. He got a glimpse of the innocents still protected in the store, and smiled like his death would now mean something. I also learned later that his nieces and nephew were behind the cage. He could now die in peace thinking he’d saved his brother's children. Turning back into the swarm, he let
out a final war cry and launched his weakening body at the coming blue wave, disappearing in the horde. Though John did nothing to save anyone that day, I was glad he was satisfied in his final moments.
I watched as my girlfriend in the Elektra outfit moved through the horde. Her fluid and precise motions were almost hypnotizing. Severed blue limbs pouring gallons of stinking, infected blood lay all around her. Her sai flew impossibly fast, leaving several sets of three small punctures in multiple reanimated corpses. She wasn’t in direct line with the opening of the store, and the amount of blunatics between her and the cage meant that she was in no immediate danger. I wasn’t sure if she couldn’t hear over the hungry howling of zombies rushing the security door. It could have been the wailing of humans already infected, or the death rattles of the eviscerated infected she left in her wake, but she seemed completely ignorant of the double ought buckshot booming from within the store.
Unless the shooter had some sort of chain fed, automatic shotgun, I wish he would have stuck the barrel through the damn hole. Sending rounds through the mesh was only giving the peevies more possible entries! With the thin fencing being obliterated, it was easy to see the fight was surely being lost. It was sickening to even think the blue team was going to be victorious yet again. Even with their ever dwindling numbers, there was nothing we could do.
Glancing over to my downtrodden copilot my body temperature immediately rose. I could see only defeat in his mournful stare. “Why the fuck? There’s nothing we can do?”
Devin didn’t answer; he only clenched his jaw and continued hammering zombies with his logging chain. Maybe it was supposed to be. Perhaps the one survivor from the catastrophic losses would eventually make it all worth it.
☠☠☠
During our trip back to Guntersville, over the roar of the plane engine, Neal told me a little more of his story.
“The group from the portico was being decimated. I moved back until I was against the wall you and Landers were standing against. The crazies were interested in all the idiots standing around. At least until they bit them. So I decided to move up to you guys before the peevies bit everyone and started looking elsewhere. Of all the survivors, over half of them continued fighting. Everyone else stood around crying, and otherwise being worthless. How would most people react upon being given just a few hours to live?
More bitten defenders than I could count shortened their eight hours, either with pistols or hunting knives. Tom Marvin and Dan Telfer put a revolver in their mouths and pulled the trigger. Wrapping their lips around the barrels, their heads simply evaporated from above the lower jaw. It must’ve had something to do with the pressure. There wasn’t even a gory explosion. Bone, blood, brains, and every other fluid in the cranium simply turned into pink mist.
Sadly I had to watch my first acquaintance of the Crossroads Mall, Jim Glenn, place a sawed-off shotgun under his chin and pull both triggers. The sheer horror of the scene will haunt me forever.
Paul Carnegie, Kirby Richard, along with several others made their suicides a more spectacular event. Placing revolvers or semi-automatics to their temples, they mumbled out a few final words before squeezing their triggers. Instantly upon entering the brain casing, the bullet liquefied grey matter upon contact. A large chunk of skull surrounding the entry violently separated from the rest of the head and crashed to the hard floor, several feet away. Watery remains leaked out of the entry and gaping exit wounds created less than a heartbeat later. These explosions gruesomely destroyed half of the upper head. A half-moon of the destroyed cranium flew in all directions. Hearts continued pumping blood to brains that no longer rested inside skulls. A growing pool of crimson on the floor only added to the macabre scene in the Crossroads Mall.
I’ve always heard women don’t like to kill themselves with firearms, but instead choose to slit their wrists or to swallow pills. You know something dramatic and poetic. Alina Ionescu, Annie Palone, Melody Barnhart and bunch of other women in the group sank to their knees in tears and sliced deep, vertically. Holy shit, these bitches were hard-core! I don’t know if any of them were experienced, but you could literally see the fucking bone and tendons in the wrist of a couple of them. They sat up with their backs against the wall, rested hands on knees palms up, and simply grew weaker until finally, the gushing faucet of their wrists became slow trickles. Almost all the ladies smiled; glad it was finally over as they faded away.
After watching multiple individuals kill themselves in rapid succession, I attempted to shake it off and keep my sanity. Moving up to your backs, I could plainly see that any of the defenders left alive were infected, or at least on their way out. Most of the fighters made sure it would be with a bang.
Without speaking to you or Landers, I stepped up on your right and lifted the pistol from my hip. My only melee weapon was a simple hunting knife. It seemed wiser to keep my distance while I could. Leveling my aim, I started emptying the mag into the blue cannibals.”
☠☠☠
My girlfriend interrupted his story. “Like, you could have shot me!”
Smiling, he turned. “No. I made sure to keep the muzzle well away from you. I might be stupid, but I’m not that stupid.” Neal grinned.
She huffed. “For reals!” He only chuckled before getting back into his story.
☠☠☠
“As I fired, a round sank into a peevie’s malnourished gut, exited out the lower back, and entered another sunken belly. The first bastard collapsed; apparently, the spinal cord had been damaged. Its fellow, though, received the hot lead at a lower velocity. The bullet broke the abdominal wall and must’ve bounced around to destroy most of the digestive system. An excruciating pain would be its final memory.
Looking over to my right, I watched in awe as Amy jumped into the air, spinning like a tornado of steel and blonde hair. Her katana cleanly beheaded some of the taller monsters, and simply sliced open the craniums of shorter infected. Bodies continued moving forward while the tops of skulls popped up like cans of spoiled sardines. The mushy, rotten hamburger meat that came away with the lid spilled onto the floor. Brain casings held the majority of contents for a few more steps before the zombies realized something was missing. They looked up as if to be able to see the tops of their heads before falling over, dumping the rest of the cracked and scrambled rotten egg onto the floor.
I could see that the herd was thinning, but were somehow managing to keep pushing closer to the protected ones behind the fencing. From my angle, the mesh appeared to have been weakened so much by the friendly shotgun blasts, it would pose no real obstacle to any peevie. They had the numbers, all they needed was one uninterrupted rush to break through the security mesh, and have a box full of defenseless prey.”
☠☠☠
With Landers and Neal at either side, we started moving up. We had seen so much death that day, all we could think about was getting to the children. They knew we were coming, but couldn’t yet see us from within the cage, so the frantic wailing of the helpless little kids drowned out all other sounds. It was nearly painful to listen to the cries of children, who had barely begun to live, scream with certainty that they would soon be dead.
Calling to them would only bring more panic and we were almost within sight. Just before we could see the individuals in the store, Neal went flying forward, the wind knocked out of him. The pistol in his hand went flying behind him. Instantly, I noticed a blue figure, full-body tackling the survivor.
I spun on my heel and pulled the K-Bar from my belt. Noticeably out of the corner of my eye, Devin kept his feet planted, with his body facing forward. The demonic nudist had come from seemingly nowhere and was trying to rip the thick jacket from our new friend’s back. Strange thing was that it was acting so unthinkingly. Lately they had seemed more collected, planned, and prepared. To now see one now acting as if it were any other stupid animal nearly gave me pause, nearly.
In a flash, I slammed my blade into the base of the neck and drug it downwards. The animal
momentarily flailed before going slack and letting loose a final blackish foam from its weeping anus, leaking onto Neal’s pants and the floor. Good thing his camouflage jacket was waterproof, as thick, infected blood gushed over it and onto the floor. Brushing off the fresh cadaver, he rose, shaken after just being attacked. Thankfully not bitten he would certainly be changing pants before getting in my airplane!
Looking up, I could see the chain from Ghost Rider impacting an infected’s cranium. Deprived for so long of sufficient nutrients, the skull burst like a rotten cantaloupe. Pulpy, stringy juices rolled out, making a stomach-turning plop on the floor even before the body collapsed into a shitting pile. The thick, gelatinous liquid formed a pool under the leaking body.
Before I could again bring my wits to bear, or Neal could reach down for his lost handgun, the monsters began sleuthing through the broken security door. Landers was able to kill or immobilize some, but a few were able to get past his chain. Even if Amy noticed, or if I had called out to her, she wouldn’t have been able to make it the several feet and prevent the breach. Could Devin not have stopped this? I seriously wanted to fucking kill him!
☠☠☠
After the battle, I understood there could be many possibilities why he allowed this to happen. His eyes were downcast and his jaw was clenched; he knew what he had done. I will explain why my copilot allowed children to be murdered, don’t hate him yet. But you can bet your ass I did at the time!
☠☠☠
Three cannibals made it through the fencing in the blink of an eye. Our trio started running forward as I spat out my distaste. “Mother fucker!” Though I wasn’t looking at him, Devin surely knew my remark was directed his way. At least, I hoped so!
