David runs and knees a thin zombie in the torso taking it down, all its ribs shatter easily like glass. Swings at its friends behind it like a maniac. He then flattens the thing’s head with his boots. The sodden soil around it becomes muddy laced with blood.
Phillip switches his bat for the axe and crowbar in his duffel bag, he then walks up to his first zombie and lets it bite his crowbar. The zombie’s nose is missing, flies buzz in and out of the dark hole in its head. Its jaw snaps shut around the hot metal and the zombie doesn’t take its bloodshot eyes off of Phillip. The flesh around the zombie’s spinal cord is nonexistent, turning it into a walking filleted fish. Within a few seconds, Phillip pulls the zombie forward and downward and cuts its head off with a swoop of his axe. Phillip’s fingernails dig deeper in the handle of his axe as he catches his breath.
Phillip moves further away from David to find his next prey. With his right hand, he swings the crowbar downward diagonally through a rambunctious zombie, starting with the shoulders and down through to the zombie’s gut, knocking off half its torso. Its head and one arm flutter on the ground. Phillip pierces the eye socket with the crowbar and it remains there while he proceeds to swing his axe like a baseball bat, cutting off heads left and right. Phillip notices his long sleeves stained with human filth and dust as he thinks about wiping his face with his arm. “My ass.”
David grabs his shield, turns his head, and looks to his right to check on Phillip. Beads of sweat soak into his eyes making him squint and he has to wipe his eyes with the heel of his hand. Immediately during, a zombie grabs David’s shield with both of its hands, and lunges for his neck like a wolf. David’s machete is custom like his shield; it has a long blade fitted with a brass-knuckled grip. Zombie nails crack as they try to dig into David’s shield. He punches the zombie in the face, knocking its teeth out in a single blow, with the second, he knocks the head backwards, it doesn’t quite fall off, but dangles upside down. David then cuts into the zombie’s knee, dropping the dead weight, and finally smashes its head with his shield’s sharp edge in ecstasy.
Phillip is in a fight with two zombies at once. In one swing, he cuts two arms off from different bodies. Then dodges and ducks under a bite. Turns around with a backhand swing, cuts a zombie’s head in half, right above its black lips. And for the confused one arm zombie, Phillip jumps towards it and drives his axe downward on the top of its skull. The axe is so deep he has to put his foot on the fallen zombie’s stomach to pull out his axe. Phillip looks up and notices a stealthy zombie approaching David’s back as he drives down his shield on a zombie’s engorged throat. Phillip makes a quick decision and aims for the zombie’s back. He tosses his axe with both hands in a hunching forward position, the axe spins in the air and drills into the back of the zombie’s head and the creature falls down to its left. David steps backwards and crushes the zombie’s face without spotting it.
David rises up from the ground and slashes a zombie on his left, in half vertically, from its groin to its face. After, David strides forward, swiftly bends his knees and swipes his machete, cutting two zombies in half simultaneously that are huddle close enough to kiss.
Phillip springs by, quickly picks up his crowbar covered with raw flesh, and upwardly spears a few zombies in the nose. He yells over his shoulder. “David, are you okay?”
“Yeah. No prisoners, right?”
There are only two zombies left, one for each man. Loose limbs hide the ground.
David’s shield has various shades of blood on it. Phillip’s gloves are soaked with ooze from the ageless intestines. He flicks his wrists with his weapon tucked in his armpit.
David drops his machete down on the ground on purpose and grabs his knife from his belt, which also has a handgun equipped on it. He waits for the zombie to get close, staring it in the eyes the whole time. David stabs and guts it, then thrusts the blade upwards into its chin. Meanwhile, Phillip stabs his last zombie with his crowbar through the mouth. He then grips the other end from the back of its head and yanks towards him through the zombie’s cheek. There is no pain or change in the zombie’s eyes as it reaches for Phillip’s shoulders on its way to the ground.
After the adrenaline subsides, the men look around and start to perceive what they just did in under a few minutes. Zombies lay sprawled in various degrees of dismemberment. A sense of pride and relief washes over them.
Phillip takes off his shirt, squeezes all the blood, sweat, and tears from it like a gym towel. “Now that was a master class in ass whipping.”
David says as dribbles his shield to clean it. “Phillip, what’s that new name you came up for these things, again? Cold blooded bastards, bogies, quasi-humans?”
Phillip leans over and shakes out the flesh from his hair. “Pendejos, or dumbasses.” He smiles.
David laughs and looks around to make sure. “There were only a few of these things, why did that pendejo Jude on the periscope look out, sound the alarm?”
Phillip says. “Trust me, I’ll find out. Communication officer my ass.” He and his friend ran outside to protect the one entrance/exit.
The clouds part and the sunlight beams reflect on David’s shield, shining on Phillip’s face. Phillip looks down. “Shit. Your shield’s hurting my eyes.”
David flips his shield. “Oh.”
Both laugh as they kick the bodies to one side, then David stops and observes past Phillip’s face. In the distance, motorcycles speedily approach.
“What’s wrong David?”
“I think they saw the light from my shield or this crowd of people hanging out in the desert.” He kicks a head in.
Phillip says. “Bastard. I knew the new guy was bad news.” He turns and looks into the horizon with squinty eyes.
David crouches down. “It’s probably just a random scouting party.” David grabs his solar walkie-talkie from his belt. “Code Red, Code Red, lock up Paul. And nobody leave the God damn bunker.”
Phillip yells and steps towards David. “Tell them to kill Paul.”
“Not yet, he might be useful.” David puts his shield on his back; the contour of it allows him to run with comfort. Phillip gathers the bag and collects the weapons. The bunker does not have a visible front door only a staircase that leads down to it, that a person can only see if standing on the stairs, like a storm shelter door outside of a home.
“What do we do now, David? More might be behind them.”
“We have to lead them away from our friends, hopefully they’re only stragglers and hopefully they’ll follow us.”
Phillip says. “That’s a lot of hope my friend.”
David releases the clip from his gun and counts the bullets. “We’re the only hope for our community. Ride towards the tree line and don’t stop, the forest is dangerous and is our best bet. If we get split up, head north up the river. Like old times.”
Phillip slips his shirt back on; he has torn the sleeves off. “David, have I ever told you, that you’re like a brother to me?”
David’s eyes shift to the top corner to remember. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Well, if we survive this, I will. Godspeed.”
“Nice shirt, pendejo.”
Both men run for their lives and for the lives beneath their feet. David pulls off the yellow tarp concealing the two vehicles. He and Phillip both have solar powered dirt bikes made by GAI, the same company who manufactured their bunker. The mysterious men on the bikes proceed to follow them into the light.
3
Phillip awakens in his suburban home in the morning to discover his wife making a racket in the kitchen alongside her friend looking for something in every cupboard. Pairs of doors are open above and below her. Cardboard boxes are stacked on countertops.
Maria’s friend Sarah chuckles when she sees Phillip walking on the cold linoleum in the hallway towards her. “Maria, look what you did, you woke your hubby up.” Maria rolls her eyes, squats down, and sticks her head through cabinets. “We’re in the honeymoon phase, he’
ll forgive me.” The women are in their twenties, have on sweatpants and baggy shirts.
Phillip rubs his eyes. “The coffee machine is still in the boxes that we haven’t unpacked.”
Sarah smiles and tick-tocks her finger. “Close, but no cigar.”
Phillip yawns, staring at the ransacked living room. “Maria, if whatever you’re looking for is for me, don’t worry about me. I have to meet a client for breakfast, before he’ll train with me, these celebrities and their demands.” He heads for the shower with his eyes closed, hoping his home will be a legitimate home after work.
Sarah says as she slides her way to the fridge in fuzzy slippers. “Have I seen him in anything. This new client?”
Maria’s head is in a cabinet and Sarah can only see her red nails. “His name’s Tom something, he’s a short action hero who’s always running in his movies. I can’t remember his name…”
Sarah grabs a spatula for a microphone and is singing and dancing to a song playing on her phone. Maria bangs her head. “Girl, stop distracting me. That’s going to leave a knot.”
Sarah waits until she hears the shower water before she talks about Phillip. “Do you think he minds me staying here for a while?”
Pots and pans are clanging; Maria gives up the search and starts to make bacon and eggs with the teapot on the burner. “He doesn’t mind, but you can’t stay here forever. I’m not your mama.” Sarah says. “Girl, I think Phillip wants me.” She looks at Maria with a poker face as she drinks her pulpy orange juice.
Maria cracks an egg, and then purses her lips. “Girl please, Phillip doesn’t want you, while he has all of this.” She waves her hand down her body and moves her hips like a belly dancer. Both women start laughing ignoring the burning bacon.
Smell of grease is in the air and Phillip comes out the bedroom dressed in athletic wear and in a hurry, to find the women snuggling on the one couch and watching the news about a wreck downtown. “I’ll see you two love birds later.”
Maria says over one shoulder. “Good luck, make sure you didn’t forget anything.” Phillip is out the door before she can finish her sentence. “He forgot something.”
During the commercials, Sarah gets up and heads for the bathroom. “It’s time to beautify. I need to find a man or job today. Running out of money isn’t pretty.”
Maria flicks through the channels with a hand on her belly. “You have too much energy. How about we use that to find you an apartment today. Or you can always move back with your parents. Bwahaha.” Her evil laugh is spot on.
Sarah laughs then says. “Don’t play like that. Besides, who would you talk to all day, if I left?”
“I’ll manage.” Maria turns and pops her head up when Sarah doesn’t respond. “Hey, don’t lock the door, I need to get something in there.”
“Perv.”
Maria waits until the next commercial, the Curio chase on the freeway is just too fascinating, she takes her dishes to the sink and finally turns on the burner for the tea. “I can’t wait until Phillip gets home to clean this place up.”
Sarah is singing in the shower and the steam is rising when Maria opens the door and steps into the fog. She looks at the curtain for a moment and smiles thinking about flushing the toilet.
Maria gets her toothbrush and is about to use it when Sarah immediately stops singing. “Sarah, I know your singing’s bad, but you don’t have to stop for little oh me.”
She waits for Sarah’s response, and then starts again. “You okay? Is this about you know who, you’re better off.”
Maria walks up to the shower curtain with her toothbrush still in her hand. Before she can pull the curtain back, Sarah comes at her through the sheet, ripping it off the hooks and falling on top of Maria. The shower rod spins in the air like a helicopter rooter and shatters the window. Sound amplified.
Maria is screaming on the floor, she sees a tight and define silhouette of a head trying to bite her through the cloth, making gurgling sounds. Sarah’s red lips and brown eyes pierce through the clear plastic shower curtain. Soapsuds wash the slick bathroom floor. The women slide side-to-side.
Maria puts one hand on her best friend’s ear and shoves it with all her strength into the toilet bowl. Sarah falls between the toilet and tub as Maria crawls away; she gets to the doorway and stands up, panting soaking wet.
Maria catches her breath and turns around as Sarah runs through her. She pushes and pins Maria against a wall in the hallway. “Why?” Maria has to put her left elbow in Sarah’s throat to stop the teeth chomping through the hole in the curtain. Breath smells of her last meal.
This skinny person is as strong as her husband. Maria shoves her back, the woman behind the curtain is finally revealed, it’s still her friend. Both women slide down the walls.
With her forearm, Maria thrusts Sarah away, feet screeches on the linoleum, and immediately stabs the handle of her toothbrush into her best friend’s eye, slowing her down. This gives her enough time to get behind Sarah, grab her hair, and push her head into the wall, driving the toothbrush through the brain like a stake. Sarah’s nude body collapses and falls to one side. One eye is looking up. Maria has blood all over her hands; she eyes her phone down the hall on the kitchen wall. “I’m sorry.”
The teapot is whistling, the burner is as red as Maria’s hands. Phillip comes in the house. “I can’t stay, I forgot the directions. Later.”
Maria screams. “Phillip.” His stomach drops at the intensity of her voice. He steps into boxes and slingshots himself around the dark corner. Maria’s pajamas are soaked through with water when she gets up and she is shaking like she has hypothermia.
He dashes through the hallway as white as a ghost, and first sees Sarah’s body on the ground and Maria standing with the help of the bathroom doorframe. Phillip stands there in the hallway with both of his hands on separate walls with a scared look on his face; he quickly looks at the floor between Maria’s legs and says. “The baby.” Maria’s pajama pants have blood on the groin.
Phillip picks her up like a bride crossing a threshold and runs with her to their car. She feels cold. Maria is crying into his chest. “Phillip, she attacked me, she tried to kill me and our baby. So I had to kill her.” Phillip lays her in the backseat. “Relax…don’t worry. I believe you.” Slams the back door, scaring the neighbor watering the lawn.
4
Earlier, before Phillip and David fought the zombies on the surface. David picks up Phillips’s daughter Abigail on his way through the doorway, and finds Maria and Ava, sisters, sitting and talking across from each other.
He kisses the little girl’s cheek then puts her down.
Maria says. “Hey, where did you find my little lady?” Abigail is four years old.
Ava says with minimum energy. “What do you want, David?”
David says. “Nothing, I just wanted to see what everyone was doing.”
A second later, David pretends to bite Abigail’s neck with two fingers like vampire teeth. She giggles missing her two front teeth then mimes him with short chubby arms. He circles her with a hand on top of her head.
Ava looks up at him then the door. “We’re trying to relax, now you know, now you can go.” David smiles, irritating Ava more.
Maria says. “Phillip should be around here somewhere, where else would he be?”
Ava says. “With a new lover.”
Maria says. “Ava, when are you going to give David the time of day?”
Ava says. “When I’m dead. He might be into that freaky shit.” Maria puts her head down and pretends to cry, Ava laughs in an ugly way as a comeback.
David says. “I intimidate her, I’m too much of a man for her. I can’t help it.” Him and Maria high five.
Ava says to David. “Get your own family.”
Maria can’t help, but smile watching David play with her daughter and ignoring Ava’s comments.
David looks up. “What, what happened? I’ll see you lovely ladies later.” Before he leaves, he walk
s behind Ava and pets the top of her head, then quickly jumps out of the way, as she swings at him. The little girl laughs and tries to hit David as well, he dodges both girls and runs out of the door into Paul and Jude. “Watch it. Dav…”
5
After hours of watching their backs through the terrain, the friends make it through the day killing a few loner zombies on their way to a hunting spot they know in the forest.
Phillip is poking his fingertips with his knife trying to get the wooden splinters out. “Ouch.”
David says. “Nerves are more sensitive the closer you get to skin level, that’s why paper cuts and splinters hurt like a-”
“Who asked you? Know-it-all.”
David’s eyebrows go and down like Groucho Marx. “Just saying.”
Phillip says. “You sure we shouldn’t have stayed behind.”
David says. “No one can get in from the outside without the jaws of life, besides Ava and Maria can handle themselves and the group. This is a passive aggressive strategy, so no one has to die.” David can tell Phillip is not convinced, so there is no point in beating a dead horse.
Time goes by.
Phillip says to David gathering branches. “BOLO (be on the lookout).”
“Always.”
Phillip says. “Save that false bravado for someone else.”
David returns and starts a fire under the moonlight.
“They might see the fire.” Phillip becomes worried.
“Who Nervous Nellie?”
“You know. They who want to eat your brains and they who want to put a bullet through them.”
David says. “I need it for a while, while I figure out which tree I can sleep in tonight. Besides, our backs are to this dead-end. I just realize there is so many phrases with the word dead in it as if that will make us like the idea more.”
“I’m dead ass tired.”
David leans one hand against the rock wall. “We’ll know if something or someone approaches.”
Genesis Virus Page 2
