“I can’t take much more of this,” he heard Rosie say beside him.
He felt her grip seem to weaken its hold around his arm.
He doubled his efforts to thread his way through the frenzied mob of humanity.
He heard a shot sing by his ear. He ducked. He had no idea if he was the target, but the proximity of the whining bullet to his ear suggested he was. He scanned the unruly crowd. Sure enough, he saw a Zone Zero soldier about fifty feet away taking a bead on him with an AR-15 automatic rifle.
Not that it surprised Halverson. After all, the leader of Halverson’s group had killed the soldiers’ leader Painter. Now the soldiers were retaliating.
Halverson held his head down and took cover behind a man to Halverson’s left who was, like Halverson, being propelled forward by the streaming, frantic mob.
After taking a dozen steps Halverson looked up again. To Halverson’s relief, he caught sight of a clawing hand clutch the hair of the soldier who had fired on him and jerk his head toward the hand’s owner. At the other end of the hand was a zombie’s gaping, bloody mouth awaiting its next bite of food. The zombie chewed off the soldier’s ear and crunched it between its sulfur yellow, carious, and broken teeth.
Dropping his AR-15 the soldier grimaced and screamed. He clutched the torn, bleeding stub of what used to be his ear.
Halverson kept plugging forward. The soldier’s actions confirmed what Halverson had already suspected. Not only did Halverson have to fight off the zombies, he had to keep a wary eye open for Zone Zero soldiers who had him and his group in their rifle sights.
“Watch out for the soldiers,” he told Tom. “They’re out to get even with us for Rogers’s blowup.”
“If we aren’t crushed first,” said Tom.
The surge of the crowd seemed to Halverson to be letting up somewhat. In any case, the crowd seemed less dense than it had been and hence it was less difficult for him to bob and weave through it now. Maybe he was finally extricating himself from this panic-stricken mob, he decided.
Finding a jeep was another story. None were in sight. It stood to reason, Halverson figured, that the people who had escaped the teeming masses before him had no doubt ripped off all the jeeps.
With one final lunge, Halverson sallied out of the pouring mob. He broke more or less clear of its hysterical momentum that was taking it to who knew where. It was true, he realized, that scattered people still milled around him, but each of them was headed in a different direction seeking his own way of escape from the zombies.
Now that Halverson wasn’t trapped in the serried crowd anymore, he could move without impediments. The question remained, where to?
Halverson spun around as he realized with a sinking feeling that Rosie wasn’t at his side. He scanned the environs searching for her.
He spotted her. Adrenaline shot through his system. Zombies were closing in on her the better part of twenty feet behind him.
She must have lost her grip on his arm from exhaustion or whatever and fallen behind, decided Halverson. Now the creatures were staggering toward her, hungry for her flesh. Their yawning mouths dripped with the fresh blood of humans the creatures had already consumed.
Halverson needed a weapon.
“Help!” Rosie shouted.
Halverson picked up on a discarded steel pipe that lay on the ground. It looked like it might have been used for one of the sections of pipe used as posts for the fence. The pipe was about ten feet long, he estimated.
He snapped up the pipe and bolted toward Rosie. The pipe was unwieldy, he realized. It was too long to be swung effectively like a baseball bat at the creatures. Still, it could be used as a weapon.
Maybe if he gripped the pipe in the middle, he decided, belting toward the zombies that were closing in on Rosie. By holding the pipe in the middle, he could swing it at two zombies at a time, he realized. He could attack a zombie in front of him and behind him simultaneously, inflicting damage on both of them.
Halverson signaled to Tom that Rosie was in danger.
Tom twigged the signal. He detached himself from Tanya. He sprang toward Rosie.
Halverson waded into the zombies. There were at least half a dozen of them by his count. He swung and jabbed the steel pipe at their putrescent heads.
Distracted by the blows, the creatures turned away from Rosie to focus their assaults on Halverson. He clubbed and battered their heads.
Tom charged into the fracas.
Weaponless, he could do nothing but use his feet to kick at the heads of the flesh-eating zombies.
The zombies stumbled around like punch-drunk fighters after being kicked in their heads. The zombies weren’t dead, but they were discombobulated. Their brains addled, they lost track of what they were doing and shuffled around aimlessly like senile old people with nothing to do.
That was all the time Tom needed. With Halverson taking on two creatures with his pipe, Tom darted into the center of the zombies, snatched Rosie’s wrist, and hustled her out of harm’s way.
Halverson thrust the end of the steel pipe into the cavernous mouth of one of the zombies. The pipe knocked the creature’s decrepit teeth out. The creature was wearing a delivery service’s brown uniform that consisted of a button-down shirt and short pants. Toothless, the thing jerked back from Halverson’s blow then resumed sidling after Halverson.
Halverson backed away. At least the creature would not be biting anyone anymore. Maybe it was as good as dead. How could it eat without teeth? Why was it eating anyway? Halverson wondered. It wasn’t even alive. These plague-infected creatures were clueless. Their befuddled reanimated brains were telling them to eat, so they ate.
“I got her!” Tom hollered at Halverson.
Pipe in hand, Halverson acknowledged him and retreated from the zombies.
Tom shepherded Rosie toward Tanya.
Halverson spotted a knot of zombies drifting in his direction.
“Let’s head for the darkness,” he told Tom.
“Maybe they can see in the dark,” said Tom.
“I doubt it. Not with those milky eyes of theirs.”
“For all the good it does us. We can’t see in the dark either.”
“But I’ve got these.” Halverson lifted the night-vision goggles that hung from his neck.
“Didn’t Painter take those away from you?”
“No. He only took away my guns.”
“The goggles might give us an edge in the dark.”
“I’m banking on it. Where we are now is too light. We’re still in the wash of those bright stadium lights.”
Tom nodded. “The creatures can see us as well as we can see them now.”
Halverson cut his eyes toward Tanya then back toward Tom. Halverson mouthed the words, “What’s wrong with her?” He nodded his head in Tanya’s direction.
She stood motionless at Tom’s side as if in a trance.
Tom gave Tanya the once-over. “She lost a lot of blood when she slashed her wrist.”
Halverson studied her face’s reaction to Tom’s words. It looked to Halverson like she had no idea what they were saying or could care less if she did understand them.
“She looks out of it,” said Halverson.
He stepped up to her. He waved his hand in front of her staring eyes. She didn’t react.
“I think her head’s still not right,” said Tom. “You know, she did try to waste herself. She probably needs a shrink.”
“We all need shrinks,” interrupted Rosie.
“To be honest, I don’t think she wants to go on living. I think that’s the main problem with her right now.”
“Can you blame her?”
Halverson checked out Rosie.
She was standing slumped over. Her face looked flushed.
“Are you OK?” he asked.
“Not exactly. I don’t feel so good.”
Halverson placed the back of his hand against her forehead. Her face was burning up. That explained her florid complexion, he decide
d.
“You’re on fire,” he said with concern.
“Maybe it was something I ate at Painter’s dinner.”
“Maybe.” Halverson wasn’t convinced. “Did one of those things bite you?”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Halverson inspected her body. He didn’t see any signs of wounds.
She said nothing.
Tom was standing on the other side of her. He inspected her back. As Tom ran his eyes over the back of her arm, Halverson noticed him react with a widening of his eyes to something on her upper arm just below the sleeve of her blouse.
“What?” said Halverson.
“Nothing,” said Tom.
Halverson ignored Tom’s response. He stepped over to Tom’s side. He eyeballed the bite mark. He didn’t see much blood, but black-and-blue teeth marks were clearly imprinted in Rosie’s flesh. Apparently, a creature had taken a bite of her but, for whatever reason, didn’t rip a chunk of her flesh out.
“Looks like a zombie bite,” said Halverson in a weary voice.
“But it didn’t eat any of her.”
“Seems not.”
“Maybe it didn’t like the taste of her.”
Tom’s attempt at gallows humor fell flat.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Halverson.
“How can you say that? It might mean she’s immune to them.”
“No, it doesn’t. I probably distracted the creature when I attacked. The creature didn’t complete its bite and went after me instead.”
“That means she’s not infected. You’re not infected unless a zombie takes a bite out of you.”
His face haggard, Halverson stared at Tom. “She’s got it, Tom. All it takes is zombie saliva to enter a person’s bloodstream, and that’s all she wrote.”
“Why do you think you know everything?” said Tom in annoyance.
“I don’t want to turn into one of those things,” whimpered Rosie.
She started sobbing.
“We don’t know for sure that she’s got it,” protested Tom.
“Why do you think she’s burning up with fever?” said Halverson.
“How do I know? I’m not a doctor. Maybe she needs a tetanus shot for the bite, the same as for a dog bite. And you’re not a doctor either.”
“She’s turning into one of them right now.”
“You can’t turn into one of them until after you die. That’s how it happens.”
“She is dying.”
“Don’t let me turn into one of those things,” she begged Halverson.
He had nothing to kill her with other than his bare hands. He could not face doing that. It would have been bad enough shooting her, but strangling her with his hands while he was looking into her face . . . He could not bring himself to do that. Yet if he didn’t, she would turn into a zombie. She was already infected. Her fate was sealed.
He thought about it some more. Strangling her would not be enough, he realized. He had to destroy her brain. Only the destruction of her brain would prevent her from becoming a zombie. He needed to put a bullet through her brain or smash it with some kind of club or rock.
“Please,” she implored him. She clutched his arm with both her hands.
“You just need a doctor,” Tom told her. “Don’t worry. We’ll get you to one.”
“I’d rather be dead than be one of those things,” she said, her voice breaking.
Crestfallen, Halverson hung his head. He could not make any sense out of this madness. It was easy for him to understand why Rogers had cracked up. They would all end up like Rogers if they didn’t die first or turn into zombies themselves. It was only a matter of time. The clock was ticking away their lives.
Halverson felt like he was suffocating. He had to make a decision. From all the evidence he had gathered at the Agency, he knew you did not have to die from a zombie bite in order for you to turn into a zombie. Once the plague pathogen was introduced into your bloodstream, you would inevitably become a zombie whether you died first or not. Those were the facts. There was no way around facts, he knew that.
He racked his brains trying to figure out what to do. No matter what he did, Rosie was screwed. She had but two choices left to her: die or become a zombie. He knew what she wanted.
Like it or not, he knew what he must do. He grimaced. It was sickening just thinking about it.
He realized he still had the steel pipe in his hands.
He thought about using it, but changed his mind when he spotted a rock garden off to his left. As he already knew, the pipe was too long to be swung as a club. He dropped the pipe.
He cut across the grass to the rock garden, noticed a rock a foot in diameter, and picked the rock up. He headed back to Rosie.
“Lie down,” he told Rosie softly.
She saw the look in his eyes and obediently lay supine on the ground. Terrified though she was she knew what had to be done. Quivering, she waited, her eyes shut.
Halverson gripped the rock in both of his hands.
“Hold her down so she doesn’t move,” he told Tom.
“What the fuck are you gonna do!” blurted Tom.
“I’m doing what has to be done.”
“Then you hold her down.”
“If I hold her down, you’ll have to kill her.”
“Fuck you!”
“Hold her down for Christ’s sake so she doesn’t move when I use the rock on her!”
Tom clutched his forehead. “How?”
“Sit on her chest and hold her arms so she doesn’t swing at the rock and ruin my aim.”
“I won’t,” she whimpered.
Halverson could not be sure of that. She might reflexively try to protect her face with her hands in self-defense.
“Where are you gonna be?” asked Tom.
“I’ll be in front of you,” answered Halverson.
Grudgingly, Tom sat on Rosie’s chest, grabbed her arms, and pinned them down to the ground.
“Don’t tell my family I died like this,” she said between sobs. “I don’t think they could bear to hear it.”
The granite rock in his hands, Halverson knelt down behind her head.
Halverson wasn’t sure he could do this. He raised the rock above her head.
“Don’t let her move her head,” he told Tom.
Disgusted with himself, Tom gritted his teeth in anguish.
“Tell them I died in the plane crash,” said Rosie, her eyes shut, her eyelids fluttering.
Halverson sucked in his breath. Squinting, unable to look directly at her face, he slammed the rock down on it. He felt bones crack under the rock’s impact with her flesh. Blood spurted out from under the rock and splashed the ground around her head.
But she was still alive. He could feel her moving her face beneath the rock.
“Get it over with for Christ’s sake!” said Tom, his face a mask of agony.
Hurriedly, Halverson raised the rock. He slammed it down again, as hard as he possibly could this time. He felt and heard her skull crushing beneath the rock. He also felt something soft caving in. More blood spouted from the sides of the rock.
Out of the corner of his eye he thought he detected her body moving.
He raised the rock and slammed it again into her face.
Tom could not stand it any longer. He leapt off Rosie’s stomach, bolted away, and promptly threw up.
Halverson realized Tanya had been standing next to them the whole time and watching the entire ordeal with an expressionless pasty face.
He felt for Rosie’s pulse in her wrist without looking at her.
Satisfied she was dead, unable to bring himself to look at the pulverized mush that was her face, he got to his feet and flung the rock away. His head averted from Rosie, he trudged off.
What the hell had he done? he wondered.
“What kind of a monster are you!” Tom screamed after him.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
They were running through the darkness down a deserted street.
Steel pole in hand, Halverson was leading Tom and Tanya. Tom was supporting Tanya as he struggled to run, propelling her awkwardly along with him. She felt disinclined to run, it was easy for Halverson to see, which made Tom’s job of helping her along even more difficult.
Halverson was wearing his night-vision goggles to see through the darkness that blanketed the neighborhood.
“We can’t keep up with you,” said Tom as he gasped for breath.
Halverson slowed his pace. “We need a car.”
“She doesn’t want to run,” said Tom. “I can’t keep hauling her along. It’s wearing me out. It’s like I’m carrying her full weight.”
“What does she want to do?”
“I don’t think she wants to do anything. She’s spaced out.”
“We need to get to the UCLA medical center. They’ll help her there and I can find my brother.”
“As long as we head south to Orange County afterwards so I can find my girlfriend. She must be shitting bricks now worrying about me.”
“Deal.”
Tom looked satisfied with Halverson’s answer.
Halverson saw zombies pouring into the road from a cross street. “Here they come again.”
“What?” said Tom quizzically. “I can’t see anything in this darkness.” He squinted, trying to see what Halverson was looking at.
“They’re up ahead and coming this way.”
Through his night-vision goggles, Halverson made out green shapes staggering down the unlit road in his direction. The sodium vapor streetlights were out. None of the buildings that lined the road were lit. A vast stretch of seamless darkness drenched everything.
“Can they see us?” asked Tom.
“I can’t tell. It doesn’t look like it. I doubt they have better eyesight than ours. If anything, it’s probably worse.”
“Then how come they’re headed this way?”
Halverson thought about it. “Maybe they can smell us.”
“Maybe they can sense blood like sharks.”
Halverson turned toward Tom. “What blood? Did you get bit?”
“No. Tanya’s wrist. There’s fresh blood in her bandage. Her wound must’ve opened up again. She seems weaker.”
“Wonderful.”
Zombie Apocalypse Page 23
