World of Ashes

by J. K. Robinson

  “Is that a tank?” Keith joked, poking Ethan and bringing him out of his staring contest with a zombie in what remained of the bar. All it could do was open its jaw and wiggle its fingers. The rest was bone and jerky.

  Ethan looked to his side and saw what Keith was pointing at. “No, that’s an ASV.” He said. “Look at the turret, it’s different than an Abrams or a Bradley. Also, it has tires.”

  “Huh. I guess I must have slept through US Tank Day during my Medic courses.” Keith shrugged. They crested a hill next to a collapsed parking garage, offering the platoon a better view of the overrun embattlements that had surrounded the Missouri State Capitol. It was like looking at the remnants of a Civil War battlefield no one had bothered to clean up, left for future generations to sift through like the remains of an ancient civilization frozen in time.

  “Jesus H. Christ.” Someone exclaimed, catching her first look at the war zone. Everyone rounded the block to view the capital building. The entire perimeter of the capitol parking lot was covered in Hesco Barriers and sandbag pillboxes with rusted machine guns laying exactly where the Soldiers and Marines had dropped them. Most were completely out of ammo. Whatever unit this had been stood their ground to the last man and the last bullet. The only question was, where did they go when the fight was lost? Were they all infected? Shambling off to attack more people, or did they have a chance to retreat? The more thought one put into the scene the more confusing it became, and more horrifying. Every man and woman in 1st Cav had their own story of survival, of coming face to face with the Undead. This was entirely too close to home.

  “This is really strange.” Ethan thought he said to himself.

  “Yeah, I know.” Ethan recognized the voice of the bearded master sergeant. “Why would anyone bother to make a last stand here? This is not the most defensible area. I’ve defended worse, but not by much.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Climbing up the side of an Armored Security Vehicle with Missouri Guard markings on the bumpers, Ethan pulled at one of the hatches. It was sealed. “You don’t think there’s a body inside, do you?” Ethan took a look around. He didn’t see any threats and decided to get on the radio, “John Law to Gomer Pyle.”

  Lee’s annoyed voice responded, “Real cute. Go ahead John Law.”

  “Thought I’d give a sit-rep. The capital’s parking lot is a fallen bastion. There’s a lot of unsecured military equipment out here, but most of its burned or rusted, break. We’re going to take a look inside… Place looks haunted.” Ethan didn’t know why he added the last part, but it was a perfect description. The world was populated by the undead and soon to be undead, and the only thing that gave him the willies was seeing the symbols of his civilization lie in tattered ruin.

  “Just remember we’re time sensitive here. Captain Pyle out.”

  “Wilco.” Ethan climbed off the ASV and motioned for First Platoon’s lieutenant to prepare to enter the capitol building. They could scavenge ammunition and medical supplies on their way out, right now he wanted as many hard-drives as possible. There would be no way to look at them for some time, but the next time they had contact with Texas they might be able to hand the drives over to them.

  The doors were locked and barricaded like a medieval castle, a pile of skeletal remains, charred and broken and undistinguishable from one another, washed upon the door like a tidal wave of still life death. Ethan flipped the selector switch to full auto, grateful he’d found more ammo for his M14. A full length rifle like his was not ideal for close quarters combat, but that was against people. Zombies weren’t shooting back around corners and a rifle with accuracy, knockdown power and range was ideal. Every step he took sounded like a bomb going off to Ethan as the boots of the Cavalrymen crunch over spent ammo and charred bodies. There was no way into the building from the front, and the arduous walk around the exterior, exposed on every flank, seemed to take forever. Ethan was the first one around the last corner, rushing around like he was clearing a building lest he hesitate. Ethan was almost knocked over by the rest of the men who followed him, all stopping in horror and awe of the scene before them. The courtyard behind the building was a warzone unto itself, frozen forever at the pinnacle of grotesque perfection.

  Remains of men and machines melted together, oil and infected blood and destroyed equipment ensured no grass would ever grow here again. Ethan struggled to understand the mechanics of such a scene, how the waves of men and zombies and armored trucks and guns and fire and more men and more zombies had all become an eternal, undefilable monument to the cruelty of fate. This was the Devil’s playground, her own personal Hell on Earth. (Because the Devil is a woman in a blue dress.)

  “Is that a Black Hawk?” Someone pointed to an overturned helicopter teetering dangerously on the edge of the courtyard, threatening to fall off the edge to the railroad tracks a good distance below.

  “We’re not going into the courtyard.” Ethan said. “There’s nothing back here we need.” The truth was he didn’t want to see who was in the destroyed chopper. Power lines were entangled in the bent rotors, and someone’s arm hung from an open door with corpses frozen in place piled all the way to the walls. The crash hadn’t been pretty, the bird not making it aloft fast enough as a swarm of raging monsters piled inside and dragged her down.

  The platoon sergeant pointed to the back door, which was propped open by skeletons wearing mottled body armor, brown and black rusted weapons in their hands. Had they been shot while still alive attempting to retreat inside? Zombies usually dropped whatever was in their hands when they reanimated, but these men had been deliberately killed. The entire scene wreaked of a Black Ops mission gone wrong, a Government run shit-storm that was no better for their interference than everything else they had done near the end. How terrible must the last few moments have been for these people, trapped between a wall of stone and a wave of death.

  Inside the capitol building the carnage continued. Ethan had long believed the scene he’d witnessed inside the caverns, and the other sites Newton had built, would be the worst thing he’d ever be forced to endure. The mad man’s lairs didn’t hold a candle to the no-man’s land inside the once great marble halls of the Jefferson City Capitol Building. The smell they unleashed was unbearable, the noxious gases of decay plumed out like gasoline vapors, probably just as flammable. Ethan snatched a cigarette out of a guy’s mouth and stomped on it. They retreated a few feet to a clearing, and after fifteen minutes of searching they could only come up with two ProMasks buried in under the radio operator’s spare socks. Since no one had a clean shaven face except for Ethan and the young soldier the older one had been helping back at the truck stop, they were by default chosen to go inside. Lucky Ethan.

  “You ready?” Ethan asked, his voice muffled by the mask.

  The kid nodded, “Yeah, is the mask supposed to smell like this?”

  “Like what?”

  “Cheap rubber McDonald’s toys.” The kid answered. “And I can still smell all the rot. I don’t think this thing works.”

  “The masks aren’t designed to filter out benign particles. They’re meant to filter out weaponized agents and nuclear fallout.” Ethan said as they stepped through the door, their powerful LED flashlights illuminating the carnage like a medical exam table. As a joke Ethan turned the light upwards to create shadows on his face. “Private… I am your father.” Ethan breathed deeply to imitate Darth Vader’s respirator. The kid got the joke, but wasn’t much in the mood for laughing.

  Bodies hung from the banisters of the upper level, a sea of death rolling down the stair cases like a stagnant waterfall. Foot and hand prints in the gore where people had slipped in their own blood, the blood of friends and comrades painted a nightmarish tale. Some people had been dragged away and devoured even as the machine guns rained brass and lead around them. Piles and piles of bodies outside doors and windows of offices had once been living, vibrant people. Ethan motioned for the Soldier, Private Riveera, to follow him into the main offices.
The scene inside the maze of bullet riddled cubicles was no different than the putrefaction factory in the main halls, just fewer bodies to make a bigger mess. Not many people had died in this room, it had been a running battle from here.

  “Sheriff, I think they shot the computers.” Riveera whispered, conscious of the fact that there were sounds coming from a nearby office. There was no doubt someone had locked a number of infected inside. Without the elements to decompose them they were still in good enough shape to be dangerous. The stone building acting as a modern sarcophagus for these heinous creatures.

  “Yeah, I can see that.” Ethan whipped out his Leatherman and unscrewed the outer case of a desktop computer. Whoever did this had known exactly what they were doing, a 9mm round had been put through the hard drive of every computer in the office. Ethan removed it anyhow, hoping something could be made of it. “Hey, Riveera, start unscrewing these things. I don’t care if there’s a round in them or not.”

  “Yessir.” Riveera went at the task as well. They had each removed maybe three hard drives when the kid backed into a cubicle, unable to see clearly in his mask. The flimsy cardboard wall fell backward with a loud pop as its dry rotted base gave way. There was nothing behind it, thankfully, but now the Zims behind the door knew the two of them were there and instantly the moaning started. Riveera freaked out, yelping then freezing with fear, his breathing becoming loud enough to hear across the room.

  Ethan grabbed the kid before he could run out the wrong door or into another office with no escape routes and shoved him through the right hatch just as the Zims broke down the moldy wooden door. Ethan had the presence of mind to shine the light on them and wished to God he hadn’t. They were rotted, bloated, blackened puss oozing bubbles of infected shit, gurgling and waddling toward them like a herd of ravenous trolls with Prader-Willi Syndrome in a donut shop. Ethan wanted to shoot them, but there was no point. They could outrun the Zims easily, shooting them would only draw attention. Turning the corner to run down the second floor hallway Ethan saw that his momentary lapse in focus on Riveera had allowed the terrified young man to run full steam in the wrong direction.

  “FUCK! Riveera, this way, damnit!” Ethan shouted. The kid turned his head to look back and plowed headlong into a support pillar, knocking him out cold and shattering one of the lenses on his mask. Ethan stood for a second, staring at the idiotic kid sprawled out of the floor, trying not to laugh as the situation became more and more dire.

  Lifting his arm Ethan shot the closest puss bag in the head and stepped forward just in time for it to fall where he’d been standing, its blackened puss/blood spewing out on the floor in every direction, causing the one behind it, which had been a large woman before she died, to slip and fall as well. The immobile zombies blocked those behind them for now, but it wouldn’t last. Ethan ran up to Riveera and tore the kid’s mask off. His right eyebrow was cut and bleeding, but otherwise he looked no worse for wear.

  “Real nice, kid.” Hauling the soldier up in the fireman’s carry Ethan remembered why he hadn’t volunteered for the Army the second time around. His knees were shaking, ready to give way just because of the awkward carry. He had the muscle to do the job, his joints just weren’t willing anymore.

  Someone had heard the gunshot and now half the platoon was inside the building on the first floor, shouting for them to come back. Ethan was tempted to toss Riveera over the bannister, but it was a long way down and there was no guarantee the fall or the jagged bones below wouldn’t kill him anyhow. Instead he had to carry the kid down the stairs, a punishment adrenaline wasn’t going to compensate for. The bloated Zims had finally climbed over their comrades and were lumbering toward them faster than Ethan could shuffle. Just as they were starting down the steps Ethan’s knees gave way with a grotesque popping sound that everyone must have heard. Together Ethan and Riveera toppled halfway down the steps before stopping on a midlevel with a thud. Dazed, Ethan looked up and saw the closest Zim looking down at him, black goo dripping from its mouth while it’s disease addled brain tried to negotiate the obstacle between it and food. Raising his sidearm Ethan put a round in its head, expecting the .45 to blow the body backwards. Unfortunately the Zim was so large it only staggered back a couple of inches before the Zim behind it pushed it forward. Ethan didn’t even have time to scream as the tidal wave of rot tumbled over him like a cold, smelly trash bag filled with trash juice and rotten blood. Some of them popped on the way down, their guck lubricating the way for the Zimalanche that hit the bottom of the steps. All at once the stretched skin of the Zims exploded, a tsunami of gross washed over everything, narrowly missing the cavalrymen below. Ethan took a deep breath of smelly air and then it was lights out…

  …The next thing Ethan remembered he was in the fresh air looking up at a purple sky. He blinked and tried to sit up. He was more sore than he’d ever been in his life, even after the time his platoon had been caught with food in the barracks. What their Drill Sergeant had done to them was nearly criminal. They had also deserved it, so bygones would stay bygones. What, though, had Ethan done to deserve this kind of pain again? He also noticed he had been stripped and hosed down and poorly redressed in blue scrubs. From what he remembered about the capital building that was a mercy.

  “Damn, dude.” Keith said from off to one side of a water-buffalo, (an Army water tank.) He was sitting on the back of a patrol car with no windows, smoking a cigarette. “Think you could go on one mission without causing a fuckin’ calamity?”

  “What happened?” Ethan finally managed to sit up. All of his joins hurt and there was a nasty pain coming from his right temple.

  “They pulled you and Private Riveera out of the capitol building after you survived an avalanche of Zim guts.” Keith blew smoke in a cloud that mixed with the fog of his breath as the dimming light started to cool the land. A perfect smoke ring.

  “Did we find any gas?” Ethan asked, hoping the mission wasn’t a total failure.

  “Yeah, actually.” Keith pointed towards a Humvee that someone was starting. “The National Guard headquarters had like two dozen full fuel trucks sitting in a back lot behind some other junk. That’ll keep us going for a good long time. Certainly until Texas gets back. Rationing might not even be so bad this year.”

  “Seriously?” Ethan worked his joints and muscles, wishing he had a ‘joint’ right about now. “Is that kid okay? Sorry I forgot to ask before. My head’s killing me.”

  “Yeah, actually. We caught a real break this time. I couldn’t believe it either.” Keith helped Ethan to his feet. “Riveera’s gonna be more than fine. Did he seriously head-butt a Zim that was about to get you guys? Because that’s what he told all the ladies at dinner chow.”

  Ethan raised an eyebrow, knowing the truth was much less heroic. How could the kid ever face his peers again if they knew he’d run the wrong way and hit a pillar because he was freaking out like a teenager about to die? “Yeah, man, kid did a great job.” Ethan reaffirmed the story. The truth was safe with him.

  “That’s awesome. C’mon, we’re camping in the HQ’s gym tonight.” They piled in the Humvee Keith had brought to finish cleaning up his med bay at the State Trooper HQ. The ride to the armory was short, but Ethan was asleep again when they got there. Keith unceremoniously opened the canvas door his friend was drooling down and let him flop out onto the parking lot. What else were buddies for? Once inside Ethan got up and chased Keith for a minute he found Lee in some colonel’s office. He was reading over a stack of classified papers he had found in an unlocked safe, the previous owner’s hand still wrapped around the latch, but nothing else.

  “They had orders to evacuate and meet at Cheyenne Mountain, Wyoming.” Lee set some papers on the desk. “What were your impressions of the scene, Sheriff?” This chat was in an official capacity.

  “I think the entire scene was a planned pullout that went to hell. I wouldn’t doubt if it was related to the Army’s pullout the day Keith and I were abandoned.” Ethan tried to g
ive an accurate report. “The entire inside of the capitol building is trashed, the courtyard in the rear as well. Whoever was sent into the mop up the mess took more time to destroy the hard drives of government computers than they did stopping Zim. We got nothin’ from it.”

  “Sounds about right.” Lee handed Ethan an MRE. “Bon apatite. Breakfast Omelet, dinner of champions. That, and the other guys ratfucked the boxes and took all the ones worth eating.”

  That night, while the mechanics toiled in the forgotten motor pool Ethan laid in his cot next to Lee’s in a spare office. Lee snored, but that wasn’t what kept him awake. Today he’d nearly died, the fear hadn’t hit him then, but now it was impossible to avoid. What the fuck was he doing taking these risks? Four or five years ago he’d have thrown himself on a grenade to save another’s life just out of instinct, but back then the worst that could happen was Nicole and his parents would get $400,000 from his Death Gratuity. Now if he died he’d widow Mary and leave Samuel with no one to call father. Ethan and Lee had a relatively normal, nuclear family upbringing. The children of this new world often had no opportunity for such a life. They were often illiterate and socially inept, a curse Ethan was terrified he might bestow upon his own son. He had something, and someone to live for now. This would have to be his last mission playing soldier. Those days were done and he had to finally accept that. Slowly, and with the help of some pain meds from Keith, Ethan managed to drift to sleep.