by Joe McKinney
Go out the back door. When you reach the alley, turn right. I will guide you.
Jimmy did as he was told. The shop was crowded with trash and bits of tile and insulation where the roof had collapsed, but he threaded his way through it and out the back door.
He found himself in a narrow alley between low buildings. Looking to his left he saw zombies turning the corner. To his right, the way looked clear.
Go. Hurry.
His father’s Warbot had already started smashing its way through the shop, and Jimmy knew he only had a few precious seconds. He ran for the end of the alleyway, rounded the corner, and kept on running.
The next corner is Tanner Street. Turn left there. You will see a movie theater at the end of the street. But you must hurry. The humans are leaving.
Leaving? What? No. Stop them.
I cannot. But you can.
Me? How?
With your mind. Reach out. Find one of the humans and enter his mind. Hurry. The Warbot is coming. Do it as you run.
Jimmy rounded the corner onto Tanner Street. He could hear his father’s Warbot back there, wrecking everything in sight.
Focusing his mind, he tried to picture Dr. Knopf, to remember the sound of his voice, the shape of his face.
Dr. Knopf.
Something clicked for Jimmy then. He could feel the connection when it happened, like toy blocks snapping together. Dr. Knopf was confused and frightened by the contact. Jimmy could sense his fear, and feel him trying to pull his mind back and break the contact. He could picture Knopf standing perfectly still, his back rigid, Adam’s apple pumping up and down like a cylinder, much as Jimmy had done when his father first made contact with him.
Dr. Knopf, I need help.
Jimmy, you’re alive! Where are you?
There was no time to explain. Instead, Jimmy pushed his thoughts into Dr. Knopf’s mind, showing him everything he had seen and heard since coming to Mill Valley. He wasn’t even sure if it would work, but he sensed it would, and so he pushed.
Doctor?
Silence.
Dr. Knopf, I need you!
Oh you poor boy. Jimmy, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.
Help me!
Zombies were moving through the smoke ahead of him. Now that he was free of the sewers, he could sense them.
They were facing away, and Jimmy sprinted right for them. With luck, he’d get past them before they knew he was there.
But then, all at once, the dead stopped their attack on the retreating Troopbots and turned to face Jimmy. Several of them lunged forward, reaching for him.
It happened so fast Jimmy barely had time to adjust.
He veered to his left, shooting through a gap between them just as his father’s Warbot reached down to scoop him up. Instead of pinning Jimmy, it flattened one of the zombies.
Jimmy didn’t slow. He ran into the thick of where the battle had been. He was in No Man’s Land, midway between the retreating Troopbots on the one side and the zombies and his father’s Warbot on the other.
Jimmy looked back as the Warbot crashed through the zombie horde, trampling some and throwing others out of the way. Still carrying his father atop its shoulders, the Warbot stepped slowly into the intersection. They were close now, less than twenty feet between them, the Warbot towering over Jimmy. His father’s badly decomposed face was incapable of expression, but Jimmy could still sense the madness, the betrayal, the rage, emanating from the man’s mind.
Jimmy met his stare without blinking, and at the same time realized he was feeling exactly the same thing, betrayal and rage. The thought scared him, and for a moment, Jimmy felt his resolve waver. This was his father, after all. The man had done nothing but hurt him. And yet, angry as Jimmy was, a part of him wanted to love the man... needed the man’s approbation. But the scariest thought of all, the one Jimmy couldn’t get around, was that maybe they weren’t so very different, father and son. Maybe there was nothing but a fine line between them. Maybe Jimmy was just a gentle shove away from being exactly like him.
“No,” Jimmy said suddenly. “I won’t join you. I won’t.”
Maybe there was just a fine line between them, but the line was there. He looked up at the horror that his father had become and he was suddenly, absolutely, irrevocably sure. That zombie up there was not what he wanted to be. He was more than that.
“Go on and do it, if you can,” he told his father.
The Warbot straightened. Jimmy could see it gathering itself for the final, crushing blow, like stomping a bug, and he tensed to leap out of the way. But as the Warbot’s leg rose, Jimmy saw a flash of movement to his left. A second Warbot, bearing the insignia of Fisher’s expeditionary force, smashed into his father’s Warbot, and both robots went tumbling into the side of a building, knocking down the brick wall.
The expeditionary robot stood up first. It backed away from the collapsed store front, and right before it started firing, Jimmy caught a glimpse of his father’s Warbot inside, its enormous Tyrannosaurus legs bent in front of it like a man who has fallen into a low, deep couch.
And then the shooting started.
The expeditionary Warbot fired both its .50 caliber machine guns, the bullets glancing off the other Warbot’s armor plating, but doing little harm. His father’s Warbot pulled itself loose from the wall and charged its opponent, and when they hit, it felt like the ground was splitting open beneath Jimmy’s feet.
Their great weight tore up the pavement. Every step sent bits of rock and vast quantities of dust into the air, and within moments, Jimmy couldn’t tell the difference between the two. He could only marvel at the destruction they caused. They threw each other into the air and into the sides of buildings. The zombies swarming around their legs were crushed like bugs. Both robots were firing their machine guns continuously now, and the noise grew so loud Jimmy fell behind a pile of rubble, his hands clapped over his ears.
Jimmy had no idea how long the fight went on, but gradually, the guns fell silent.
And when the sound stopped altogether, and Jimmy looked over the pile of rubble, he saw one of the Warbots tangled in a collapsed wall, wrapped in metal cables, one of its cannon arms missing. It tried to step out of the wall, but one of its legs wasn’t working, and all it managed to do was fall face-first onto the pavement.
The other Warbot was in two large pieces, electrical cables and wires oozing from its severed parts like guts. Neither machine was going to be getting up again. Jimmy could see that plain enough. And when he searched them with his mind, he could tell the one was dead, and the other, the one face down on the street, was shutting down.
But there was something else.
Jimmy turned. A lone figure was limping toward him through the dust and smoke.
“Don’t come any closer,” Jimmy said. “I’m done with you.”
His father’s face was dark with blood and dust, except for the eyes, which were milky-white and vacant. He raised his one good hand to Jimmy, the fingers clutching, and inched his way forward.
You can’t have me! Do you hear? I’m not yours.
Jimmy scooped up a heavy chunk of asphalt and threw it at his father. It hit him in the shoulder, but he showed no reaction.
He kept coming.
Just then Jimmy felt a hand on his back. He knew who it was without having to look around.
“Step away, Jimmy,” said Dr. Knopf. “I’ve got this.”
Dr. Knopf raised a pistol and pointed it at Jimmy’s father. But before he could pull the trigger, Jimmy touched his arm, guiding the weapon to the low ready.
“No,” Jimmy said. “It’s for me to do.”
Dr. Knopf looked at the pistol, and then at Jimmy.
“Let me have it.”
Knopf handed it to him without saying another word. Jimmy looked down at the pistol, so many things weighing on his mind, and then pointed it at his father.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But we’re not the same. Not at all.”
And he
pulled the trigger.
§
Later, after the last of the zombies had been put down and the dust and smoke had cleared, Jimmy walked into the middle of the street and looked around. There was a darkened movie theater just ahead of him. He felt drawn to it.
“Jimmy?” Knopf said, coming up beside him. “You okay?”
Jimmy nodded.
“You put a lot into my mind. I guess we have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Both of them were silent for a time, watching the movie theater.
“There’s something I have to do,” Jimmy said.
“What’s that?”
“The Combot.” Jimmy pointed to the movie theater. “Comm Six... it’s in there.”
“You’re sure?”
Jimmy nodded. He was sure.
Knopf looked around uncomfortably. He seemed uncertain, doubtful. “I don’t...,” he said. “Stand back for a second, okay? Let me send in a Troopbot first.”
Jimmy looked at him but said nothing.
Knopf grabbed the first Troopbot he saw and pointed it toward the movie theater. After he’d explained what he wanted done the robot marched inside, weapon at the ready.
Jimmy and Knopf waited, listening.
Several human soldiers stood nearby, looking on curiously.
About a minute later, a single gunshot sounded from deep in the recesses of the theater.
“One female zombie neutralized,” the Troopbot announced over the walkie-talkie.
Knopf motioned to one of the human soldiers, who nodded back and went inside the theater to check it out.
When he came back out, he was holding something in his right hand.
He walked to Knopf and handed it to him. A photograph. Black and white. Dirty with grime and creased where it had been crumpled and wrinkled over the years. It showed a little boy, about two, smiling, still a lot of the baby he once was in his chubby face, playing with a toy truck on a kitchen floor.
“That was pinned to the zombie’s shirt,” the soldier said, nodding at the photograph. “There was nothing else in there.”
“Thank you,” Knopf said.
He stared at the picture, lost in his memories of a boy he had once hated, but had grown to love as though he was his own son.
“What is it?” Jimmy asked.
Knopf handed him the photograph. “It’s you,” he said.
“Me?” Jimmy swallowed, his attention shifting from Knopf to the entrance to the movie theater. “But, Comm Six....”
“I’m afraid so,” Knopf said. “I’m sorry, Jimmy.”
Jimmy nodded, his mouth pressed into a thin, tight line. Then he slid the picture into his pocket.
“Dr. Knopf, I’m done. I want you to know that. I’m done. I don’t want to do this anymore. No more experiments.”
Knopf put his arm around Jimmy’s shoulder. His touch was warm, kind, accepting.
“Come on,” he said. “Let me take you home.”
“I’m not going back to the lab.”
“No,” Knopf said. “I know that. I’m taking you home.”
Bugging Out
Greg Sutton sat watching the news, a smile tugging at the corners his mouth. On the TV a rookie newswoman struggled to make sense of the jumbled and, in some cases, contradictory updates she’d just been handed. Her composure was fading fast. Behind her was a map of the United States, and on the map, overlapping red circles spread like bloodstains. Greg knew it wasn’t right to be happy about this, but he couldn’t help it. He watched the red circles grow bigger, listened to the fear and trembling in the pretty newscaster’s voice, and all he could think was, Hell yeah, baby!
Because he had this.
He was ready for it.
Zombies. He shook his head. That was some crazy shit. He had expected some sort of pandemic. The flu, probably. Maybe some airborne variety of mad cow disease or something like that. Zombies hadn’t even made his list of top-five most likely world-enders. But zombies would do.
On the couch beside him was a Glock. He had dozens of high-capacity magazines for the pistol, plus enough ammunition to turn his little hometown of Gatling, Ohio, into his own version of the Chinese New Year. And he had MREs and water and extra clothing and first-aid supplies and matches and camping gear and water-purification tablets and sturdy shoes.
Yeah, he had this.
Everything was gonna be just fine.
Hell yeah, baby!
§
Her mother wasn’t screaming anymore, but that didn’t make it any better. The things were still eating her. Rose Sherman flinched each time they tore away another piece of flesh; every time one of them snarled and snapped at another for getting in its way, or slipped in the pooling blood, or lifted her mother’s corpse and then let it thud to the hardwood floor like a bag of rocks. All this taking place not ten feet from her. Rose could have seen it through the slats in the louvered closet door of her spare bedroom if she’d had the stomach for it. Instead, he kept her eyes closed and her hands clapped over her ears.
Rose had no idea how long she sat there, terror squeezing her chest, tears running down her cheeks, the sounds of the feeding frenzy tearing at her nerves, but eventually the noises stopped.
She opened her eyes—and wished she hadn’t.
Mr. Masello, her across-the-street neighbor, had been mowing his lawn when the ghouls descended. With the roar of his mower, he hadn’t heard the dead man stumbling up behind him, and Rose’s cries and frantic arm-waving had gone unheeded. He still had little blades of grass stuck to his socks and shoes. The rest of him was black with her mother’s blood and viscera.
He stood up from her mother’s body and staggered off.
The others followed.
Rose heard them bumping through the hallway, the living room, then onto the front patio.
Her mother’s dead eyes stared at her across a vast pool of blood. Rose stared back, angry at the woman. Her mother had had no reason to come over today except to bitch at her about the Fourth of July. Rose’s brother’s wife had gone into some kind of meltdown because the dinner was at Rose’s house and not their new place over on Katy Street. Her brother and his bat-shit-crazy wife had skipped the party, which was fine by Rose because she’d never liked that woman anyway, but somehow, because Rose’s mother was the craziest of them all, the whole thing had turned into Rose’s fault. Here it was two weeks later, and her mother was still finding excuses to call or come over and start the argument all over again. She wouldn’t let it go. She had to keep picking at it, refusing to let it go. The needless stupidity of all that drama made Rose furious, not only at her mother, who might still be alive if she’d just been able to leave well enough alone, but at herself because she was feeling angry when her mother was dead and what she should be feeling instead was sorrow and a great, soul-numbing emptiness. Rose nearly kicked the closet doors in her frustration. Even in death her mother made her crazy.
But she knew she couldn’t stay in the closet forever. Already she was thirsty. Hunger would soon follow. And she would have to go to the bathroom eventually. The idea of doing that in here, being closed up with the smell, was the deciding factor. She stood up, listened carefully, and not hearing anything but the distant warble of a receding police siren, slowly and quietly pushed the door open.
An afghan pulled from the foot of the bed had soaked up a lot of her mother’s blood, giving Rose a straight shot to the door. At least she wouldn’t have to walk through it, even if she couldn’t exactly help looking at it.
She turned her head and walked toward the door.
She was almost to the hallway when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.
Mr. Harris, the creepy Gulf War vet who lived two doors down, was kneeling between her mother’s knees, his face buried in a massive gash a few inches from her groin. He was tearing at the flesh there, ripping it away, when suddenly the leg separated and hit the floor with a dull, heavy thud.
&n
bsp; Rose sucked on her teeth, a whimper escaping her throat.
Mr. Harris looked up. Half of his face was torn away, and what was left of the eye in the ruined socket twitched and jumped constantly like a moth caught in a jar. He climbed to his feet, and to Rose’s horror picked up her mother’s severed leg before stumbling after her.
Rose ran screaming from the room.
She tore through the hallway, the living room, and out the front door, tumbling down the front steps and landing face-first in the grass. When she looked back at the house, the front door yawned open. Mr. Harris stood there, holding her mother’s leg by the ankle, letting it drag behind him.
It was getting dark. Gloom was pooling beneath the trees and in the spaces between the houses. But there was still enough light to see the dead gathering in the street, turning their heads as one in her direction. They began to moan and, one by one, started toward her.
Mr. Harris dragged the leg down the stairs. The next instant, he was standing over her, his damaged eye jumping madly in its socket.
Rose turned and ran. She had no plan, no idea where she was going. All around her huge columns of smoke climbed to the darkening sky. Dogs barked wildly. Here and there a gunshot. A siren. Screams.
And then, several streets over, she stumbled out from between two houses and found herself facing Greg Sutton’s house.
She’d gone out with him a few times during her junior year but had told him, quite publicly in fact, to cram it when she found out he was telling the whole school they were fucking.
All that drama seemed like a million years ago. She’d forgotten he lived so close.
Looking past the lies that they’d been intimate (he hadn’t even gotten under bra, the bastard), she remembered that he was a survival nut, always talking about what he was going to do when the big one hit. She didn’t know if he was still into survivalist stuff, but the tall brick wall surrounding his yard certainly promised more than standing out here in the street.
She went to the wrought iron gate at the front and found it chained and locked.
