by Joe McKinney
The woman was smug, high on her success, but her eyes were glinting.
“I don’t know what I need to see,” Richardson said.
“Well, what about this?” said Carnes, gesturing at the zombies around the toppled picnic tables.
“You’re feeding them.”
“Exactly.”
“So what does that prove? Every single person who survived the original outbreak could have told you they were hungry.”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“No, Dr. Carnes, I don’t know it. What you’ve got here is a bunch of hungry zombies. That’s all.”
“What I’ve got here is proof that uninfected people can move through crowds of the infected without being attacked.”
“I sincerely hope you’re right, Dr. Carnes. Let’s hope you’re not merely chumming the waters.”
“Chumming the waters?” Carnes shook her head in obvious disgust. “Look around you.”
Richardson did, and saw the college kids taking pictures. One of them was even handing an apple to a zombie.
“This is working, Mr. Richardson. Can’t you see that?”
“What happens when the food runs out?”
“Then we pack up and return. Tell the world that it’s safe to come inside the quarantine line and start looking for a way to cure these people.”
“That sounds reckless to me, Dr. Carnes.”
“Reckless?” Carnes said, sounding righteously indignant. “It sounds like basic human decency to me. I hope you’ll try to keep that in mind when you write your article.”
She stormed off.
Richardson thought, That is one crazy, mixed-up bitch.
Michael spoke up. “Uh, Christy, there’s a lot more of ’em comin’ now. Why don’t we go back to the bus, okay?”
“Hush,” Christy said. “I told you, you don’t wanna come, don’t come.”
“But Christy—”
“Go back if you want, Michael, but I’m staying here.”
When she turned to Richardson again, the pouting smile was back on her face.
“You really don’t think Dr. Carnes is on to something here?”
“No, Christy, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s been eight months since the outbreak. Six months since the quarantine. None of these zombies have seen an uninfected person since then. I’m wondering how long it will take for their aggression to return.”
Almost on cue, the zombies began to stand up from the overturned picnic tables.
Richardson watched them and felt the mood in the plaza sour. The zombies—Jesus, more of them every time he turned around—were moving toward the college kids.
Several students had put their cameras aside and were using their hands to push the zombies away the way Zach had done earlier.
A few students were beginning to call to Carnes, fear in their voices.
Carnes moved through the crowd, directing the students back to the bus.
Good, Richardson thought. That’s smart.
“Christy,” he said, “you and Michael... Oh shit!”
About twenty feet behind them, a girl was knocked off her feet by two male zombies. They fell on her, and in the time it took Richardson to register what was going on, the zombies were ripping the girl apart with their teeth and fingernails.
The girl screamed, and it was like throwing on a light switch, the zombies remembering now their cannibalistic impulses.
Chaos followed. Students ran, screaming, falling here and there as the zombies massed on them. About thirty feet to Richardson’s left, Carnes was yelling, trying to keep order but seeing it fall apart all around her.
He saw Zach, the mop-haired boy with the KILL YOUR TELEVISION T-shirt, trying to push his way through the crowd. Zach turned one zombie around and pushed him into two others, but when he tried to run, one of them got a hand on the back of his baggy blue jeans and held him tight. Zach slapped at the zombie’s arm but couldn’t break free in time. Another zombie fell on him from behind, bit deep into his shoulder, and the last Richardson saw of the boy was a pair of arms clawing at the air like a drowning sailor sinking below the waves.
That was it for Richardson. A zombie stepped in front of him and he kicked it in the knee, knocking the zombie’s legs from under him.
Christy was twenty feet away, her eyes flickering over the scene, mouth shaped for a scream that wouldn’t come. Richardson ran to her and grabbed her wrist.
“Time to go,” he said, and yanked on her arm.
He turned to the bus and froze in his tracks. A zombie was on top of the bus driver, tearing into his neck with his teeth.
Three more zombies huddled in and began to eat the man, his legs hanging off the bottom step of the bus.
“Michael,” Christy said.
Richardson turned and realized he still had Christy’s wrist in his hand. He saw her looking at Michael and Michael holding a pistol in one hand, the business end of the gun—a blued Colt Army 1911 from the looks of it—pointed at a zombie limping drunkenly toward him.
“Michael?”
Richardson said, “Where’d you get that?” The court order had specifically stated no weapons.
Michael didn’t speak. He was terrified, the weapon shaking in his hand, the zombie still coming on like the gun wasn’t there.
“Shoot him,” Richardson said.
Michael glanced at Richardson, and Richardson knew that the boy was too scared to shoot.
A zombie crossed the grass behind Michael, stumbling his way.
Christy screamed.
Richardson said, “Michael, behind you.”
Michael moved slowly, turning first to Richardson, then swinging his arm around the other way, practically putting it in the zombie’s mouth.
The zombie grabbed Michael and bit down on his bicep, ripping out a big wad of meat. Michael’s knees buckled, but he held onto the gun. The zombie tripped over him, landing across his legs, pinning Michael to the ground.
Richardson never let go of Christy’s arm. He pulled her to where Michael was wrestling with the zombie and kicked it in the neck. The blow lifted the zombie off Michael. It rolled onto its shoulder, where it coughed and gagged. Richardson grabbed Michael by the shirt and pulled him to his feet, the boy not screaming, strangely docile and lethargic.
Shock, Richardson thought.
Richardson guided them through a gap in the crowd, the screams of students and the moans of zombies all around them, toward the stone wall to the right of the Alamo. There were porticos in the stone wall big enough to drive a car through, but they were blocked by black wrought-iron bars. The courtyard on the other side of the wall, overgrown with vegetation, looked promising, but they had to reach it first.
“We need to get him to cover,” Richardson said.
A few zombies were following them, slow-moving, ugly bastards with their faces rotted away and their hands stained with blood.
Richardson watched them come, looking around for somewhere to run.
“Can’t we get inside?” Christy asked. The confidence she’d shown while flirting with him was gone, like she’d reverted to a little girl again, no sexuality left. When Richardson looked down into her eyes he saw a frightened child, nothing more.
“This way,” he said and pulled her toward the front door.
It was locked, but he’d expected that. The door looked old-fashioned, pine wood painted the green of old bronze, but when he yanked on it, it didn’t give.
“Michael,” he said, “let me have the gun.”
Michael shook his head. “No way.”
“Give me the gun!”
“No.”
The zombies were getting closer now. Dead college students lay everywhere.
“Michael, please.”
“Fuck you. I ain’t giving you my gun.”
I could take it, Richardson thought. Punch him in the nose and end up wrestling for it, maybe winning, maybe getting his infected blood all
over me. Meanwhile, those zombies keep coming.
It wasn’t worth it.
“Put the gun here,” Richardson said, pointing at the doorknob. “Right here.”
Michael, still thinking he was being asked to give up the gun, shook his head.
“You hold it, Michael. Put it right here and fire.”
Maybe some of it got through, Richardson wasn’t sure.
One zombie got out in front of the others and crossed the lawn leading to the door. Richardson stared at him and thought: Jesus, his eyes. A fucking blank slate.
“Come on, Michael. Shoot out the fucking lock. Put the gun right here and pull the damn trigger.”
Michael did. The spent cartridge flew up and landed on the cobbled walkway before clattering into the grass.
Richardson kicked the door. Nothing. He kicked it again and it gave, but only a little. He let Christy go and forced the door open with his shoulder. It was painfully solid, hurting more than he thought it would after seeing it done so many times in the movies.
“Go,” he said to Christy, and held the door while she helped Michael inside.
He saw a flash of green, moving fast.
Carnes.
She yelled something that sounded like “Wait, wait!” and Richardson stepped to one side as she ran through the door.
When she was in, Richardson pushed the door closed just as the weight of the zombies fell against the other side. He dug his feet into the floor, his back against the door, and pushed back with everything he had.
§
The door shook against his back. In front of him was a rectangular room about twenty feet deep and sixty feet wide. The walls were rough-hewn stone, the vaulted ceiling crisscrossed by bare cedar planks. There were a few antique tables and chairs behind fading velvet ropes, a few pictures of famous early Texans on the walls.
Christy had leaned Michael against the back wall, the girl hovering over him, trying to help.
Carnes was standing in the middle of the room, her face strangely warped, her lips moving but no sound coming out.
He could feel the weight of the zombies against the other side of the door, and he knew he couldn’t hold them off for long. Looking around, he tried to find something to barricade the door. It had brackets on either side that had been bolted into the stone so a board could be used to barricade it, but there was no board. It was only a prop.
“Bring that table to me,” he said to Carnes, pointing at a dust-covered table loaded with brochures.
No response.
“Carnes!”
No response. The woman was locked up inside herself, paralyzed by confusion.
“Christy.”
Christy, from the back wall, said, “He’s hurt real bad, Mr. Richardson.”
“Christy, hurry. Bring me that table.”
The girl, her face stained where her tears had made her makeup run, dragged the table over to him.
“Break one of the legs off,” he said.
She tried. Couldn’t do it.
“Stand here. Back against the door.”
She did, and when she had it, Richardson stood and kicked one of the legs off the table. He jammed it into the bracket and pulled Christy away from the door.
Working quickly, he kicked the other legs off and used the table top as a wedge between the door’s center bar and the floor.
Hold ’em for a few minutes, he thought.
When he turned back to the room, Christy was pleading with Dr. Carnes.
“He’s real sick, Dr. Carnes. Please help him. I don’t know what to do.”
Carnes didn’t even see her. She was off in her own little hell of collapsing reality.
“Mr. Richardson?”
Michael was sitting against the wall, the gun still in his lap, looking like he was about to go under. He was sweating, his face pale and pasty, his breathing uneven and shallow, head lolling on his shoulders like it wasn’t attached.
Richardson turned to Christy, the girl all eyes, waiting for him to make it better.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Christy blinked.
“He’ll change soon,” Richardson said. “There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
Christy didn’t answer, but he could tell she was hearing him, that she understood, at least on some level.
“I need to get that gun from him.”
Christy nodded.
He patted her shoulder because he didn’t know what else to say and walked toward Michael, who watched him come.
“Michael, I need that gun.”
“Go to hell.”
Richardson thought, If he says I’ll have to pry it from his cold dead hands I’ll kick his teeth in.
“You can’t use it. You can barely stand.”
“Go to hell.”
From behind him, Christy said, “Mr. Richardson, come quick.”
Christy was at one of the barred windows, looking out at the plaza. Richardson crossed the room, past Carnes, who was still babbling nonsense, and stood next to Christy.
The scene was heartbreaking. The students were either being eaten or had changed and were doing some eating of their own. Twenty or so zombies crowded around the window, trying to punch through the glass to get them.
“Christy, we need Michael’s gun.”
“There’s no way to help him?”
“He’s gonna change soon, Christy. There’s nothing we can do. But if we get that gun, we stand a chance of getting to the bus.”
“Will we take him with us?”
“Christy....”
She nodded, but wouldn’t look him in the eye.
Richardson thought, Man, the poor girl. And then, out loud, said, “Oh, no.”
Michael had fallen on his side but was pushing himself up, climbing drunkenly to his feet.
Christy said, “Michael?”
“Stay back, Christy.”
“But...”
“Stay back.”
Richardson had read every single statement he could find by survivors of the original outbreak while he was preparing for this assignment, and he knew about fast-movers, zombies who had been in exceptional physical condition before they were infected and whose injuries were such that they could still move around easily after the infection set in. They could sprint, climb, jump, fight, just like an uninfected person, only they could do it longer and harder because their diseased minds couldn’t recognize exhaustion or pain.
As soon as Michael stood up, Richardson knew he was going to be a fast-mover.
He ran at Richardson, a full sprint.
At the same time, the table leg snapped in the bracket and there was a slap as the table top fell to the floor. The door flew open, a mass of arms and legs and teeth trying to rush through the opening all at once.
Richardson jumped behind the door and pushed it closed again, holding it shut with his back and his legs as Michael narrowed the gap between them.
Richardson braced for the impact.
Michael was almost on him when Christy stepped out of nowhere with a rickety old pioneer chair over her head. She got in front of Michael and swung it down into his knees.
The chair broke apart, but it tripped him and he went sprawling headfirst into the wall to Richardson’s left. The gun ended up somewhere in the shadows. Richardson heard it fall but didn’t see where it landed.
Zombie Michael was stunned but not out for the count. He got up, his nose and lips bleeding, and turned around to go after Richardson again. But Richardson was still getting hit hard from behind, the door nearly jumping off the hinges, his legs buckling under the strain.
“Get the gun!”
Christy took a step, and the movement caught Michael’s eye. He forgot about Richardson and thrust his bleeding hands out to grab Christy.
“Michael, please...”
“Push him out of the way. Like Zach did.”
“Michael.”
Her pleas were lost on Michael. All she was to him was something to be killed
and eaten, and he limped toward her.
“Michael. Stop, please.”
When the shot came, the orange burst of the muzzle flash lit the room like a strobe light.
Michael stopped. His hands fell to his sides, his shoulders hunched, and he fell face-down on the stone floor.
Carnes stood behind him, holding the smoking gun in both hands.
Christy looked down at her ex-boyfriend’s body like it was somebody she didn’t know.
“Dr. Carnes,” said Richardson.
The English professor looked up at him, the gun still raised in both hands, looking like a cannon in the woman’s delicate grip.
“Dr. Carnes, give me the gun, okay?”
She didn’t move.
A hard shove at the door behind him nearly made Richardson’s knees crumple. He couldn’t last much longer.
“You did what you had to do,” he said, his voice as calm as he could make it. “You know you did. Now please, give me the gun.”
She lowered the weapon and handed it to him without looking him in the eyes.
His legs felt weak, and his back was being pounded by the door, but he took the gun with exaggerated calm.
They had to get out. The wall opposite him was solid stone, but to his left, on the short side-wall, was a window, about two feet by three feet.
“Christy, check that window. See if there’s more of them out there.”
“But...”
There was a hard shove on the door from the other side, and Richardson sank onto his butt. The door stayed open, arms and faces pushing farther and farther into the crack.
“Hurry!”
Christy ran to the window and looked into the overgrown fecundity of the courtyard.
“I don’t see anyone.”
“Bust it out.”
“How?”
“With a chair. Anything.”
She did.
“Dr. Carnes,” he said, “you and Christy get outside. When you’re through, I’ll go.”
Carnes stared at him.
“Can you move?”
“Yes,” she said, weakly.
“Then go. Hurry. Please.”
When the two women were through the window, Richardson pushed himself to his feet, stepped away from the door, and ran for the window. He was already climbing through it when the first zombies broke through.
