Eye Witness: Zombie

by Lederman, William

  I’m no stranger to the concept of the media twisting stories to fit a political agenda, but the hate-filled bile coming from the Evangelicals was ridiculous. They questioned whe-ther the Safe Zone camps were really “re-education centers” designed to turn people from their faith. In truth, our camps followed the U.S. Constitution, and the First Amendment was very clearly upheld. There were even small chapels set up in the stadiums; I attended Sunday service most weeks. The pundits on the Liberty Station, as they called their broadcast, also claimed that “by hindering the work of the restless dead, the government [was] clearly attempting to slow the process of Rapture, which would bring all the faithful to God.”

  We weren’t aware of what they were doing in the Rapture Centers until it was far too late. Sure, the broadcasts seemed crazy, were filled with half-truths, and manufactured outrage, but they were still human beings, still rational—if misguided—as far as we knew. It was a cold, blustery day in October when Sergeant Mabry received orders to take his team to the nearby Rapture Center in Mason, Ohio. We mounted up and drove out to the compound, which was located in a large amusement park.

  It wasn’t difficult for us to infiltrate the park. There was a tall fence with razor wire at the top surrounding it, but that was easily foiled with a pair of bolt cutters. We went in at dusk, dressed completely in black with our night-vision goggles on. My camera was the most important tool on the mission; I was to record anything we found. The park seemed deserted, and we moved silently through the rides and attractions looking for the inhabitants. In the center of the park, a giant replica of the Eiffel Tower stood. It was perhaps a third of the height of the real thing, and a blinking light at the top indicated that it somehow still had power. We headed that way and were shocked at what we found.

  The base of the tower, a large square, had been completely fenced by an amalgam of chain link, plastic mesh, and chicken wire. Three barbed wires on the inside were apparently electrified, forming the first containment cordon for the “faithful” of the compound. There were close to three hundred people in that small space, every one of them a groaner. As we watched, a screaming, nude young woman was lowered down into the throng of zombies by robed individuals on the lower observation deck. She thrashed and flailed, but as soon as her feet got close enough, one of the groaners bit down into the tender flesh, leaving a bleeding gash that rapidly turned black as they pulled the girl up out of reach. They tied off the rope and left the sobbing girl dangling over the zombies.

  “I can’t believe this,” Gillman remarked quietly. We all shared his sentiment. “Sarge, are we going in?”

  I looked at Mabry, trying to read his thoughts from his pained expression. “No,” he commanded firmly as he shook his head. “Our mission is to get recon and get out. No engagement unless absolutely necessary.”

  “This doesn’t qualify as necessary?” Knoxville asked in his raspy, southern accent.

  I put my hand on the soldier’s shoulder, “The sarge is right. Even if we did try to do something, what good would it do? There are way too many groaners out there, and I know I saw the guards up top sporting rifles. We have to get back to base and get this footage to the brass. Then they can roll in a big strike and take these assholes out for good.”

  The private nodded and we all began the trek back to the outer fence. We had almost made it, we were passing through a section of the park made to look like the old west, when floodlights snapped on all around us. Half a dozen guards popped up from behind bushes and trash barrels. They had shotguns and hunting rifles leveled at the six of us. We probably would have been captured or killed if it hadn’t been for Mabry’s mad genius. He quickly yanked a grenade from his belt, snapping out the pin as he did, and, appearing to raise his hands in surrender, lobbed it through the darkness into the support struts of the large rollercoaster track nearby.

  The loud roar of the grenade was followed by the groan of twisting steel as the track began to collapse. The guards were caught completely by surprise, and we used the distraction to make our hasty escape. We fled into the night, using whatever cover we could find, and eventually made it to the fence. A few shots rang out in our direction, but none came close. We rushed to our transport and drove away while the crazed zealots plinked bullets off the vehicle’s armored hide.

  Back at Jungle Station, we played the tape for the commander and uploaded the footage to the military head-quarters. It was a damned good thing that groaners couldn’t pull down the satellites over our heads, as communication was one of our main advantages. I was surprised when the president appeared on the video link. I knew he’d survived the initial outbreak, but rumor had it that his plane had gone down somewhere in Alabama shortly afterward. It was good to see that the government still existed, in some form anyway, and I gave a report worthy of an Emmy nomination. The president was concerned about the Evangelicals, but deferred to his Joint Chiefs to make the final recommendation. They called for a few days to formulate a plan and the link was cut. Mabry gave me a handshake and grin, congratulating me on my performance.

  As it turned out, we didn’t have a few days. Once the Evangelicals at the park contacted their leadership, their plans were put in motion. They knew the government would come for them sooner or later and would shut down the Rapture Centers they believed were so essential to their crazed beliefs. Though not at the strength they wanted, they launched their operation—apparently called Judgment Day—anyway. It was a pre-emptive strike against the military and, in essence, the rest of humanity. The groaners they had stockpiled from their faithful were turned loose, herded by busses and trucks fitted with electrical prods. Robed men sat on top of the vehicles in turrets welded together from scrap, armed with guns, flamethrowers, and rocket launchers they had scrounged from the wastes. Ours was not the only Safe Zone attacked; every Rapture Center emptied, the shuffling hordes sent to attack all nearby military outposts at the same time. There were thou-sands of groaners in the mob that moved toward us, and we realized that the ones we’d seen under the tower were just the most recent to be turned while the rest were held in some other location.

  We were caught unawares but not unprepared. As the horde descended towards us, the camp commander ordered our special ordinance to begin operation. Two Apache attack helicopters, one located in each stadium, lifted off smoothly and began moving toward the undead army. Most of the air power of the military had either been grounded due to a lack of fuel and pilots, or had been stranded in the Persian Gulf area. I don’t think the Evangelicals had any idea that we still had working hardware, or if they did, they must have believed that God would intervene on their behalf. But it was our angels, not theirs, that rained down retribution that day.

  At the end of the assault, the majority of the groaners were little more than ash and the Evangelicals were either dead or hightailing it as far from us as they could get. There wasn’t much to celebrate though; of the fourteen Safe Zones attacked, three had been overrun and six were heavily damaged. Only Cincinnati and the DC Memorial zones had air support. The rest had fended off the attacks with ground troops. I was told that the campus of Liberty University had been completely destroyed, not by bombers or tanks, but by explosives the leaders of the Evangelicals themselves planted. No one was sure if they died in the blast or not, but the broadcasts have stopped, and no new Rapture Centers have been found.

  My unit was ordered to assist in rebuilding the Wheeling compound shortly after the battle, and we shipped out a few days later. It was a sad goodbye, as we’d all forged some deep ties to the people of Jungle Station, and while we knew we were needed elsewhere, it felt like we had just gotten out of the frying pan and right into the fire. I was tempted to stay, to give up my position with the guys and remain in the safety of the Cincinnati camp, but I knew my place was with them, and when they saddled up to leave, I joined them without hesitation.

  The trip to Wheeling was sobering. We passed through rural Ohio to get there, driving along the old high-ways past burned out
cars and decaying corpses. The sky was overcast with rumbling thunder, mirroring the bleak landscape that surrounded us. We traveled through Columbus, once the state capitol, now a haven for groaners. An old sheet draped from an overpass had the words “Help us!” written in green paint, and we considered stopping and looking for survivors. Mabry reminded us that we weren’t equipped for search-and-rescue, but he’d make a report of it when we got to our new base.

  He never got the chance. We’d been spoiled by Cincinnati and simply weren’t prepared for how bad things would be in Wheeling. The assault by the Evangelicals and their army of groaners had stirred up every nest in the city, pouring more and more of the zombies at the overwhelmed complex. It didn’t help that the city was built literally on the side of a hill, the steep slope making the hordes crushing down from above extremely difficult to fend off. The supply line, again the Ohio River, was fortunately safe, but there were so many avenues of attack that the whole compound was on the brink of collapse.

  When we got to the city, we had to fight our way to the camp. Our transport ran over many of the groaners, but we had to do a fair amount of shooting, too. The commander of the camp, Major Dusenburg, explained how hopeless the situation was, and that he had a plan to relocate the survivors to the island in the middle of the river. There was a large speedway on the southern tip of the island that could be converted to a defensible camp. Clearing that area became our top priority.

  It took three weeks, and we nearly lost Gillman to a nest of zombies early on, but we managed to take the racetrack arena. The migration of the survivors came none too soon as the barricades finally fell the night after the big move. We lost a few pallets of supplies, but everyone was safe. After completing our mission, we worked on cleaning out the rest of the island, figuring if we could seal it off, we would have a stable Safe Zone large enough to house thousands.

  We’d been working on that goal for months, and had most of the island cleared when the accident happened. Mabry was driving, with Knoxville in the navigator seat, and Timmons at the gun hatch. I was in back alone; Washington and Gillman had pulled guard duty at the speedway. I don’t know precisely what happened; the only window in the back of the transport is a small slit that looks into the cab and is covered by a metal grill, with a sliding door on the cab side that jammed closed during the wreck. I heard Mabry curse and Knoxville shout about a hole and something giving way, and then we were rolling and I was bounced around the compartment. I broke my leg pretty good during all that, and the pain knocked me right out. When I came to, I realized the transport was upside down. I knocked on the cab wall but there was no response. I couldn’t see what happened to my friends, and I’m not sure I wanted to.

  And here I’ve been, for seven—almost eight now—days. I’m sure I’m somewhere along the river, probably rolled right into the muddy banks and stuck. I’ve felt the vehicle sinking, and I’m sure it’ll eventually slip completely underwater. I guess I’m truly embedded, if you’ll pardon the pun.

  The groaners are still out there, scratching and scraping, trying to get into transport to get at the tasty morsel inside. It’s like cracking the shell on a lobster tail to get at the succulent meat, only I don’t plan on being anyone’s dinner. I’m trapped here, and I know help, if it was coming, would have been here already. I’ve got my pistol at my side, a full magazine ready to go, but I only need one round.

  If someone ever finds this, if you get to read these words, don’t feel bad for me. There are worse ways to go. This is my choice, my way out. It’s just like Dudley said about the little girl, and what I said about the women in the hotel: I’m dead already.

  This is Martin Williams, signing off.

  The first memories Ron Harris has are of staying up way past his bedtime to watch old Universal horror movies on TV, and Saturday afternoons were reserved for “Creature Double Feature” on channel 56 in Boston. He grew up in a spooky old house on a hill that was probably haunted, and was an accomplished artist as a youth - though all found his subject matter of murder, demons, and corpses deeply disturbing. But he turned out just fine. Ron is now a married father of two and has been the top bodybuilding magazine writer in the world for over ten years with over five thousand articles in print, though he never lost his passion for all things related to horror. “If I could have dinner with just one person, alive or dead,” he states, “my first and only choice would be Stephen King.” And his favorite holiday? Halloween, of course!

  nearby * EWZN * “No place safe” claims anonymous UN spokesperson

  Baby KillerReported by Ron Harris

  Babies are the toughest to kill. Actually, they’re the easiest because they’re smaller and slower than the adult zombies (shorter legs), but most people just can’t put a bullet in the head of an infant or a toddler even if it is grey and rotting and snarling at you like a wild stray dog. It has to be one of the most ironic aspects to this whole mess. Logically, you know it’s not a real-live human baby anymore. It’s a rabid animal that needs to be put down for the good of everyone involved. But something in our wiring, some primal protective instinct we all have, prevents us from being able to shoot them, bash their heads in with a golf club, or twisting their bulbous heads and snapping their little necks. It’s really tough when they’re fresh. They still have to be taken care of though, and that’s where I come in. My name is Primo, but only a handful of people know or care to know that. Everyone calls me ‘Baby Killer’.

  It all started back at Hugs Plus. That was the name of the daycare place we walked into one sticky July night, me and three other guys on my extermination team. We had almost driven past it, but our assignment was clear. Every single dwelling or place of business was to be checked out, no exceptions. The sooner we got rid of all the stupid, infected things, the sooner we could start trying to get the world back to running smoothly and get on with life. In some places you would have hardly known what was going on, while elsewhere, evidence of the horror and death was everywhere you looked. We were making great headway, but there was still a lot of work to do before it was really and truly over. Until then, the infestation had to be our top priority.

  The sign in front of Hugs Plus showed a cute cartoon bear with some hearts floating around it—possibly a trademark infringement that whoever owned the Care Bears may have taken note of. There was a single Volvo wagon in the parking lot, the rear of which was plastered in bumper stickers.

  Maybe if it had just been a bunch of little dead bodies stuck in the exact position they had expired in, and you could try to examine details like blood spatter, we could have had a more accurate idea of what happened to these kids. As it was, all we could do was take a wild guess based on the chaos we found. There was no electricity in this part of town, and I didn’t see any open windows. When Big Joe—all three hundred and twenty pounds of him—kicked in the front door, the blast of heat that rushed out was like opening an oven that had been baking muffins. The stink was probably sickening, but we all had our gas masks on. Sometimes the gases from decomposition could build up to toxic levels in enclosed spaces. It was over eighty degrees out still, and it had to be closer to a hundred inside Hugs Plus. We heard them right away. The pitch was higher than the usual zombie snarls and growling, but there was no mistaking it. The soundtrack was always the same with these things.

  By the bloody, cracked lips I saw on the first couple of the kids, it had to have been dehydration and/or heat stroke that did them in. They looked pretty intact, so they must have turned first. Most of the others were pretty well chewed up. You could see the bones of their arms or legs, since all the meat had been eaten away. The eyes were the same as you always saw, a kind of milky-silver, like cataracts. Judging by the rate of decay we were seeing, I put this site as roughly three to four days post-infection.

  We had our flashlights and they were strong ones, capable of serving as a proper braining club if need be. But this place had a lot of corners and little hiding places. Off in one dark corner I saw some littl
e flashing red lights slowly moving left to right, and it took a minute to realize what they were—those stupid sneakers that flash every time a toddler takes a step. They smelled us, and they were advancing slowly but surely while we remained just inside the front door. Big Joe was usually the first one of us to start shooting. A little red-headed zombie wearing a Mario Brothers tee shirt and camouflage cargo pants bared its teeth—a couple of the top ones had already been claimed by the Tooth Fairy—and stretched out its arms toward one of Joe’s massive legs like it was ready to grab onto a drumstick and chomp down. Its head hardly came past his knee. With one size-sixteen combat boot, Joe didn’t so much kick, as gently knock it over onto its back with a push to its chest. It flailed around like a turtle trying to get back up. The motor skills on these things were for shit.

  “Fuck this,” he announced, never even drawing his Glock from the holster on his hip. He shoved past me, Tony, and Wayne. “You guys can take this one.”

  We looked at each other, and in that instant I saw we all felt the same way. None of us wanted to do this particular job. Now, I noticed a baby that couldn’t have been more than six months old. By the fully loaded diaper sagging from its bony hips, it hadn’t been changed for at least the last day it was alive. As a dad, you pick up on disgusting little details like that. It crawled on hands and knees, and made its way towards us with the same singular purpose of every zombie. It was hungry. With its mouth gaping wide open, I noted the full irony of what we were seeing—it only had two white nubs protruding from its lower gums. They wouldn’t penetrate human flesh unless this thing had the jaw power of a crocodile. What threat was it unless it drooled into an open wound on us? But then I thought, why should the dumb thing have to crawl around and rot down to a skeleton?