by Rich Baker
“Locally, the National Guard has been activated to help the police forces fight the riots, but thus far nothing seems to be able to stop the spread of violence. This morning at seven AM Mountain Time a group calling itself the ‘Undying Jihad’ released a statement via their website taking credit for the global attacks. The State Department has not confirmed this information, but the statement does go into some detail about the attacks, indicating that a biological weapon has been used to make people become, and I quote, 'unstoppable vessels of Allah's wrath.' The meaning of this phrase is pretty clear to this reporter. We have been asked by the state government and FEMA NOT to use the word ‘zombies,’ but I don’t know what else we should call these things. The living impaired?”
Bianca’s demeanor is that of someone who has reached the end of their endurance, and she’s given up trying to maintain the decorum of a normal broadcast.
“What else can you call these people who get bitten, become extremely violent, are impervious to pain, and infect everyone they come in contact with? I mean, we’ve all seen the same videos. I think it’s pretty clear what they are.”
She touches her earpiece as she listens to someone only she can hear. “Okay, sorry,” she says, and she settles back into her anchor woman’s rhythm. “In any case, the website has been shut down, but multiple on-line news aggregators have captured screen shots of the message, and some have alleged that there is North Korean involvement as well. President Obama is aboard Air Force One and has been since early on, shortly before the city of Washington, DC fell to these violent mobs. We're told that Air Force planes are refueling the president's famous 747 until they can determine a safe location to land. The president has yet to issue a statement on these events, other than his brief news conference last night announcing the National curfew, the declaration of Martial Law, and the executive order giving the Department of Homeland Security jurisdiction over all domestic law enforcement. Despite those declarations, we have no word yet on an organized plan to retake control of the affected cities.”
She pauses, taking a breath, then starts a fresh list of bullet points.
“The number of casualties from the attacks is unknown but is rumored to be in the millions worldwide. Locally, the police have lost control of the streets of Denver and the surrounding Metro area, and we have lost communication with the other Denver area police departments. We have received footage from our viewers, which we will show shortly, that can only be described as horrifying. Significant areas of the Denver-Metro area are now without electricity. Multiple structure fires are burning out of control. Phone circuits have been overwhelmed almost from the beginning, and it’s increasingly hard to get a signal on mobile phones. Anyone who ventures outdoors is immediately mobbed by the crowds of people on the street. The fact, at this point, is that there is no end in sight to these riots, or whatever they are. The best we can tell anyone right now is to stay indoors, do not draw attention to yourself, and wait until the situation calms down before attempting to go anywhere. If you have food and water, you should ration it as we have no indication when rescue will come. You should fill containers with water in case the…ooh, what’s that?”
The studio lights flicker and things on-screen shake. A series of loud booms is heard off camera.
Bianca lets out a small shriek before catching herself and regaining her somber composure. She presses the earpiece again as someone feeds her information.
“I’m being told that there may have been a military incursion into downtown Denver. We're going to cut to our eye on downtown roof cam.”
The image on the screen changes to a view of lower downtown Denver. Thousands of people are in the streets, some running, some shambling, others crawling because their legs are broken or missing altogether. Drying blood and thick, chunky gore cover most of the people as they shamble about. The camera looks across Speer Boulevard, and the Platte River, which separates the east and westbound lanes, and up the length of Arapahoe Street. Along the West-bound lanes of Speer, flame engulfs a section of the street that stretches off camera to the left.
“I don't know what's happened out there,” Bianca's off-camera voice says. “There's what appears to be a wall of fire, and it looks like there are people caught in it. These appear to be all zom—people affected by the violence. I’m making that assumption based on our previous observations that they are the only ones out on the streets right now, and you can see several of them burning, and they don’t even react to being on fire.”
As she talks, the screen shows people staggering out of the fire. Despite being engulfed in flames, none of them are panicking. Instead, they just walk until they collapse. Some of the burning people fall over the railing and onto the Platte River bike trail, or into the river itself. The camera pulls back just as a small military jet zips past the screen.
Off screen, Bianca says “What was that?”
A series of fireballs erupt along the eastbound side of the street, fire spreading in a wave and washing over the massive crowds of undead. Bianca can only get out “Holy shi…” before the shockwaves from the incendiary bombs hit the building. The rooftop camera's image explodes into a field of static, and the audio from the studio is cut off.
“That’s it,” Robert says. “The last news channel in Denver got blown up.”
The kids stare at the screen with mouths open. The DVR recorded another two hours of static after that. Robert presses fast forward until the icon in the middle of the screen says ‘4X’ and the time ticks by on the counter at the bottom faster than they can track. No more video was recorded.
Two
“If I eat another hot dog or turkey sandwich, I think I’m going to throw up,” Keith complains.
“Enjoy it, numbnuts, because when it’s gone, there’s no more fresh meat. We’ll be into the canned stuff,” Ben says.
This news is met with silence while Keith chews another bite of sandwich.
“What are we going to do then?” he asks. “This apocalypse could get inconvenient pretty fast.”
“We have a lot of canned stuff – soups and whatnot – to last us a while,” Annie says. “But sooner or later we’re going to have to go out scavenging.”
“Or hunting,” Robert says through a mouthful of potato chips. “I’ve seen a lot of geese flying on the cams, and in a pinch, we could eat coyote. There’s a lot of them around too.”
“Gross! That’s almost as bad as eating a dog!” Keith exclaims.
“If you get hungry enough, you’ll eat anything,” Robert replies.
“I’d have to be pretty damned hungry to eat a coyote.”
“Who’s eating coyotes?” Andy asks.
They all turn and look at Andy Briggs, who has been helping Kyle complete the tunnel into the neighbor’s window well.
“Hey, Andy! How’s it going?” Ben asks.
“Good! We’re through into the basement next door. Did you know that they have locking window well covers? Anyway, we’re moving the dirt into their basement to clear the way through. Now, who’s eating coyote? Sounds gross.”
“No one is eating coyotes,” Ben starts.
“Not yet,” Robert says, interrupting.
“Not ever,” Keith interjects.
“Anyway, we were talking about how the fresh food is almost gone, and we’re going to be down to canned food soon,” Ben says, completing his thought. “Annie says we’re going to need to start scavenging soon.”
“It’ll be easy with access to the neighbor’s house,” Andy says. “We can go in and out from their place and not lead any zombies or people directly back to ours. I mean, someone could find the tunnel, I guess, but they’d never get through that door.”
“I’ll just be glad to get out of this basement,” Danielle says from her spot in the media area.
“And we’ll be glad to get you out,” Keith says under his breath.
“I heard that you prick,” she says. “Just one more reason for me to get out of here.”
; “Danielle,” Ben starts.
“Save it. I don’t need any crap from you either.” She closes the cover on her iPad and leaves the room, going back to the cots in the master bedroom. She shuts the door hard for effect, making Keith giggle.
“It’s not funny, Keith. You need to get things right with her before she becomes a problem,” Robert says. “I don’t need my sister caught up in some stupid lover’s triangle with you and Danielle.”
“Dude, I’ve tried. Look, she was all set to dump me when the shit hit the fan, and now I’m supposed to make nice with her? I tried talking to her, but she’s too pissed to see reason. She thinks she could have made it to Cali and would be with her family if she hadn’t come with us. In all likelihood, she’d be dead, but now she blames me for the fact that she can’t be with her family. And I’m not going to fake liking her just to get her not to be a raging bitch.”
“Well, if this blows up, you’re on the hook for it. Especially if my sister gets hurt. Where is she anyway?”
“She’s with Toni, changing her bandages,” Annie says. “And Natalie is still downloading music and movies.”
“Seriously? What a fucking waste of time,” Robert says.
“I don’t think so,” Ben says. “Who knows how much longer the internet will be up? The whole grid is probably down, and whatever the internet uses for backup power can’t be running much longer. And then, no more music, no more movies – ever.”
“Yeah, except there are these places called stores that have DVDs and CDs. And really, is entertainment the most important thing right now?”
“What else do we have going on? And the DVDs and CDs take up space. When we head out, we’re going to be glad we’re all digital,” Ben says.
Robert sighs. “I think we need to strategize about how we’re going to scavenge for food. But whatever, you guys do what you want.” He gets up, put his dishes in the sink and heads into Danny’s workshop.
Ben looks at Annie and says “What did I say?”
“That’s just…Robert,” she says. “He does that sometimes. He doesn’t play well with others. If we live long enough, you’ll get used to it.”
Three
The group watches a video of cars trying to leave the subdivision. The driver of a car turning right suddenly decides to turn left and crashes into another car which was already in the left turn lane. A minivan accelerating toward them veers to avoid the collision and crashes through the guardrail and into the irrigation ditch. The car in the left turn lane is spinning its wheels, the driver trying to get the car disengaged from the bumper of the car that hit it. The bumper gives way, and the car launches into the intersection, broadsiding a car that was driving past on County Line. That car pinwheels into the oncoming lane and gets struck head-on by an SUV. It launches backward, hitting another car exiting the subdivision. At this point, zombies descend on the scene and start tearing away at the people they can reach. Marc Wallace stops the video.
“I recorded that with the Parrot,” he says, referring to his drone. “This is the edge of town. The night everything happened, three weeks ago now, people were told to shelter in place. When dawn broke, and it was clear that this was something other than random rioting, people decided to get the heck out of Dodge, and chaos ensued. I imagine the chaos was much worse in town where there are more people.”
“None of that was there when I went running that morning,” Kyle says. “The streets were deserted. I found that zombie woman…”
“Zed,” Ben reminds him.
Kyle gives Ben a look, then continues. “I found that zed by the supermarket, and she was the only zed that I saw.”
“We went past that same area not long after you were there,” Annie says. “And people were fighting at the gas pumps by the supermarket. We saw accidents with other zeds around them. Things must have gotten bad around here in a hurry once the sun came up.”
“Based on what I saw with the Parrot, that’s the case,” Marc says.
“Didn’t we already know this stuff?” Danielle asks. “I mean, that’s why we’ve been trapped in this basement with no contact with the outside world, right? Rather than trying to get home to our families?”
“Okay, Danielle, I know this hasn’t been easy for you,” Kyle says. “But, it’s going to be important that we’re all on the same page. We’re just about out of food, and the houses on either side of us didn’t have a whole lot to offer. That means we’re going scavenging, and we need to know what we’re up against.”
Danielle crosses her arms and leans back in her chair.
Robert picks up the conversation.
“Okay,” he starts. “I’ve been using Danny’s security cameras to watch the zeds, trying to learn their behavior.” He hits a few keystrokes on a keyboard and six different views of the world outside the house appear on the big flat panel screen. “They’re violent and relentless. We already kinda knew that, but we’ve never seen them attack someone. We’ve only seen the after effects, or we’ve killed them before they got their mitts on someone.” He hits a few keys on the wireless keyboard, and the six different camera views are replaced by one.
“I recorded this the second day we were down here,” he says. On screen, several zombies shuffle down the alley behind the house. The time stamp on the screen reads 16:42 May 20, 2013. The camera is above Danny’s garage door, looking into the alley. The garage door across the alley starts to rise, and the zombies immediately turn and charge at the door. The car backs out of the garage as soon as the door is high enough for the roof to clear the door.
“That’s Mr. Davies!” Ben exclaims. The others glance at him and then turn back to the screen.
Mike Davies backs his Volvo into two zombies and hesitates, looking over his shoulder. Robert pauses the video.
“I think he’s worried that he’s hurt a person,” Robert says. “But that’s the last thing he should be worried about.”
He starts the recording again. While Mike Davies looks in his rear-view mirror, a zombie charges his car from the side and breaks the driver’s side window. Startled, Davies hits the gas before he’s completed his turn. The Volvo roars forward, and the front end goes up and over a decorative boulder at the corner of his driveway. Big enough to stop a pickup, the rock has no trouble stopping the Swedish sedan. The airbag deploys, stunning him. The zombie that broke the window now dives into the opening, and within seconds they see blood splatter the interior of the car. Less than a minute later, the zombie extricates itself from the car and walks away from the bloodied vehicle.
Inside the car, Davies is slumped over, held in place by his seatbelt. Robert fast forwards the video, so three minutes goes by in about 30 seconds, then he slows it to normal speed. In the car, Mike Davies’ corpse begins to move. First his right arm twitches, then his head rolls back. It begins to struggle against the seatbelt, but it has no idea how to unfasten it, so it remains stuck in the driver’s seat. As it thrashes around Robert pauses the video at a moment where the undead neighbor is looking in the direction of the camera.
“Less than three minutes from death to coming back,” Robert says. “You see that when something draws their attention they move incredibly fast, but without anything to chase, they just shamble around.”
“I can vouch for that,” Kyle interjects. “The one that chased me had ribs sticking out of her chest, and she had no problem running full speed for almost a mile. If the police hadn’t hit her with their car, I was a goner. I was out of gas. Even after they hit her, she was still trying to get to me despite having a broken back and losing a leg. Only a shot to the head put her down for good.”
“And that’s what it took to drop the one that almost got you two,” Robert says, pointing at Ben and Toni.
He shows a few more clips of video. “These are more recent. Here you see one slowed to a limp. I’m only guessing, but I think that’s because it’s torn a muscle. Here’s one where it clearly has a broken lower leg, but it’s still trying to walk. So, they can be
injured and slowed down, but they don’t acknowledge the injuries.
“They seem to be like someone with their adrenaline surging. You know, the mother lifting the car off the baby thing. After a couple of weeks, they’re damaged enough that they aren’t as fast. Or maybe they are driven by adrenaline, and they use it up. I don’t know, but the ones out there now aren’t as fast. Of course, as people come out of hiding looking for food, they’re going to get turned, and we’ll have a fresh batch of runners.”
“So they’re fast and then slow. I think Katy Perry wrote a song about that. What does all of this matter?” Danielle asks.
“Because we’re going out there to gather supplies,” Kyle says, “and we need to know what we’re up against, what their strengths and weaknesses are. The better we understand what they’re capable of and how to stop them, the better our chances of survival. So, unless you want to end up like one of them, please pay attention.”
“So are you all just going to bag on me all the time?” Danielle protests. “I’m getting sick of everyone talking down to me.”
