by T. W. Brown
He’d looked outside. Best guess was he was on some military base. The hundreds of walking dead pressed against the fences outside that surrounded the paved lot all wore uniforms. Unless somebody came for him, he wouldn’t be exiting that way.
Reginald patted his chest to ensure his key was hanging around his neck, he pulled the door shut, wincing at the finality of the lock clicking. The hum of the fluorescents sounded so loud after the almost complete silence of his room. He opened the lab door with more than just a little trepidation.
The stench that rolled out caused him to gag. The huge, multi-bayed room was a nightmare of sights, sounds, and of course, smells. Cages of all sizes were everywhere. A huge dry-erase board pulled his focus away from the “lab of horrors” as Dr. Fletcher had always referred to it. On it were the lists of which animals showed no signs of infection but carried the virus, those who showed no signs of carrying it at all despite all efforts to infect, and the list of those who turned out just like humans. So far, that was the shortest list. It only had one word underneath the header: Dogs.
“Good morning, Dr. Fox.” Reginald nodded to his former co-worker who stood chained to the wall at the far end of the room. The pathetic creature that had once been the too-brilliant-for-his-own-good Dr. Fox emitted a low moan. At its feet, the orange tabby sat cleaning itself.
Reginald shuddered as he drew close enough for a better look. Fox’s leg showed signs of some recent activity.
“Morris!” Reginald barked and stomped loudly with one foot while waving his hands in a shooing motion. “Get away from Dr. Fox.” The cat rose and stalked away, swishing its tail in apparent annoyance.
Opening the drawer, Reginald withdrew his journal, some clean observation pamphlets, and a case of prepped syringes. Crossing to the long, curtained wall, he took a deep breath and pulled the drawstring.
“Good morning, men,” he said into the small intercom mounted on the wall next to the long, Plexiglas window.
Her name had been Jenifer. That ceased to matter two weeks ago. Bitten on the leg, she’d managed to hide it from the three men who had helped her escape the ruins of Atlantis. She’d closed herself in her cabin and fallen asleep shortly after their boat had sailed out of the once beautiful harbor
What awoke a half-dozen hours later was no longer Jen-ifer. The face leaning over her meant nothing. She lunged forward, and her teeth clamped down on the throat. Her first kill. Her first experience with the warmth. They stumbled from the bed with the squirming of the body in her grasp mimicking a lewd parody of a lover’s embrace and landed with a painless thud on the carpeted cabin floor. It had taken almost fifteen minutes for the Jenifer-zombie to free itself from the mess of blankets, sheets, and comforter.
The gentle rocking did nothing to help the thing stay on its feet. Its eyes no longer saw color, but rather varying degrees of heat. This cabin was like a blank screen except for one round hole at about eye level and a tall rectangle directly opposite.
After pawing at the circle with no results for over an hour, Jenifer-zombie staggered to the outlined rectangle, paying no attention to the creature beside her that sometimes followed and sometimes wandered into a corner by itself. Random fumbling eventually allowed one dead hand to catch on the door latch and open it.
Moving down the narrow corridor, it spied another source of warmth. The coldness at the Jenifer-zombie’s core erupted and pulsed to every extremity. That source called. It would satisfy. Jenifer-zombie stumbled towards the source. It began to move just as she leaned in to satiate the growing hunger that the coldness seemed to amplify. If any of the mind or memory remained—which it didn’t—the movement of the heat source would have reminded her of tracers.
The creature that had once been Jenifer closed in on those hypnotic swaths of heat…then the sounds began. It didn’t identify them as screams, merely an annoyance that flooded the senses of the miniscule part of the brain that still functioned. It fell on the source, immune to the punches, kicks, screams or pleas.
Teeth tore into flesh and hands plunged into the softest spots of the body. Blood and warm meat filled it with a brief flush of contentment that was “forgotten” as soon as it subsided in a matter of seconds. As it tore and ate, a sensation distracted it. A dull thrum vibrated every part of the Jenifer-zombie in contact with the cabin’s carpeted floor. Easily drawn to the most recent sensation, it stood just as a new source burst into view. It tried to escape, but the slowly fading tracers acted like breadcrumbs, leading the Jenifer-zombie to a door.
It couldn’t “smell,” or “see.” Yet the tracers ended at the tall outline of another rectangle. It felt the vibrations in its dead feet as the source on the other side of that closed door scurried about. Occasionally, the source would yell things that made no sense and didn’t matter. Then, as the Jenifer-zombie scratched, clawed and tried in vain to chew through the barrier, there were a series of loud noises that rattled around in its head. Jenifer-zombie felt nothing as bullets tore through its body. It never flinched as holes exploded next to its head. No pain registered as fingernails broke or tore away. It continued to scratch and claw because the tracers led here and this warmth existed within that would push out the searing inner-cold…even if just for a minute.
For several unnoticed days….it continued.
“Margaret!” Juan called from the second-story window that had once been the master bedroom of this plantation-style home.
Margaret shouldered her rifle and shielded her eyes with one hand. “What?”
“The interior is totally cleared.” He glanced over his shoulder at the two figures he’d covered with the bedspread from the four-poster that dominated the center of the enormous room. “Tell Mackenzie I’ve got seven for the pile.”
“Okee-dokee,” Margaret answered. She went around to the empty Olympic-sized pool that was surrounded by a gorgeous oak deck.
Mackenzie was nudging a blanket-wrapped and bound corpse into the huge concrete basin. There were already over two dozen such bundles heaped in a pile at the deep end. They were of all shapes and sizes. It was Mackenzie who insisted they wrap the bodies. She’d said she couldn’t stand the idea of staring at a pile of corpses. The wrappings made her feel better.
“Juan’s got seven more,” Margaret called. “Then, I think, we’re done for today.”
“We finally gonna call this area clear?” Mackenzie wiped her forehead with the back of her arm, wondering for the hundredth time today if it was just sweat or if something had splashed her. She glanced at her sleeve…nothing but sweat.
“He didn’t say.”
“Didn’t say what?” Juan’s voice made Margaret jump.
“Dammit, Juan!” She spun and leveled her sternest gaze on the big man who had his hands full pushing a wheelbarrow stacked with wrapped and bound corpses.
“Sorry.” Juan dropped his eyes to the patch of ground in front of the wheelbarrow and pushed past.
“Are we done for today, Juan?” Mackenzie moved aside as Juan rolled up and unceremoniously dumped the bodies.
“Yeah.” He faced the two women who now stood elbow to elbow, arms folded across their chests. He was getting used to just how alike their mannerisms were. “I want to check my map and plan the next day’s objective.
“When did you become General Patton?” Margaret snickered as she handed the lit torch to Mackenzie.
“Who?” Juan asked as he pulled his leather gloves off and tossed them onto the burn pile.
“Nevermind.” Margaret waved a dismissive hand. “When you finish planning, maybe you could start helping Mackenzie inventory the hay and feed-bags.”
With overtly fake enthusiasm, Juan wedged in between both women and threw an arm around their shoulders. “Tight!”
“Tight like a tigah!” they all crowed as they walked away from the growing pillar of flames.
“Shoot her! Shoot her!” Brett Simmons yelled as he scurried back and away fro
m the girl who had once been cute little Amber Henson. Now, she was one of those horrid things; like the monsters that had them surrounded.
“Don’t hurt my baby!” Vanessa Henson screamed. Several of the women were gathered around her, holding her back.
“That’s not your baby anymore.” Donna Robbins held Vanessa’s face in her hands. The woman continued to struggle and scream. A dull “thok” sounded and, for a handful of seconds, there was silence. Donna didn’t need to look to know that somebody had delivered a blow that would ensure Amber stayed dead for good this time. Vanessa’s eyes rolled back in her head, her body going limp in the hands of those who had been struggling to restrain her.
Chad Meyers walked up beside Donna still clutching the hand-axe he’d used to put down little Amber Henson. “I’ll take her inside. You wanna go find Ronni?”
“Did she…?” Donna’s voice trailed off.
“Yep,” Chad nodded, “she saw it all.”
Donna took off for the open double doors of the school gymnasium that everybody had been calling home these past weeks. Her eyes took a minute to adjust to the relative dark and gloomy ambience of the Turlock High School gym. Figures moved past her, some responding to this most recent tragedy, others simply shambling past…not much more alive than those things clinging to the fences that surrounded the back of the school.
To a stranger or newcomer, the big, open space looked like nothing more than rows of cots or sleeping bags with wheeled dividers or bookshelves separating each person or family’s quarters. Donna bee-lined for the one she shared with Ronni and Chad, Ronni’s father.
Ronni sat on her cot, head in her hands. Her body shook slightly with her sobs. Donna took a deep breath to calm herself. She’d been over five weeks without a cigarette and it was moments like this when she felt she would grind her teeth down to nubs.
“Ronni…you want to talk?” Donna felt the idiocy of those words hang in the body funk-filled air of this supposed FEMA rescue center.
“He killed her!” Ronni’s tear-streaked face came up and drove a spike in Donna’s heart. “He just took an axe and…” her voice cracked and disintegrated into full-blown crying.
“Ronni, you’ve seen it enough to know that Amber was gone. That thing walking around wasn’t your friend.” Donna sat beside her daughter and put an arm around her shoulder.
Chad walked into their cubicle with a sheepish look on his face. His eyes seemed to drift everywhere but where his daughter sat nestled in her mother’s protective and comforting embrace. Donna noticed he had already peeled off the flannel shirt he’d been wearing over his black t-shirt.
She took a moment to look over the man who’d given her the beautiful fourteen-year-old girl sobbing at her side. At forty, he was actually in much finer shape than when they’d dated briefly just under a decade and a half ago. Of course, he’d spent most of that time in prison. Lifting weights was a fairly common way to pass time in a place like that.
She’d never bought into the accusations made by his ex-wife. Well, none of that mattered now. He’d stayed in contact and even managed to send ten or twenty bucks a month of the fifty he made sweeping floors or whatever job he held in the joint. When he came home, she was just getting through a nasty divorce. It had been nice to have him on hand. His time away from women had made for some spirited sessions when she visited him in his tiny studio apartment. Six months after he was free, Chad’s parole officer had granted him supervised visits with Ronni.
The three of them had been at lunch in the tiny bistro he worked at washing dishes when this living hell had begun. Since then, he had saved all their asses more than once. Unfortunately, it seemed that Ronni hadn’t really warmed up to him. It was moments like this that she could see the pain in his eyes. He wanted desperately to comfort his daughter.
Of course that was only part of the problem. Almost on cue with that thought, she heard Kimberly Gant’s shrill voice.
“What in the hell were you thinking?” Kimberly rounded the corner, but stopped short of actually entering the cubicle. She knew Donna wasn’t above punching her in the face. She had a faded bruise under one eye as proof.
“Not now.” Chad took a deep breath and turned to face his ex-wife.
“There were children present.” Kimberly literally shook a finger right under Chad’s nose.
“Who were in grave danger if they got close enough to be bitten.” Chad stepped closer to Kimberly, forcing her to drop her hand. While only five-foot-ten, Chad had packed plenty of prison muscle on his squat, linebacker-like frame. Donna guessed him to be about two hundred pounds, with very little of it around the waist as was common in most forty-year-old men she knew.
“Well,” Kimberly drew herself up and tilted her chin so she could glare up at Chad, “the captain wants you in his tent right now.”
“The captain can fuck himself,” Donna snapped and untangled herself from Ronni to stand beside Chad. Kimberly took an awkward step back.
“Go ahead and hit me again,” Kimberly said. “They’ll toss your ass in the holding pen this time.”
Donna smiled and took a step forward. Kimberly’s look of defiance withered as she backed away. Chad stepped between the two and placed his hands on Donna’s shoulders.
“Stay with Ronni.” He kept his eyes on Kimberly. “I’ll go see what Jake wants.” He cast a glance at his daughter, then shouldered past Kimberly. “I wouldn’t hang around here if I was you. Donna’s been a bit cranky since she quit smoking.”
“I didn’t quit,” Donna mumbled and turned her back on Kimberly to tend to her daughter.
Chad stepped outside just as a pair of soldiers were finishing with wrapping Amber’s body up in a tarp. It would be burned like all the rest. Of course that meant a team would have to venture into the unsecured portion of the high school. Only a handful of those things usually managed to get past the makeshift barricade each day, and the soldiers were diligent about slipping out and putting them down. Those bodies, along with anybody who died inside the barricade—usually a soldier—were burned in the big incinerator in the basement of the school. He didn’t envy the men in uniform.
He crossed what had once been an outdoor basketball court and made his way to the grassy field where the captain’s tent stood, identifiable by the American flag waving in front from an eight foot tall metal pole. He wondered how the captain could sleep so close to the fence. The closer he got, the worse the stench became. Plus, the ones pressed up against the fence were constantly mewling, hissing…and then there was that hair-raising baby-cry some of them made.
He did his best to ignore the mob a mere handful of yards away as he reached the captain’s tent. A soldier standing outside the entrance, Private Hix, gave him a big toothy smile. Chad smiled back and came to a stop.
“Cap’n’s waitin’.” Private Hix’s smile grew even more broad if that were possible. Chad was reminded of a jack-o-lantern.
“Any suggestions?” Chad asked.
“Keep an open mind,” Private Hix answered.
No help at all, Chad thought as he ducked inside the tent. Captain Jake Moore was sitting at a rickety desk flipping through a stack of magazines. He stood the stack on end and tapped them on the desk to straighten them, then placed them crossways on his plastic inbox.
“I miss spoiled heiresses and untalented pop stars,” Captain Moore sighed. “That little hottie…Shari…one of my guilty pleasures.”
“I was a KISS fan,” Chad smiled. He took a look at the twenty-four-year-old—for all intents and purposes—kid sitting in an unstable, poor excuse for an office chair, wearing a badly stained, ill-fitting uniform. He looked more like somebody’s child playing Army more than he did an actual man of the military. His patchy facial stubble didn’t do him any favors.
“The guys with the make-up?”
“Yep,” Chad nodded, “but I doubt you called me here to trade mix-tapes.”
“Mix-tapes,” the captain chuckled. “You’re an old dude, Mister Meyer
s.”
“Just Chad, Captain.”
“Well, Chad, it seems….well…” It was clear the kid was upset about something.
“Is this about Amber Henson?” Chad asked. He studied Captain Jake Moore’s eyes. Nope, this definitely was not about Amber.
“No help is coming,” the young man blurted out. “We’ve had no radio contact in over two weeks. My men are leaving. Not all…but most.”
“Find family and loved ones?”
“Yes.”
“Can you blame them?” Not for the first time, Chad was grateful he’d been with his daughter when this madness had gone down.
“They’re deserting!”
“Deserting what?” Chad tried not to sound sarcastic. “Rumor had it that the president turned into one of those monsters. Way I see it, there ain’t a United States. How the fuck can there be a United States Army?”
“Our orders—”
“Are void,” Chad interrupted.
There was an uncomfortable silence. There was more. The captain hadn’t shared all the bad news yet.
“A decision has been made.” Captain Jake Moore stood and walked up to Chad. He extended his right hand, “Congratulations. I’m turning this command over to you.”
