Medora: A Zombie Novel

by Welker, Wick

  “I’m Sam Malone.” In a hasty attempt to make up a name, it was the best Dave could do.

  “Sam Malone? Like from Cheers?” The man laughed.

  “Yeah, just like from Cheers.”

  “Ha, well, sorry. I bet you’ve been getting that your whole life. I’m Lieutenant Sean Anderson.”

  Dave finally got to his feet and suddenly realized he was in a forest surrounded by trees. The sun was slanting through the branches, casting dancing shadows of leaves in the dirt. It was jarring for him to see the natural world in such a preserved state when the last thing he had seen was human monsters trying to rip his flesh off. The pure air filled his nostrils and sank into his lungs, sending chills down his back from the wholesomeness of the woods. He looked at Anderson. A frightfully young man stared back at him from beneath blond eyebrows. From his strong jaw and square mouth, Dave would’ve guessed that he was in the military.

  “Good to meet you, Sean. Were you the one who pulled me out of that mess?”

  “Yes, sir, I grabbed you up and brought you to the woods.”

  “Hey, thank you. I mean, thank you so much. I would’ve died right there in that street if you hadn’t done that. You really saved my ass.”

  “Well, you’re welcome, Sam Malone. I’d do it again. Are you hurt badly? To be honest, we actually haven’t had time to check you out for serious injury.”

  “Well…” Dave patted his legs and abdomen with his hands, “I think I’m in one piece. My face hurts like hell and my hips are killing me, but I actually feel okay.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. I butted you right in the face with the back of my rifle when I thought you were infected. Your face is actually kind of… it’s purple.” He gave Dave a weak smile.

  “No worries. I’m just happy to be out of the city.” Dave looked around him and realized there were a number of men dressed in army fatigues staring right at him. A few others were facing out into the woods with their rifles drawn. “So you guys are the National Guard?”

  “Yes, we’re the National Guard.” Anderson glanced over his shoulder at another man.

  “Anderson, shut your mouth.” The man shouted at him and approached Dave. He had deep grooves of aged skin forming the outline of his mouth. Dave could tell from his tight thin lips and authoritative stern forehead that this man was not going to be as friendly as Anderson was. He walked right up to Dave’s face, “What’d you say your name was again? Sam Malone?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “You’re sure your name is Sam Malone?” Dark aviator sunglasses concealed the man’s eyes.

  “Sure, I’m sure…” Dave paused.

  “What? What you got to say, Sam Malone?”

  “And you’re from the National Guard?”

  “You’ve got a lot of questions for someone that could easily get stranded in woods with flesh eating monsters roaming around.”

  The threat landed and Dave just stared back at the man’s sunglasses.

  The man continued, “You’re one lucky son of a bitch to be standing right here right now, so I’d shut your mouth and stop asking questions right this minute, Sam Malone.” He turned to Anderson and commanded, “Stop chit chatting and get on the radio.”

  “Yes, sir,” Anderson replied and scurried to the Humvee.

  Dave mustered the courage to speak up again to the man who had clearly revealed himself to be in charge, “Can I ask where we are?”

  “We’re an hour or two outside of Buffalo.”

  “Buffalo? How did we get out here? What’s going on back in the city?”

  “New York City and the immediate suburbs have become compromised at this point. Attempts to neutralize the city have been abandoned.”

  “Abandoned? How is the lower island just abandoned? This doesn’t make any sense. The entire city is infected?”

  “The army is currently setting up a perimeter to contain the infection. That’s all I can really say at this point.”

  “Oh, okay.” Dave felt small. He was a child now with no idea what the world was. He didn’t know if everything he had known about the world was fundamentally changing or if this was just a single event in history that would be contained to be looked back upon. “And I’m sorry, what was your name?”

  “I’m Captain Ortega.” The man’s expression had not changed once since he began talking to Dave.

  “Oh, okay, nice to meet you. Thanks again for pulling me out of there.”

  “Don’t thank me. Thank your little pal over there, Anderson. I had no idea he threw you on top of the truck. In full disclosure, I would’ve left you there. Nothing personal.”

  “Oh… okay.”

  Ortega abruptly walked away.

  “So, what now? Are you going to leave me here?”

  “That’s iffy right now.”

  Dave fell silent, found a log and sat down. He started counting the men that were around him. There were six, seven including him. Seven military men and one man with ten years experience working in an advertising firm. Dave had never held a gun in his life. He had a tattoo with a little coyote holding a gun on his shoulder blade. So there was that.

  Anderson hopped out of the Humvee with a flat expression on his face. “Sir, I got news.” Ortega stared at him. “We cannot get more men out here right now. They say all available reinforcements are being sent to New York. All inland reserves are being diverted there for containment.”

  “And…what about the target?”

  “They estimate it is within a 25 mile radius of our current location but they can’t pinpoint it. There hasn’t been visual confirmation yet.”

  “And just what in the hell do they expect us to do? Start a search party?”

  “Sir, they really want to talk to you for more direct instruction.”

  Ortega jumped into the Humvee, put on a headset, and started muttering to someone on the other line.

  Dave looked around at the men surrounding him, amazed at how all of them were gigantic in stature. They were dressed in army fatigues crammed full of equipment, wires and antennas in every available pocket. From only his limited experience of playing video games, he guessed they were each carrying M16 automatic rifles with an extra Desert Eagle and scope on their hips. Looking across the way, he saw another soldier delicately balancing the tip of a machete blade on a log with his fingertips lightly balancing the handle. He realized that they were all equipped with the same blade nestled in a sheath diagonally crossed on each of their backs.

  “I didn’t know they were giving you guys those huge blades,” Dave said to Anderson with the inflection of a question.

  “Oh, yeah, they’re new. They gave them to all us guys. Like, ah… for crowd control or riots.”

  “What’re you doing, cutting hippies’ heads off?”

  “Ha, well no. I haven’t been cutting off any hippie’s heads, although I’d like to sometimes.” Anderson let out a little laugh.

  “Yeah.” Dave looked down at his own clothes that consisted of shredded slacks with his hairy thighs showing through twin gaping holes in each pant leg. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his dress shirt and was wearing a deeply brown stained under shirt. His shoes were simply gone. Realizing only now how ridiculous he must look, he turned again to Anderson.

  “Hey, uh, you guys got any more clothes? Fatigues? I’ll take anything over here.”

  Anderson looked him up and down, “Yeah, just give me a minute.” Without another word, he suddenly ran off into the woods.

  “What the…” Dave gestured to another of the men expecting some sort of reaction but he just swung his machete into the side of a tree. After several awkward minutes, Anderson returned with a set of army fatigues and black boots.

  “Here you are.” Anderson presented him the clothes, neatly folded with the boots resting on top.

  “Where did you get these?”

  “We lost a man a little ways back. He got bitten in the city but we took him along with us when we got outta there. He tur
ned into one of the sick, so we had to, well… put him down. Damn, that sounds bad. Damn like putting a dog down but that’s exactly what we did, isn’t it? Put a couple in him and left him by a tree. I know it was shitty but we just didn’t have time to bury ‘em. At least, I took his dog tags for his family. I think he’d be happy if someone else could use his clothes. I mean, I don’t know, didn’t personally know the guy too well myself. We only met up with him in the city today. Seemed like a good enough guy.”

  “Do you think it’s safe to wear them? Do you think I could get infected or something?”

  “Buddy, did you see the stink that we pulled you from? You were covered up to your ears in blood and guts of those sick bastard people and you aren’t sick now. I’d at least put those boots on, cover up those nasty toes.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He reached out for them and quickly dressed himself. He cinched the belt tight, crinkling the waist of the pants around his belly. “They’re big, but man I’m happy to not be wearing torn up office clothes.” He patted the breast pocket and felt a clinking of metal. Digging in the pocket, he discovered the dog tags with the name Joseph “Boomtown” Troucher. “Boomtown,” he blurted out.

  “Say what?”

  “This guy’s dog tags. He went by ‘Boomtown’”

  Anderson gave him a soft chuckle and returned to Humvee where Ortega yanked off his headset. “What’s going on, Captain?”

  Ortega pushed Anderson out of the way, “Alright everybody, listen up!” He yelled as the men circled in. “I just got off the line with D.C. with updates about Manhattan and our current orders. It’s believed at this point that either some virus or bacteria of unknown origin infected patient zero somewhere on Manhattan either early this morning or late last night. They basically don’t know what the hell is going on and to us at this point, it doesn’t really matter. Manhattan is a dead zone. The Mayor is presumed dead and it is now under martial law. All efforts are now directed at containing the infected people within the city borders. Rescue efforts have been abandoned.” He paused, looked around into the woods and silently stared for a moment. “This thing spreads much faster than we’re used to. And I mean fast. Over the course of approximately 24 hours, half of one of the nation’s biggest cities has been decimated.”

  He left the last sentence hanging in the air for the men to digest. One soldier from the back spoke up, “Is it in other cities now, Sir? Besides the ones we know about?”

  Annoyed, Ortega continued, “That is were we come in right here right now. Our number one priority is containment. D.C. is in a panic with a capital ‘P’ about this disease killing us all off. There is basically a lot of shit we can speculate on, but right now for us, Medora One, there are two facts. Number one, New York City is fucked and number two, a commercial plane from LaGuardia exploded somewhere over New York state three hours ago. We are going to locate the wreckage of that plane and contain whatever presumed infected survivors there might be. When I say contained, I mean kill.”

  “Yes, sir,” shouted Anderson.

  “Now as far as reinforcements, there are none. National Guard, military, State Police, everybody else is at or around Manhattan. There is nobody else looking for this plane. If there were infected people on that plane that survived the crash, something that we can all guess is possible, given how hard it is to take these bastards down, we must find every single one of them to prevent further spread. There aren’t any surprises here. We know how these things act and we know how to exterminate them-”

  “So what? We just going to wander around the woods looking for some wreckage? I mean what the hell do they expect?” A soldier perched on top of a log shouted out.

  “Dammit, Clarence, let a man finish his sentence. I’ve been given precise coordinates of the wreckage so you can get your ass onto the roof of the Humvee for speaking out of turn, you just bought yourself front row tickets to end-of-the-world. Everybody, pack it up, we’re leaving in three minutes.” The group of men erupted into movement, gathering gear and assembling equipment into the Humvee. Dave began to stumble around the area as if he were also part of packing up gear when in reality he had no idea what he was doing.

  “You, Sam Malone, get over here,” Ortega barked at Dave. He sauntered over. “Look, Sam Malone, I know your name isn’t Sam Malone and I don’t really give a shit. You’re David Tripps. You don’t think the first thing I did was check your wallet?” Dave just stared at his sunglasses again, feeling his heart in his chest. “I don’t care why you lied, I don’t care what you’re hiding. Here’s the reality. We don’t have time to take you to far-away-safety land for you to live the rest of your days and D.C. wants us to bring to them whatever survivors we find. I’m giving you two options. Option one, we leave you here. Option two, you come with us to the crash site. You can wait peacefully in the car while we take care of business. I’m giving you six seconds to decide.”

  Dave looked at his face, out into the woods and then back at his face. It had the texture of sandstone with the color of brown desert dirt. “I’ll come.”

  Ortega swiftly turned around, “Alright, this truck is leaving in ten seconds, and the new guy Sam Malone is on the roof with pretty boy Clarence, so let’s go!”

  Dave put one foot on the bumper of the Humvee and then hiked himself up onto the roof as he groaned from his right hip. “You better grab onto these side railings here.” Clarence was already on top, lying flat with both arms hugging one of the short railings. “They’re going to drive fast.” Dave copied him by curling up on his side and clutching a side railing with both fists.

  The Humvee leapt into full speed and started to the west, hugging a long curve. Tree branches flew by Dave’s face as he stared into the silent woods. While he was in the woods, they seemed dangerous, but now that he looked through them from afar, he regretted his decision to take a joy ride with the hunters of the infected. The air was clean and green shadows of the forest were now calming his nerves.

  The Humvee soared down the roads and made its way out of the wooded area to an open landscape of dried dirt fields. No one spoke, not even Anderson. This team was finally getting to understand the idiosyncrasies of Ortega and they learned not to talk when he fell silent. His silence to them was premonition. They had seen his silence before and learned to trust that it was his way of mentally preparing for whatever he anticipated next. They knew his silent ways long before this mission and long before Manhattan. They’d met death with silence and seen the bodies of strangers evaporate before, singed with fuel and fire and the surprise of chaos. The only sound in that Humvee was the coarse wind grating at their ears.

  The Humvee swept around a long curve in the road through another thicket of trees and out into another exposed plane showing a small ranch house in the middle of a field. The sun shown off the planes with golden vibrancy. Dave noticed Clarence peering out over the railing of the roof, silently watching fence posts pass by. Dave silently watched, too.

  There was some commotion going on the inside the Humvee so Dave stretched his head down a little further over the open window to gather any directions Ortega may have spewing out over his subordinates. “There should be a short bridge over a stream right… there, yep I see it. Anderson, you see it there?”

  Anderson was sitting in the driver’s seat with two black leather gloves clutching onto the wheel. “Yes, sir, to the right over there sticking out? I see it. We’ll be there in three minutes.”

  “Satellite imaging has confirmed wreckage around the vicinity of the bridge.” Ortega spoke looking down at a GPS screen on his lap. The Humvee roared as Anderson stomped on the gas and hurled them towards a flimsy-looking wooden catastrophe of a bridge. “No way people are using that thing, right?” Anderson asked with no response.

  As they approached the bridge, Dave looked out into the field and saw a gigantic stuffed panda bear sitting upright, staring right back at him. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at and was about to ask Clarence about
it when he then saw a piece of luggage with clothes bursting out of it on the side of the road. A flight attendant’s serving cart was lying on its side a few moments after it.

  “Yep, we’re getting close,” Anderson declared. Charred fabric, empty seats, and twisted scraps of metal began to scatter across the landscape in front of the crew. Dave even saw a perfectly intact acoustic guitar lying face down on the shoulder of the road.

  Ortega called out, “Does anyone see the bulk of the wreckage? Any fuselage?” Garbage, papers, torn-up luggage and blackened mechanical equipment started to show up along the field beside the road. Then Dave saw what he knew was a coming. A single decapitated arm with its shoulder blade attached was lying beneath a highway sign. They all saw it. “Pull over.”

  Ortega got out and approached the arm, crunching the gravel beneath his boots. Deliberately, he walked up to the arm and rested the tip of his boot right on the wrist. Silently he watched the charred fingers, waiting. The wind blew across the road, sweeping dust up into the air and into his mouth. As he crunched down on the sand granules in his teeth, he saw the charcoal thumb bend inward towards the palm and hold there with the rest of the hand slightly twitching. “Clarence!” Ortega shouted back.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Bag it quick and let’s move. Twenty seconds.”

  In exactly twenty seconds, Clarence bounded off the top of the Humvee, snapped a gas mask around his head, produced a black plastic bag from his jacket and disposed of the arm into a container in the back of the Humvee. Once on top of the Humvee, he yelled out, “Let’s move!”

  The Humvee sailed along until it finally came to the bridge where Ortega ordered another stop. Looking out over the dirt plains, Dave still couldn’t see any sign of the actual body of the plane. The crew disassembled from the Humvee and approached the bridge. It swayed generously with the wind, rocking like a big sailboat on the ocean. Their boots thundered loudly as they stepped out onto it, and from there, they looked down into a shallow raven. Ortega rested one hand on the bridge railing. “There’s our girl.”