by M. Lorrox
The zombie’s head is torn from its body. It quivers for only a moment before becoming still. Hamid opens his eyes and sets the head on the ground. The men holding the body set it down softly alongside. Light from the window casts a warm glow onto the worn flats and black stockings the woman had been wearing.
Vincent places his hand on Hamid’s arm. “What do we do now?”
“We need a plan.” He leans against the wall and takes his phone out of his pocket. He taps on the little icon of an airplane, and it searches for signal. “We either wait here, or we go out there.” He nods toward James Cartwright, who still bleeds into Mary’s mouth. “How is she?”
He feels for a pulse with his other hand. “She’s alive, but she needs medical attention.”
Hamid nods. “And she shall have it.” He checks through messages as they come in through his phone. He sees one from Captain Sarkis, and he rereads it twice. “It seems that the building is on lockdown and all the humans inside have been turned into zombies. Sarkis is planning a rescue for us. We need to get to the courtyard.”
James sighs. “We’re about as far from the courtyard as we can get. Can we bust through these windows?” He nods to the pair of tinted, exterior-facing windows.
Vincent scans the room for anything they could use to smash the windows. The altar that the books for visitors to sign sit on, extends from the wall—there’s no legs underneath supporting it. He slides the books into a pile and sets them on the floor, then he grabs the four-foot, shelf-like altar itself and rips it from the wall. He turns with it and slams one of its corners against one of the windows.
-Krrrchrnk!- The altar shatters. A plexiglass barrier that protects the window deforms and taps the window before the plexiglass snaps back into position.
Vincent drops the small piece of the altar that remained in his hands. “I doubt we’ll be able to break them.”
Eliza clears her throat. “We must fight our way to the courtyard then.”
The High Councilors in the room all wait for orders from Hamid. James Cartwright bleeds into the unconscious Mary Wollstone’s mouth. Vincent de Villablino brushes wood pieces off his chest. Philip Sorensen stands resolute near the exit doors with Eliza Leroux. Bruce Tittensor stands between the sections of the 9/11 Memorial Room, where on one side a woman lays unconscious with blood across her face, and in another, a woman—turned-zombie—has been decapitated, and a U.S. Marine Corps officer—also turned-zombie—has had his head squashed.
The elders in the room wait for orders from the High Council. The elders on the War and Defense Cabinet—Señor Raúl Lucas, Señora Carmella Diaz, and Mrs. Katherine Reichenberg— look to High Councilor Vincent de Villablino, the chair of the War and Defense Cabinet. Elder Gerard Dziedzic looks to his friend Raúl, who invited him along on the tour. They all wait, and they find the waiting to be hard.
Hamid finishes and sends his text, then slides his phone back into his pocket. He takes a final full and unlabored breath as he walks over to Mary. He looks down at her for a moment, then bends down and picks her up, flopping her over his left shoulder. He turns around and faces the others. “We will stay together as long as we can. Try to keep the zombies off us, but if there are too many—if your own life is threatened and the group is failing—abandon us and make your way to the courtyard.”
“No.” Vincent takes a step toward Hamid. “I’m sorry sir, but that won’t do.” He turns to face the others. “We stay together and guard Hamid and Mary; they’re the most vulnerable. I’ll take the front, but I’ll need help.” He turns to Bruce.
He nods. “I’m with you.”
“Good.” Vincent turns to James who is looking a little pale after donating blood to Mary. “You’re next most vulnerable. You should take the back. Who will stay with him?”
Both Philip and Eliza, who were standing near the double doors that lead to the chapel, take a step forward, then look at each other. Eliza stands inches taller than him, even now when she’s in flats and he’s in thick soled shoes. She smiles down at him. “With all due respect, Philip, I’m a stronger fighter than you are. I’ll stay with James.”
Philip nods, then looks at Vincent.
“Okay. Philip and Katherine, take the left side. Gerard and Carmella, the right. Raúl, float in the middle with Hamid.” He looks around at everyone. “Work together. We can do this.”
Hamid repositions Mary on his shoulder. “Let us get moving.”
Eddy peeks over his shoulder to the ground, sixty feet below. He looks out past the parking lot; news trucks have stationed themselves along the shoulders of overpasses and nearby hills, each with cameras aimed his way. Cooool, I’m on TV!
He looks over his other shoulder; flashing lights swarm down a highway in the distance. Eddy squints to make out military vehicles and tanks amid the escort vehicles. He panics a little, and his foot slips from the top of the window ledge he paused at.
“Crap.” He swings away from the wall for a second, but regains his composure and climbs up a bit more with just his arms. He plants a foot firmly against the top of the window’s stone border and pushes up and off from it, reeling himself in with his arms.
“You alright down there?” Jambavan smiles over the edge of the roof above him.
“Fine. Thanks.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Jambavan’s head disappears, and in another moment, Eddy pulls himself onto the roof with the others. When he stands, Flying Eagle is standing before him.
He has a scarred face, and his shaggy, oily hair blows a little in the wind. “My squire has told me all about you. It’s nice to meet you, Leo.”
Eddy smiles and grabs Flying Eagle’s hand. “You too, uh, sir.”
The knight takes a step toward Eddy and whispers, “On mission today, you can call me Flying Eagle.” He drops Eddy’s hand and turns toward the others. “Now let’s get off the roof already. It’s sunny up here.” He turns and starts running along the edge of the building.
The Pentagon has a surprisingly complex design for such a simple sounding name. It does have five sides, but it’s broken up into concentric rings, named A-E, with gaps and open areas between each. Ten perpendicular corridors—two per side of the five-sided building—lead straight through the rings and connect them together. This design extends five stories above the ground and a few stories into the ground. Below ground, additional wings and tunnels stretch out beyond Rings A-E.
Officially, the expansive building has 6,500,000 square feet of space and contains over seventeen miles of corridors.
Junior guardsman Flying Eagle and his squire, Enrique; senior guardsman and Acting Commander Korina Sarkis and her squire, Jambavan; and Elder Sadie Costanza and her acting squire, Eddy; run along the roof of the outer ring, Ring E, to get to one of the perpendicular corridors that connect the rings together. Enrique can’t hope to keep up with Flying Eagle, and Eddy can’t keep up with Sadie, so they drop back and run together. Jambavan slows to join them.
When Sadie runs across the corridor’s roof to Ring D, she glances down to the open area below. The ground is covered with concrete, and she can see a door along one side, leading into the first story of Ring D. She looks back up, careful of her footing on the slanted roof, and follows Korina and Flying Eagle.
Jambavan also glances down when he crosses, and as he does, the door on the first floor of Ring D opens, and a man in a business suit stumbles out. Jambavan stops running and points. “There is a man down there.”
Eddy and Enrique pause and look down at the man. His clothes are messy and disheveled.
Eddy shrugs. “Think that’s a zombie?”
Jambavan scratches his head. “It used a door, can they do that?”
Enrique bends down and squints. “No, he’s vamp.” He stands back up and cups his hands over his mouth. “Hey buddy, you alright?”
The man, shocked, looks up at them. He flails with his arms toward the boys on the roof. “Shhh!”
The young vampires look at one another
and furrow their brows.
The man starts running their way, toward a dead end. Behind him, a half dozen zombies run around the corner of the open area, and charge at the man.
Jambavan pushes on Eddy’s shoulder. “Continue to the courtyard, I’ll meet you there.”
Before Eddy can protest, Jambavan uses his full speed, and he’s gone. He runs to Ring D and then along it toward the zombies, yelling down to them. “Hey! Over here!”
A couple zombies look up, but a few keep running toward the man cornered on the ground level. The zombies distracted by Jambavan grab at the wall and try to climb it toward him. They fail and fall, gnashing their teeth while growling up at him.
Jambavan unhooks a carabiner from his climbing gear, and he hurls it at the group still headed for the man on the ground. It hits the front zombie in the shoulder, and it turns, growling at the zombies following it.
It gets barreled into by the zombies behind it, and they all fall. Jambavan runs and shouts some more, leading the remaining zombies away from the man on the ground.
Eddy and Enrique look down at the zombies that fell. Enrique points. “Is that normal?”
The two zombies that ran into the first one gang up on it, punching and whacking at it with their hands and then biting into it with their teeth. The one Jambavan hit with a carabiner bites onto one of its attackers’ arms, and all three continue to fight and bite one another.
“Nope.” Eddy turns toward the courtyard. “Come on, we have to catch up.”
The 9/11 Memorial Room and chapel is on the outer edge of Ring E, on the west side of the Pentagon. Just outside the double doors that lead out of the chapel and into Ring E’s hallway, the most influential group of vampires in the world will face hundreds of hyper-aggressive zombies.
Bruce peers out through the stained glass of the chapel doors and into the hallway. He turns back to Vincent and whispers, “There’s so many.”
Vincent steps past him, peeks through, then nods. He turns to the group and whispers, “I can see the corridor that cuts across the rings; it’s only a hundred feet away. If you come across anything that can be used as a weapon, grab it. Priority is to move fast and get to the courtyard. Are we ready?”
Hamid shifts Mary on his shoulder. “Lead the way.”
Vincent and Bruce stand on either side of the double doors, and they look at each other. They blast the doors open and pour into the hall, pushing and shoving zombies out of the immediate area to make a space for the others. In a flash, Philip and Katherine follow them and step to the left. Then Gerard and Carmella step out and to the right. Hamid carries Mary, and Raúl follows on Hamid’s weak side—the left side, where Mary is. When they’re through, Eliza and James take up the rear.
Only the zombies immediately in front of the doors are aware of the vampires, but the element of surprise that the vampires had, doesn’t last. A huge zombie in a suit hisses and growls at them, and all the zombies nearby turn to see the prey. They hiss and growl and start tearing toward the group, and zombies farther down the hall respond in kind.
By the time the group makes their one-hundred-foot trek to the corridor, every zombie within earshot and line of sight—close to five hundred—are hunting and running in their direction.
James, weak from donating blood to Mary, struggles with one arm against the attackers. Eliza, in the back of the group with him, picks up the slack and viciously tears through the zombies. She rips out one’s throat when she hears James hit the ground.
A blond-haired zombie grabs at him. He protects his face and head with his arms, and he’s able to bring his knee up and get his foot against the zombie’s gut. He thrusts out and launches the zombie away from him. It slams against the wall and knocks over a large painting in a thick, hardwood frame.
Eliza extends James an arm, and when he grabs on, she rips him off the floor and onto his feet.
“Thanks, El. Bust a frame and give me a piece, would you?”
She smiles as she looks along the sides of the hall. The tour guide had made a point of calling out the fabulous artwork in the halls, and every piece resides in a thick frame. She grabs one—a Navy woman smiling out at her—and she splits the frame into two at opposite corners. She glances down at the exposed wood at the frame’s corner. It’s solid! “Break the frames into clubs!”
As the other vampires find frames, Eliza breaks one of the longer sections off from the busted frame she has, and she tosses it to James. Then, she grabs the other long section and holds it like a baseball bat. For the first time since the formation of the United States, Eliza Leroux is pleased about the spending the country sometimes had problems with… Well, she’s pleased about one line item of those budgets, at least.
Then, she’s tackled from behind. She stabs the zombie in the mouth with the corner of the frame, then rips the side of its face off as she brings the frame up to her shoulder to swing.
Inside the corridor that connects the rings, more zombies meet them. Zombies from every adjoining ring spill out and into the corridor, and soon, it’s almost impassible to the group. Every side of the vampires’ formation becomes the front line, but Vincent and Bruce—in the actual front of the group—are challenged with additionally making forward progress. As the zombies close in around them, the broken frames take on a different use.
With little room to move, and with Bruce beside him, Vincent holds his piece of frame like a bar in front of him, and he bashes it into the heads of the zombies before him. It works, but there are too many. A zombie on the ground grabs his thigh from behind and bites hard into it. “Arrghh!” Vincent slams the frame into its head, but besides killing it, the force pushes the zombie’s upper teeth deeper into his leg. The teeth sever a sizable portion of the biceps femoris muscle’s long head.
This muscle is part of the hamstring group, and it is important for flexing and rotating the knee as well as extending the hip joint. “Bruce! Philip! Cover me!” Vincent switches his weight to his right leg, grabs the zombie by its thinning hair, and pulls the teeth out of his leg.
He drops the zombie, transfers weight back onto his wounded leg, and stands. He sighs in relief. But when he tries to take a step, he falls.
Philip and Katherine are on the left side of the group, Philip closest to Vincent. When Vincent drops, Philip leaps over and past Vincent, into the arms of the zombies that were in front of him. He smashes, rips, punches, and knees the zombies in a frenzy, but Eliza was right—he’s not a strong fighter. As soon as a zombie has a grip on him, it sinks its teeth in. Philip howls and turns all his attention to that zombie, allowing the other zombies around him time to attack. His ineffective strategy repeats, and blood rinses down the shreds of his silver-gray suit.
Raúl notices, and he leaves Zaman’s side to help Philip. He grabs the thin man from behind, and pulls him back, out of the grabby hands and blood-dripping mouths of the zombies. Philip catches his breath and tries to clap his hand on Raúl’s shoulder, but he can’t lift his right arm.
Gerard and Carmella, on the right side of the group, also have their hands full, but they manage by working together. If a zombie takes one out, the other assists. Their system works well, until they reach Ring C—roughly the halfway point to the courtyard.
A mass of zombies rush the group from the right side, and they bust right through Gerard and Carmella and toss them to the ground. Hamid turns in time to see two separate zombies leaping toward him. With his only free arm, he smashes one in the head, killing it in the air. The other, however, hits him hard, and he is about to fall and drop Mary. He spins and gets a foot beneath him, but his leg is torqued. He’s hit again, and he drops to his knee.
Zaman’s impressive stature is no longer an asset. Now on one knee, his head is perfectly positioned at the height of most zombies’ chests. By swinging his free arm, his strength would allow him to knock down and incapacitate any single zombie, but he’s not faced with any single zombie. There’s four. One dives in toward his torso, one goes for his head,
one goes for his bent front leg, and the last pounces at his other leg’s calf.
Zaman decides to protect his legs, and he uses his head and arm to block the attacks. He knows that if he can’t walk out of there, it won’t matter how many concussions he gets.
Enrique and Eddy reach Korina, Sadie, and Flying Eagle along the inside edge of Ring A, right next to the courtyard. Jambavan is there as well, panting from his sprint. Korina holds a finger to her mouth, then motions with her thumb over the edge.
Eddy waves his hand in the air to get everybody’s attention. He speaks quietly, “These aren’t normal zombies; they fight and seem to be extra aggressive.”
Sadie sighs while Flying Eagle snorts a little chuckle. “Great, just what we needed—fast AND angry zombies.”
Korina scowls at him. “Shush. Be quiet; we don’t want to alert them.” She calls everyone over to her and into a huddle. She drops onto a knee and looks up at them, her back faces a lake of green leaves; the breeze is blowing across the top of the trees that grow in the five-acre courtyard. “The High Council got my message, and they’re on the way.”
Sadie exhales. That’s a relief.
Korina sighs. “Prime Minister Zaman says they already have casualties, and they’ll be carrying wounded and moving slow.”
Sadie winces. Through the halls with all those zombies?
Korina motions over her shoulder. “I estimate there are two-fifty to three hundred zombies in the courtyard. It’s wide open down there, so it’ll be hard for the six of us to defend the elders… We need a plan.”
Eddy points behind Korina. “Do we know where they’ll be coming in? Like, what side of the courtyard?”
Korina nods. “Prime Minister Zaman said they’ll be leaving from the 9/11 Memorial Room.”
Sadie stands up, gets her bearings, then points to the west. “They must be leaving from that side, but there’s a chance they don’t come straight through.”
