by Ray Wallace
Bringing the bottle to his lips, he took another swig of whiskey and hoped for the best.
Wednesday, September 16th
The president was dead.
Long live the president.
With every day, nearly every hour, more information came in regarding the zombie attack.
Sighing, Governor Richards leaned back in his chair, away from the table where his laptop sat next to several disorderly stacks of paper along with a phone connected to a landline. He rubbed his eyes, trying to wish it all away—the reports, the numbers—at least for a little while. How nice it would be to just forget or, barring that, pretend that none of it had ever happened, that the zombies hadn't organized themselves into something resembling a cohesive army—exactly how was anybody's guess. That the awful things hadn't emerged en masse from the Great Lakes along Michigan's eastern and western borders, hadn't ruthlessly and efficiently preyed upon the unsuspecting citizens he'd been elected to govern.
Fortunately, the zombies had never reached the mansion where Governor Richards and his wife resided. The president, however, had not been so lucky. The island where he'd been staying, where he'd spent much of his time inebriated and doing his best to ignore the sworn duties of his office, had been completely overwhelmed according to the reports the governor had been given. After the undead creatures milling about the island had been eradicated, it had been difficult to positively identify the remains of those who'd been fed upon. Enough of the president's body had been found, however, to ascertain that a second US commander in chief had perished since the onset of the zombie plague. The more recent of the two may have been little more than a figurehead but Governor Richards knew the symbolic effect of his demise could not be overstated. It was bad for morale, as his military advisors liked to say. Real bad. Although, he figured the deaths of so many others had done little to lift people's spirits either.
And that's not the end of the bad news.
The plague had entered the zone.
In the days following the zombie invasion, large numbers of people had started showing flu-like symptoms. It wasn't long before the first of them had died only to come back as the living dead.
With another sigh, Governor Richards stood up and crossed the room, opened the cabinet mounted to the wall next to a bookcase filled with hardcover editions of many of his favorite books: Moby Dick, Of Mice and Men, To Kill a Mockingbird among them. From the cabinet, he grabbed a glass and a bottle of top shelf bourbon, returned to the chair and poured himself two fingers worth of the amber colored liquid.
The president is dead.
He set the bottle on the table and raised the glass.
"Long live the president."
As the liquor's warmth settled into his stomach, he gave a low whistle.
That hits the spot.
Reluctantly, he reached for one of the stacks of paper, flipped through it, skimming over some of the numbers it contained. He would need to address the people. Again. In the immediate aftermath of the zombie attack, he'd made a televised speech filled with assurances that the military had done its job, that there was no chance of a similar event taking place. That the people had nothing to fear.
Obviously, he'd been wrong.
With the plague having entered the zone, they had plenty to fear. He would do what he could, though, to ease their concerns. It was part of the job, after all. Tell the people what they wanted to hear, what they needed to hear. Offer them promises, ones he might not be able to keep. God knew he'd done it plenty of times before.
Easy enough to do it again.
He poured himself another shot. After he polished it off, he reached for the phone.
Time to call in the speech writers...
Thursday, September 17th
The girl wouldn't stop screaming. Or at least trying to scream. Her voice had gone hoarse to the point where she could barely manage more than a rough whisper.
"Fuck you..." she'd been saying for a while now. “Fuck you...”
Simon admired her spirit, her will to survive, her never say die attitude. It was a rare quality in his victims. Usually, once they realized the full extent of the situation, once the fear had taken hold, had settled deep into their bones, they would plead with him, beg him not to hurt them. Not this one. She was a fighter. He didn’t doubt that if he were to cut her loose, she'd come at him even though he stood nearly a foot taller and had a good sixty or seventy pounds on her. Even though he held the razor sharp hunting knife in his hand, had already used it to do a number of rather painful things to her. He was tempted to free her just to find out, to see how much fight she really had in her. But he didn't give in to the temptation. Too risky. For all he knew, she had a black belt in jujitsu, might launch a surprise attack and get the knife away from him. Not likely, given her current condition but the possibility was there, no matter how remote.
Simon had learned long ago the importance of avoiding risk. Throughout much of his life, his very survival had depended on it. Once the outbreak had gotten under way and the world he inhabited had become a place largely devoid of law or reason, the risks he'd faced for so long had lessened significantly. But that didn't mean he could throw caution to the wind.
The woman lay on the living room floor in the house he'd shared, until three weeks earlier, with Amanda, Eric, and Mitchell. He'd bound her hands behind her back and tied her ankles together. She was young and attractive, bleeding from the places he'd stabbed her. None of the wounds were life threatening—not in the short term, at least.
He'd happened upon her by pure chance. Earlier in the day, while he'd been out roaming the neighborhood, he'd heard voices—male and female—followed by the sound of a car door closing. When the woman had ducked behind a row of hedges to relieve herself, he'd sneaked up on her and knocked her unconscious with a single, sharp blow to the head. After that, he'd had no problem picking her up and tossing her over his shoulder as the car sat idling beyond the hedgerow less than ten feet away.
He thought about all the zombies he'd butchered in recent months, the things he'd done to them using a variety of tools and weapons—knife, hatchet, saw, and drill, to name a few. And he thought about how much fun it had been at first, how much less he enjoyed it as time wore on, how he'd felt an ever growing need to commit actual murder, to experience the real thing. To hear the screams of his victims, see the fear on their faces, watch the light go out of their eyes. How he'd fought that need during his time with Amanda, afraid that she might find out about this particular aspect of his personality. Once she had left, however, there had no longer been any reason to restrain himself. He was free to pursue his singular driving passion. And so he had. Three times so far, not including the woman lying at his feet.
The fighter.
How long would it take, he wondered, until her spirit broke, until she started to beg, just like the others? Yes, she'd been a tough one so far. But it wouldn't last, he knew. There was only so much pain, only so much disfigurement a person could withstand before they inevitably broke. As with the others, he looked forward to finding out where that breaking point lay hidden, could only hope it took him a long, long time to get there.
Kneeling on the floor, he held the knife close to the woman's face, the tip of the blade nearly touching her eye. As he did so, he thought about Amanda. Nothing surprising there. He thought about her all the time. And, of course, this led to thoughts of Eric, to all the things he'd wanted to do to him.
Will I ever see him again?
"I think I will," he said to the woman on the floor. "In fact, I know it."
Uttering the words, putting them out into the world like that, made him feel good.
What he did next made him feel even better.
Friday, September 18th
They covered the last few miles on foot, killing every single zombie they encountered along the way.
"This is a glorious day!" Pastor Lewis had proclaimed from the church steps, speaking to the assembled mass of his army
before everyone got in their vehicles and headed south to Tampa. "The forces of darkness will feel our might and suffer our vengeance. Together we will march on the city and reclaim it for the Lord!"
He'd unsheathed the sword in his hand, the one made to resemble a cross, and raised it high above his head, gleaming blade pointed toward the sky. A cheer had gone up from those gathered there and it was with a general air of exhilaration that they had dispersed, ready to follow the pastor into whatever hell he decided to lead them.
Rachel didn't share their exuberance. For one thing, she hadn't bought into Pastor Lewis's concept—"Sent down from on high!"—of a "holy city" standing as a “beacon in the darkness,” it's very existence a message to "the Dark One" that his plan for world domination would inevitably fail. The idea that this holy city would be Tampa, FL of all places, an area as famous for its strip clubs as its weather and beachfront property, seemed more than a little odd. It all sounded like so much megalomaniacal grandstanding, had her wondering how she and Howard were the only ones who seemed to question it.
"Nuttier than a fruitcake" was Howard’s opinion of the man, one he'd shared with her after they were released from the houses in which they'd been imprisoned.
Rachel wouldn't have gone quite that far. Except for the delusions of grandeur, the man appeared to be sane enough. And he certainly had a charisma about him, an ability to claim and capture an audience, one honed during all the years he'd spent behind the pulpit, no doubt. Through the power of his personality, he'd convinced his soldiers to buy into his scheme—revealed to him by God in a series of dreams, if he was to be believed.
Rachel understood the appeal of pastor's message. Practically overnight, the world had become a strange and frightening place. Given the situation, she supposed that most people were willing to follow anyone offering guidance and reassurances, who made them feel as though they were a part of something that mattered. Of course, this was all conjecture on her part, as she'd done her best to avoid contact and conversation with Pastor Lewis's followers, to keep her distance despite his wishes.
"Feel free to socialize," he'd said the day following his initial visit as he escorted her out of the house where they'd been keeping her.
"That's probably not a great idea," she'd responded as she stepped outside, blinking in the afternoon sunlight.
"No, really, I insist. They're a friendly group. You should have no problem making friends."
He’d made it clear he wanted her to stay in their little community, had already picked out a house for her.
"It's right down the street from mine."
She figured she could have gotten out of town if she'd really wanted to, given the slip to whoever was keeping an eye on her—she had no doubt the pastor was having her watched. Getting both her and Howard out, though, may have been a problem. Like it or not, she'd become attached to the old fellow and didn't want to leave him behind. So she had stayed.
Despite her efforts to keep to herself as much as possible, some people had gotten sick. Each of them had turned into one of Pastor Lewis's “demons” before they were put down for good.
I should have left, she told herself as she walked toward Tampa along with the rest of the pastor's “holy warriors.” I should have found a way to get Howard out, too. Those people would still be alive...
Pastor Lewis had actually thanked her for those deaths.
“They were impure. In the world I've foreseen, there would have been no place for them...”
Someone had started to sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Before long, plenty of others had joined in. Random gunshots and cheering intermingled with the melody of the song. It seemed that everyone was sufficiently pumped up for the coming melee.
Rachel walked next to Howard near the front of the pack, not far behind Pastor Lewis and Brother Randall. The pastor had gotten his sword messy a couple of times already. She figured it would get a lot messier by the time they reached their ultimate destination: the downtown area where the Performing Arts Center was located. If they’d been able to drive all the way, they would have been there by now. But the closer they'd gotten to the city, the more difficult it had become to maneuver such a large number of vehicles. And so they had walked.
The singing and the cheering continued.
"Rachel!"
Howard was standing at the edge of the crowd, hand raised, pointing back in the direction from which they'd been walking. A moment later, she stood beside him, staring at the sky as several distant specks grew larger, revealed themselves as fighter jets heading their way, the low rushing sound they made quickly growing to a roar. Cries of fear and surprise went up as the jets flew by overhead. It wasn't long before the percussive booms of bombs being dropped over Tampa reached them.
The long column of marchers fell silent and halted dead in its tracks.
"No! You must stop this at once!" Pastor Lewis shouted, as though the fighter pilots might hear him. “You will destroy the holy city!”
It was then that Rachel found herself agreeing with Howard's assessment of the man:
Yep, nutty as a fruitcake.
Saturday, September 19th
Not good, thought Dominick, staring down at the zombies closing in. No, not good at all.
He'd been stupid, letting himself get trapped between a couple of parked vehicles by a handful of the slow moving creatures. Watching them, he found it difficult to think of them as ever having been human. They certainly didn't behave in any way that suggested they'd once been human. And even if they had been, did it matter at this point? They were creatures now. Monsters.
And they had him surrounded.
He knew he'd pushed his luck, had spent too much time inside the pharmacy searching for the items Irene said they needed to survive, to fight infections and a variety of illnesses. Also, to help ward off the bleak emotional state—an amalgam of sadness and fear—that had gotten its hooks into her after the incident at the convenience store, when Dominick had been forced to use his father's gun to save her.
If only the gun could get him out of his current situation. But there were just too many zombies. He didn't have enough bullets for them all.
Should have left sooner.
Irene had said every item on the list she'd given him was important, though. He hadn’t wanted to return to the house where they'd been staying until he'd found them all. The house that Irene had refused to leave for even brief periods of time in recent days.
“There's medication that can help me. If you could go and get some...”
He'd set out beneath the overcast morning sky, doing his best to stay out of sight as he made his way to the Walgreen's down the road. And though he saw a number of zombies along the way, he'd avoided them easily enough, hadn't needed to use the gun even a single time.
The pharmacy was located in the back of the store, much of which lay shrouded in darkness, deepening the further he moved from the entrance.
Should have brought a flashlight.
He'd discovered that the door to the pharmacy, which would have normally been locked, had been forced open at some unknowable time in the past. Also, there was a prescription pick-up window that let in a little sunlight.
Just inside the door, he'd stumbled over a dead body lying on the floor, became aware of the smell a moment later.
"Do this, and get out," he'd mumbled to himself, not liking the situation at all, realizing how easy it would be to get trapped in there.
The rows of shelves and the bad lighting had provided too many hiding places, too many blind spots from where someone—or something—might suddenly appear. The place had been fairly well plundered. Most of what remained lay scattered across the floor. In order to read the labels on the containers, he'd taken them over to the window. After ten minutes or so spent searching for the medications on Irene's hand written list, he'd told himself it was time to go. Stuffing the pouches and bottles of pills into the pockets of his shorts, he'd departed as quickly and quietly as he could.<
br />
I've got company.
Standing in front of the store, he'd watched as a couple of dozen zombies moved toward him. It was as though word had gotten out there was food here and they'd all shown up to get some.
Not if I can help it.
He'd taken off running, firing his father's gun when a zombie got too close, had put three of them down before he'd gotten halfway across the parking lot. Then he'd made the mistake of ducking between a Corvette on his right and an old, primer gray van on his left. A trio of the undead creatures had appeared in the opening before him while several more had closed in from behind. Without really thinking about it, he'd scrambled onto the hood of the Vette then up to the roof. From there he’d made the leap over to the top of the van, feeling one of his pursuer's hands slap against his tennis shoe in the process.
And now he stood there, breathing heavily, more out of fear than exhaustion, looking down at the dead, empty gazes staring up at him. Their numbers grew as he waited there, further ruining his chances of escape. As he considered his options—knowing there were few if any at all—a jeep pulled up and stopped just inside the entrance to the parking lot.
A woman got out. She wore a tank top and camouflage pants with a red bandanna tied around her head. Cradled in her arms was a very serious looking gun.
"Hi, I'm Susanna," she said, loud enough for him to hear.
"Dominick," he shouted back.
Without another word, she aimed the weapon, and with a pull of the trigger started cutting zombies to pieces.
Sunday, September 20th
Mitchell stood at the port side of the boat, hands on the railing. He felt the wind on his face and in his hair, the spray of the ocean on his skin. His mother sat next to him, her legs dangling over the side.
