Zombie Wake

by Storm J. Helicer

  My exhausted brain was just catching up to what I was seeing and putting together the connection between red light and night vision and how tactical that was when I heard a sound like the fabric of space being ripped apart. At the same moment a brilliant white flame leapt out of the craft’s backend. Hot angry air whipped past my head as I put the clues together and realized there was some sort of weapon firing. I could see a large multi-barrel gun mounted on the end of the load ramp. The barrels were spinning with an audible electric whirr and thousands of glistening brass shell casings were raining down into the water below. I turned as the ripping noise grew louder and louder and great misty clouds of blood and gore where blossoming in columns along the length of the pier. The weapons operator was slowly working his way up and down the pier, back and forth. Bodies were dropping left and right in a heap. I almost fell off the railing and then awkwardly flopped forward onto the deck of the pier. I could smell the acrid stench of gunpowder and watched as the large brass shells tinkled on the pier around me. The noise resonated and my skull throbbed in pain.

  Then came the ropes. They dropped from either side of the craft and armed soldiers, dressed in black, dropped rapidly to the pier. As they hit the deck they fanned out, un-slung their weapons and began to methodically walk down the pier dispatching the putrid dead. Soon one was walking towards me. I turn and looked up. He was tall and he had the look of a man who had the musculature you get from doing work, not sculpted in front of a mirror but earned by doing hard, back-breaking work. He had a rough angular face. He looked down at me and shouted something unintelligible. I just looked in confusion up at him. He turned, looking down the pier toward the carnage, and spit sunflower seeds off to the side. He then turned back and shouted again “YOU OKAY?”

  While I was escorted to an already cleared corner, the mop-up crew continued their progress down the pier in a blur of progress. At one point someone produced a chain saw and cut rails from the end of the pier and dumped them over the side. I was guided, half dragged away from the end of the pier and soon we were clear for the tilt rotor to come down. It landed on the pier in a cloud of mist and spray. More soldiers exited the craft. Two came towards me with duffel bags slung over their shoulders. They looked like medics with clear plastic face shields that cinched tight around their necks.

  Testing

  11

  “Sit him down. Sit him down dammit.”

  They both kneeled down in front of me and started unzipping the bags. The one to my left pulled a plastic carboy out with attached tube and sprayer. With one hand he motioned to his eyes, closing them as his open hand slid in a downward motion over his face. Then he pointed the nozzle at my face and started spraying. My eyes were stinging before I realized he was telling me to close them. The smell of ethanol burned my nose and tongue and soon I was saturated.

  “Take off your clothes,” the other yelled.

  I’m not sure how I transformed from a mad-shooting, gun-slinging, baton-wailing raging man to acting like a mud-crusted boy whose mother was standing with a bucket full of soapy water and a scouring pad; but without hesitation, I started unsnapping, unbuckling, and shedding the sweat, blood and ethanol filled polyester. As my shoes and clothes started to stack in a heap, the other bag was unzipped and out came another carboy. This time, I closed my eyes before the spray started but the bleach seemed to go right through my eyelids and my hands went to my face while I crouched down resting my forehead on one knee.

  Rubbing my eyes with a towel that one of them planted in my hands, I was able to see one of the medics pulling a black gun-shaped device out of his bag. He grabbed my arm, placed the barrel of the device against my forearm and a fiery sting shot from my arm to my shoulder. When he pulled the gun away I saw an angry star-shaped hole gouged out of my forearm. The medic, I would later know as Johnson, looked down at the device. There was a purplish glow coming from a screen on the back. As the screen flickered in the eyes of Johnson’s partner, I noticed he was shaking. The man, who had first approached me, reappeared watching Johnson and the device. Holding an assault rifle in arms and he flicked the safety lever on and off as he chewed and spit sunflowers seeds. He was wearing no mask.

  “Come on Johnson what is it?”

  “Just chill a sec, Dyer. You know this thing takes time.” Then Johnson turned to the other medic and said, “The paper reading.”

  “Oh, yeah,” the guy murmured fumbling into the side pocket of the bag.

  “NOW!” Dyer yelled. Then those trembling gloved hands put a narrow sliver of paper on the edge of my lip. Dyer moved in closer with his gun, pointing it directly at me. “Lick it,” Johnson told me.

  I licked it and the medic snatched it back so quickly, he pulled my lip in the process. He held the paper in one hand while awkwardly maneuvering a flashlight with another. A blue light eventually flooded the paper and a bright fluorescent yellow appeared. He held it up.

  “Negative.”

  Soon, there was a beep and a click. Johnson looked up at Dyer and gave him a thumbs-up. Dyer noticeably relaxed and swung his weapon around behind him.

  “Nice. A little good news on a shitty night. Alright Johnson get him on the bird and get him checked in. And you,” he said pointing to the medic, “I’ve a notion to bite you myself. This was your first and last assignment. Go put your seatbelt on.” Turning to the rest of us, he said, “Now, we’re gonna be outta here in ten!”

  With that Dyer turned and took off toward the battle that was still raging on shore at the base of the pier. “You did some work here tonight,” Johnson told me while pushing a gauze dressing on my forearm where blood was pooling. “Let’s get you checked in. Here.” He handed me white Tyvek suit. I stepped into them and slid the Velcro up to my neck. Then he tossed some plastic thongs toward my feet. I slipped them on noticing that the elastic coverall legs came only mid calf.

  “Alright sir it’s your lucky day. Come with me. We are gonna take care of you.”

  Infection

  12

  Johnson guided me toward the aircraft, up the ramp and inside. He motioned to a jump seat along the wall. Next to me was a corner sealed with two clear plastic drapes, a makeshift room with Velcro doors. Inside, two individuals sat dressed in Tyvek suits similar to mine. But they also wore booties, hoods and a mask like Johnson’s. They sat side by side harnessed into seats, one looking into a microscope on a retractable table and the other dripping clear drops into consecutive tubes in a tabletop instrument. The clear walls bowed in like an hourglass, concave and taut. Along the floor, a chill blew from the seams of the craft itself whose floor and wall junctions were lined with long narrow filters.

  *

  What I didn’t know at the time was that zombies pose the greatest threat to humanity. Moreover, the fact that I survived without succumbing to infection, I was told later, was improbable beyond calculation. In fact, the only one ever documented to endure such an attack was Dyer himself was a legend to the field and founder of the official zombie eradication project.

  Transmission, which occurs generally with a bite, strikes with violent speed resulting in near immediate dissemination. Following, epidemics are almost guaranteed with just one source.

  When saliva, teaming with viral particles, enters through a skin break, the victim has approximately twenty-four hours until reanimation. And death follows within hours.

  In the blood the virus hijacks red blood cells, then produces and secretes more virus into the plasma. Since the virus can double its growth in 3 minutes just one virus can result in over a million in the course of one hour. It is believed that the first symptom, which occurs within 15 seconds of the bite, is a metallic taste, and is the effect of iron lost from infected erythrocytes. At the two-hour mark, the spleen ruptures and the heart rate slows to half its normal rate. Three hours post infection the victim becomes agitated, disoriented and notably distracted by smell. At hour four, violence and a preoccupation with eating human tissue begins.

  Death and
reanimation occur nearly simultaneously. As the heart stops and blood flow ceases, the virus moves to nervous tissue. Sometimes in the early phases of reanimation, the zombie is perceived as deceased. Those cases are profoundly disturbing to witness especially if the reanimation occurs after burial. And this uprising is undoubtedly the source of folklore and legends that coincides with modern human history.

  *

  But I wasn’t thinking about all this as I looked down at my cold feet and noticed they were red and blotchy from the bleach. In fact, I felt raw all over; my skin was crawling with irritation. The hairs on my arms were orange-white.

  The evidence that bleach denatures protein is apparent in the way it obliterates chromophores, pigmented proteins. The orange in carrots, the green in grass, the brown in my hair, will all turn white when the broken protein bonds are destroyed and wavelength absorption is disabled. Similarly, the very envelope that houses the zombie virus is disintegrated when it contacts the toxic substance. It turns out that bleach and extremely high temperatures are the only things that can annihilate the bug. I was soon to find out how fire would be used.

  The Burn

  13

  With the fatigue and hunger restlessness gripped me and I found myself wanting to get up. As I swung around to look down the ramp, Johnson appeared, lips moving and motioning to his shoulders. He had a headset on and an extra in his hand. As he approached, he flung my shoulder straps over, buckling me—a harness with two over the shoulder straps and two over the leg belts meeting up at my sternum. He cinched the straps tight as I felt the engine start to rev. Before he turned away, he tossed me the headset, gave a quick smile and a thumbs up. Then he buckled himself into the seat next to mine.

  As soon as I put the headphones on I noticed a clicking and ringing that corresponded to the movements of a man sitting across from me. The man, whose back was to me, was seated in front of an array of electronics. There were multiple video screens. I could also hear radio traffic. The images were of the scene that I just left, ambling zombies, gunfire, combatants. I even saw one flash of Toothbeak perched on a victim’s open femur. It was apparent that the soldiers were wearing cameras. And the man who was surveying the feeds was clearly in charge. I watched as he keyed a microphone.

  “OK Dyer lets do this by the numbers. Sweep it left to right then pull it in and get ready for the burn. Once we have all hands ready to mount up, I will call in the fast movers to lay down the ‘palm. We got the one survivor aboard so movement equals hostile. Hawkeye tells me we have a solid perimeter with good intel on this one. No heat signatures.”

  “Roger that skipper.” Dyer’s voice sounded tinny over the speaker. I saw his face in the greenish light of one of the monitors as he turned from the camera starting to shout unheard orders.

  The voice, I thought... it’s… But before I could register the familiarity, the man at the station turned in his seat and extended his hand. I saw his face—I recognized him.

  “What the fuh….”

  “How you doin Storm? You ok?”

  “Ulric?!”

  “Yeah. Well, we got some talking to do. You just sit back and watch the show. It’ll be clear in a bit.”

  The popping of gunfire echoed in the distance and staccato of automatic weapons slowed down and became more and more intermittent. Then men began to run up the ramp and take seats along the walls of the aircraft. I looked out and saw Dyer walking backward toward the craft scanning the pier for movement. He casually walked up the incline past the Gatling gun and grabbed a strap that hung from the ceiling of the craft. A crewman at the door with a flight helmet was manning the gun and seemed to be linked to the pilot. Dyer gave him the OK sign and he keyed his mike. He grunted three words that I couldn’t make out. But they must have been the command to go because I felt the craft lurch and begin to rise. We rose up and away from the pier.

  Ulric tapped his eye and motioned toward the still open ramp. I looked out to see two bright lights appear to the east and streak across the sky. A flash of light and twin boiling balls of white-hot fire rolled across the park. Each was a quarter mile across and enveloped the entire length of the park. Just as the fireballs began to shrink, two more flaming streaks appeared and lanced into the scene. I could actually feel the heat from the blasts.

  As I watched my little park transform into a raging inferno, I saw a black shape, backlit by flames, streak. Twin blue afterburners lit up the rear end of the jet as it rocketed past the pier. Half a second later, a second jet flashed and disappeared into the night sky. Dyer leaned across the back hatch and slapped the gunner on the back to get his attention. The crewman turned as Dyer waved his hand back and forth across his neck in a cutoff sign. He nodded in response, grabbed a control hanging next to him and stabbed a button. The ramp at the rear of the craft slowly rose and closed off my view of the fiery carnage. A vibration passed through the aircraft as the engines tilted from vertical to horizontal. There was dull throb of power and the vehicle pushed into the night leaving a red and black wake of death.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Plum Thumb 1

  Vehicle Collision 2

  Bear Hug 3

  Refinery Emergency 4

  Remember the Head 5

  Night Dancers 6

  Pulling the Trigger 7

  Bullets 8

  Red 9

  Tilt Rotor 10

  Testing 11

  Infection 12

  The Burn 13