by Brown, TW
Once she closed to within range, I drew back and brought it around in a full swing. Her head seemed to almost explode. I’d taken down a few at pointblank range with a shotgun, and even that did not compare to the destructive carnage that this weapon offered.
The spiked, resin-coated skull connected with the side of her head around the cheek and simply destroyed most of the upper two-thirds of her head in a misty cloud of gore. I almost shouted my triumph and amazement at what I’d just done, but slammed my mouth shut with a click of my teeth.
After I tore away a strip of her filthy tee-shirt to wipe away the worst of the blood, brain, and skull fragments with clumps of hair still attached from the head of my weapon, I resumed my trek through the woods.
I only had a very basic idea of the layout regarding the town of Sandy. Fortunately, there were still enough street signs that indicated the general direction of the high school. I would regroup and wait for dark. Once I had the cover of night on my side, I would go find a location that I could use and do my RECON.
Once I was clear of the woods, I looked around to get my bearings and realized that I’d come out near a firehouse. The small building was buttoned down, and when I got close enough, I realized that the vehicles were gone. Most likely the poor bastards had died responding to something that they were simply not prepared for. It had not seemed possible as it had unfolded in those early days.
The old saying of “Seeing is believing” hadn’t really kicked in on this one for most folks. Hell, I’d had a hard time accepting even as my Stephanie came at me with those dead eyes and chomping teeth.
I went around the building and found a side door. It was locked, and I didn’t really want to try and bust it in. I headed back to the front, wrapping my leather coat around my left hand and forearm. The garage-style doors had large, square windows starting at about chest height.
After busting one in and cleaning out the frame so I didn’t slice myself up, I hoisted myself up and in. It was a typical small firehouse with a few offices and a blown-up map of the city of Sandy on one wall of what I guessed to be the captain’s office.
There were lockers and closets with ample cleaning supplies and tools. I hadn’t considered the plethora of useable materials inside these places. It would certainly be something I had to make a mental note of for later. Up to this point, we’d focused on homes and stores…the typical locations.
There was a small open dorm with two bunk beds and three singles. They looked surprisingly comfortable. Once I could ensure there would be no surprises, a nap on an actual bed was simply too luxurious to pass up. All that remained was the kitchen.
As soon as I reached the door that was propped open with a small, rubber door stopper, the stench of rotten food hit me. It made my eyes start to water with the thickness of the odor. As soon as I walked in, I understood why. There was a large package of some sort of meat on one counter. Obviously it’d been left there when the company here responded to what would prove to be their final emergency.
It was swarming with flies. And from across the room that was rather gloomy with only a small window set high on one wall, I could see the writhing mass of maggots feeding on the rotten meat. What I didn’t see was any signs that a zombie might be about.
Armed with that knowledge, I headed to the bunkroom, closed the door behind me, shoved a chair in front of it, wedging it under the doorknob and then flopped down on a bed in the back corner.
I am not sure what happened first. My head hitting the pillow, or me falling asleep.
When I opened my eyes, it was to pitch darkness. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings and my wits about me. I was still deciding on whether I wanted to get up and stumble over to the bathroom I remembered being over in the corner off to my left when I heard the crunch of glass followed by a loud hiss and somebody shushing.
I was no longer alone.
I rolled off the bed and onto the floor away from the door. I had a chair wedged in place, but I wasn’t counting on that keeping the living out for very long. I went through my weapons and laid a rifle on either side of me and gripped the butt of my pistol.
It wasn’t long before I heard whispering outside the door. The knob rattled and then there was the soft “whump” as if somebody had tried to use their shoulder to force the door open. The chair made a slight grating sound as the back legs scooted an inch or two.
Another thud pushed the chair another little bit. And now I could hear whispered voices. They weren’t loud enough to make anything out, but I was pretty certain that I heard at least three different people.
Another thud scooted the chair several inches and I could see an arm reach inside and grope around. Once the chair was located, the person gripped it and then pulled the door so they could dislodge my makeshift door stop.
The chair clattered to the floor and that brought on a round of scoldings and more shushings. I felt my finger begin to tighten on the trigger.
“For crying out loud, Gene, you want to bring every fucking zombie for miles?” a woman’s voice scolded.
“I lost my grip, Bev. Jeez, cut a guy some slack,” a deep voice retorted, but it was almost clear just from the tones as to who was in charge.
“I don’t smell no skags,” a third voice piped up, this one sounding like maybe a young boy or girl.
“Would you stop calling them that, Kira?” Bev hissed. “It hasn’t caught on and it isn’t going to.”
“Fiiiine,” the young voice, Kira I had to guess, said in a drawn out and very teenage tone of exasperation.
The door opened and a beam of light shone into the room. Currently it was directed almost in the entirely opposite direction. The problem was that it would hit me eventually, or at least come my way. If it hit me in the face, I would effectively be blinded.
“This place is spoken for,” I blurted when nothing more decisive or clever came to mind.
My announcement was greeted by a squeak indicating that I’d at least startled one of them. The flashlight beam wavered and then plummeted. There was a clatter and the light went out as the holder obviously dropped it.
I heard a bunch of scuffling noises and then something clattered on the tile floor of my room. I didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on until a bright flash came with a loud pop and hiss.
Fuck, they’d thrown in some sort of flare or something and now all I could see were bright flashes and dark blobs dancing before my eyes as it became my turn to let out a yell and reflexively throw my forearm over my eyes to try and shut out the dazzling white-blue light.
There was a loud bang that I knew had to be the door flying open and hitting the wall. A second or two later, I heard boots thumping on the floor as the people rushed in.
My only hope was that I got lucky. Still blind, but certain that my gun was still aimed in the general direction of the door, I squeezed off a volley of shots. As I fired, I let my arm move to my left, hopefully following in the direction my attackers might be moving.
I heard somebody bellow in what certainly sounded like pain. Unfortunately, that victory was short lived. I felt the person beside me just before the boot slammed into my ribs.
My body slid sideways, and I yelped as I a second explosion of pain erupted when I slammed into something. Most likely it was the small dresser beside the bed. No matter what it was, I was in a bad place. Another kick to my ribs came and this one caught me right in the belly. It was enough to make me vomit.
“Gross!” I thought I heard somebody exclaim, but I was too caught up in trying to regain my vision, not choke on my puke, keep the ability to continue drawing breath, and most importantly, not lose my grip on my pistol.
I was still mostly on my stomach at this point, and with all the reserves I had in me, managed to get almost to my side. I brought my arm around and now gripped the pistol with both hands as I was finally able to make out a dark blob that had a vague human shape to it.
I squeezed the trigger once…twice. And heard a groan that
sounded like I might’ve done significant damage to somebody. A moment later, another person let out a terrible cry. Another shadow burst into view and I fired again, this time in a flurry of four shots.
I could hear what sounded like wet choking noises as I tried my best to move my body around. I felt the small bedside dresser I’d been kicked into and pressed my back against it to help me move to a sitting position.
My vision was slowly returning, but it was still far from good enough for me to make out anything with clarity. Now I could see a second shadow and something on the floor that had to be the individual that had been kicking me.
For whatever reason, that second shadow was no longer interested in me. Since I could not recall how many shots I’d fired, I fumbled for a new magazine and tried to reload. It was terribly awkward, and I dropped it twice before finally swapping out and letting the slide chamber a new round.
“You fucking bastard…you killed him,” a female voice cried.
My vision was returning to normal and I could almost take a full breath. I looked across the room at a couple of damned kids! The girl was perhaps fourteen or so and about the age of the students that I would’ve been teaching. The boy couldn’t be much older. I could see the beginnings of a darker peach fuzz starting to sprout on his face. He was bleeding out and would not last long if he was even still alive.
Beside them was another woman perhaps in her thirties. She was in full military combat gear and I could make out two silver bars glittering in the single beam of sunlight coming through the window. I had to guess that she was military…unless she’d simply stole a random soldier’s uniform. She was undoubtedly dead.
The girl was becoming drenched in the blood of the boy she held clutched to her chest. Looking closer, I saw that the pair were way overloaded with assorted weapons. I wasn’t sure how long they’d been carrying them, but it could not have been long.
On the girl, I saw what I was almost certain had to be an M4 slung over her shoulder, as did the two corpses. That begged the question as to why they hadn’t used it since they were each sporting one. There were belts around all their waists with pouches that I was certain contained magazines. She had a pair of military issue KABAR knives dangling from one belt as well as a badass crossbow that was on the ground beside her. The other thing that gave me chills were the assortment of grenades dangling from her like fucking Christmas ornaments.
I made it to my feet and winced as I tried to draw a deep breath. At the very least I had some severely bruised ribs.
“What the hell did you come at me for?” I tried to growl, but my voice was a bit slurred from the pain and disorientation I was dealing with.
“You came to our safe place and attacked first,” the girl said through the tears that ran freely down her face.
“All I did was say that somebody was here,” I shot back, wincing as I raised my voice.
“In our house!” the girl retorted. “We claimed this entire street weeks ago.”
“You claimed a street?” I tried not to laugh, but that was utterly ridiculous. “And this is a fire station, not a damned house.”
“We stay in the home next door, but these are the places we use for supplies,” the girl said with a sniff. “The Carsons have the street behind us and that weirdo, Russell Chan has the one across the way.”
So, if I was hearing her correctly, there were at least two more groups or whatever using this neighborhood to ride things out. That meant there were living, breathing people here. Did they realize how close they were to Don Evans and his people?
Then something the girl said broke loose in my brain.
“You said that I started this…that I attacked first.” I paused as the girl sniffed and then leveled her weeping, bloodshot eyes on me. “I might’ve intruded into your living space, and for that I can apologize. But I sure as hell didn’t attack you guys.”
“You shot Chad!” the girl shrieked.
It was in that minute that she remembered her weapons. I saw her eyes widen and then harden to a glare of pure hate. She went to jerk one of the rifles from her shoulder.
I want to use the excuse that I acted on some sort of reflex, but I brought my pistol up and fired. The bullet hit her in the center of the girl’s chest, and she slumped back against the wall behind her. There was a splattering of crimson from where the bullet had exited her body and sent blood spraying from her back.
I let my arm drop and stared at the girl. Her eyes had already lost their light. Dull orbs were all that remained, and they returned my stare with an emptiness that froze my insides.
I holstered my weapon, got up to my knees, and crawled to her. With the same hand that held the weapon I’d ended her life with, I reached out and closed her eyes so that I would no longer feel their incriminating stare. I let myself sort of fall back onto my butt and I drew up my knees. I wrapped my arms around them and squeezed them to me as I looked at the three dead bodies. I don’t know how long I simply sat there, but eventually, I drifted off.
When my eyes opened next, it was still light out. I didn’t think I would sleep through a whole day. Getting to my feet, I went to the window, ignoring the fact that I had to step over the bodies on the floor; corpses that were solely my fault.
As I stood in the window, I listened for any sounds of these other people that supposedly lived in this neighborhood. When I didn’t hear anything, I turned to regard the three dead people that had shared this room with me.
I decided I didn’t need to be weighted down with a bunch of weapons. What I was carrying would suit me fine. However, in the off chance that I lost my weapons and needed a secret stash, this place would do nicely.
I ended up slipping their stuff under one of the beds. I used my knife to open a seam in the bottom of the mattress and stuffed most of the weapons and ammo there.
I kept an assortment of the grenades they were carrying. I was very curious as to where they’d come across these things. That encouraged me to do a very thorough house-to-house search along this street.
On the plus side, I did find more than enough food and water. In fact, if I could remember where this place was, it might behoove my group to return here for supplies.
As soon as that thought arrived, I scolded myself. This was a small community. At least, from the way that girl had made it sound. And despite that, here I was planning what would amount to nothing short of a raid.
Was I becoming more like Don Evans? I had just killed three people and to this point still had no sense of remorse. I was not punishing myself for what amounted to murder.
Hell, I was in the process of planning a scouting mission that would lead to mass murder. I was crossing so many lines that everything had become a blur of gray. Black and white were washed out and swirling together in a morass of inseparable designs.
As I sat at a messy kitchen table that showed signs of recently hosting a peanut butter and honey sandwich meal where dry ramen noodles were substituted for the bread, I considered where my head might be going. At some point, I’d come to a realization. If I was going to have any hope of surviving, I would be forced to kill not just the undead, but some of the living as well.
None of the rules from our old world applied any more. It wasn’t that we couldn’t be social or nice, but this was literally all a matter of survival now.
I was just about finished making my own sandwich of sorts when a voice called out, “Hey in there. Whoever you are, we know you ain’t one of the Bordens. If you come out…maybe we can talk this over. Ain’t no need for anybody else to die today.”
I paused in the making of my meal and considered the words. After only a few seconds, I continued making my peanut butter and honey snack. Once it was made, I grabbed a bottled water and headed to the living room. I stayed out of sight as I peered out front.
Two men were standing in the street talking amongst themselves and pointing to the house. From here it looked like they were arguing over who was going to go inside.
&nbs
p; I took a bite, almost relishing in the crunch of the dry noodles and the burst of sweetness from the honey as the peanut butter made up the glue to keep everything together. I began to hum a song as I watched the pair continue to argue. It took me a moment before I realized I was humming “Waterfalls” by TLC. I had no idea where that song had come from in the vast catalog of music in my mind, but I went with it.
“Listen, whoever you are, we don’t want any trouble. Just come out. We can talk it over. If’n you claimed this place fair and square, we just wanna know who we might be dealin’ with,” one of the men hollered.
He was a tall, skinny man either in his fifties or very prematurely gray. He had on some dark green coveralls that looked like there were strips of metal attached. He was wearing what appeared to be an actual shin guard on one leg, but the other had…was that a phone book? Yeah, he had an actual phone book strapped to his other leg. He was wearing clear goggles and a respirator or air filter of some sort was hanging around his neck.
The second man who was hanging back a few feet was what I imagine Chunk from The Goonies would look like today. He had a mop of curly hair and at maybe five and a half feet tall was still easily over two hundred and fifty pounds. Somebody was eating well in the midst of an apocalypse.
“They attacked me first, I was only defending myself,” I called back after swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. “I don’t plan on sticking around, and I don’t want any trouble, but if I have to, I will do what it takes to defend myself.” I had decided to answer only because it did not look like these two were going to leave unless I did.
I had to bite back a laugh when the guy in the coveralls almost landed on his butt after scrambling backwards so quick at the sound of my voice. And the one I’d dubbed Chunk actually turned and ran back into the trees. A moment later, his head peeked out from behind the one he had tried unsuccessfully to hide behind.
“So you ain’t laying claim to this spot?” Coveralls hollered back. His voice sounded a bit squeaky at first and it was clear he was more than just a little bit scared.
