by Dalton Wolf
“Sarah, try to open the cage so one of the parents can help you,” Calvin grunted tightly, trying to ignore his burning chest as he took down his fifth Infected. These creatures were moving more like real people than any they’d seen yet. If he and his friends weren’t wearing the armor they might all very well have been dead already. But that was the difference between being prepared and being a victim. He concentrated on killing zombies and fighting his way to the truck to save the desperate family. Someone else would have to save Sarah.
I’m gonna kill that son-of-a-bitch someday, Lucy promised, sparing another glance for Sarah’s predicament. But these little kids need me now.
Athena stood right beside Calvin, splitting a skull for every two heads he severed. Sarah was her best friend, but Brick was just a man, and not long for this world if she had anything to do about it. Her friend could handle him, or the parents would help out if she could unlock the cage. But Calvin might get himself killed if she wasn’t there to watch his back. He was very weak from the shooting, already beginning to falter. Sorry, Sarah, she thought guiltily. Each of the other combatants spared a glance when they could, but were each unable to step away from the battle.
With a sinking heart, Sarah realized her friends couldn’t help and the parents were on the other side of a locked cage door; she would have to work it out herself. Suddenly a wicked grin lit up the cab at a sudden realization. I’m wearing armor! Swinging her arm back, she bashed her armored elbow even harder into Brick’s nose with a satisfying crunch of cartilage, drawing blood and causing him to loosen his grip around her throat. Taking advantage of the opening, she pushed both arms up and twisted around, bringing the locked and loaded m-16 up into his chest. He raised his hands, and she shoved him back into the corner of the ambulance, up against the cage the smiths had installed. Her dad’s muscular arms reached through the cage and gripped Brick around the throat in an unbreakable hold.
“I’ve got him, baby,” he called out. “Do what you’ve got to do.” Brick calmed almost immediately, but Mr. Berg’s grip didn’t lessen.
Splitting another skull and ripping the panabas free, Athena kicked the limp corpse away, watching the Wagon from the sidewalk, wondering if she’d have pulled the trigger into Brick’s chest or not. Probably too many witnesses, but he was being a danger to them all. Someone needed to do something about him, and soon. Calvin will handle it. Thirty zombies still surrounded the family and she was already exhausted. Calvin and the others were clearly wearing down. The turrets were having trouble getting clear shots because half of the zombies were on the other side of the vehicle, blocked by a tall, long concrete ornament that ran along the yard the truck had broken through and high-centered on. Standing too high for the armored ‘warriors’ to jump over and clearly too strong to drive through, Felicia rolled the Hedgehog back and forth from one side of the vehicle to the other so the gunners could look for different angles.
“I’m…wearing down…fast,” Calvin called out between ragged gasps for air, a powerful burn in his bruised chest nearly as painful as just after he’d been shot, perhaps a little worse.
“I’m spent,” Athena agreed.
Fatigue was setting in for the whole group and just as Athena and Calvin were about to drop back for a breather, the parents were beside them with Sarah, each swinging weapons she had given them from the stash in the truck. “What the hell?” Calvin yelled in rage. “They don’t have armor on! Get them back!”
He pushed Mr. Rosenthal back, but the elder man quickly stepped to the side and jabbed his spear into the eye socket of an old guy in a tan suit who was about to jump on Calvin’s back. Calvin glared at him through his visor and turned back to sever more heads from bodies. Finally taking a minute to reassess, he noticed the additional Infected were pouring in from the building behind the wrecked truck, it appeared to be a temple.
“Of course,” he muttered. “Everyone went in there to pray. Forget the fact…that… there’s a virus going around…and…anyone can catch it. Let’s gather in one place…with one door…and sing songs until it goes away…real fucking smart!”
“Easy there, Calvin,” Tripper warned him.
“You complain like a Jew,” Saul laughed as he swung a three foot long mace into the skull of what was certainly a kindly old woman three days before, but had become a mindless, ravening kill machine in a cute floral dress.
“Get to the Hedgehog, sir!” Calvin snapped at him.
“I am fine right here, thank you very much.”
“You’re too old…to be out here fighting active…dead people without proper…protection. I’m too old for that.”
“Samson stood in a field and destroyed an entire army with the jawbone of an ass and he was eighty-seven years old and wearing nothing but a loincloth,” he stated firmly.
“Not even remotely true, Dad,” Athena muttered over the mic.
“You think I cannot help out against a few listless senior citizens who are already dead? I am only sixty-three. You think I am that old?”
No one had time to escort them back, so they fought on, grunting and killing things that should have already been dead. “Maybe…old wasn’t what…I meant…to say…I meant…I meant…never mind.”
“You mean too uncoordinated, yes? Too stupid, huh? Too what, young Calvin?”
“Well…I was going to say too Jewish, but that thing about Samson made that whole point moot.”
Saul laughed and lunged, jabbing the end of a mace into the face of what used to be a pregnant young mother, laughter turning maniacal when he realized what he’d just done. Slowly the tiring group hacked, shot, smashed and split their way to the truck. Calvin and Athena now split their attention between the dead before them and ensuring that no Infected could come close to the unarmed parents as those elders used their longer weapons to jab over their shoulders into the—thankfully distracted—zombies. Finally the staggering group cleared a corridor to the bed of the truck.
“Run to that vehicle. Get in the back! We’ve got the kids.” Calvin shouted to the man and woman, while he and Tripper helped the children down. “Follow your parents,” Calvin pointed.
“They’re not our parents,” the girl snapped, brandishing a long, bloody knitting needle and holding her younger brother close in a protective hug.
“Ok…well…follow them…anyway. They protected you so far…so stick with them,” he called roughly out of the side of his mouth as he, Tripper, Sarah and Athena made a defensive line between the unarmored people and the rapidly shrinking group of starving dead. The three mothers used very light, long pole axes and pole arms to jab from eight feet away, so they were actually able to deftly pick off the crafty Infected that tried to bound outside the perimeter to charge the vehicles. The shaken children stood watching behind the group. Calvin could sense they hadn’t left.
“Go!” he turned and shouted, raising both axes out to either side.
Both children broke and ran for The Wagon.
“Athena, can you handle the quarantine?” he asked.
“I can do it,” she promised.
“Ok…we’ve got this…Go.” he said simply between increasingly ragged breaths.
Athena turned and dashed to the Wagon, sliding into her seat. “Mr. McClintock, go close the back door!” Calvin added. He didn’t want the man doing something stupid in his obviously depressed state.
“Tripper, did you put it in the Paddy Wagon?”
“It’s there.”
“I got it,” Athena said, holding up another wicket, dual, automatic crossbow identical to the one Lucy brandished, pulling the tensioner back smoothly with an unnecessary grunt. Taking a deep breath, she turned her seat around and pointed the crossbow into the cage, dark eyes narrowing underneath her open visor.
“What are you doing?” the man asked nervously, holding the woman close.
“Watching to see if any of you were infected,” she explained without emotion.
“And if we are, what then?”
> Athena’s sharp eyes stared the man down. He gulped and held tighter to the woman, ducking down behind her back, but not quite far enough for her to not still have a clear shot of his right eye. The kids crouched tighter together opposite the two adults. Athena took this as some kind of sign and held her aim on the man.
“You can’t do this,” the man yelled angrily. “You can’t just make these decisions. No one gets to decide who lives and who dies without a trial and court.”
“You’re wrong,” Athena said coldly back. “Things are different now. It’s not my decision. If you’re infected, you’re already dead.
“He got bit,” the little girl said, pointing to the man. “I saw it. It’s on his leg.”
“You little bitch!” the man yelled, but made no move, choosing instead to keep his inadequate cover.
“That’s not a nice word,” the girl stuck out her tongue.
A fevered glint in his eyes said he wanted to hurt the little girl, but a quick glance at Athena told him there was little doubt the woman with the big crossbow would shoot him in the head if he did.
“We won’t do it until you change,” Athena promised. “You shouldn’t feel a thing. But we can’t let you harm anyone else, either. So please let the woman move to the other side of the cage.”
“No!” the woman screamed. “It’s just a little bite. He’ll be ok,” she pleaded.
But it was already too late. Athena watched with morbid curiosity as the color drained from his face and the skin slowly receded. His face now ashen, eyes and mouth eerily drawing back into his skull and slowly, oh-so-slowly the eyes milked over and lost all focus, like Calvin and the boys when they had smoked too much weed. The woman’s neck sat mere inches from his bared teeth. Slowly the milky eyes dropped down to the meal before him. It emitted a low, throaty growl and spread its jaws just as the girlfriend’s eyes widened in horrified understanding. Even as the ex-man’s dead arms tightened around her chest and pulled her soft white neck up to its waiting jaws, a jet-black, foot-long, three-quarter inch bolt penetrated its right eye socket and pinned its rotting cranium into the side of the truck, its one ‘good’ eye now staring blankly into the beyond where it should have been looking the minute it ‘died’.
The woman screamed, kicked and wriggled her way out of her dead lover’s embrace and fell over to the other side of the cage to lay sobbing by the children. “Thank you,” she managed to breathe between hacking sobs of slowly relenting horror.
“Sure, now get back to the other side with your boyfriend and away from the kids until I know you’re clear,” Athena pointed her to the other side with a wave of the crossbow, flipping it so the other side of the over-under crossbow was ready to fire.
“My name is Athena,” she introduced herself and turned on the cage intercom so her friends could hear the conversation.
“Megan.” The woman replied in a shaky voice.
“I’m Alexandria, and this is my little brother The Worm,” the little girl said.
“What’s his name?” Athena asked.
“I said his name is The Worm,” she answered snottily.
“It is not! It is not!” the boy shouted. “It’s Warner. Warner! I’m not a worm!”
The girl giggled and hid her mouth behind her tiny palm. She seemed about nine years old with blue eyes and bright sandy hair. The lad bore little resemblance, with straight jet black hair and black eyes. Both gazed up at her with absolute trust. She was afraid to ask the question she had to ask next, but she had already had to do a lot of things this week she didn’t want to do.
“Let’s get out of here,” Calvin’s voice came over her earpiece, interrupting her. “The parents are in the Hedgehog.”
Some Must Fall
The Paddy Wagon shook with the weight of Sarah jumping behind the wheel and the powerful, muffled engine grumbled to life and jerked into gear.
“We’re out of here,” Tripper called.
As both vehicles turned for home, Athena began to question the children. “Where are your parents?”
“They went down to see the parade,” the girl explained.
“Why didn’t you go?” Athena asked.
“We were both sick so they wouldn’t let us.”
“Oh, the Hc70 flu?” Athena asked.
The girl nodded.
“And they left you home alone?”
Alexandria shook her head.
“They left us with Julia,” the girl spat in disgust.
“Is that your babysitter?”
The girl nodded. “We hate her. She’s always bringing her boyfriends over and making us stay upstairs or go to bed early when I want to watch TV.”
“So what happened?”
“Julia went to the door to get the pizza and then she came back and tried to eat the Worm, so we ran. I don’t know why she wanted to eat him, she had her own pizza.”
“Are you ok? Did you or your brother get bit?”
“No,” the girl answered. “She was pretty stupid even before she died. So I made her trip over the TV table thing and we ran. I texted mommy and daddy and they said to go to Megan’s house even though she’s always mean to me and smells like cats.”
“Hey!” Megan cried in outrage.
“I do smell the cats, now that you mention it,” Athena said with raised eyebrows.
“I…have a few cats,” the woman admitted, self-consciously brushing cat hair from her green sweater and wiping a hand through her long strawberry blonde hair.
“What happened then?”
“Her boyfriend showed up and said we have to stay inside and keep the doors locked and we were stuck in there with her nine cats and no TV or radio or toys.
“Or food!” The Worm shouted. “I’m starving.”
“Hey! I have lots of food you little…fibber. You ate six meals a day!”
“It all tasted like cat food you crazy cat lady!” Alex shouted.
“I—but—what did I ever do to you, Alex?”
“I saw you kiss daddy!” Alexandria spat heatedly.
“What? Ew, gross. NO! No, sweetie, it wasn’t like that.”
“I saw you!”
“It was on the cheek.”
“A kiss on the cheek means I love you.”
“Sweetie. Your daddy and I work together. He is one of my bosses and he got to tell me that I got a promotion. Your mom and I are best friends and she was watching out the window the whole time.”
Alexandria glared at her suspiciously, but eventually realized this explanation made perfect sense and jumped into Megan’s arms crying. “I’m sorry, Megan.”
“It’s ok, sweetie. It’s ok.”
“But mommy and daddy never came,” she finally got to the underlying issue. “And I know that isn’t good.”
“What do you mean, Alex?” Athena guessed the girl already had her nickname.
“I mean they probably got them; they’re one of them and now we’ll never see them again,” she cried into Megan’s bosom.
“So do you think your parents are like all of the others?” Athena asked.
“I don’t know. Do you mean the dead or dead again?” she asked sadly. “But yes.”
“You said dead, so you understand what’s happened?”
“When Julia was off kissing her boyfriends in Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom I would sneak into the downstairs TV room and watch the horror movies on Friday nights. I don’t get scared like the Worm and my friends do. I know what zombie walkers are.”
“See? Zombies,” Tripper’s bold voice came out of the speakers in the back of the ambulance. “Even a seven year old knows they’re zombies.”
“I’m nine,” Alex insisted.
“I still say we call them Infected to the authorities and such,” Athena argued.
“They’re zombies. A kiss is a kiss, a rose is a rose, a Raiders fan is always an asshole, and a zombie is a zombie.”
“All Raiders fans aren’t always assholes,” Athena pointed out.
“Granted. Glad
we’re agreed on all of the other statements, though..”
“Wait, what?”
“I said four things and you only protested the one. You must be ok with the rest.”
“You’re a jackass.”
“C’mon, how could I pass up a chance to insult the Raiders?” he asked innocently. “And their fans…and for that matter the Donkeys they rode in on. But that doesn’t change the fact that we’re facing Zombies, and therefore the Dead, and not just some innocent-sounding Infected People,” he added throwing a finger-quote in her direction even though she had no chance at seeing it.
“Even with it staring them in the face,” she retorted calmly, “we’ll sound more believable saying it the way they’re used to thinking. And it could give us a step up on any government officials if we sound knowledgeable on the subject. A virus creates infected victims. There is no such thing as a zombie. That is what most people will tell you. If we’re the ones still calling them Infected when they are finally believing in zombies, we’ll look like the smarter ones.”
“Whatever,” Tripper said sarcastically; once again he put on hold again the argument they’d all been having since early that first day.
“We may never get to deal with any government types anyway,” Athena mused.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…it’s never-ending, isn’t it? We’ve been running back and forth for days and when we finally get everyone together we still won’t get to leave.”
“We’re leaving, babe,” Calvin assured her.
“I know we’re leaving town, but we can’t leave the Quarantine Zone.”
