by Jack Wallen
I raced to the other side of the stage, crossing directly in front of the band. The audience released another heartwarming ovation. Another scan of the crowd revealed no ghost. He was gone. I pulled the binoculars to my eyes and slowly tracked from right to left.
“There he is,” I shouted, and pointed.
Jamal gave me no warning before he jumped from the stage and took off in the direction I’d indicated. I tried to stop him, to tell Jamal I needed him with me now more than ever. But I understood, fully, what he was trying to do.
My body quivered, my teeth gnashed together.
“I’m losing my mind,” I thought. “He’s dead. I killed him; there’s no way Jacob Plummer rose from the grave.”
I returned the binoculars to my eyes to locate Jamal. He was gone, lost in the sea of jumping and thumping youth. As soon as I pulled the glasses away, standing not ten feet from me was the familiar stranger. This time, he didn’t run or attempt to vanish in any way. He stood…and stared. I was lost in time, unsure of where reality and fantasy began or ended. In front of me, the man who would be Jacob reached out a hand to me and mouthed my name. I wanted so badly to take the offered hand and disappear into his memory. Something, some tenuous grasp on sanity, refused to allow me to move.
“Bethany.” The voice, so familiar, called to me over the noise of the band. “I’ve missed you so very much. Come with me. Let’s run away, hide out from the world and spend the rest of our days locked in one another’s embrace.”
“It can’t be you,” I shouted. “I killed you.”
“Then how am I standing here before you? I’m alive, Bethany; your eyes do not deceive you. Please, come with me.”
Again, he offered his hand. Finally, I caved and reached my hand until our fingertips connected. A shock of electricity raced up my arms to jump-start my heart.
“I love you, Bethany.”
“I’ve missed you so much, Jacob.”
As I stared deep into the familiar brown eyes, a dangerous sound tickled my senses.
Drop-ships.
“Bethany,” Jamal shouted, and shook my arm.
I finally reconnected with reality and turned toward the voice.
“They’ve arrived. Three ships. It’s on.”
Even before I could beg to return to the previous moment I knew the specter was gone. How he’d eluded my sight again I couldn’t possibly know. At that very second it occurred to me the whole affair could have been a fantasy…a hallucination brought on by the emotional tornado ripping through my heart and mind.
“…thany,” Jamal’s voice beckoned.
There were far more important issues to deal with than the ghost of apocalypse past.
“We have to tell Vanity to get UnSun on stage immediately,” I shouted over the raging music and the sound of the ships.
Jamal and I tore from the stage and raced to Rip’s dressing room. There was no time for protocol, so I opted to skip the knock and rush in to see the leader of this circus snorting a line of coke from the silicone cleavage of a random groupie.
“Hey,” I shouted, “Vanity…it’s go time.”
“What the fuck?” Rip stood and glared at me. “You can’t interrupt me in the middle of my—”
“Shut up, Vanity.” I demanded. “You have to get UnSun on stage now.”
“Why? There are at least seven more bands to go before the headline.” Rip was about to continue his protest when Jamal led the vinyl-miniskirted tramp out the door. “Oh, come on…she was about to—”
“There isn’t time for this shit, Rip. Three drop-ships filled with the undead have landed. If Mauser isn’t ready to unleash the Obliterator at just the right moment, everyone in that audience will either be killed or infected. You want that on your head?”
The realization sobered him up immediately. “Oh, fuck no.”
Vanity pulled out his radio and made the call.
“This is Red Dog One. I need the main attraction on stage immediately. This is not a joke or a drill. Do you copy?”
Silence.
“I said, do you fucking copy?”
“Sir,” a voice crackled out of the speaker. “Are you su—?”
“Don’t fucking question me, you rotten twat. I’ve given you your orders, make it happen or I’ll cut you and piss on the wounds myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Effective,” Jamal whispered to me.
“I heard that, nerd king. I get the goddamn job done, so don’t mock what you don’t comprehend.”
Boos and shouts erupted from the monitor speaker on the wall of Vanity’s room. It was clear the band had stopped in mid-set. The audience wasn’t happy.
“Sir, we have a situation.” The voice spilled from the radio. The three of us glanced at one another, a shared look of certain doom no doubt painted on our faces.
“Who’s manning your traps beyond the audience?” I asked.
“Oh, you spotted those. Brilliant, don’t you think?”
It shocked me that I had to deal with such a huge ego at a time when everything of importance could come crumbling down around us. Rip caught the intent of my glare and changed his tack.
“Right. No one. We need to get up to the director’s booth where the traps can be set off.”
Why did it not surprise me that we had to return from where we’d just come…the booth? I grabbed Vanity by the arm.
“You’re coming with us.”
Rip tried to pull his arm away, but my grip was too much.
“Oh no. We need you to show us how to detonate those traps.”
We ran at top speed and took the stairs two and three at a time. When we reached the booth, the sight sucked the breath from my lungs. The undead spilled from the drop-ships by the hundreds. Within seconds, the dead outnumbered the living. I wasn’t sure how we’d be able to force the tide of war back down the throat of the Zero Day Collective.
The second we settled into the booth, Vanity set about grabbing various remotes and devices.
“You!” Vanity pointed to Jamal and offered a pair of binoculars. “Do you see that white demarcation line about seventy-five yards from the back of the audience?” Jamal nodded. “When the first wave of the undead reaches that line, let me know.”
Vanity pulled out a radio and pressed the call button.
“Red Dog One to towers one, two, and three. We are about to light up the first wave. As soon as you see fire, you should have shots available…take them at will.” Rip glanced at me. “That small box to your immediate right,” Rip nodded his head to my side. When I glanced down there was a small red box. I picked it up; Vanity continued. “As soon as the fires have been released, depress the large black button on that box.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“I had pits dug and covered in the ground just after the fire traps. That button releases the trapdoors on all the pits. Any of the Moaners and Screamers that aren’t consumed by fire or shot by snipers will fall into those traps. Once in the holes, you depress that button again and the trapdoors will close shut and seal the zom-bitches underground. Anything that remains after that will suffer the wrath of Mauser’s guitar.
I had to hand it to Rip, he’d thought of everything. All of a sudden I felt safe, like nothing could possibly get us. Of course, it was a pretty safe bet, given we were forty feet up in the air.
“Rip,” Jamal called out. “Get ready.”
The audience went wild. I immediately assumed it was due to their realization they had become the grand buffet for the oncoming undead train wreck. But when the first strains of UnSun’s “Cry Zombie Cry” spilled from the array of loudspeakers, I realized it was only because the headline band had taken over.
We fell silent. I held my breath. There were thousands of innocent people unaware of the possible tragedy that lay in wait. If every trap and trick we had planned failed, not only would those thousands lose their lives, they could easily become part of the post-apocalyptic problem.
All of a
sudden this plan didn’t sound so great.
“Now!” Jamal screamed.
Vanity tapped away at every button he had in front of him. I pulled my binoculars to my eyes and watched as the first wave of Moaners and Screamers were engulfed in flames. Black and gray smoke billowed upward. I was certain I knew the stench that filled the air—the now-familiar smell of burning, rotted flesh. The first wave of flaming zombies stammered and dropped to their knees. When they finally hit the dry dirt, their flesh exploded in chunks and ash. The next in line stepped forward, into the burning mouth of hellfire, and found a similar fate to their fellow undead. The carnage continued until the pyrotechnic pots were extinguished. Rip turned to me and nodded. I pressed the button on the controller.
Nothing happened.
Fear raced across Vanity’s face.
“Bloody hell, press it again,” he muttered.
I wasted no time and pressed the button, only this time harder.
Nothing.
“Again,” Vanity demanded.
Another press, another failure.
“Shit. What happened?” Vanity nearly leaped over Jamal to get to the control box. With the box in hand, he pressed the button over and over for good measure. Still…nothing happened.
“This is not good.” Like a man possessed, Vanity continued to press the button. “Fuck me.”
Rip grabbed his radio again. “Towers one, two, and three—we need your firepower now!”
A few short seconds passed before the sound of gunfire could be heard. One by one, zombies dropped. The snipers were doing their job; but how effective would that job be? Somehow the zombies managed to outlast what should have been a masterstroke. Now our only hope was a smattering of ballistics and the hopes that a heavy metal guitarist could cause the horde to, quite literally, bang their heads.
Jamal and I glanced at one another.
“Are you as lost as I am?” Jamal’s voice had a hopeless undertone.
The first of the screams shot up from the audience to shorten my spine. The zombies had breached the entrance. A Screamer shot through the congestion of Moaners and raced to the nearest living human—a young woman. Fear dragged the woman to her knees; her scream pierced the glass of the booth. The Screamer leaped from fifteen feet. As the monster reached the apex of the jump, an arrow sliced through the air and punctured the back of its skull. I turned my gaze to the tower to see Echo flipping the Screamer off.
“Good girl,” I thought aloud, and turned to Jamal. “We have to get down there.”
“And do what? Join the picnic? Bethany, there’s nothing we can do.”
“I refuse to be a spectator when there are innocent people about to die.”
“Bethany, you can’t carry the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
Heat boiled past my neck and into my cheeks.
“Why not?” I screamed.
“Franz,” Vanity’s voice interrupted, “raise the wires.”
Jamal and I slowly turned to Rip.
“One more trick up my sleeve.”
We turned to the window. I pulled up my binoculars and focused in on the zombies nearest the audience. From out of nowhere, what looked like a razor wire fence sprung up to create a slice-and-dice boundary between the living and the dead. The fence wasn’t solid, but every time one of the Moaners attempted to step through the wires, it would reduce an appendage to zombie tartar.
“Right fucking on!” Vanity shouted.
Bullets and arrows continued to rain down from the towers. Slowly the numbers diminished, but the horde was still too large. The fence stretched; the screams rose. I still needed to be down there fighting. “Useless” wasn’t in my vocabulary.
I turned back to Jamal to protest. And then it happened.
Mauser’s Obliterator solo. It started out as minor variation of the melody; the notes danced around the tune so delicately sung by Aya. When he punched the volume and the sound of the Obliterator became obvious enough for the undead, the effect took hold. At first the zombies ceased their attack on the fence. They swayed as if their rage had simply been shut off. Mauser toyed with the melody once again and shifted the tempo and rhythm of the solo to match the slower pace of the swaying undead.
And then the guitarist’s fingers were set ablaze. The notes rose and fell faster and faster. A high note would ring out and then be undercut by harmonics—while the oscillations of the Obliterator continued to punish the aural systems of the zombie horde.
Finally, Mauser punched the distortion and turned the volume to a painful level. Without warning, the zombies turned on one another. Skulls were crushed, limbs were ripped from sockets, bodies were flensed, and viscous brown blood slopped through the air and onto the ground. When a zombie had no victim to gut and break, the violence would turn inward. Moaners smashed their heads to the ground in an attempt to silence the horrific sound. When their own skulls refused to cave, they took off for silent pastures.
“Jesus in drag,” Vanity shouted. “It worked. I’ve never seen anything like it…and I hope to never again.”
Mauser continued wailing along with the Obliterator, long after the last of the undead had departed.
“Ladies and mother fucking gentlemen, undead Elvis has left the building.”
The sound of the Obliterator faded and the song returned to its former glory. Aya joined in with the final verse and chorus.
Metal had saved the day.
“Bethany, I think your ghost is back.”
I focused the glass of my spy specs and aimed them in the direction of Jamal’s finger.
“Fuck,” I whispered. “How did the sound not…?” My voiced faded to silence.
“What are you going to do, Bethany?”
“You know what I’m going to do.”
Without another word, I ran out of the booth and raced down the stairs.
The band fired up another tune, a slower piece that highlighted Aya’s voice and a sampled symphony. I hit the ground floor and ran as fast as my Chuck Taylor’d feet would carry me.
He hadn’t moved. He knew I’d return.
Finally, I stood face to face with Jacob Plummer.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“You know who I am, Bethany.”
The voice of Jacob caressed my ears and coaxed a lump to my throat.
“You can’t be. I killed you.”
“How do you know? You didn’t stay long enough to know for sure I died.”
The lump in my throat threatened to jettison itself from my mouth and rain down rage over the impostor.
“I saw the goddamn bullet shatter your skull. Your blood splashed back on me. You died instantly. There was no coming back.”
Tears won out and raced down my cheek.
“I loved you and I killed you. There’s no mistaking either of those facts. Now, I’ll ask you again,” I raised a gun and leveled it at the thing’s forehead. “Who are you?”
“My name is Jacob Plummer.”
I fired a warning shot. The thing flinched.
“My name is Jacob—”
Another shot, another flinch. I could now hardly see through the waterfall of tears.
“Who are you?” I shouted.
Silence. Until it spoke again.
“My name is Subject 002. I need you to come with me, to the Zero Day Collective. I promise—”
I pulled the trigger. The sound of the blast echoed for what had to be forever. A puff of smoke rose from the weapon, as time stood still. For the second time in my life, I killed the man I loved. This time, however, no rivulet of blood poured from the hole in Jacob’s forehead. Our bodies simultaneously dropped in a tragic twist of fate. The eyes of Jacob stared at me—empty, bereft of life, of soul…again. My body violently convulsed and threatened shock. I felt a pair of arms grab me and pull me into a tight embrace. From a distance, I could hear a new song played, the voice of an angel sang to me.
Come alive
Play outside
Show your
party dress
Moan with me
And all will see
You darling pretty mess
Begin again
Make amends
Your love is my death
Look inside
My blinded eyes
You darling pretty mess
chapter 31 | a bullet to the head
“Commander,” the comm chief shouted. “The mission failed. Every undead soldier has been neutralized.”
Faddig shot out of his chair and rushed to the side of the communications desk. “That’s impossible.”
The chief pointed at his computer screen. “Here’s the mission log that was just filed. Read it for your—”
Faddig slapped the soldier on the back of the head.
“If you ever attempt to give me an order again I’ll have you infected and locked up without a brain in sight.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
Faddig read the entire report, his jaw clenching and unclenching with every word.
“Unbelievable. One task…one goddamn task was all they had to accomplish. What about the Cradle? Was it released?”
“Sir, the zombies couldn’t get close enough to—”
A primal scream roared from Faddig’s mouth.
“From the moment I took command of this organization, I have been offered a litany of excuses as to why we have been unable to defeat Bethany Nitshimi. Those excuses end now. I want her and her groupies dead so we can finally move forward. She’s one fucking woman and we are a goddamn army!”
The commander paced the room, his breathing audible to anyone within twenty feet. He finally turned back to the comm chief and spoke in a slow, measured tone.
“Send the drop-ships back immediately. Have them open fire on the crowd. I want every single one of those survivors dead.”
The chief turned to Faddig, his jaw and eyes wide open. “Sir, that’s not how the Zero Day Collective works. Our mission—”
Faddig reached around to his lower back. When his hand returned, a pistol came to bear on the communications chief. Before the chief could protest, Faddig pulled the trigger and sent a bullet through the man’s right eye. The dead body slumped forward and hit the ground with a thump. Faddig dragged the corpse from under the comm desk and picked up the headphones and mic.
