by David Lovato
“Dude, your hands,” Nathan said. Brent looked down at his hands. They were red, and as he unclenched his fist, one was bleeding. The immediate area was quiet for the first time, and Brent could swear he heard moans, the same ones the so-called zombies had made the night before, through the stadium walls.
****
They played poker for some time after lunch, and even invited other people to play along. They managed to get quite a few people in their area involved in various card games. Everyone seemed to have a good time, despite the sweltering heat and the more audible moans outside.
That night, Brent dreamed about Erica, and any good left over from the day before was gone when he woke up.
The second full day was worse than the first. It was hotter, and there was word that one of the barricades broke down. A few stray zombies were able to squeeze in through the breach, a few officers lost their lives, and several hundred stadium inmates lost their faith in the remaining officers’ ability to serve and protect. Everyone was talking about it for a while, and because of the excitement of it all, the same old woman that Jim had made fun of actually had a heart attack.
A large group of people around Brent and his friends fell silent as the woman was rushed to the medical station the police had set up. Things began to calm down, until Jim noticed the woman from before giving him dirty looks.
“What do you want from me?” he said. “She was old! Old people have heart attacks all the time!”
“You don’t even care, do you?” the woman said.
“I’m sick of your damn mouth, lady,” Jeff said. “Your voice is giving me a fucking headache.”
“Fuck you,” the woman said, and after that they left each other alone.
People started to calm back down, and rumors were running rampant. People talked about barricades breaking down, the woman with the heart attack dying (though when she returned to her cot a few hours later, Brent knew that one at least was false). People did whatever they could to take their minds off recent events. Panic was spreading, the moans were getting louder, and as Brent looked around at the field packed with people, it reminded him of his aquarium back home. They weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
****
Brent woke up in the middle of the night to his friends talking in low voices. At first he tried to ignore them, and then he heard what Jeff was saying.
“I’ll take out the man at the weapons cache. He’ll have the keys, and that way we’ll have the upper hand on the other cops.”
Brent sat up quickly, and Jeff’s eyes darted to him. When Jeff realized it was just Brent, he looked calm. He actually looked a little excited. He continued. “We’ll tie them up and hold them until morning. Then we’ll alert the masses. We need to show them who the new bosses are.”
“That sounds good,” Jim said.
“What are you talking about?” Brent said.
“Sh!” Jeff said. “Keep it down, for fuck’s sake. We’re taking over.”
“Taking over what?”
“The stadium.”
“You can’t be serious!” Brent said. The others shushed him.
“Look around, man,” Jeff said when he was sure the police officers weren’t around. “We’re sitting ducks in here. They won’t let us leave, they won’t let us defend ourselves. We can do a better job.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, man. You’re either with us or you’re with them.”
Brent looked at Jeff. “Of course I’m with you. You’re my best friend.” Jeff smiled.
“Don’t worry, Brent. Everything’s going to be okay.”
They moved quickly and quietly through the darkness of the stadium, to the front where the police stored their weapons. It was near a barricaded entrance, and the moans were louder over there than at the center of the stadium. The officer guarding the cache was asleep, and the ones at the nearby barricade didn’t notice Jeff or Brent or the others approaching.
“Some guards,” Jeff said. “They could break in any moment, and we’d all be fucked.” Jeff snuck up and grabbed the sleeping officer’s gun from its holster, then grabbed the man forcefully. He woke up and nearly screamed, but was stifled when Jeff clamped a sweaty palm over the officer’s mouth. “Shut the fuck up!” Jeff pressed the gun into the man’s neck, and looked at Brent. “Brent, get his keys!” Brent snatched the officer’s keys and unlocked the weapons locker. There were AK-47s, several handguns, shotguns, and more.
Brent sucked in a deep breath. His heart was sinking, and when he picked up one of the guns it felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. He thought of Erica dying on the phone in front of him, and that made things easier. He didn’t have anything else to lose.
“Come get some, guys,” he said. “You’ll need ‘em.” Liam, Nathan, Jim, and Henry selected their weapons, and began loading them.
“Someone find something to tie our friend up with,” Jeff said. Liam found some rope while Nathan and Jim quietly disarmed and knocked out the guards by the closest barricade.
Within an hour the group had quietly moved around the stadium grabbing the officers and tying them up, rendering them unconscious if they could, and gagging them all for good measure. They moved the officers into the medical tent, where no one would see. Jeff was discussing how they could get the officers still out in the field when the answer literally came to them: The shift changed, and the officers headed for the barricades. Some were worried when the officers they were supposed to replace weren’t around, but Jeff and the others made sure they didn’t have to wonder very long.
They finished quickly enough that they were able to get back to their cots and get a few more hours of sleep.
****
Brent and his fellow felons stood on the tables. They were heavily armed, and after exchanging glances and signaling that they were ready, they began calling those closest to them. All the officers were lined up in front of them, the men had moved them there just before dawn. Nobody seemed to notice or care enough to challenge them at the time, but now people’s eyebrows raised, and their whispers almost covered the moaning from outside.
“People, I have some wonderful news!” Jeff said. “The stadium is under new management! We felt our brothers in blue weren’t doing a good enough job protecting us, so we decided we’d be overthrowing this empire. Everything’s ours now. The food, the supplies, everything!” Most of the crowd was silent, save for the few disgruntled shouts, and some children who started to cry.
“If any of you people have any fucking problems with this,” Brent said, “you can come speak to the business end of my gun!” No one shouted that time, but the children continued to cry.
“If that fucking crying keeps up, I’m betting I can shut your stupid little kids up pretty quick,” Jeff said. “I’d suggest you stick a pacifier in their drooling mouths!” A teenaged boy and a girl with a buzz cut made their way up to the excitement as quickly as they could.
“What’s going on?” the boy said.
“What? Are you deaf, kid? I said we’re the kings of this castle! You answer to us, or you get the fucking guillotine! That’s what’s going on!” Jeff looked over to a makeshift cell not far from the tables. In it was a man who had gotten into trouble for stealing food a few days before, and another heavy-set man who was smiling widely at the short-haired girl.
“Someone let those fine men out of there,” Jeff said. “We don’t want them missing out on the fun!” Brent headed over with the keys and unlocked the cell. He opened the door, and the two men exited. They joined forces with Brent and the others, feeling very good about themselves for being on the right side.
“Now, all of you assholes get yourselves back to your fucking cots before I start using you all for target practice! I don’t give a shit if you’re hungry, or if you have to take a piss. I don’t even care if your babies are withering away in your arms! Nobody moves a muscle until I fucking say so!” After finishing his speech Jeff pointed his gun down at the first officer in li
ne and pulled the trigger. He moved his arm like a sprinkler, showering dozens of bullets over each of the officers. The masses watched in horror, and Brent thought he was going to throw up. The sea of people before him went back to their cots, and for the first time in days Brent felt like he had some kind of control. He looked at the dead officers, at Jeff smiling as he hopped off the table, and then at the frightened people he now ruled over. There was no turning back.
The stadium was quiet for the most part. Brent and his friends spent the day playing poker and eating some of the food that was supposed to be for everyone. People stared at them in fear. Eyes begged them to reconsider their position, to let them go, at least to feed them, but none of that seemed to get to anyone except for Brent. Every time he thought about going back, he remembered Erica. She wouldn’t want this, but she wasn’t here, and going against Jeff and the others wouldn’t bring her back.
Brent was bored of poker, so he decided to go see what the people were up to. Liam, Jim, and Nathan got up to patrol as well, but took separate areas.
As Brent walked, he overheard a conversation. It seemed interesting, so he walked that way. He saw the old woman who’d had the heart attack, and the rest of her family.
“I guess you could say so,” the man with the notebook was saying, “but can you deny what is happening here? All the death. God is not merciful at all. Those who have died obviously have not repented properly for their sins.”
“Repented properly?” a skinny man said. He had some stubble from the days in the stadium, but beneath his face was turning red. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Billy!” his wife said. “Leave it alone, damn it!”
“Is there a fucking problem over here?” Brent said. He felt angry. He wasn’t angry at them really, but they didn’t know that. The old woman and the others turned to him quickly, with fear in their faces.
“N-no,” Billy’s wife said. “There isn’t.” She shrank away from him as much as she could, and tried not to make eye contact.
“Really?” Brent said. The woman cringed and looked at the old woman, who sat quietly. Her hands rested on the edge of the cot, gripping it tightly. Her head was down. The notebook-toting man eyed his notebook. “I’m very sure that I heard you idiots yelling over which mother-fucking God you believe in. You know what I think?”
“Well—” the notebook man said.
“It was fucking rhetorical, asshole,” said Brent. “I think that there isn’t any God any of us can pray to. We’re all alone on this pathetic little rock. We may meet people along the way, but they’ll just be taken away from us. So in the end, we’re alone. The quicker you fuckers get to comprehending these facts, the better off you’ll fucking be.” He scanned the group, and noticed a kid playing his PSP, his headphones in his ears, ignoring it all. Brent lurched forward, took the PSP, and held it up. Without realizing who had snatched his game, the teen shouted.
“Hey! What gives?” He looked up at Brent angrily, but as soon as he saw Brent, he slumped down.
“I think I’ll be taking this off your hands,” Brent said. “Next time I talk you fucking listen.” Brent turned to leave.
“Fucking bastard,” the kid mumbled. Brent’s head snapped back toward him.
“The fuck did you just say, you little punk?” The kid’s father leaned forward, an arm out in front of his son.
“Nothing. He said nothing.”
The old woman spoke calmly, despite the situation. “Young man, we’ve done nothing to you. Just leave us be, please.”
Brent was in no mood to kill a sad-looking grandma. “You win, Granny. Just let the kid know who’s got the fucking gun, okay?”
Brent was miserable. He and his friends weren’t any better than the officers had been. He wasn’t even sure if they patrolled at night (he knew he didn’t). The next day was basically the same, and all Brent could think about was the terror he’d helped cause, and Erica. If only he’d been with her when she died.
The kid’s PSP did little to stifle the boredom, especially once it died. Brent took a nap in the afternoon, and had some wispy remnants of a dream in his mind when he woke up to Jeff screaming.
“Brent! Get the fuck over here! The fuckers are getting in!”
Brent snapped awake and hurried over as quickly as he could. The zombies had knocked down a major section of the wall, and Jeff was trying to hold them back. People nearby were panicking and backing up. Those who were not aware of the breach right off were wondering why they were being invaded, and then reacted to the news accordingly. It was mass chaos.
Zombies started pouring in. Brent and Jeff worked hard to keep the rest of the barrier in place and try to plug the hole, while zombies shambled past them and dove at people.
“Where are the others?” Brent said.
“I don’t fucking know!” Jeff shouted over the screams and moans. Another piece of the wooden wall broke off, and hands grabbed at Jeff. “Fuck! Brent!”
Brent backed away from the barricade. Jeff screamed for him to help, but Brent was frozen. He couldn’t move his legs for the longest time.
“Brent! Why are you just fucking standing there?” Soon Jeff’s cries stopped, and he had been so badly torn apart that he didn’t even look like a person anymore. Brent didn’t know what to do. After standing around like a statue for a while, he took action. He opened fire on the zombies, especially the ones closest to the panicked crowd. Some people were attempting to tear down other barricades and get out, and Brent rushed to help them. He moved around the stadium doing what little he could.
As he moved from one survivor to another, he nearly tripped over a body. Brent realized it was Liam’s. Jeff’s death finally hit him, and not too far off he saw Jim’s lifeless corpse as well. He didn’t care to look for his other friends. They were probably dead. The fact that he was still alive was nothing short of a miracle.
When Brent finally stopped and looked around, there were dozens of bodies strewn about. Many of them were being feasted upon. He gagged, but felt good otherwise. Anyone still moving in the stadium seemed to be a zombie, and Brent almost felt like he had done some good in the world. It didn’t erase the bad or clean the blood on his hands. As he worked his way through one of the broken barriers, he wondered if God was real. If He was, Brent knew Erica was up in Heaven, and if he wanted to join her, he had a lot more good to do.
He crossed the parking lot feeling very light, almost like he was drifting, like his fish back home. He found his car and drove away from the stadium in silence, and for the first time since this had begun, he felt at peace with himself. He was ready to join Erica in Heaven whenever God decided it was time.
Ghost Story
The sun beat down harshly on the dirt road as the man and the boy walked alongside it. The man did not have the luxury of a hat, and his receding hair betrayed his scalp to the violent heat. The boy did have a hat, and had offered it to him many times, only to get the same answer.
The boy also had many questions. Having spent just over a decade on this planet, there was a lot that he did not understand.
The basic questions had all been answered hundreds of times over the years. What were those large metal shells strewn about the land? How did they get there? Why didn’t they work anymore? What were the snake-like things growing out of certain objects, the ones that connected to certain walls? And why didn’t those work, even when connected?
There were more important questions, too, but some of these did not have an answer; at least not one the older man could give. Why did the two of them hide if they heard someone coming? Why did they never meet anyone else, never increase in number?
What about the monsters? Where had they come from? How many of them were there?
It had been a long time since they had seen people or monsters, and so they walked on safely. They passed one of the metal shells along the road. It lay like the skeleton of some long-forgotten beast, its bones red and decayed, its skin gone, bleached away by the sun until litt
le remained.
There was something along the horizon ahead. The road stretched on as far as they could see, and whatever they were approaching was rendered little more than a blur of heat and darkness.
They camped out by the side of the road that night, still unaware of what was up ahead on the road. They ate, and the boy asked questions. His companion gave what answers he could, admitted when he was given a question he did not know the answer to, and ignored those questions he felt had answers the boy would not like.
The stars were bright and clear, millions of them, unobstructed by clouds or anything else. The moon was bright, but small. The older man had heard stories of it once being larger, but he did not lend his mind to myths of the old days.
In the morning, dew covered the two and their belongings, and it felt cold. They tried not to complain, as the day would only bring the sun and unbearable heat. If only the dew would last forever.
It was nearing midday when the man finally realized what it was that they had seen from afar, and the boy only watched in wonder as they approached it.
The skeletal remains of some great empire sprawled out before them. There were large chunks of rock scattered around and even full structures toppled over, strewn about like children’s playthings. Some still stood, but pieces of them were gone, revealing iron skeletons which beams of sunlight shone through.
Plants of many kinds had grown over much of what remained, especially anything close to the ground. The roads were not made of dirt, but of rock; cracked and broken as weeds and grass poked up through them. Here there were more of the metallic shells around than either of them had seen in their entire lives.
Metallic poles rose from the ground in some places, many of them were bent or leaning. Some swayed slightly in the breeze. Some of these were much taller than the others, and had rounded heads.
