Aftershock: A Collection of Survivors Tales

by Kristopher Lioudis

  The look of surprise on his face as it occurred to him what was about to happen told me he was no professional. I took him in the chest with my shoulder and we both bounced off the wall and crashed to the floor. I came down on top of him and immediately started raining down elbows into his face. I brought my knee up into his crotch and received a very satisfying grunt of pain in return. He tried to buck me off but I hooked my leg under his and did my best to try and choke him with my left forearm. The empty loop of a handcuff that had only a minute ago been secured around the slat of a chair dangled from my right wrist and I got a grisly idea.

  “Don’t think you’re gonna be getting your rocks off today sweetie.” I whispered in his ear while I continued to smash his fat , fucking face. I opened the empty cuff and grasped the end like a hook. He gave one last violent shove that almost succeeded in throwing me off and then I buried the semi-sharp cuff/hook right in his fucking neck. I’m sure he would have screamed had I not torn out his adam’s apple. Instead, he just gurgled and spat blood. I kept twisting the cuff, trying to saw his head off until the blood stopped spurting and he stopped kicking.

  I laid there for a minute trying to catch my breath. I knew I probably didn’t have all the time in the world to be lying around, but fuck, things had turned around pretty damn quick and I had to get my bearings.

  I figured William had to be close if this sick bastard thought I would be able to hear them, at least on the same floor, most likely in the same hall. Then I had to figure out how to get us out of the building, then out of this fucking town. I had no clue how many others were left. Rapid mental arithmetic told me there had to be at least one other asshole in the building. Odds were there were more than that. I had to hope we could get out without running into any of them. The Army trained me to fight long past the point where my body and mind would have given up, but in all honesty I didn’t know how much I had left in the tank. At this point, the only thing keeping me going was the fact that there was no fucking way I was going to die here and leave William behind to be some kind of toy for these fucks.

  I needed to get my hands on a weapon, I needed to find William, and I needed to get us the fuck out of here, preferably in that order. I rolled Fat Bastard’s pockets, but didn’t find anything worth keeping. There wasn’t anything in the room worth taking either. The busted chair, a filthy mop sink, and a mattress in the corner stained with blood or shit or both.

  I listened out into the hall and didn’t hear anyone moving around. I moved out of the room slowly. The hall was dark. Four or five doorways lined each side, all closed. There was a set of steel double doors at the end of the hall with an exit sign above them. So what then, just start knocking on doors hoping to find a slow kid and not a cannibal?

  I pressed my ear to the first door. No sound. I tried the knob and it turned slowly. I eased the door open until I could squeeze my head in side. The room was empty as far as I could tell. It looked like a small classroom. Only one were a bomb had gone off. The desks were overturned and broken, the chalkboard covering the front wall was shattered, shredded books and papers littered the floor. I moved down the hall to the next door. I heard very loud snoring behind it. I knew from many, many nights of experience that William did not snore so I thought it best not to open this door just yet. The next room was another classroom and was likewise trashed and empty.

  Across the hall, behind the third door, I found William. I slowly opened the door expecting another empty room and I saw him sitting quietly in a ratty armchair staring at the wall with that blank expression I had come to envy. He turned at the sound of the door and started to say my name. I raised a finger to my lips. He got the message but smiled just the same. I realized I had never really seen him smile before. He looked contented enough at times, cramming a Mars bar into his mouth, but never really “happy”. The look on his face told me that they hadn’t done anything to him and I said a silent prayer of thanks for it.

  “What happened to your face?” he whispered, pointed to my mangled grill.

  “Fell down some stairs,” I replied, momentarily forgetting that he had no grasp of sarcasm.

  He nodded as if that was the only thing that made sense and went back to staring at the wall.

  “We need to leave now William, and we have to be really, really quiet.”

  “Are there more of the zombies here?”

  I didn’t know how to respond. How long had we both been running, trying to stay away from the dead when right now I was more concerned with the living. No sense in trying to explain so I just nodded. His smile dropped away and was replaced by solemn resolve.

  “Okay. Let’s go,” and he pushed past me into the hall.

  I scanned his room and saw nothing of value. We quickly and quietly searched the other two rooms and came up with nothing. That left the room across the hall with the snorer. I suppose, if he was in there alone, I could get the drop on him, maybe smother him with a pillow. Maybe I could grab one of the desks from the other room and beat him to death with it. What I wouldn’t give for a blade right now…

  I listened at the door again and heard the snoring still going strong. I motioned for William to wait at the far wall and eased the door open as slow as I could. I poked my head through far enough to see a mountain of flesh lying face down on mattress on the floor. What I saw against the wall sent me into a blind rage. All my own pain and weariness fell away and the only thing I could think of was wrapping my hands around the neck of this mother fucker and squeezing until his head popped.

  As I moved across the room three things happened one right after another. First, as I advanced, I caught sight of a buck knife on the dresser so I scooped it up as I passed. Second, since I wasn’t trying to be quite anymore, Snoring Beauty woke up and started rolling toward me, a look of surprise breaking on his face. Third, I fell on him before he could even sit up and just started carving the enormous mound of his belly with the buck knife.

  “YOU SICK MOTHER FUCKERS!!!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!”

  He batted ineffectually at me with his arms, but it was too late and I think he knew it. Blood began to dribble out of his mouth and then he was coughing up chunks of his own internal organs. I just kept stabbing and slicing and hacking.

  I saw William out of the corner of my eye moving through the doorway.

  “Don’t come in here!” I yelled and he stopped halfway through. No way did he need to see what was going on in here. Not what I was doing and certainly not the bodies chained to the wall.

  At least a dozen sets of handcuffs were bolted to a beam nailed to the wall, a set of wrists in each. All of them were women. All of them were naked. All of them in varying stages of FUBAR. Bruised, bloody, and broken, every one of them disfigured and mutilated. Fucking senseless.

  I got to my feet and stood there listening to the blood rush in my ears while William waited obediently out in the hall. I was going to find and gut every one of these fucks, then I was going to burn this entire fucking village of psychos to the ground and salt the earth.

  I moved out into the hall still holding the buck knife in my good right hand. I was completely covered in blood and out of breath. William didn’t flinch, just stared at me.

  “William, I want you to go back to the room you were in and close the door. Do not open it until I come to get you, okay? Just wait quietly until I get back.”

  “You have blood on your shirt. You should find another shirt. I have a clean shirt in my backpack, but I do not think it will fit you. May I borrow your flashlight?”

  I chuckled a little as I dug in my cargo pocket looking for the penlight he wanted. No dice, they must have taken it while I was out.

  “Sorry William, I don’t have it on me.”

  William shrugged and walked back to the dark room at the end of the hall. I had mixed feelings about sending him back there, but I sure as hell couldn’t bring him along to sweep the building with me. If I stuck close to this flo
or and branched out once I knew he wasn’t going to be in any immediate danger, I could clear the top floors and work my down.

  I found the stairwell and moved quietly up to the top. Only five floors, should go pretty quickly provided I didn’t run into an entire group. I still had no idea how many I was up against here. My hope was that I could get my hands on a real weapon before too long or this was going to be useless. The adrenaline I was running on wasn’t going to last forever and it wasn’t going to do shit against one asshole with a handgun.

  I backed down to the fourth floor, one up from where William was no doubt sitting quietly in a chair and counting cracks in the floor or whatever the fuck he did to occupy himself. This hall was laid out similar to the one below, four doors on one side, five on the other. I moved just outside the first door off the stairwell. It was open a crack and a light flickered through the opening.

  I listened to hear voices or snoring or farting but got nothing. I couldn’t see around the corner into the room so I eased the door in. The room was empty. A half-burned candle sat in a dish on a bookshelf. More school desks were piled against the wall. Luckily no one was chained to the walls in here. I moved back in to the hall and checked the rest of the rooms, one by one, the same way. All of them were empty. So who lit the fucking candle?

  I rechecked the closets and the storeroom before heading back to the stairwell. Nothing. Not even a fucking broom handle. Ditto the third floor, though I did find a clean shirt. Well, cleaner than the one I had on at least. That should make William happy.

  As I moved out of the stairwell into the second floor hallway I heard voices. Faint but there, coming from the last door on the right. One of them was crying. I moved against the wall and made my way slowly up the hall holding the knife low, ready to gut the next motherfucker I saw. Outside the door I could definitely make out three distinct voices. One female and two male. Guess which one was crying?

  I tried the knob, but the door was locked. I reared back to kick in the door, but I heard one of the male voices moving toward the door. I backed up and hid in the next room, falling just out of sight as I heard the door open. Whoever it was hawked and spat on the floor. He moved past the doorway I was hiding in and I got a good look at him. Another fat mountain of flesh, pale and sweaty, dressed in filthy sweatpants and no shirt. The way I saw it, I was doing what was left of humanity a favor by ending this shithead’s life.

  I moved behind him and in one motion rocked his head back with my left forearm and brought the knife around and into his throat. Blood sprayed the carpet and he dropped to his knees with a thud. His hands went to his neck as he tried to spin around to face me. The look on his face was totally incredulous, like he couldn’t understand how he had gone from raping some woman one second to bleeding to death in a dank hallway the next. I put a boot in his face and sent him to his back.

  “Rot in hell you piece of shit.” I hawked my own loogie and spat in his face.

  I turned toward the room again and moved into the now open doorway. I only saw the woman. She way tied face down to the bed. She wasn’t crying anymore, probably because she was dead. Maybe she was better off that way all things considered.

  I waited in the door way for Mystery Guest #3 to show his face so I could peel it off his fucking skull and wipe my ass with it. I stood there for at least a minute and nothing which meant he knew I was there and wasn’t going to show himself.

  “Come on out asshole, “ I called into the room, “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Fuck you!” came the reply.

  I moved slowly through the door watching for any movement. I caught sight of the bastard’s elbow around the corner behind the bed. What kind of weapon did he have? It couldn’t be a gun otherwise he would have fired by now. I bent to pick up a shoe off the floor. I whipped it at the exposed elbow and chuckled when he cried out. I heard the thud of whatever he was holding and charged him. As I came around the corner, he had crouched to pick up the baseball bat he had dropped.

  I brought my knee hard into his temple and he went sprawling to the floor. I came down on top of him with a knee in his chest and hit him three times in the bridge of the nose with the haft of the knife, knocking him out.

  I could have just slit his throat and been done with it, but I decided that might be too good for this puke. I got up and looked back at the bed. The naked body looked used and empty in a way I had never seen before. I cut the ropes and rolled the body to the floor. I picked up the unconscious fuck and tied him down in her place. I stuffed a dirty rag into his mouth for when he woke up.

  I moved around to the head of the bed and grabbed a hold of his thumb. I bent it back sharply toward the wrist until I heard it snap. He came to instantly, his eyes went wide and he immediately started screaming behind the gag. I smile at him as I grabbed his index finger and snapped it sideways. His eyes clamped shut now and it was his turn to cry.

  “You are a group of very sick individuals,” I told him as I moved around toward the left side of the bed, “The world has gone to Hell. Literally. And you and your little group are here doing this?!” I motioned toward the body on the floor. “Just so you know, there is always a price to pay. Walking corpses or no.”

  I snapped the fingers on his left hand one by one. By the time I took hold of his pinky, he had passed out again. I didn’t want to leave him the opportunity to try and get free so I also broke each wrist. I scooped the bat off of the floor and swung it hard at both of his knees.

  “Enjoy your slow death.” With that I turned and walked out of the room, bat in hand, buck knife in my back pocket.

  With the rest of the hall cleared, I moved to the ground floor. The entrance to the building took up most of the space. Two large supply closets lined the back wall. I opened the first and found cans upon cans of food and three cases of MRE’s. There was also enough bottled water in here to last William and I a month. The second closet held the contents of the Jeep. My rifles, William’s backpack, and there in the middle of the pile, with a big fucking halo around it was Cappy. I tossed the bat and grabbed the crowbar.

  I doubted there was anyone else in this building, but I had no way of knowing if this was the only occupied one so I figured we should move quick. Setting Cappy back down I grabbed my M4, checked the chamber and mag, and flipped off the safety. It felt good to have a rifle in my hands again.

  I went back for William who was very pleased to hear that I had found his backpack. Or at least I’m guessing he was pleased, how the fuck could I tell. I left him in the entry closet with our supplies and told him I would be back as soon as I had scouted the street. He nodded, only half paying attention, he was rummaging around in his backpack for God-knows-what.

  I left him on his own and moved toward the door. Out on the street, I could see the bodies of the men I killed yesterday. There were also a ton of wrecked cars, burnt-out and flipped over like charred turtles. None of these were going to do us any good. I knew the Jeep was around the corner, unless they’d moved it, but I doubted they had. There was no way I could drag William out onto the street without knowing if any of these other buildings were occupied. Too risky.

  Then I had an idea. Not my best idea, granted, but a serviceable distraction and maybe a bit of revenge for all those women upstairs. I was going to burn this fucker down.

  I moved William and our supplies to the back fire door. I also liberated a couple cases of MRE’s and several gallons of water. If we didn’t find a vehicle quickly, I wasn’t going to be able to carry much of it and I knew better than to ask William. Still, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity and I sure as shit wasn’t leaving it here.

  I moved up to the third floor and started piling books and garbage in the hall. A place this filthy would burn easy enough, at least I hoped it would. I was right. By the time I made it from the end of the hall to the stair well, the pile of trash had already caught the wall behind it.

  I ran down to the ground floor and hustled Ian out into the alley. I heard gla
ss shattering around the front of the building, but didn’t hear any kind of alarm, no yelling, no one running to check out the smoke billowing from the now busted windows. Maybe that was a good sign. I still had to find wheels ricky-tick. The fire wasn’t going to stay in one building. My guess was the whole town would be in flames by sundown.

  I left Ian and our pile of worldly goods in the alley and made my way cautiously to the street. I hugged the wall as I moved past one wreck after another. As I rounded the next corner, I spotted a sign for a used car lot. I got my hopes up a little too high. As the lot came into view, I saw that all that was left of it was a giant pile of twisted metal. Like every vehicle was thrown in a pile and then stomped on. Strike two.

  I didn’t want to move too far from William just in case there were still more of them here. And even though I hadn’t seen a walking corpse since yesterday, I had no way of knowing if there were any of them here either. Fuck, for all I knew these sick fucks kept them as pets.

  I had just about given up and decided we would have to go on foot when I saw it. A big, beautiful Humvee parked half way up on the curb. Not some pussified civilian Hummer either, this was the real deal. Painted desert sand like it just came back from the Gulf. Had we made a right instead of a left in the Jeep yesterday we probably would have run right into the fucking thing.

  I slid along the wall and opened the passenger door. The floor was littered with beer cans and chip bags. Fucking travesty. I crawled over the mess and hit the starter. It took three tries, but that diesel sucking motherfucker roared to life and I couldn’t help but celebrate a little.

  I threw the tranny into gear, cut the wheel hard to the left, and pulled off the curb. Half way through my u-turn the windshield exploded into a spider web of cracked glass. I knew it was too good to be true. We still had some friends here. I tore ass up the street and slammed on the brakes in front of the alley where William was waiting. The top two floors were already blazing and a plume of black smoke rose into the sky.