Undead Worlds 2: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Anthology

by Authors, Various

  In the distance behind her she could see the flames and black smoke from the wreckage lifting into the gray sky. There were a handful of vehicles scattered about the highway, apparently broken down. She could see movement coming from within some of them. She stood slowly, taking a full measure of her own condition as she did. Aside from her entire body aching as if she had done the world's worst belly-flop, she felt okay. She shuffled slowly toward the closest car, a Volkswagen broken down in the slow lane.

  When she got within twenty feet, she could clearly see that there was a person inside.

  “There's something wrong with them,” the captain called back from about a hundred feet ahead. “I wouldn't get any closer. They're all messed up, like the one on the flight deck.”

  Kristen stopped where she stood and watched the person inside the vehicle. It raged and thrashed about, seeming intent on getting at her, but it made no attempt to open the door. She was horrified and mesmerized by it. It smeared its face across the glass and gnashed its teeth, as if it were trying to bite her through the glass.

  “What the fuck?” she whispered to herself.

  Her eyes panned across the highway at the scattering of vehicles, to see similar forms in some of the others, all fixated on her or the captain. A shudder of fear and revulsion wracked her body and spurred her to movement. She took off at a jog, despite the aches and pains, to catch up to the man.

  “What the fuck is happening? What is all this?” she panted out, once she got close.

  “Same as on the plane, I'd guess,” he replied. “Same as what's going on everywhere, maybe. I'm John, by the way.”

  “Kristen,” she replied. “Wait, everywhere?”

  She didn't expect an answer, as it became obvious to her that this was why her battalion was ordered stateside for policing. It hadn't been because of a coup, nor were the riots caused by normal malcontents. They had been mustered to stop whatever was causing the madness overtaking these people. She plodded on in silence while digesting this knowledge, and the impact of the decisions she had made. A creeping unease settled over her, caused not by the revelation or knowledge of what was going on, but the unanswered question as to what was wrong with these people. Every time they drifted near one of the cars she let her eyes linger, hoping to make sense of it all. Each time her dread grew.

  “They aren't alive, are they?” she finally asked, on seeing a grievously wounded woman thrashing about on her entrails in the rear of a station wagon.

  “If they are, they certainly don't feel any pain,” John replied.

  “So what do we do? How do we get help?”

  The silence lingered for a moment, then, as if in answer, they rounded a bend in the highway and spotted a police cruiser in the distance. Its flashing lights signaled like a beacon.

  “We can start there, I think,” John replied, smiling slightly through his pained grimace.

  The people inside the vehicles faded into the backdrop of late fall in the northern climes. Both Kristen and John hugged themselves and rubbed their bodies, trying to stay warm as they hustled up the roadway toward the cruiser. It was parked halfway up an exit ramp, about a mile ahead, just behind a handful of other parked cars. John was in pretty rough shape, his arm hung limply and his uniform was in scorched tatters. His face hung and his breathing came in short gasps. He could barely move faster than a walking pace. Kristen could see the pain in his eyes and wanted to give him a chance to rest for a moment.

  “Hold up a second, John. Gotta catch my breath.”

  He stopped where he stood and leaned on the guardrail, using it to support him.

  “Where are we anyway, John?”

  “Not entirely sure, Northeast Pennsylvania, New York State, maybe. To be honest, I was deep into a crossword puzzle when that asshole shot up the controls. The plane does all the flying for the most part,” John gasped out the words as he spoke, struggling with some syllables more than others.

  “What do you know about all the rioting and stuff?” she asked, more to extend the opportunity for a break than actual desire for information.

  “Not much more than talk. I was on a red-eye into San Diego from Tokyo last night. Overheard a couple of the flight crew talking about it. The stuff they were saying sounded pretty far-fetched, though. I thought they were a little bonkers, or reading the Enquirer or something.”

  After a few minutes, Kristen got them moving once again. She could tell that the man needed much more than a breather on the side of the highway, he was in desperate need of medical attention. As they walked, they could hear the sound of gunshots in the distance, heightening their tension. John made it a few hundred more yards before he started falling. She did her best to support him and help him along, but he was a foot taller and close to a hundred pounds heavier.

  By the time they made it to the foot of the exit ramp the cruiser was on, Kristen was fully winded. Her own breathing came in great blowing gusts, nearly equaling in volume the sounds of the howling winds coming from the north. John was moaning, low and pained, as he shuffled along with most of his weight resting on her. The police officer came into view a hundred feet ahead as they approached the rear of the cruiser. He was attending to someone wounded on the roadway, with his back to them, giving CPR from the look of it.

  “Help!” Kristen gasped as they staggered up the ramp, her weak voice getting lost in the wind.

  She continued to plead for help every five or ten paces, whenever her hoarse, strained breathing would allow. Alarm bells started going off in her head when they reached the rear bumper of the cruiser. She pulled up short, seeing a pool of blood on the ground around the officer, fifteen feet ahead. John toppled forward at her sudden stop, tripping over his own dragging feet. He managed to support himself for two more weak steps before he tumbled alongside the cruiser. His shoulder connected with the side-view mirror on the way down, shearing it off the vehicle. The sound of his body thudding onto the roadway was drowned out by the shattering of the mirror. The tinkling of glass on the roadway hung in the air for a moment as the police officer turned toward them.

  Kristen froze in terror at the grim visage before her. Half of his face was missing. A deflated eyeball sagged down from an empty socket, hanging limply onto bone, muscle, and sinew. As he stood to face them, she could see that he had been disemboweled and his upper thighs were stripped of flesh and muscle. His condition horrified her and she rubbed the side of her neck to try and prevent passing out at the wretched sight. This one was not like the man on the plane, it was slow, stumbling almost lethargically as it approached the prone form of John.

  “John get up!” she shouted. “John!”

  John didn't respond, he simply lay face down on the tarmac as the horrible thing staggered toward him. She tried to force herself forward to help John up, but no matter how much she wanted to, she simply couldn't force her feet to move closer to the thing. If you don't get moving and help him, you are going to be alone out here, Kris, her inner voice urged.

  Her terror finally broke and she forced her legs forward. She gritted her teeth and charged at the officer, who was now just a few feet from the prone form of John. With a roar of fear and revulsion she threw herself at the cop. She planted both her palms on the center of his chest and shoved with all her might. His mouth snapped hungrily at her arms and his hands pinched and scratched at her face. She was able to overcome his weight with her momentum and when she stopped her roaring charge, he tumbled backward down onto the pavement. He immediately struggled to pursue, but she was back out of reach, slapping John along his head and back as she moved toward the rear of the cruiser, away from the officer.

  “John! Get up!” she screamed.

  There was still no response so she quickly rolled him onto his back, hiked his feet up into her armpits, and started dragging him behind her like a travois.

  She managed to get twenty feet back down the ramp before his legs jerked heavily under her arms and his weight doubled. She looked back in terror to see t
he police officer laying atop John. Her sanity snapped at seeing the officer dig his teeth into John's stomach and the ensuing bloodletting. She roared in rage and pain, and tears shot from her eyes. She considered for a moment laying into the cop with her hands and feet, but kept enough of her wits to check his waist. His Glock sat there, still in its holster on his hip.

  “Don't you fucking move!” she screamed at the officer as she stalked in.

  If he noticed her, he didn't lift his head from John's stomach. She circled around to the officer's right side and leapt in. In one swift move she unbuttoned the holster and slid the weapon free. She raised the weapon as she stepped back away from the two. Her heel struck the blacktop wrong and she fell on her backside in her haste. She scrambled back a few feet as the officer turned his head toward her and started to stand. A low plaintive moan escaped his lips and she squeezed the trigger. She fired a single shot into his face. The officer crumpled immediately, falling down on the roadway, laying half across John.

  “John!” she screamed, afraid to move closer to the policeman. “Are you. . .okay?”

  As she rose back to her feet, it became instantly apparent that John was not okay. She turned away from the gory mess before it could come fully into focus and released the undigested chana masala onto the roadway next to her. She was on her hands and knees, purging her stomach, when a voice startled her back to reality.

  “You okay, Miss?” the voice called.

  She spun and scrambled away from the voice, bringing the weapon up and to the ready. A heavyset man in sweatpants and a Dallas Cowboys jersey stood on the ramp just beyond where the police officer had initially been. He held his hands out, hesitantly, at the sight of the brandished weapon.

  “What the fuck is going on?” she replied, shouting.

  She was still scared and traumatized by the events of the past few minutes, but seeing another normal human being got her back to her feet. She moved closer to the man, who appeared to be in his late forties, with salt and pepper hair and a goatee. Having seen people devouring each other multiple times in the past few hours, she exercised caution and stopped once she was within earshot, still more than a dozen feet from the man.

  “Dunno, to be honest. I was running to town to fill up the gas tank and get some food and water. The emergency broadcast said to stay indoors, but its hard to keep food around with a couple teenagers in the house,” he started. “Never made it into town, though. Those things are everywhere. By the time the Tops market came into view, I knew there was no way I was going to set foot outside the car. I probably look like a fucking steak to them things. I just turned around and headed home. Ran out of gas just up there.”

  He pointed up to the cars sitting idle on the ramp.

  “That cop came staggering down the ramp lookin' all fucked up like that. He seen me and tried to get at me for half the morning, 'til that poor sucker caught his eye,” he gestured to the partially devoured corpse laying a few feet to the side. “I been stuck in the truck for the past five hours or so, too afraid to come out. You got a car?”

  She took a moment to try and absorb all that was said, and all that was implied, by his statement. She was struck by the pictures the woman on the flight had shown her, of Boston. She wondered how far she was from home.

  “Wait, where are we?”

  “Huh?” he replied, confused by the question.

  “What state, county. What town are we in?” she barked back at him.

  “New York, Fishs Eddy,” he replied, taking a step back away from her and eyeing her suspiciously. “Where are you from, lady?”

  “I was flying from San Diego home to Boston. Plane went down.”

  “Ho-lee shit, that was a plane that went down?”

  Kristen nodded.

  “Hot damn, I heard the sound and saw the smoke and fires. I just thought a gas station went up or something. You were on it?”

  “Listen, what's your name?”

  “Darrell, Darrel Harbaugh. Pleased to meet ya.”

  Darrell rushed across the gap with his meaty paw extended in polite greeting. Kristen took a hesitant step back, but held her ground and shook the man's hand when he approached.

  “I'm Kristen. You live around here, right? With your family?” she asked, trying to voice the question as innocently as possible.

  As happy as she was to see another normal person, she wanted to make sure that she would be safe around this guy. If he had a wife and kids at home she would be much more comfortable with the idea of heading in that direction. More than anything, she wanted to head directly toward Massachusetts, but she had no vehicle and no real idea how bad things were. The thought of safety behind a locked door and four walls was too compelling for her to turn down.

  “Yeah, Tina and me been married twenty-seven years come next April. Our eldest, Darrell junior, moved out already, over to Chenango. He got a job working on Harleys at Southern Tier. Toby, our middle child turned sixteen last month, and Tanya is fourteen going on twenty-five,” he finished with a hearty laugh at his own mirth.

  “Can we walk to your place from here?”

  “'Bout a mile over that way, as the crow flies,” he gestured with his stubby pointed finger. “Take us a bit longer on the roads, maybe thirty minutes to walk it.”

  “Okay, Darrell, let’s get moving.”

  It took nearer to an hour to make the trek. Darrell was extremely out of shape and needed to 'take a minute' every hundred yards or so. When they finally arrived at the house, which was set back from the road a hundred feet or more, there was someone waiting on the front porch with a rifle in hand. Kristen spotted him from the road and froze alongside the garage that sat out front, refusing to move any closer. Darrell took a few steps down the walkway before he noticed her hesitation.

  “Come on, Kristen. This is it.” he gasped, red-faced with the effort of the walk.

  He stared at her, confused, for nearly a full minute before realizing the sight of his son, nearly a grown man, with a rifle in hand might disturb a woman traveling by herself.

  “Toby, get your ass inside the house and send your mother out here,” he called back.

  “Don't mind the boy,” he said to Kristen. “Fancies himself a big-time hunter ever since he nabbed a twelve-pointer last year. Luck is what I say.”

  The boy scrambled inside and a moment later a heavyset middle-aged woman came out onto the porch. She wobbled a little when she walked, which tickled Kristen a bit. By the time she moved down the length of the walkway to her husband's side, her cheeks were rosy and she was out of breath. Kristen smiled broadly at the woman, despite her reservations.

  “Well, don't just stand there, girl. Get inside and out of the cold. You'll catch your death out here.”

  Kristen allowed herself to be led inside the turn-of-the-century foursquare style house. The warmth inside was uncomfortable after barely a moment. She had been out in the cold for so long, the heat inside felt like it was burning her skin. Darrell put a crocheted blanket around her shoulders and led her down the hall to the kitchen at the back of the house. He sat her in a chair at the table, closest to where the wood-burning stove sat. She still held the pistol in her hand, refusing to allow herself to feel safe.

  “Kristen, this is Tina, my wife. Tina, this is Kristen. I found her by the roadside, couldn't leave her out there,” he winked at Kristen, in acknowledgment of his exaggeration. “It's a goddamned nightmare out there.”

  “What's happen-” Tina began.

  A harrowing roar echoed down through the forests across the street, accompanied by frenzied hammering on the front door. Everyone froze and stared helplessly toward the front of the house. Kristen steadied herself with a breath and let the blanket drop to the floor as she stood. She stalked to the corner of the kitchen and peered down the length of the hallway. Through the myriad designs of etched and colored glass inlaid in the front door, she could see the forms of at least two people. One of them locked eyes on her and started shouting.

&n
bsp; “Let us in, please!”

  Kristen could see the hysteria in his eyes and knew immediately that the man was desperate. She lowered the pistol to her side and glided down the hall to the door, throwing the latch and stepping clear. The weight of three bodies pressed the door open and spilled them onto the floor in front of her. She stepped back and raised her pistol slightly, at the ready. The man she had locked eyes with scrambled around, slamming the door shut. He locked the dead-bolt and pressed his back against the door while the other two, a boy and a girl, both teenagers, looked nervously from the door to Kristen's hand gripping the pistol.

  Kristen opened her mouth to utter a reassurance when a shadow came across the window. The flash of movement barely had time to register before the window smashed inwards and the upper half of a body came through. Everyone started screaming. The thrashing thing came fully through the window and into the foyer and the three newcomers scrambled away from it, moving into the front room of the house. Kristen retreated a step further back into the shadows of the hallway as the man stood and roared in fury. The sound sent a shiver of fear down her spine. Flesh rent by the glass hung in ribbons down the front of his face and congealed blood coated the front of his coveralls. His skin was grayish-black and mottled, not that she noticed. She was fixated on his eyes he had the same predatory eyes as the man on the plane.

  When the man lurched off in pursuit of the three, Kristen's hesitation broke. She moved to the door and shouted into the front room.

  “Hey, asshole!”

  She raised her pistol, but the chaos of movement inside the room granted her no clear shot. Through the tumult of activity, those eyes came into focus, locked on her own. Then the man was running toward her. She fumbled with the dead-bolt and got the door open just as he arrived. She took a single step to the open door as he dove in. He slipped on the scattered glass and he bounced off the left side of her hip, sending her careening, crashing through the screen door and onto the wide front porch. The pistol flew from her grip as the back of her head struck the column at the side of the stairs. She could hear the cacophony of cascading glass and a heavy thump as she worked to remain conscious. She slid backwards down the stairs as the man skidded on the broken glass and came out the door after her.