Phoenix Protocol- the Middletown Omnibus

by Brent Abell

  ***

  Jordy ran through the arena’s dark underbelly, trying to put as much distance as he could between the zombies and himself. Above him, he heard the show had started, and the band sounded terrific, even in the bowls of the venue. Jordy smiled and slowed down. He thought his heart was going to burst from his chest, and his breathing was a wheeze. Jordy wasn’t a fat guy but wasn’t in real good shape either. He hoped he didn’t drop dead of a heart attack before he got up the backstage area.

  A burning itch raced up his arm. Jordy scratched at the spot where Candy’s nails dug deep in his arm. Warmblood oozed from the wound, and he finally decided to take a look at it. The skin appeared red and irritated. Around the scratches, there was a puffiness to it, making his forearm look twice as large as usual. It took him by surprise how infected the wound looked already.

  “It’s not a bite. It’s not a bite. It’s not a bite,” Jordy repeated. He hoped if he said it enough, he’d believe it.

  A hot bead of sweat dripped down his cheek. He touched his forehead, and he could feel the fever burning. His breathing became more labored, and his vision swam like he was inside a fishbowl. Cold chills raced up his spine, and he shivered even as he boiled on the inside.

  “Got to get to the stage,” he muttered and leaning against the cold concrete wall, found the door to take him up to the concert.

  ***

  “We are the children of an absent God, and we bring our own beliefs to the light,” Jon growled and jumped off the drum kit platform.

  The crowd whipped around the floor in a frenzy of moshing and screaming along with each and every song the band belted out. Jon held the mike out to the crowd and let them sing the chorus line. He loved the shows, but he also liked giving his voice a break for a measure or two. His smile widened, and Jon beamed at the crowd, nodding his head with them. He backed away from the front of the stage as Jenny tore into her solo.

  Something crashed to the left of the stage, and Jon glanced over to see Jordy leaning up against Lars’ guitar rack. He appeared flushed, and even in the low light, Jon could tell something was off in their manager. A few fans against the front fence looked at Jon, and their eyes followed his attention off stage. They stopped headbanging and screaming as the man in the shadows fell over and crashed to the stage. All over the floor, fans froze, watching Jon rush off stage and drop down beside a dark figure.

  The rest of the band tried to play, but the distraction grew too large. Some fans began to boo, and others jeered the group for stopping. Jenny walked to Jon’s mike and placed her fingers to her lips. The crowd calmed, and she took a peek at Jon and saw him checking the figure’s wrist like he was trying to find a pulse.

  “We’re sorry for the silence, but we have an emergency. Please bear with us, and we’ll get back to the show as soon as we can,” Jenny announced. The crowd answered with stunned silence.

  Leaning her guitar against the drum kit, Jenny made her way to the backstage area where Jon was motioning for the paramedics rushing from the inner bowls of the arena. When the man on the ground sat up, he buried his face in Jon’s throat. She had gotten close enough to see it was Jordy, and she screamed. The arena lights began to hum back to life, and in the growing brightness, she saw a crimson stream spurt from Jon’s neck. The man pulled his mouth away, and Jon grabbed the wound and staggered to his feet.

  Bob jumped down from behind his drum kit and rushed to Jon’s aid. The singer staggered to the amp stack and fell into it.

  “Dude, you okay?” Bob asked, kneeling to help Jon to the ground. “Lars! Somebody, grab one of my towels we can wrap around his neck!”

  Lars dropped his bass, and the strings gave a loud low hum through the speakers when it hit the stage. He hopped up on the drum stand and snatched a couple of towels Bob kept to wipe his face off during the show. He tossed them down to Jenny, who was crying. She handed them to Bob before braking down and grabbing Jon’s hand.

  “Jen, help me hold these on his neck. We need to put pressure on it to stop the bleeding,” Bob calmly said.

  “What the fuck is wrong with Jordy?” Jenny sobbed. “How could he do this?”

  “Drugs? Who the fuck knows, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d gotten into some bad shit. Jen, put your hands here and keep it tight, I’m going to see what the fuck is up with Jordy,” Bob said and got up.

  The paramedics were surrounding Jordy, and he stood there still with his head hanging limply to the left. Bloody drool dripped down his chin, and a small piece of skin hung between his teeth. One paramedic waved his hand in front of Jordy’s face trying to get a response, but the manager didn’t move except to lightly sway back and forth like he was a tree dancing in a storm.

  “Lance, what are going to do with this guy?” the other paramedic asked.

  “Well, Dave, we’re gonna have to get him down and stabilize him,” Lance answered. The man swaying in front of him freaked him out. The back and forth motion reminded him of a snake ready to strike.

  Lars appeared behind Lance and tapped him on the shoulder. “Dude, our singer got bite in the neck by this asshole, and he’s bleeding out, man.”

  “I’ll check it out, Dave. You watch this guy until we decided what to do with him.”

  Dave glanced at the crowd in the arena, and they chanted for the band to retake the stage. “You guys need to tell these people the show is over.”

  “Yeah, Jon doesn’t look very good,” Lars sighed. “I’ll go tell the people.”

  Dave turned back to Jordy as Lars walked off and screamed.

  ***

  “What the fuck is going on up there?” Seth asked and took a drink from his beer. It tasted warm, and he hated drinking from a plastic cup, but after the day he had, a beer was a beer.

  J.T. sighed and shot Seth a sideways glance. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it looks good.”

  The crowd around them grumbled and headed over to the pop-up stand to grab beers. A few people loitered around the bathrooms outside to exorcise the beer they’d consumed. The people stood tightly packed in the narrow hall leading from the floor to the outer areas of the arena. Seth brought the beer to his lips, and the crowd shifted. A man pushed through the people and knocked Seth’s arm. His beer splashed up and spilled down the front of his Alice In Chains tee shirt.

  “What the fuck?” Seth spat and turned to the man. The guy moved past him, and Seth reached out, grabbing hold of his white collared shirt. The man spun around, and Seth saw the milky white eyes. It unnerved him and the bits of meat and blood hanging and dripping from the man’s mouth even more.

  J.T. pushed the man in front of Seth. “You spilled his beer, dude! What the fuck?”

  Before J.T. could react, the man growled and grabbed his arm. Seth took hold of the man’s shoulder and shoved him.

  “What the hell, man?” Seth spat.

  Seth almost let the man go when he felt teeth sink deep into the fleshy area on the back of his hand. He’d been bitten before, but something about it seemed different. The lips sucking on the wound were hot like they were on fire. Where the teeth broke through his skin and tore into his flesh, a different kind of heat flowed into him. Ripping his hand away, he backed against the wall and held his hand to the wound. The man sniffed the air and dove into the crowd. A rash of screams followed, and the back of the arena turned into a bloodbath.

  A few minutes later, Seth’s hunger took over, and he sated it by biting into J.T.’s throat.

  ***

  “We are sorry to announce we have to cancel the rest of the show,” Lars said, snatching the mike from Jon’s stand.

  People in the pit booed and in the back; Lars heard a shrieking chorus.

  If they only knew this is the end of FLXS, Lars thought. He hated disappointing the crowd, and he saw it etched on every fan’s face he could see. He glanced off stage and gasped when Jon’s head shot up and met Dave’s neck.

  “What the fuck?” Lars let slip into the mike.

  Jon pul
led away from Dave’s throat, and a crimson spray splashed across Jon’s face. Dave quickly turned pale, and he tried to get a hold of his throat, trying to stop the gushing blood. Jon stood, and the way he crouched down made Lars think about a wild animal stalking prey. Dave had fallen to the stage and was still. Jon took a step toward Jenny, who still stood by the bass rig. She wept, and when she saw Jon standing before her, she held her hand out.

  Lars realized there was nothing he could do. Jon pounced on Jenny and began to chew on her cheek. She let loose a blood-curdling cry, and Lars couldn’t tell if it was relief or pain. She wrapped her arms tightly around her lover and drew him closer in one last tender moment. Fans started screaming in the pit and pushing toward the back of the venue’s floor as their favorite singer and guitarist held each other in a bloody embrace.

  During the commotion, Dave rose from the dead and fell from the front guitar monitor into the pit. The moshers stood in stunned silence, trying to process what had happened on the stage and didn’t notice Dave getting back up.

  “Dude, you okay?” one guy asked.

  Dave grunted and snapped his teeth at him in response.

  “Fuck you,” the guy spat back and shoved Dave.

  Other crowd members in the pit heard the commotion and backed away, giving them room to fight. For a brief moment, it seemed the concert was still hammering down on the pit, and they prepared for battle. A circle formed, and the guy sparring with Dave began to sway back and forth. His hands balled up, and he felt his anger rise against the man who dared to bare his teeth. He thought of it as a nasty bit of pit-etiquette and was ready to repay the man in the paramedic uniform in kind.

  Dave stood still, and his white eyes examined his choices for food. It ranged from skinny methed-out skinheads to over-weight Satanic posers. The virus coursing through his veins had worked swiftly to change him to one of the undead. He enjoyed a healthy vegan diet, but his new disposition left him with an unbearable craving for flesh and blood. The man dancing in front of him threw a punch and backed away.

  Dave felt nothing. His body no longer felt pain or anything except for the hunger driving him to move. The man moved closer and pulled his fist back to land another blow on Dave’s face, but when the punch connected, Dave snatched his wrist and tore into his skin. The flesh he swallowed and chewed mixed with the hot blood pouring down his throat, satisfied him momentarily. His meal thrashed and howled in agony, but he clamped his teeth like a vice and ripped more meat free from the bone.

  “MOTHER FUCKER!” the man cried and tried to pull his arm free from the feasting paramedic. The teeth shredded his wrist as it tore from the paramedic’s mouth.

  He immediately felt the burning sensation in the wound and it racing up his arm. The urge to beat the man who ate his arm faded. He backed away and let the paramedic tear into a goth-looking girl who hovered around the edge of the pit. Something inside him wanted to help, but he found himself frozen. Sweat began to pour from his body, and he dropped to his knees. Falling to the floor, he heard the people around him scream as he slipped into death and woke to see the world with his new eyes.

  ***

  Lars grabbed Bob’s shoulder and ran. Jenny stood back up, and with Jon at her side, began to attack any crew member in reach. Scanning the floor, he could see the same scenario playing out all over the arena. Fans in the seats were trampling each other to get to the top level and find an exit. A few people stumbled and fell over their seats. Lars swore he could hear their bones crunch when they flipped end-over-end until they landed on the concrete floor. He knew he’d never be the same if they escaped.

  “We need to get to the bus,” Lars said.

  “Why the bus?” Bob asked.

  “Hopefully, we can use it to get the fuck out of here.”

  The tunnels back behind the stage were full of people trying to find a way to escape the carnage inside the arena’s floor. People rushed by covered in blood. It dripped from their clothes and painted their faces. Lars had never even imagined it would look like this in the end. All the movies he watched and books he read pointed to a single event triggering the apocalypse. He never believed zombies were possible, but after what he witnessed on the stage, he couldn’t deny it either.

  “It burns,” an older man said and dropped to his knees before Bob.

  “Yeah, that’s cool,” Bob replied and tried to side-step the man. When he started to pass, the man reached out for Bob’s arm.

  “I’m burning up inside! I…,” he started and fell over.

  Lars turned and saw Bob lean over to the man with his held out. “Are you fucking crazy? Let’s go, leave him.”

  “But, he’s hurt.”

  “Look around you; it’s some real zombie shit,” Lars yelled.

  Bob held back his hand. The man he wanted to help was on his side, and he didn’t see his chest rising or falling. “He isn’t breathing.”

  “No shit, let’s get out of here,” Lars said.

  Bob stood back up, and as he began to turn, the man snarled. Looking back down, Bob saw the man’s eyes were a cloudy white and something in them swirled. The expression was vacant, and if the eyes are windows to the soul, the windows were closed.

  “I think we should get out of here,” Bob muttered.

  The man on the floor stirred and grunted. It didn’t sound like anything human but hungry and mindless. Bob backed further away and brought himself to turn around. The man slowly climbed to his feet, and his head hung limply to the left. A few girls dressed in black attire pushed through the hall and ran into the man. Before they could even see the man and his blood-streaked face, he struck at the taller one and latched his teeth into her nose. She belted out an unholy cry, and blood spurted from her face. The crimson flowed down her cheeks like a waterfall, and Bob and Lars heard the man make loud slurping sounds. Finally, he pulled back and took the woman’s nose with him. A gaping hole ruined her otherwise pretty face, and she stood in shock.

  The man chewed on her nose, and when she didn’t move, he fell on her eating her cheek. The woman laid there and didn’t fight it. While the man ate her face, she stopped moving, and Bob saw her gasp her final breath. Lars tugged on him to run, but the scene playing out before him held his gaze.

  “Bob, goddamn it, now!” Lars called out.

  The rush of fans escaping the floor to the tunnels became a tidal wave. People pushed and shoved into the narrow passageway. The woman who had her nose eaten off grabbed another man’s ankles as he tried to run by, and he fell to the floor. She bit into his ankle and ripped a chunk of meat free. Blood sprayed her in the face, and she licked the gore from around her lips. Bob thought she smiled, and it finally broke his paralysis.

  “Yeah, yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Bob said as he took off down the tunnel with Lars toward the dock area where the tour bus sat parked.

  ***

  Chuck Brown, head of the stadium’s security, stood in the security office and stared dumbfounded at the live camera footage. Crazy people over-ran his teams, and others were trying to get to the doors. The footage looked like a mass mob, and he could see blood all over the floor and splashed on a few of the camera’s lenses.

  He had never felt so powerless in his life.

  Watching his associates and the people who wanted to watch the concert die horrified him. It crossed his mind he’d lose his job, but it didn’t matter. People were dying on his watch, and all he was doing about it was sitting in the command center and pity himself.

  The keyring on the console before him called to him. Next to the camera controls and the blinking lights for the live-feeds; the keys mocked him also. The room was dark except for the faint glow from the monitors, but he knew the cabinet in the back corner held his salvation.

  The keys wanted him to open the gun cabinet. They were the same keys telling him to stop being a pussy and do what destiny called him to do. They wanted him to save some folks and be a man. The fucking keys also talked to him because of the acid he�
��d dropped with Heather, one of the concession workers, when they all arrived a few hours earlier to get ready for the show. He loved Heather, and he hated cheating on his wife, but damn she had some good shit when he needed a buzz. Of course, her killer body and the tattoo she had of the thorn bush running up her side from her inner thigh to her neck turned him on too. At times he wondered if he didn’t have kids if he’d leave his wife for Heather.

  The keys screamed at Chuck and derailed his train of thought.

  “Fuck you keys,” he muttered and snatched them from the console. He flipped through them and found the little gold key that would unlock the gun cabinet.

  Save the people you worthless fuck; the keys said in his mind.

  “Okay, okay, give me a minute.”

  Chuck fumbled the keys, trying to get the key in the lock, and he thought the keys mumbled some sort of insult. The shit Heather gave him was some excellent stuff if the keys were acting the way they were. The people eating other people, however, was really a huge buzzkill.

  Finally, he managed to get the key into the lock that looked more and more like an open mouth and turned it until the tumblers inside decided to grant him access to the weapons. For a moment, he pondered if as fucked up as he was if he should really be brandishing a gun at a concert where people were eating other people.

  “If the zombies want to pull this shit, they need to do it someplace else,” he sighed and opened the door.

  When the blue lights from the monitors hit the guns inside, they sang a chorus for Chuck trying to get his attention. He grabbed two shotguns and a box of shells from the cabinet. The keys howled in fits of laughter as he closed the doors and threw one gun’s strap over his back and shoved the rounds in his pockets.

  Chuck had heard enough of the keys, and he dropped them in the trash can. He snickered at them as they screamed at him, and in that singular moment, Chuck decided he wouldn’t do drugs anymore. Heather, Chuck, wasn’t so sure about quitting. He did love a girl with tattoos.