Phoenix Protocol- the Middletown Omnibus

by Brent Abell

  ***

  Jade heard Victoria yelling and wondered what happened. She kept trying to free herself from the vent, but whatever snagged her jean shorts had her pinned in. Victoria stood up and pointed to the ground screaming at Jade.

  “Get out now!” Victoria called.

  The words scared Jade. She looked at Victoria, and her face went blank when she heard the door open below her. Something climbed in the RV and stumbled around below her. Frantically, she tried pushing herself up out of the vent. A burning hot hand grabbed her ankle, and she cried. She kicked her feet hard, and the hand let go of her as she pushed up harder. Jason grabbed her right arm and pulled as hard as he could.

  “I can’t get her!” Jason hollered.

  Grant took her left arm and pulled with Jason.

  Dead fingertips brushed Jade’s legs again. “Hurry! Oh, God, they’re touching me!”

  Jason and Grant braced themselves on the roof and tugged on Jade with all their might. Her body broke free, and Jason lost his grip. Jade’s hand slipped from his grasp, and she sank back down in the vent. Jade scrambled to push herself up again, but her shorts got caught again. Another hand gripped her ankle, and she felt teeth rip into her flesh. The Phoenix Virus passed on to her. It raced through her, burning in her veins, and she knew she was as good as dead.

  ***

  When Jade screamed in agony, Victoria knew a zombie had bit her. Within a few precious seconds, sweat beaded on the poor girl’s brow. Victoria knelt next to her and wiped her hand across Jade’s head.

  “I’m so hot,” Jade whispered. Her voice sounded weak and raspy.

  “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” Victoria said, backing away.

  Jade’s skin glowed a bright red hue and faded to white. The muscles in her face twisted in a mask of immense pain and went slack. Jade fell perfectly still, and a pinkish froth leaked from her lips.

  Victoria prayed. She’d never been a religious person, but the past twenty-four hours showed her she either needed to find God or there wasn’t anybody home to answer her calls. She begged for divine intervention.

  “I wish I could take all this away,” Victoria said, standing back up.

  No sooner had Victoria got back to her feet, Jade’s eyes fluttered back open. Snarling, she snapped her jaws in Victoria’s direction and glared at her with her new undead eyes.

  Victoria knew then in that small quick moment, there was no God, and humanity was doomed.

  “There’s nothing we can do now,” Jason said, trying to comfort her. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and felt her sobbing on his shoulder.

  “What do we do now?” Grant asked.

  “Survive,” Victoria answered. “We need to survive.”

  7

  The sun hid behind a cloud bank, and Victoria felt a momentary relief from the rays that had beat down on them all day. The zombies below continued their onslaught, but Harris seemed content to wait them out. Victoria knew he was something different now. He was the only one to exhibit some sort of thought beyond a feral and animalistic drive to kill, eat, and propagate the new species.

  In reality, she stopped giving a shit an hour prior. The field around them seethed with the dead, and their numbers steadily grew. She glanced over to Jade’s dead body, still stuck in the roof vent, and sighed. The sun cooked her discolored skin. Victoria didn’t think her bloated body would be free of the vent any time soon. The thought of her body plugging the vent worked because it helped keep the zombies in the RV and not trying to climb up from inside.

  “Will you stop staring at her, it’s freaking me out,” Grant said from his perch on the roof’s edge.

  Victoria rolled her eyes and tried not to sound irritated by him. She liked Jason, but Grant jumped on her last nerve. When Victoria came across the group, she didn’t mind Jade and Jason, but the other two she knew where worthless sacks of shit. She hated faking her sadness at Bryce’s death, but she needed to keep Jade’s head on straight. There was something about Jason she felt close to, and his friend was only an albatross to their chances of survival. She wanted to rip him from their group and cast him out to the undead sea, regularly washing up against their safe haven.

  “Whatever,” she muttered, giving another mournful glance at Jade.

  Jason scooted across the roof and stopped next to Victoria, and he gently took her hand, giving it a light squeeze. Victoria smiled and returned the hand squeeze. Their eyes locked for a moment, and they both knew they had to live for each other.

  “I have a plan,” Victoria whispered, leaning into Jason.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to say that,” Jason replied.

  “You may not like it very much.”

  “I don’t like being stuck up here very much, either.”

  “We’d have to leave Grant,” she stated.

  Jason’s eyes widened at her suggestion. “What?”

  “I think if I don’t act now, he may do something to me.”

  “I’ve known him for years, and he wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Jason protested.

  Victoria let go of Jason’s hand and pointed out at the multitudes of the undead host surrounding them. “We need a distraction. Once we can get their attention, we can sprint for the parking lot and find a car we can get out of here with.”

  “What about Grant?” Jason asked.

  Victoria turned and looked him in the eye and answered, “We push him off the edge.”

  ***

  Jason sat in stunned shock, trying to pretend he didn’t hear what Victoria said. She wanted him to push his best friend from the RV so they could escape. The change in her chilled him, but he thought back to all she’d been through and the guilt she carried about the outbreak. He stole a glance at Grant and found him trying to piss on the zombies.

  It would only take a little push.

  The thoughts in his head disgusted him. He couldn’t believe he’d stoop low enough even to consider sacrificing Grant for his survival. However, he’d made choices like it in the Air Force. Yeah, he told Victoria he was a Comm Officer, but he also flew a few combat missions. The memories of the village still haunted him. The orders were to bomb a suspected terrorist hideout. The building was in the middle of a town, and he knew the residents would never get an EVAC order. He made up his mind to follow their orders and go through with the mission.

  They massacred thirty-eight civilians, and he quietly left the military in personal disgrace. It wasn’t his fault, but the people who gather the INTEL don’t go down for a fucked-up OP as the troops do.

  His flight group wasn’t going to face charges, but he saw their faces each time he closed his eyes. They haunted him like the judge and jury he’d never face for his actions. His father worked as a lawyer in Hollywood, and when he returned stateside, he followed his real dream of being an actor.

  And here he was stuck on top of a fucking RV surrounded by an army of the undead. He stopped looking down at them because he was afraid those thirty-eight souls would be down there, ready to sentence him for their deaths.

  Grant shouted to the zombies, and Jason heard the horde move around to the front of the RV, where he leaned over the edge.

  Jason leaned in toward Victoria, and stealing a kiss, got to his feet.

  ***

  Victoria’s eyes widened, and her heart skipped a beat when Jason’s lips touched hers. Before she could return the favor, he stood up and rushed up behind Grant. She thought Grant had become a major annoyance hurling jeers down at zombies who didn’t comprehend what he said. She watched in shock as Jason extended his hands and shoved Grant hard in the back. Grant turned, and Victoria could see the surprise in his face mixed with betrayal as he lost his balance and fell back over the front of the RV. She heard his body hit the hood.

  And she heard him scream.

  Jason hurried back to her and helped her up.

  “We gotta go, like now,” he said.

  She stumbled a little, getting to her feet, but Jason grabbed her hand and pulled her
to the ladder at the RV’s rear. When she looked down, she saw the zombies were moving to the front where Grant’s cries called to them like a siren song. Without thinking, she put her foot on the ladder and started down.

  Victoria went slowly, trying not to make a sound on the metal stairs. A few zombies brushed past her legs, and she froze. A skinhead with a long beard stopped at her feet and sniffed around her shoes. The sound of it smelling her made her ill. The zombie’s head perked up when Grant howled in agony again and continued to follow the others around the RV.

  The last shrieks made the zombies renew their focus on the front of the RV. Victoria reached the ground and dropped the last few inches to the ground while Jason scurried down the ladder after her.

  A few zombies around the back of the RV took notice of them and snarled in their direction. Victoria scanned the campground for a trail, a path, or anything they could take to escape. To the west, beyond the row of red pup tents, she spied a small path leading away from the tent city.

  “What about over there?” she asked, pointing to the trail.

  “The parking lot is the other way.”

  Victoria backed closer to Jason when a few zombies stopped walking toward Grant’s last dying cries and stared at them with their dead pupil-less eyes. “Time’s up,” she muttered.

  “Well, RUN!” Jason said and took Victoria’s hand.

  They bolted past the slow-moving zombies as Jason carved a path through them like a running back trying to score the game-winning touchdown. They swerved in between the dead and didn’t hesitate. Victoria felt light headed and her ankle burned in agony. Her lack of food and water over the past day left her dehydrated and weak. She gripped Jason’s hand tighter and drew strength from him.

  Twenty feet from the path, something grabbed her arm, and she screamed.

  ***

  Jason jerked back, and his shoulder popped. He turned and saw two zombies pawing at Victoria. She swatted at them with her free hand, and Jason let go so she could fight. He hesitated for a moment, amazed at how she swung her tightly clenched fist at the advancing zombies. The force of her blows rocked the dead back on their heels, and Jason felt himself falling for her even more.

  An older woman reached out for him, and he shoved her to the ground. When she fell back, she took two others out with her. Cold hands took hold of his sleeve and pulled him around. A young woman snapped at his face, and her foul stench hit him in the nose. He coughed and gagged from the rancid aroma of her dead flesh. It amazed him how quickly the body took on the look and smell of dead meat once a person was infected. His hand-to-hand training kicked in, and he struck her in the nose with the bottom of his palm. The blow obliterated her nose, and bone fragments pierced the woman’s brain.

  “I guess that movies are right about the whole head thing,” Jason quipped. The woman’s eyes faded out, and her body dropped to the ground. The zombies around them stopped and gazed blankly at their fallen sister. In the distance, Jason heard a pained wail and knew it was Harris.

  “He can feel them,” Victoria said.

  “How?” Jason wondered.

  “Don’t care; let’s get the fuck out of here while they’re distracted.”

  Jason nodded in agreement and followed her on the path to the parking lot.

  ***

  General Harris experienced the bone shards shredding her brain as if it were his own. He moaned and reached for his head to comfort the excruciating pain pounding in his skull. His new primitive brain tried to process what was happening to him, but Harris knew it had to be her fault. It had to be the doing of the woman he could see in his mind’s eye, but could never fully remember or comprehend.

  She caused the pain, and Harris would make her pay for killing one of his children. He found it odd he thought of them that way. Harris never had children of his own, but something about them was his kin. He was their alpha, the leader of the pack.

  Harris cried a command in the shared zombie language.

  It was time to end the woman and go about eating the rest of the world.

  8

  Victoria and Jason emerged from the path at the furthest back edge of the parking lot. Alarms sounded out all through the lot, and she saw a few zombies mindlessly patrolling the space between cars. She realized most of the vehicles packed into the lot were either old or electric. If society broke down like in the movies, beater cars or things needing electricity would become useless very quickly.

  “We’re fucked,” Victoria blurted out.

  “Yeah, all these fucking electric cars suck,” Jason replied.

  Victoria went from car to car looking for one some asshole left unlocked. Jason picked the row next to her and went through the same drill of trying every door handle praying for on open one. She followed Jason with her eyes, and her desperation grew with every locked car she tried. Jason kept looking back at her too. Each failure he had, he’d throw his hands up in defeat. Victoria noticed a few of the zombies must have realized they were around and changed their direction toward them.

  “Holy fucking shit!” Jason called out across the lot.

  Victoria turned to see him standing ten cars down, holding the door open with a huge grin on his face. She sighed in relief and headed his direction. She noticed the random zombies spread out in the lot heard him and moved their way.

  When Victoria was within two cars of Jason, she heard an unholy wail from the path they’d followed to the lot. Harris emerged from the trail and pointed at them. Even at a distance, she felt his eyes burrow deep into her soul, and it unsettled her.

  Jason climbed in the car and looked around for a miracle. The first place he checked for the keys was the visor, but he came up empty-handed. Victoria jumped in the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. The chorus of the dead emerging from the path and woods grew louder.

  “They’re almost here!” Victoria said frantically.

  Jason reached under the dash, feeling for the wires, and instead, his fingers brushed against keys. “Well, holy shit,” he muttered.

  “Hotwire it or something!”

  Jason brought the keys up and dangled them in front of Victoria’s face. “Something,” he replied with a big grin.

  He put the keys in the ignition and turned them. The engine sputtered but roared to life as Victoria saw Harris shambling toward the car.

  “Here he comes,” Victoria said.

  Jason stomped his foot on the gas pedal, and the tires barked on the lot. Smoke poured from the rear wheels, and they caught enough traction to peel-off into the aisle. Harris made a dead run toward the car. The other zombies turned and followed him like he was the Pied Piper.

  Jason sped around the tight corners of the parking lot. The rows were narrow to make as much room as possible for the festival-goers to park and enjoy the show. It didn’t, however, lend itself to making a fast getaway. He darted past three rows kicking up a cloud of dust from the gravel. The white powder covered the car, and he felt something slam into the right corner panel. Once the dust settled, he looked in the rearview mirror to see a zombie on the ground trying to get up.

  “Jason!” Victoria cried out.

  A young boy stepped out from the row of cars they were passing, and when his head jerked to the side, Victoria knew he was one of them. She figured Jason must have noticed too because he never slowed down as the car hit him dead on. The vehicle jumped up in the front, but Jason remained in control.

  “I see the exit,” Jason said. He yanked the wheel to the left and spun around two more zombies emerging from the parked cars.

  Victoria saw Harris first and braced herself. He seemed to come from out of nowhere and blocked the exit lane out of the lot. She gripped Jason’s thigh and squeezed harder the faster he pushed the car to its limits. The other zombies scurried to Harris’s aid and formed a blockade around their leader. Jason jammed on the brakes and tried to shift the automatic transmission into reverse. The gears locked, and the car skidded to a halt as it rammed into the zomb
ie wall.

  “Fuck,” he muttered and tried to move the gear shifter.

  “What did you do?” Victoria spat.

  Jason tried to shift the car into neutral, but he couldn’t get the shifter to budge. Praying, he turned off the car and waited.

  ***

  Harris let the others swarm to him. He gathered them up and let them cocoon him in a protective shell of dead flesh. All were welcome in his army and invited to the feast. He held out his arms and reached to his children. The undead swayed in a trance-like state and stood their ground when the car plowed into them. Blood splashed across the windshield, and the creatures moaned in the throes of their second death. The ones who suffered head trauma were snuffed out quickly while the few who were run over writhed on the ground, trying to climb to their feet.