“I have to rest,” Cindi said, panting, bent over with her hands on her haunches.
“No,” I said. “We have to keep going. We’re still too close.”
She nodded, and we started moving again. After a hundred yards or so, we entered another space of trees and brush. We edged through it like before, brushing away or ducking under low branches. My legs ached, and my feet burned, and I was thirsty and winded, and I knew Cindi must be as well as she trailed maybe ten yards behind me. Finally, we stumbled into another clearing with the interstate running through it. The helicopter patrolling the quarantine perimeter was no longer visible.
“Thank God,” Cindi whispered, as she stepped forward even with me.
We had to climb a high fence and somehow made it over without breaking an arm or leg. We drank some water and stood there a moment as I tried to figure our next move. I vetoed hitchhiking along the interstate as we might draw attention to ourselves as escapees from the quarantine. Instead, we kept in the shadows far off the shoulder heading north away from the city.
The hours passed. As I checked my watch, Cindi asked, “How far away do you think we’ve come?”
I checked my watch. It was close to two in the morning, and we’d found Zone D around eleven. “I don’t know,” I told her. “Fifteen, twenty miles.”
“I’m so tired,” she said. “I can’t feel my legs anymore.”
“Me too,” I said. “Next exit, we’ll get off, find a hotel. I think we’re far enough.”
It took us another hour to get to the next exit. We trudged along the shoulder of the winding ramp onto a state road that had some gas stations, a McDonald’s, Burger King, and an inexpensive chain motel near the interchange.
“Thank God,” Cindi said, as we limped to the motel office.
“Hope they have a room,” I said. “I could use a bed.”
We entered the office and found the clerk munching a candy bar behind the counter while several guests were glued to a small TV in the corner of the cramped lobby. The clerk turned to us as we walked in, but quickly turned back to the TV.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
The clerk nodded at the TV. I looked up and saw the President seated behind his desk in the Oval Office.
“…and so, my fellow Americans,” he said, “after considering all options, we have no choice but to take this drastic action to avoid a larger tragedy. With great sadness, I have ordered that five nuclear weapons be dropped at various strategic points of the city.” He hesitated a moment, swallowed, then, still staring straight into the camera at us all, continued, “The astronomical loss of life is unfortunate, of course, but cannot be avoided. For the greater good, indeed to save mankind, we must do this. I beg God’s forgiveness.” He sighed and added, “God bless all of you, and God bless America.”
The screen went blank until an anchorman with a stunned expression popped up and tried to clarify what the President had just told us. In the next few minutes, Air Force bombers would drop five 500-megaton nuclear bombs on various strategic locations in the city. Three million people would die in the initial blasts with another million severely injured. In the resulting fires that would follow and blasts by more conventional bombs, those million and more would die. No rescue missions would be sent. In short, every last living person in the city would die. And with them, it was hoped, so would all the Zs and the disease with them.
“Holy mother of Jesus,” the clerk said, as he turned to me. “Those poor saps.”
Cindi gave me a dumbfounded look as the guests with numb expressions ambled out of the small office. I held her then turned to the clerk.
“We’re safe here?” I asked him. “I mean, far enough away?”
“Think so,” he said, as he took a bite of his candy bar. He was a tall, lean guy in his forties. After another bite of his candy bar, he added, “At least, that’s what they said. The blast zone is forty miles or something. We gotta be at least seventy miles out. And these are clean bombs or something. Minimal radiation but with lots of blast and heat to kill people and Z germs.”
“Jesus,” I said and looked at Cindi.
The clerk put down the candy bar, stretched back and asked, “So, you want a room?”
“Yes,” I said. “Our car broke down on the interstate, few miles back.”
“Okay,” said the clerk.
He slid a registration card over the counter, and I filled in my name, address, cell number. When I got to the car information, I told him, “Car’s on the side of the interstate.”
He shrugged.
“I’ll need a credit card,” he said. I took one out of my wallet and slid it over to him. He typed the numbers into the hotel registration site and booked us the room. It cost $69.
“You’re all set,” he said, handing me a key on a blue plastic holder.
In the next moment, there was a flash over the hills miles from us. A few moments later, we heard the blasts. Each of us ducked down below the counter and stayed there while several more blasts came. Then, the ground shook.
“Holy shit!” I heard the clerk say.
Cindi nudged close to me on the floor, and I held her. And then it was over, and we stood and stumbled out of the office. Birds were chirping, and there was the rumble of aftershocks. The sky was lit like daylight had bloomed over the hills in the direction of the city. I noticed that dozens of guests were outside staring that way, lost in the enormity of the tragedy, the simultaneous death of four million people. For some reason, I wondered what the stock market was going to do today and wished I had pulled all my money out my 401k.
***
Room 211 was cramped and musty. The bed was narrow and lumpy and musty as well. I nodded to the small TV on the dresser. “Wanna watch?”
Cindi shook her head and replied, “I wanna sleep.”
We’d been on the run five hours. Sleep sounded good.
Cindi slipped out of her jeans and shirt and got under the covers, wearing only a bra and panties. I stripped to my boxers and climbed in next to her. I thought of turning to her, taking her into my arms, and finally making love.
“We can’t go home,” she said out of the darkness.
I thought about that. She was right. Everyone knew we’d been in the city. To our family and friends and co-workers at this moment, we were dead. If we went home tomorrow, they’d know we’d escaped, had violated the quarantine. And that Z might have escaped with us. Once the authorities found out, we’d be arrested.
“I know,” I said. “Not right away.” Then, an idea came to me. A resolution of sorts. “Maybe after a few days, weeks. When the dust has settled, and there’s no more Z. Then, we surface.” In the next moment, I asked, “Do you want to make love?”
But by then Cindi was asleep.
***
I woke up on my back and turned to look at a small, digital alarm clock on the night table on my side of the bed. But the clock wasn’t plugged in, so I sat up and reached for my watch on the table and saw that it was five minutes after eleven. I slipped out of bed and spread open the musty, tan drapes of the small window looking out to a parking lot on a gray, misty day.
I got back onto the bed and turned to Cindi who was lying on her right side, still asleep. I wanted to celebrate our freedom, our very lives. I thought that I was in love with her, and I wanted to make love to her. I crawled back onto the bed and licked her right earlobe. When that did nothing, didn’t even make her flinch, I moved down to lick her neck, with the same result. Then, I got to my haunches and leaned over the top of her head.
“Cindi?” I shook her. But still she didn’t move. Then, louder, “Cindi?” I pushed harder on her shoulders for a time, then turned her onto her back. “Cindi!” I called to her.
Finally, her eyes opened. They were blank, lifeless. After a time, they widened. And then, she began to snarl. She licked her lips and started to lift herself while I moved away and jumped off the bed.
“No,” I whispered. “This can’t…”
She sat up, and her snarling became a growl. Her face was tense and twisted as she moved forward and got off the bed. I looked at my carry-on bag on the small loveseat in the corner of the room. She was off the bed and stalking me as I went for the bag and searched for the steak knife I had taken from the hotel restaurant. By the time I found it and was lifting it out of the bag, she had grabbed my shoulders, about to bite.
There was no doubt. Cindi had turned Z.
In the next moment, I whirled around with the knife tightly gripped in my hand and without another thought, thrust it into her forehead. Part of it broke off, but enough of it had sliced into her brain that she fell backward, then down to her knees. I went to the night table and lifted it. The lamp and alarm clock fell off as I brought it over and smashed it down onto her skull. She fell forward onto the carpet, her head a bloody mess.
I staggered back and sat on the edge of the bed, all the while staring at Cindi’s corpse. I still held what was left of the knife in my right hand and started sobbing.
A few moments later, I heard the bird-like screeching of Zs on the hunt. Then, it occurred to me. All of this was my fault. I must be a Z carrier. How else could Cindi have contracted it?
After an indeterminable time sitting in the dark room, listening to the screeching of Zs roaming outside, I heard sirens. Cars screeched to a halt in the parking lot of the motel. Then shots rang out, and cops were shouting.
I looked down at the knife. I knew what I must do, but could not do it.
2 Church of the Walking Dead by Chris Louie
On a hot southern day, off a two-lane county road, a walker snarled outside an abandoned drug store.
Vines grew through its body, pushing leaves through its face and ribcage. The walker had been still so long it was rooted in place. Caked dirt fell as it struggled forward with rotten, outstretched fingers.
Tommy, a red-haired ex-salesman, lay underneath it. His foot had gotten caught on the other side of a busted storefront window, and now the walker was just a few feet above him, the vines snapping one by one.
Pike, a former athlete with a shaved head, rushed in to kill it but two more walkers emerged from inside the store. She shifted her balance and stabbed the first one in the head as she sprang backward. Then Hemingway, a huge ex-Marine, used his farming gloves to reach inside the second one’s mouth and rip the top of its head off.
They all stood catching their breath, except for Tommy, who was still on the ground with a walker hanging over him.
“Next time, when we’ve got a plan, you follow it,” said Keats, their skinny, ragged leader.
“I’m just trying to save some time,” said Tommy.
“There’s a reason we don’t just barge into places,” said Hemingway. “How the hell have you survived this long?”
Twigs snapped in the woods behind the parking lot. A ponytailed man with a golden retriever emerged from the trees.
“He’s right, you know,” he said. “You gotta learn to speak up if something feels wrong.”
Keats and the rest readied their weapons.
“What’d you do with the others?” said Keats.
“Your friends?” said the man. “They’re right here. They’re a little timid.” He stepped to the side. Duck, Jamie, and Katie, the other members of Keats’ party, walked out at gunpoint.
“By the way,” the man said to Hemingway, “where did you learn that technique? Ripping the head off? I haven’t seen that one in a while.”
“I was going to say the same thing about your rifles,” he said. “You make the bullets yourself? Get lucky on a run?”
“I can hear those thoughts!” the man said with a laugh. “Thinking about taking us on? Trust me, friend, the guns are loaded. Now, tell me, what the hell are you doing breaking into one of our buildings?”
“Didn’t see a sign,” said Keats.
“You think the apocalypse means no property law? Anyway, what are you looking for? Maybe we can help.”
“Bug spray,” said Keats.
“Bug spray! Lemme guess—you’ve got food and water, but you forgot about the damn mosquitoes. Is that why you’re all covered in dirt?”
“We heard mosquito bites spread the plague,” said Tommy. This brought a chuckle from the man’s gang.
“That’s not what spreads the plague,” said the man. “We figured that out, as you will soon see.”
The dog began to whine and bark softly. “Looks like we got company. Let’s hit the road. Hang on to your weapons for now. We might need you to cover our flanks if we meet some walkers.”
As the group gathered on the road, Keats said from the side of his mouth: “They could have killed us already.”
“They might be waiting till they’re ready to eat us,” said Pike.
“True. But I think they’ve got supplies. Who knows.... maybe they just want to check us out, make sure we’re good people.”
Before Pike could respond, the man called out: “Let’s move! Ol’ Lady here’s reliable, but it’s tough to account for the wind. A swarm could be a mile away, or it might be 50 yards. By the way, my name’s Flak.” He marched ahead like a guide on a nature walk.
Everyone moved forward. After walking what felt like a couple of miles, Keats saw something on the road ahead: The gate for a tall, barbed wire fence next to sign welcoming them to Davis.
***
Keats’ group had come together over the past five years.
At first, it was just him and Hemingway. They met each other at a shelter that had held strong for eight years after the outbreak. The place was self-sustaining and well-guarded, but eventually, someone inside got infected, and the relative lack of security within the compound itself meant that it spread quickly. Neither Keats nor Hemingway had a family, which is probably how they survived, as most people there got trapped after spending precious time rounding up loved ones.
They met Pike on the road a week later. She saved their lives by sharing her food with them, and they paid her back by ambushing the group of bandits that had been stalking her.
Pike was a good hunter, but the days on the road were hell. They’d meet occasional relief when they’d stumble across a camp, and when those camps collapsed (as they always did), they’d have a new member or two. Sometimes they were assets, sometimes they were burdens, and unfortunately, how valuable they were to the group rarely seemed to matter to fate. Just last week, for instance, they’d lost a nurse. The fighters usually survived, but survival needs more than fighters.
Keats relayed all of this to a man named Marco as they sat in a living room. He was short and thin and had an actor’s broad, expressive face. He wore black slacks, a long-sleeved dress shirt, and a revolver in a holster.
“And your last camp was overrun?”
Keats nodded. “They had lookouts but underestimated how fast some of the hordes can be.”
Marco laughed and nodded like a parent hearing a familiar comedy about someone else’s child. “Oh yes, there are still some fast ones out there!”
“New ones keep getting made, I guess.”
“We’re doing what we can. We’ve currently got about one square mile of this neighborhood fenced off. Working on more. But eventually, we don’t want the fences anymore. We want to take our planet back.”
“Now that’s a new one,” said Keats. “Most people are day-to-day. Scavengers or predators. Nobody holding the big ideals anymore.”
“We’re different,” said Marco, who spread his hands and smiled. “I’m different.”
On the coffee table in front of them sat two cups full of homegrown tea. Marco picked one up and sipped it. “You ever wonder what drives them?” he said.
“Hunger, I guess.”
“You think a severed head gets hungry? No, it’s about more than that. It’s hatred. They hate us.”
Keats paused. “How do you know this?”
“I’ve witnessed it. And soon you will, too. But for now, it suffices to say I’m convinced. And what can b
eat hatred?”
“Hell. More hatred?”
“Cynicism has kept you alive a long time,” Marco said. “I don’t blame you for relying on it. But you’re wrong. It’s love.”
***
They emerged from the house and walked down the steps onto a quiet neighborhood street, Lady trotting behind them. The grass in all the yards was overgrown, but the sidewalks had been cleared of weeds by hand. Birds chirped in the late afternoon sunset and squirrels chased each other around trees. Flak and another man walked behind them with rifles, keeping guard.
There were hardly any mosquitoes. Keats mentioned this to Marco.
“We’ve got a team, goes out once a week and collects any standing water,” said Marco. “Plus, we have a stash of the all-important repellent.”
They passed a house with a chicken coop. Hens clucked and pecked in the yard. The yard next to it had been converted into a small garden with beans and tomatoes growing.
“Looks like you’ve got quite a few of those little plots around,” said Keats. “About how many folks you got to feed here?”
“Enough to feel safe.”
“Then what do you need us for? Why keep us prisoner?”
Marco grimaced. “Those aren’t the words I’d use, but you’re forgiven for seeing things from that perspective. We just want to make sure your stories check out, and you’re not going to do us any harm.”
“So if we check out,” said Keats, “we can go?”
“Of course. You have my word.” Then Marco stopped and turned towards Keats. He grabbed him by the shoulders. “But if you want to stay, you can do that, too. We need all the help we can in this fight.”
Keats didn’t say anything. There was nothing he could say. Like it or not, using whatever vocabulary you want, they were prisoners. And when it came to bats and spears versus rifles, the rifles always won.
Marco smiled as they made their way to the house where Keats’ group would be staying. It was a two-story brick townhome with a makeshift wooden fence and an ancient, rusted Chevrolet in the driveway.
Apoc Series (Vol. 2): Silence of the Apoc [Tales From The Zombie Apocalypse] Page 3
