by Tony Urban
She gasped when she saw them, but when she noticed her father’s behavior, the situation turned even worse and more bizarre. He looked at them, not with fear or disgust, but with pride. He was beaming with it.
“What the hell have you been doing down here?”
Doc turned to her, a lunatic’s smile on his face. “Creating, of course. Aren’t they grand?”
He’s gone mad.
Ramey wondered when it happened. He couldn’t have always been this crazy. Surely, she would have noticed. She couldn’t have been that blind, could she?
Doc moved away from her toward the corner of the lab where a plastic tote sat on metal shelving unit.
A zombie with two heads came toward Ramey. She stumbled backward.
“Don’t be afraid of them. I’ve removed all their teeth. They’re harmless as kittens.”
She looked closer and saw their lips curved inward over empty gums. “I can’t believe this is what you’ve been doing all these months. You’re sick.”
“What would you have suggested I do, Ramey?”
“Why not try to find a cure?”
Doc turned to face her. “Oh please. Do you really think it was just some happy coincidence that I built the Ark mere years before the zombie apocalypse? You’re smarter than that Ramey.” He stepped toward her, clutching the towels. Ramey stepped back.
“I don’t want to cure the disease. I made it.”
Ramey’s mind was reeling. He did this? Everyone who had died? It was all because of her own father. She couldn’t comprehend it. She realized she was crying.
“Why would you do this? To prove you’re smarter than everyone? To be infamous? Or did you hate everyone that much?”
“What’s the point in limiting myself to just one?”
Doc sat back against the counter. “Really, Ramey, tell me why what I did was so wrong? Mankind before the plague was already lost. You had religions blowing up people because their messiah promised them sex with virgins. You had maniacs running countries, starving their own citizens. People like your mother were so pathetic that they’d sell their own bodies to get whatever they needed to feed their addictions. They spent more time looking at memes on their phones than talking to people they supposedly loved. People didn’t value each other. Humanity desperately needed a wakeup call and I gave it to them.
Ramey couldn’t handle the sound of his voice. The noise made her want to puke. The sight of him was even worse, because in his face she could see herself. “I hate you.”
“I’ll add you to the list.”
Ramey turned to the door. She’d had enough, heard enough. Her fingertips hit the lock and started to turn it.
“Ramey, one more moment, please. That’s all I ask of you.”
Go. Run. Don’t listen to him.
But she turned around.
Doc held up a bundle of towels and she realized the towels were swaddling a baby. Doc had raised a red bottle to its lips and it drank.
“This is my greatest achievement thus far. She was born just a few hours ago.”
“Oh my God. Are you feeding it blood?”
Doc bobbed his head. “She can eat meat in small amounts, but I believe this provides more nourishment.”
Ramey got closer. She could see the baby now. The black veins standing out against its pale skin, the wispy bits of hair that sprouted from its head, its cheeks as they sunk it and puffed out with each sucking mouthful and swallow.
She grabbed Doc’s hand, the one that held the bottle and tried to pull it away. “Stop it! You can’t do this!”
The baby opened its eyes. They were gray and lifeless, yet somehow, still hungry.
Ramey’s breath caught in her throat when she saw them.
Doc looked down on the baby, smiling. “She has her father’s eyes.”
Ramey looked at the zombies that wandered about the room and found the one with its stomach shredded. She realized it had given birth, if you could call it that, to this monstrosity. She couldn’t imagine how that was even possible.
Doc motioned to a gurney where another zombie was strapped to a table. There was a barely noticeable incline in its profile at the midsection. “That one is Phillip’s breeder. She’s two months along now! I’m hoping it’s a boy. They can be the Adam and Eve of the new world.”
Ramey had seen enough. She turned to run, but as she did a red light flipped on, bathing the white room in its crimson luminescence. A moment later, the siren wailed.
Chapter Forty-Eight
The sirens woke Mina from a sound sleep and she bolted upright in bed.
“The zombies are back, Birdie. This time they’s gone eat you,” her father’s voice said.
She realized he might be right. The last time the siren went off, it was because of zombies. Then, Wim and Delphine saved the day but could that possibly happen again? Sooner or later their luck was bound to run out. In many - most - ways, her luck had run out a long time ago.
She wrapped the sheet around herself as she moved from her bedroom, across the narrow hall to Emory’s room. The door was closed and she lightly rapped her knuckles against it.
No response came.
She knocked again. “Emory? Don’t you hear that?
No answer.
Emory wasn’t normally a sound sleeper. He was an early riser too which made the fact that he was still in bed unusual. Mina turned the knob, eased the door open, and saw the room was empty.
His bed either hadn’t been slept in or he’d already made it. She hoped the latter as she moved up the hall and into the kitchen.
There was no coffee brewing. No dirty cups in the sink.
This is bad.
“Damn right its bad. Zombie’s got him just like the got your last boyfriend.”
“Shut up!” She screamed out loud.
In her head, her daddy laughed and laughed.
Mina grabbed a jar of pickles from the countertop and hurled it against the wall. Juice and glass and bits of exploded gherkins flew through the air, covering everything from the floor to the ceiling in the tiny kitchenette. Mina knew she’d have to clean up the mess and that just made her angrier.
She reached for a plate. Why stop now? But noise outside the trailer drew her attention. She realized Emory must be outside, listening to her throw a tantrum like a crazy person. She didn’t bother with the plate and instead moved to the door.
As Mina opened it, she expected to see Emory’s wrinkled, kind face but instead she saw zombies. Half a dozen of them. Their faces unfamiliar except for the fact that they were dead. Mina stumbled backward, slamming the door closed.
“Told ya, Birdie! But you never did listen to your daddy.”
Mina closed her eyes. She was imagining this. It wasn’t real. Maybe it was a dream and she’d wake up again in her bed only this time everything would be quiet and the smell of brewing coffee would fill her nostrils. That’s right, only a dream. Nothing to be scared about.
Hands banged against the thin metal door of the mobile home. More joined it. Soon it was like a band of undead drummers hammering away.
Mina realized it wasn’t a dream but she still kept her eyes closed.
Wim was a hundred yards from the center of camp, cresting a small bluff when he saw the tractor trailers. He realized the siren had nothing to do with his Viking-esque send off for his friend. The Ark was under attack.
In the distance, he could see people running. But there were too many. There were no more than forty people left on the Ark. He saw two times that many figures. Maybe three. He squinted, trying to make out details but the distance was too great for his aging eyes to find any. But he knew whatever was happening was bad.
He made his way to Delphine’s cabin. The door hung ajar and he crept toward it with caution. For once, he was happy to have snow because it muffled the sound of his approach. He listened carefully but could hear nothing aside from the siren. Wim took a deep breath and stepped into the cabin.
He realized he was alone. T
he cabin looked ransacked and her cache of firearms was strewn across the floor. Wim wasn’t sure how many she’d had before this, but all the pistols and revolvers were gone. All that remained were three rifles and a shotgun. He took a bolt action Remington 770, loaded it, and shoved as many .30-06 cartridges into his pockets as would fit. He wasn’t as comfortable with that particular firearm as he’d been his Marlin, but if the scope was sighted in, he thought it more than capable.
Wim left the cabin and went back to the overlook. He leveled the rifle toward camp and peered through the scope. He gasped as he realized the new additions to camp weren’t people, but were instead zombies. He then looked to the tractor trailers. Even though he wasn’t a scholar like Emory, it only took him a moment to realize what happened.
Who would bring zombies here and set them loose like attack dogs? His next thought was to wonder where Ramey was. As soon as that came to mind, he recalled Delphine telling him he was selfish. Maybe he was, but he knew everyone on the Ark was in danger right now and he had to trust that Ramey could handle herself, at least for a little while.
He lined the crosshatch of the scope over the face of a zombie and shot. It fell. He pulled back the bolt handle to eject the spent cartridge, fed in a new round, then locked the bolt back in place. He aimed, shot, and killed another zombie. Then the whole process started over again.
Casper herded a group of men and women toward Saw. There were eight altogether, five men and three women. One of them caught his eye. She looked to be around 40 and was thin as a twig but had a look in her eyes that was different from the others. It wasn’t the blank defeat he’d already grown familiar with. There was life there, and maybe rage. Saw always liked his women feisty and as she passed by, he grabbed her forearm.
“Aren’t you a pretty bird?”
Her head snapped toward him eyes blazing. Oh yes, he liked this one. “What’s your name, love?”
She tried to pull away but had no chance of breaking Saw’s grip. Saw dragged her closer, their faces inches apart. “I asked you a question.”
“My name’s Wilhelmina.”
“Ah. So, are you a Wilma or a Billie?”
“I’m a Mina.”
“Very pretty. Please to meet you, Mina. My name’s Solomon but you can call me Saw.”
He released her expecting her to run. But she didn’t. She stared at him. Saw motioned to Casper. “Put them inside.”
Casper pushed them toward a cabin which had become a makeshift holding area but, before he made it all the way there, a zombie ten yards from them collapsed. It took Saw seeing the blood around its head to realize it had been shot. He hadn’t even heard the gunshot over the air raid siren.
Fookin’ thing’s giving me a headache. He’d need to shut that off soon but now he was curious who’d just killed one of his zombies. Before he could even begin to formulate a plan, another fell. Saw spun around, looking in every direction but couldn’t see anyone with a gun.
A third zombie hit the ground. Saw could feel his pulse quicken. His face felt hot and his palms tingled. Now this was the excitement he’d been craving. He clapped his hands together.
“Heads up, mates. We’ve got ourselves a war!”
Casper closed the cabin door, locking Mina and the others inside. He took out a pistol of his own and Saw thought he saw emotion on the pale man’s face for the first time. Panic.
Another zombie dropped. Saw raised his gun overhead and fired off a few rounds. “Hello, out there! How many bullets you got”
“Not as many as we do.”
The voice was familiar but it took Saw a second to place it. He spun around and saw Mitch and Jimmy approaching from the rear. Mitch carried a duffel bag and struggled under the weight of it. Denny had an arm around the throat of an old woman as he shoved her forward.
“Mitchy!” Saw said. Mitch dropped the bag just as Saw threw his arm around his shoulders in a half-hug. “You done good, lad. Real good.”
He was shocked at the teen’s appearance. He looked a bit like a Halloween decoration, the kind they sell in the back of the stores out of view of the kiddies. He didn’t think he’d cut him quite that bad. But the ends justified the means.
“Thanks, Saw. But I’m not done.”
Mitch unzipped the bag and threw back the canvas flap, revealing twenty or more pistols, a couple shotguns, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Saw tousled the boy’s hair. They made a good team, they did.
Saw took another pistol. He now had one in each hand and he held them sideways in front of him, just like he’d seen them do in the action movies he watched voraciously.
“Almost no one here has guns,” Mitch said. “This old bitch stockpiled most of them. And there are four or five guys who are wannabe cops. That must be who’s shooting.”
Almost on cue another zombie’s head blew up and it collapsed into the snow.
“Anything else I should know, Mitchy?”
“Yeah, lots. Like the guy who runs this place is a fucking lunatic. But I can fill you in on that later. Right now, I’d rather not get shot.”
Saw nodded. The teen was wiser than his years. “Aw right, Mitchy. Let’s find ourselves the shooter.”
Jimmy almost had the old woman to the cabin when she called out. “I can tell you that.”
Saw turned to her. She looked halfway to ancient. Add a couple bandages and she could pass for a mummy with dirty white hair that fell almost down to her scrawny ass. “You can, huh, granny?”
She nodded. Saw glanced at Mitch who shrugged his shoulders in a “maybe” gesture.
“Well, then, spit it out.”
Delphine tried to move toward him but Jimmy held her back. He tightened his grip around her throat and she barked out a cough.
“Let her go,” Saw said and Jimmy did.
Delphine took a couple steps toward him, not even flinching when a zombie was shot and fell a few yards away.
“I know you’re old and all, but as you can see,” Saw motioned to the dead zombies, “Time, as they say, is of the essence.”
Delphine looked at him from head to toe and Saw thought he was being studied. “I want a promise first.”
He appreciated the audacity that she thought she was in a position to make demands. “And what’s that?”
“When you’re done with the killing here, you give me back my island.”
“Your island?”
Delphine nodded. “Been in my family for generations. Biggest mistake I made was giving it up.”
“Okay, love, let’s say I’ll do that. How can you help me first?
Delphine turned away from him, staring out into the distance. “The man shooting your zombies is named Wim Wagner. And he’s about a hundred yards that way.” She pointed a crooked, bony finger toward the bluff just as Wim took out another zombie.
Saw followed her finger. He couldn’t see anything but he believed her. He turned to Jimmy.
“Kill him.”
Jimmy reached into the bag and traded his own gun for the biggest pistol he could find. Then he jumped on a snowmobile, fired the engine, and disappeared into the white.
Wim was reloading the rifle when he heard the whine of the snowmobile engine approaching. Under the circumstances, he expected the rider to be of the unfriendly variety and decided to head toward a less conspicuous location.
A quick dash through the path brought him to the box. The lock had never been replaced after Delphine shot it to pieces and its door hung slightly ajar. Wim never imagined he’d go back inside by choice, but the snowmobile was very close now and it was the only structure in the area.
“Damn,” he muttered to himself as he stepped inside and pulled the door closed. He couldn’t hold back a shiver.
The snowmobile sped past the box. Wim waited. “Keep on going.” The sound of the engine faded. He started to get his hopes up. Then it stopped. Wim knew it hadn’t gone far enough beyond him to be safe and he wondered if he’d been spotted. Then, he realized his footsteps in the sn
ow provided a perfect map to his hiding spot.
The steel walls of the box were most likely bullet proof but all it would take was pulling open the door and Wim would be the epitome of a sitting duck. He decided to not wait until that happened and eased the door outward. All appeared clear. But he took his time and looked both ways before moving into the open.
He made it two steps before he heard the voice. “Put down your gun and turn around real slow.”
Wim set the rifle against the side of the box.
“Halfway there,” Jimmy said.
Wim did a slow 180 until he came face to face with the man who had one of the larger pistols Wim had ever seen aimed at his chest.
“Hands up,” Jimmy said.
Wim obeyed but he thought he saw the top of the pistol trembling in the man’s tight grip. “I don’t know what you’re here for, but no one has to die. I was only shooting the zombies. Not any of you. Although I could have should I wanted to.”
Wim saw the man swallow hard. He realized he was no cold-blooded killer. He was probably easily swayed and had fallen in with a rough lot.
“Trust me, I have no intention of defending this place. If you want it, take it. All I ask is that no one get hurt. That includes your people. I’m Wim, by the way.”
Jimmy lowered the pistol a few inches but still held it ready to fire if the need arose. “Jimmy.”
Wim thought the older man’s eyes looked red and swollen, as if he’d been crying. That solidified his belief that this man wasn’t a murderer. “Well, Jimmy, let’s go back to the others and try to talk this out. I’ll leave my rifle here to show you there’s nothing you need to worry about, all right?”
He saw Jimmy look past him, toward camp, considering the offer. Then he nodded. “Okay. Let’s do th— “
The side of Jimmy’s face blew out in a tidal wave of blood, bone, and brains. He didn’t even have time to look shocked before he fell, but Wim certainly was. He looked toward the direction of the shot and saw Phillip and Buck jogging toward him. Buck held his .44 Magnum in his hand and smoke seeped from the barrel.
“You’re wwww- welcome,” Buck said as they reached Wim.
