by Roswell, A
Vallance swore audibly, quickly pulled the pin of the steel box; the sound of mechanizations sprung from within, whirring and humming. He decided to make a break for the corridor he had entered from. Just then, he saw movement, out the corner of his eye—something leapt from the balcony behind him and landed effortlessly in his path. It had the shape of a human corpse but it was changed. Its bones had burst through its finger tips and ended in vicious claws. Its spinal column was exposed and looked like a vertebrae saw-blade. In spots where the translucent, pale flesh had fallen away, a sticky dark brown organic armor had taken its place. As it took a slow step forwards, into a stray beam of light Vallance could see the pain in the once-human eyes that were sunk beneath its brow. He almost felt pity for the creature, almost.
If the corpse was a cocoon, this twitching monstrosity was the first step towards the invincible, horrific butterfly it would become if it was left to live. On all fours, the hideous thing leered at Vallance, who had his 9mm raised and aimed at its head, but before he could pull the trigger it lunged at him—he managed to roll out of the way of its deadly swipe and fire off one round which skimmed the creature’s ribs. It wailed like a banshee, spun on its heels and fixed its sights once again on its prey. Vallance hadn’t noticed until that moment but zombies had begun to swarm, closing in around him. The creature was about to pounce when there came a loud hissing sound from the box, distracting it. Seizing his opportunity, Vallance bolted for a small door at the far end of the room. Behind him, the box was billowing a viscous green gas, slowly filling the room. As he opened the door he turned as the creature threw itself towards him. He closed the door just in time as the monstrosity crashed into the other side. Vallance didn’t stop, he kept running as the sound of the monsters behind him beating on the fragile door pounded in his ears.
By the time he reached galley, Vallance was exhausted. This part of the ship was dark. They thrived in the shadows. He reached for the small flashlight which was mounted on the right hand side of his chest. He flicked the switch and cast the metallic room in an eerie light.
Catching his breath, he looked around at the ship’s ransacked kitchen. He hadn’t seen any zombies on the way here, so he’d bought himself some time at least. But how would he get out of here? Noticing a gurgling noise, he went to investigate and happened upon a zombie laying crushed beneath a fallen freezer, wheezing and writhing. A strip of yellow cloth was tied around its arm. The name JEFF was printed across it in black. Vallance’s eyes were fixed on the armband as the once-human abomination clawed at the air, desperate to tear him apart. Jeff was gnashing his decaying teeth violently. Vallance remembered him laughing.
Byron’s Legacy
The dancing flames of a campfire licked the air. Around it, Vallance sat with Jeff, Will, Sarah and Stag, who had just started another one of his tall tales. Something about the time he bedded the daughter of some mogul from Central. Vallance couldn’t quite make it out. He wanted to know all the details but Will, Stags younger brother, would just tell him he was too young for those stories. Sighing, he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up from the circle he was making in the dirt. Byron looked down at him with a warm smile, his tired eyes smoldering from behind a curtain of ragged grey hair.
“You wanna help me with the box?” Byron said. Vallance nodded.
Vallance held a flashlight, fitted with a clunky, improvised battery over Byron’s hands as they tugged at wires and twisted knobs. He was only holding a light, but he made sure held that light at all the right angles so that Byron could see what he was doing perfectly.
“Now tell me, what’s this for?” Byron said, pointing to the large pin on the front of the steel box.
“You pull it out and it makes the gas.”
A throaty laughed escaped from Byron’s lips.
“Close enough, kid.”
Byron looked around the barren landscape, blue in the haunting moonlight. He seemed lost in thought for a second. He did that a lot.
“One day, kid. One day soon. This little box is gonna make us all rich. Maybe get us a spot in Central. You can have a whole room just to yourself—no more having to smell Stag’s feet!”
Vallance smiled.
“Zom-B-Gone. It’ll make us all rich.”
***
Vallance strode, determined, his burgeoning muscles flexing under the weight of the pack on his back.
“Jesus, Jeff, what are you feeding this boy?” said Stag. Jeff shrugged and shook his head, laughing.
The group were walking towards the gargantuan gates of Union Central. As they approached, a siren blared and the gates parted slowly, scattering thick clouds of dust.
Inside, a world of activity and life, the likes of which Vallance had never seen. Merchants rushed past, clutching their wares close to their chest while others shouted names and prices, struggling to be heard above the cacophony of city noise. A man was flung from a building and into the path of the travelers. Stag stepped over him and pointed to the bar from which he was ejected.
“Best bar in all of Central” said Stag. “I’ve given many a girl a good time in there.”
“Oh please, don’t listen to him. He wouldn’t know a good time if one came over and sat on his face,” said Will addressing Vallance. The trio laughed heartily and Vallance almost lost his balance. Adjusting himself, he took in his surroundings. He was scarcely able to believe the bustling hive that buzzed behind the city’s high walls. He caught eyes with the cold stare of a strange man at the mouth of an alley. He was covered from head to toe in crude tattoos and wore little else but a pair of tattered trunks.
“Eyes ahead” came Sarah’s voice. “Central isn’t as safe as it’s guards and gates pretend.”
Vallance felt a compelling force pulling at him and let his stare linger a moment longer before facing forward once more. Byron had been silent the whole trip.
Eventually, they reached a tower in the northeast corner of the city. Security was tight. Byron told the guards of an appointment he had. They were told to wait. They waited. And waited. Several hours past and the crew were getting restless.
Night was falling by the time they were received. A dapper man stepped from the shadow of the doorway. He ran his eyes over the group slowly and settled on Byron, who clung to his Zom-B-Gone box.
“This is the prototype?” the nameless man said.
“Yes. This is the Zom-B-Gone.” Byron beamed, belying the weariness in his voice.
With that, Vallance and his companions were ushered into the mysterious tower.
***
Vallance, Stag, Sarah, Will, Jeff and Byron stood atop an enormous ship, surrounded for miles by sand and waste. They were kitted out in armored clothing each with a trademark yellow armband that bore their name. Byron was busy, as usual, with the tinkering of a Zom-B-Gone.
After some final adjustments were made, all four bombs would be primed and ready. Vallance sat on the deck, staring out at the desolate landscape around him, while his hands were busy disassembling and reassembling his handgun. The other four stood behind him discussing their plan to clear the ship. The gas bombs would be scattered around the ship and then armed before the group made their dash for the exit. It would be easy. Four bombs were probably overkill, but it was a high paying job and it paid to be thorough. Vallance clicked the last mechanism into place and stood to join the others in conversation. Catching his reflection in the window of the bridge, he admired the light stubble he was developing. Stag looked down at him and smiled from behind a wild, bushy beard—his jaw was like a moss covered boulder.
“Not bad.” said Stag.
Byron was in a world of his own when Vallance approached him. He watched him work, admiring his focus. Byron finished tightening a red knob on the box’s left side when he finally noticed Vallance crouching beside him, gasping slightly then chuckling.
“We’re all set.” said Byron. Vallance smiled weakly at him, and laid a reassuring hand on the ageing man’s shoulder.
; “Hey, you remember what this is for?” Byron said, jokingly, pointing at the bomb’s oversized pin.
“Pull it out, make the gas.” Vallance replied with a grin.
“And what’s so special about the gas?”
“The scent attracts the infected and kills them when they breathe it.” said Vallance.
“No more monsters...” Byron said with a sigh. He looked far off into the horizon and before long, became dead to the world again.
Gunshots erupted in the quiet of the ship’s dining room as one zombie after another fell, all with matching holes in their head. Stag, Sarah, Will and Vallance each had a Zom-B-Gone box strapped to their back, ready for deployment. Jeff, looked to Byron who was dragging himself sluggishly through the room as the others engaged in their slaughter.
“Don’t look so glum, boss. Just imagine these ghouls are those fuckers from Central!” Jeff said.
“I tell you what I’d like to do that scumbag Drayton.” spat Stag, proceeding to drive his hatchet into a zombie’s skull, splitting it in two. Stag’s gallows humor didn’t seem to lift Byron’s spirits.
“Assholes.” Sarah added. “You’ll show ‘em Byron, don’t worry. They think they got a monopoly on these things?” she continued, tapping the Zom-B-Gone box on her back. “Well they aren’t the only ones with the recipe. Long as we’re still kicking, so is your dream.”
“People steal everything in the wasteland. Food, guns, water, silver. Why did we think they wouldn’t steal Byron’s formula? We should never have trusted them,” said Vallance. Will was about to speak but Vallance cut him off. “They know how to make it now and they snap up all the resources before we can get to ‘em. Byron can’t make enough to save everyone. They can. But they’re charging a fortune for it. They don’t want to save anyone. If everybody’s safe, nobody needs the gas. You want to kill the monsters? They’re in Central, at the top of a tower. So what the fuck are we doing here?”
With that the last zombie in the room fell and the group was deathly quiet. No one could look the others in the face. Then, Byron spoke up.
“Because kid,” he said, laying a hand on Vallance’s shoulder. “You said it yourself—they’re the monsters. We’re not.”
The team regained their composure, and pressed on. Vallance held back a moment, paused in thought, before rejoining his comrades.
Will carefully detached a Zom-B-Gone box from his back while Byron lifted it away and place it in the corner of the ship’s sprawling casino area. There was a loud creak from the balcony overhead. Will looked up but saw nothing. He turned to the rest of the group, some twenty feet away.
‘Hey, you guys hear tha—’
Wills body seemed to crumple under the weight of the clawed, semi-human monstrosity that landed on him. Before anyone could react, the beast had ripped his arm clean off at the shoulder and started tearing the dismembered limb apart. Shreds of flesh and cloth were flung into the air.
‘Fuck! No, no, no.’ Stag screamed as he jumped into action without having to think. He charged at the creature. Byron jumped to his feet, fumbling to un-holster his weapon. Sarah, Jeff and Vallance aimed at the ripper attacking Will but paused when they noticed a pack of the monsters that had begun to descend the walls all around them. Stag hadn’t noticed, he was far more concerned with saving has little brother. He swung his sledgehammer straight into the abominations ribcage, sending it flying off Will with a sickening crunch. He hoisted his rapidly bleeding brother up and draped him over his shoulder.
“We can’t stand our ground here, we have to move!” Byron shouted. The group retreated toward the double doors at the end of the room, shooting all the while.
Will’s cries of pain were growing faint as the squad barricaded the door with a steel bar through the handles. They were in a blackened theatre. Flashlights were switched on. Stag was drenched in his brothers blood. Jeff was panicking.
“Let’s just get to the mess hall, that’s where we have to set up the next box. Should be close.” said Sarah.
“Fuck the boxes! We need to get Will out of here!” Stag pleaded as he sat his brother on the floor.
“We have a better chance of making it out if we gas those freaks!” Sarah answered.
“Okay, let’s move.” said Jeff. “We’ll get you out of here, buddy.” Will didn’t respond.
“Will?” Stag said as he shook his brothers chest. Again there was no response.
Byron knelt down over Will. “I’m sorry Stag,” he said as he felt for a pulse in Wills neck. “He’s gone.”
Suddenly, one zombie after another began to emerge from behind rows of seats and from the shadows of the stage.
“Fuck...” said Sarah as she cocked her pistol. “Stag. You won’t make it if you’re carrying Will. There’s no point in losing you both.”
Stag grimaced but as the swarm of shambling corpses drew closer, he knew she was right. He laid Wills body down. The team bid Will farewell, although he couldn’t hear them. One zombie let out a guttural cry. In response, Stag screamed at the top of his lungs as tears mixed with the blood that stained cheeks and ran full pelt into the horde of undead, swinging his hammer wildly. They were mown down like wheat before a thresher. Vallance and the rest blasted their way through the crowd of revenants. They fought their way to an emergency exit, left of the stage and pressed on, leaving their fallen comrade to his tomb.
The mess hall was overrun with infected. Before reaching it, the team had donned their gas masks in preparation for detonating the Zom-B-Gone bomb.
“Okay,” Sarah began. “We use mine,” she continued tapping the bomb strapped to her back. “You know the drill. Once it starts spewing, we hold ‘em off till they start dropping.”
“Just fucking do it.” said Stag. Vallance felt an ice cold shiver run down his spine. He could’ve sworn he heard something… strange... like a slithering noise. He was about to warn the others when out of nowhere, Sarah was dragged up into the darkness of the unlit hall’s upper alcoves. It looked like a tentacle, or a tongue. Sarah’s comrades gasped and swore. Stag was about to unlatch his own bomb when another monstrous tendril lashed out at him, sending a metal table flying against the wall. He was flung back, winded. Vallance rushed to help him while Byron and Jeff shot blindly into the darkness, every flash revealing the advancing zombies.
Vallance somehow managed to drag Stags enormous weight up and back onto his feet, the group made a dash for the nearest exit. They were almost at the door when a tentacle scythed through the air, knocking Jeff into the clutches of the infected. Almost immediately torn limb from limb, Vallance couldn’t believe their strength. Jeff still managed to shriek out in pain, calling for help. But they knew they couldn’t save him. They kept going.
The sounds of screaming and unholy, animalistic cries rang out from behind the heavy metal door as Stag slammed it shut. He pounded the door furiously and roared.
“Retail plaza.” Byron said, distant. “Retail plaza. The next box.”
Vallance and Stag looked to each other and Stag nodded. Onwards, into the abyss. After some painful searching of empty corridors, they found their way to the cabins. A long narrow hallway stretched before them, packed tightly with shuffling corpses. In an almost mechanical fashion the trio began unloading on the throng of zombies as they pushed forward. Bodies dropped, they were stepped over, and more bodies dropped ahead of them. Vallance felt like he was walking through an abattoir. It all felt so meaningless now. It was purely survival. For no other reason than to survive.
By the time they reached the plaza, Vallance and the others found their clips practically empty. A shopping area, three stories high surrounded them. Stag set his bomb down in the center of the floor. He was about to pull the pin when he noticed a zombie stepped out from behind a staircase. Grinning, he gripped his sledgehammer and walked towards it, he was more concerned with revenge than anything else now it seemed. With Stag approaching, the zombie opened its mouth causing its throat to swell and convulse, turn green and oo
ze pus. Noticing far too late, Stag raised his hammer just as the creature spit in his face. The bile seared his skin with a hiss and began to melt the flesh. Stag screamed in pain, dropping to the floor, clutching his disintegrating face. The acid had even eaten the gas mask. Stag crawled over to the bomb but before he could pull the pin, a pack of rippers lunged at him, one of them crashing into the bomb, which skidded across the floor to the opposite side of the plaza. Vallance took aim at one of the rippers but Byron pulled him away.
“I’m not going to lose you all!” Byron cried as he dragged Vallance from the room. He saw Stag snap one of the ripper’s necks before another sunk its teeth into his throat. Vallance and Byron shut the door behind them and it was silent.
They wandered the lower levels. There was an uncommon blackness to the depths of the ship. They were headed to the storage room with the last box. At least they’d take a few with them. Quite a few it seemed, judging from the moans that Vallance heard drifting through the vents. He was filled with dread at the sound after seeing what had happened to the others.
Once they reached the doors to the storage room, they stopped. Vallance readied the box that he had carried through this entire ordeal. Byron double checked its function.
They were ready. Pushing the massive, weighty doors open, they were suddenly blinded, the harsh light of the sun flooding their vision. The storage room was mammoth and at the end was the open face of the ship, a jagged cliff that gave way to the wasteland below. Huge steel shipping containers populated the room. They were outnumbered, however, by the army of ghouls that were gathered there.
