by Fuchs, A. P.
He cocked the hammer and fired.
And fired.
And couldn’t stop squeezing the trigger even though he hadn’t pulled down on the hammer.
A shock of weight suddenly pressed down on him. He didn’t know what it was; the hand over his face made it impossible to see anything.
Something bit into his coat, putting pressure on his left biceps.
His thumb searched for the hammer but it was quickly grabbed by another set of fingers.
Bang!
Did his gun go off? No. Something still had his thumb. Des? Did the guy have a gun but decided to keep it secret and only bring it out now just as they were about to die? That didn’t make sense either.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He didn’t care where the shots were coming from. The onslaught of hands trying to get hold of him was lessening.
Bang!
The dead hand over his face went limp. Joe shoved it away.
Straight above him hanging half out the window overlooking the back of the Richardson building was an old man with a rifle pointed at the dead.
* * * *
“I can do this all day, you lousy schmucks,” August muttered. I got plenty of bullets.
It had started as sport about a half hour ago, looking out the window and picking off the dead. Something to pass the time and, he admitted, a deep exercise in catharsis. Anything to work out that terrible dream. But when the three strangers suddenly appeared at the front of the building, it took a good several moments of looking for him to actually believe what he was seeing: people, real people. People who were alive. That’s when the undead moved in and tried to kill the trio below. The three had begun their fight so fast that August hadn’t been sure if he should run downstairs, get outside and help them, or just stay put and see what he could do from there.
When the young man in the trench coat and the girl rushed to the side of the building, he followed them along the windows bordering the bank of office suites on the fifth floor, running from the hallway to the windows, trying to keep up with them. When he remembered the guy in the front, he ran back to his original station to see what happened to him. The guy in the green T-shirt was gone, so August ran back into the hallway, searched the side windows and eventually found the three of them at the back of the building, surrounded.
He smashed the window with the butt of the rifle right after the three were mauled by the massive horde, figuring that even if he was too late, at least he had made an effort to save them. What he would do when the zombies looked up and saw him, he wasn’t sure.
Another zombie dropped below and August quickly kept aligning his shots, taking out the undead surrounding the three people, giving them room and a moment to get to their feet.
The guy with the trench coat did something with his gun and then began firing into the throng of living corpses.
August did the same, reveling in each shot, paying them back for forcing him to murder his family.
26
They Never Stop
This is what you get, August thought, his teeth clenched, lips pressed tightly together. You took everything from me.
He fired as many rounds as fast as his finger could pull the trigger. Below, the heads of the undead popped one by one, each dropping to their knees then falling flat on their faces a second after skull and tissue sprayed outward.
It wasn’t long before August had to reload the rifle. Even the few seconds it took for him to do so seemed an hour, he longed to squeeze the trigger so much. And when he finally was able to do so again, it was like coming home. Darkness curled its shadowy fingers around his heart and clenched the pounding muscle; blackness of soul consumed him. Despite knowing better, despite knowing he should let up, he couldn’t help but fire shot after shot into the horde below. Even if he could save just one of these new folks down there, he could somehow find a way to redemption through their rescue.
This isn’t you, August. The voice in his head was not his own. Though it carried the sound of his voice, it clearly belonged to another. Leave them to Me, it said.
“I c-can’t,” August squeezed through gritted teeth.
If you don’t trust Me, if you don’t let go of what happened, you will fall away. Choose.
Time seemed to slow and though the zombies five stories down still quickly fell with every crack of the rifle, August felt removed from himself. He could see the dark gray, scaly hand around his heart, its long black nails beginning to puncture the flesh, drawing blood.
“What are you?” he whispered, not expecting a reply.
Very clearly, the hand said, “You.”
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes and a sharp pain pierced his chest, as if he was experiencing the loss of his family all over again. And if he wasn’t careful, he’d lose something even worse: himself.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The dead fell.
August kept squeezing the trigger, reloading when necessary.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The live souls below shouted at each other, but August couldn’t make out what they were saying.Then one of them, the man in the trench coat, waved at him and pointed away from the building.
More dead were coming.
* * * *
Now on his feet, Joe delivered a hard hook to the jaw of a dead man with one eye missing then an elbow to the face of a woman with short brown hair and several missing teeth.
He cocked the hammer of the X-09 and blasted the heads off two zombies rushing toward him.
His friends were missing.
“Billie! Des!” he shouted.
Whirling around, he caught sight of them—Billie to the left, Des to the right—struggling against the mass of walking dead.
Des slammed the pipe into the head of one then jerked its opposite end back into the face of another, plowing right through the creature’s nose.
A gush of blood spurted high in a wild arc as Billie pulled a long knife from one zombie’s face.
Where did she get that? he wondered.
Another came at her, this one from behind. Just as she turned to meet it, Joe cocked the hammer and fired off a bullet into the creature’s brain, sending it to the ground.
“There’s too many!” Billie screamed at him.
“I know!” he growled. He took the face off one, pulled down on the hammer, and took out two more, the bullet going through both at once.
To the side, Des screeched as he swung the iron pipe around like a wild man, unloading all his hatred into the skulls and faces of decaying men and women.
The old man! Joe thought.
He looked up and saw the old guy hanging partway out of the window, rifle poised on the dead below but no movement or sign he was going to pull the trigger again.
“What’s he waiting for?” Joe said. “Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, I’m talking to you, old man! See what’s going on down here? Let ’er rip or we’re all dead!”
Still the old guy remained in the window, frozen. Was he dead? Had the excitement been too much for him and the old coot just had a heart attack and died? If so, the guy was going to be one of the walking dead very soon.
Joe debated firing a shot at the guy to put him out of his misery. His thumb pulled down on the hammer. About to the pull the trigger, a gray hand slammed down on his arm and a set of teeth rushed for his neck. Joe wrestled the zombie away, kicked it once in the gut, then put a bullet between its eyes.
Another shoved him from behind, then another and another.
Billie was screaming. So was Des, as each was shoved toward the building by a mass of the undead.
Joe looked up.
The old man was gone.
* * * *
This is it, Billie thought for the millionth time that day. Even though this wasn’t the time to be thinking it, she thought it strange that each time it seemed death was coming for her it scared her anew. She thought she’d be used to it by now.
“Joe, help!” she cried.
“Billie
, I can’t, I—” came his voice from somewhere far away. It was quickly shut out by the raspy groans of the undead as they pushed against them.
So many hands, so many teeth. Billie pushed and pulled and twisted her body every which way, trying to worm her way out from under and in between them. Head spinning, she lost all sense of direction and quickly found herself hoisted up above the creatures’ heads, her body tossed around on top of them as if it were some kind of crazy mosh pit.
Over on the right, Des drove his pipe into the ear of one of the corpses, lodging it in. Before he could withdraw it, another creature grabbed him and pulled him away.
* * * *
“No!” Des screamed, still reaching for the pipe. “It’sgoneit’sgoneit’sgoneit’sgone,” he said, nearly breathless.
Strong fingers gripped his leg and pulled him down to the ground. He hit the gray-stained concrete with a thunk. Pain lit up inside his hip.
A mass of gray and decaying heads loomed over him.
Then a hundred fingers reached for him.
* * * *
Des had disappeared beneath the crowd of the undead just as Joe had been thrown up against the building wall. The back of his head hit the wall with a sickening smack and green stars burst before his vision and a light droning filled his ears.
Moaning, he drew up the X-09, about to shoot as many of the zombies crowding in upon him as he could. He couldn’t even get the gun shoulder height before the undead pounded into him like a tide into a surf. One fat one slammed into his chest, winding him, forcing him to the ground.
Heart racing, he gripped the X-09 hard and tight. If these suckers were gonna tear him apart, it was going to be after he was dead, not before. He bent forward, pushing his head toward the gun while pulling his arm toward himself despite the tugs of the dead wrestling it away.
Just one will do it, he thought.
He put the barrel against his forehead. I’m sorry, April. Didn’t mean to go out like this. Some hero I turned out to be. In a few moments I’ll be seeing you though. Hang on. I’m almost there.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
BOOMBANG!
27
Some Kind of Rescue
Brain matter and globs of blood splashed against Joe’s face.
His finger froze on the trigger.
Am I . . . had I . . . No, he wasn’t dead. He was still aware. Then what . . .
A zombie groaned somewhere above him and a dull thunk shook the pavement as the body dropped to the ground. The pasty corpse laid prone, eyes wide and spacey, staring at him, blood oozing from its skull.
BOOM! CRASH!
A couple more of the undead surrounding him dropped to the ground, and not from gunshots.
Joe placed his palms on either side of him, pushed against the cement, and quickly got to his feet and stepped away from the building.
A thick whistle filled the air and—BOMF! A large gray box crashed onto the zombies, at first bouncing off the head of one, puncturing its skull, then rebounding off the creature’s head and hitting the pavement, causing the others around it to take a step back.
Joe looked up and two more gray boxes flew from a window above, one near Des, the other near Billie, each box knocking the undead away from his friends.
Those look like . . . “. . . computers?” Joe said.
“Get off me!” Billie shrieked as she shoved one of the zombies to the side just as what looked like a black fax machine sped down toward the zombie behind her, nailing it in the face. The zombie stood there, muttered something, then teetered on its heels before falling over.
“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” came a loud and raspy voice from above. Just then a photocopier toppled out of the window and sped toward the earth below, landing with a resounding BANG as it smashed through a handful of the undead and hit the ground. Bits of plastic, metal and glass sprayed outward. The creatures surrounding it took a step back.
“Thanks!” Joe shouted to the empty window above. He hoped the old guy heard him.
X-09 raised, he pegged off another zombie then sent yet another bullet into the head of one stumbling toward Billie as she ran toward him.
Off to the side, the dull thwacks of metal beating against bone forced Joe to aim his gun in that direction. Des stood there amidst five undead, slamming his pipe into their faces, the look of sheer rage upon Des’s face enough to make even Joe feel a tad uncomfortable.
Whoa, easy there, cowboy, he thought. Yet at the same time he was proud of the timid lad for finally standing on his own.
Another computer monitor quickly followed by its processor flew out of the window above, whistling through the air. The monitor clunked one zombie in the shoulder. The processor missed its target and landed in between two others. When it broke against the ground, the sudden bang was enough to the get the zombies to stop, look down, and slow their advance.
From above: “Get close to the building! Hurry!”
Joe fired the X-09, dropping another creature. He took Billie by the hand once she was in reach.
“This sucks!” she screamed.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Come on.”
“What? Are you crazy?” she yelped as he tugged her closer to the building wall. “You wanna box ourselves in or something and die?”
“Des!” Joe shouted over the murmurs and groans of the dead.
Des turned and withdrew his pipe from a zombie’s eye socket. Blood coated the young man’s face. He didn’t seem to care. Grimacing, Des gave Joe a nod then whirled around and slammed his pipe into the temple of an old dead lady before stepping over the bodies to get to them. One large dead black dude stumbled toward him. Des didn’t seem to know the guy was there. Joe fired off another shot. The creature fell.
Des’s eyes darted toward the deceased then back at Joe, shooting him a cool glare. “I saw him.”
“Yeah, right,” Joe said. “Let’s go.”
The three made it to the building.
The undead closed in. Fortunately many were slowed by having to step around or over their fallen kin. Still, there had to be at least thirty coming their way.
Glass shattered above and rained down just to the left.
“Look out!” Billie said as a mammoth wooden desk tumbled over the window frame five stories up and crashed upon a few zombies; its now-broken-in-half-top squashed what was left of those who had already fallen.
“Is this guy nuts?” Billie said, eyes wide.
“Probably,” Des said. To Joe: “So, now what?”
“He said to get to the building. That’s all I—”
Cloonk! Something nearly nicked Joe in the shoulder. The thing dangled beside him for a moment before he realized what it was: a fire hose.
The old coot leaned on his palms against the window frame above. “Grab on and climb up!”
The three just stood there. Was he serious?
“You wanna die!” the old guy shouted. He reached down to somewhere behind the window and pulled out his rifle. He took aim and fired.
Joe jumped just as something heavy landed on his toes. He looked down to see a teenage zombie draped over his feet.
“No,” he said to himself. Then as if in afterthought: Not now, anyway. “Okay, Billie, you go first.”
He grabbed the end of the fire hose and gave it to her.
“I can’t lift myself,” she said, eyes wet with tears.
“You’re gonna have to.”
“But . . .”
“Or you stay down here and get eaten.”
A creature appeared in his peripheral. He took it down.
Billie grabbed hold of the hose and began to climb.
“Use your legs,” Joe told her.
She intertwined her feet around the hose and began to ascend.
“Des, give her some space then it’s your turn. Push her up if you have to.”
“How?”
“Just push on her b—” BOOMCRACK! A chair crashed in front of them, scattering three more of the undead that
had stepped hungrily toward them.
Billie was already half way up to the window. Probably all the adrenaline coursing through her gave her a boost.
Des stuffed his pipe into his belt loop then took hold of the hose. He jumped . . . and his fingers slipped and he fell to the ground.
Joe offered his hand to help him up but Des slapped it away.
“Excuse you,” Joe said.
“Palms are sweaty,” Des said.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Shut up.” And he tried again, this time grabbing on and working his way up.
A telephone spun through the air like a disc and knocked another zombie away. A gunshot took down another.
“Can’t hold them off forever, sonny!” came the old guy from above.
“Just do what you can!” Joe shouted. Then, pointing to Billie, “And help her, if you can.”
Billie stopped climbing and leaned her head against her palms.
“Keep going!” Des hollered at her from a few feet below.
She just hung there. A moment later, she began climbing again albeit this time much slower.
Joe cocked the hammer of the X-09 and took out another zombie before stuffing the gun away and wiping his palms on his pants. He took hold of the hose and pulled himself up.
