by GJ Zukow
They had stopped to check out the swarm of bloodthirsty undead, of that I’m positive. Even with the binoculars I couldn’t actually see as much of the horde or the building they were intent on destroying as I wanted too. I ended up moving as close as I dared to the deadly herd, reaching an upstairs office in a formerly busy telemarketing company. The office was almost directly behind the zed infested property, giving an excellent, if dangerous, view of three sides of the property plus the roof. The only part of the besieged building I couldn’t see was the front entrance. Even then, as close as I was, I couldn’t spot if the Reds had done anything except look around. They were obviously interested in whatever the foul herd had locked in on. I was absolutely positive that they would return. And they did. At four o’clock in the morning.
Once night fell, I made my way onto the office building’s roof. From the vantage point of the flat, tar and rock covered roof, while I still couldn’t see directly in front of the shop, the angle gave me a good view of the driveway leading to it.
When the scarlet colored and infected Reds came back, they didn’t care about being quiet. I heard the sound of their engine from blocks away. In the relative quiet of the apocalypse, any man made sound seems loud and out of place. Especially a combustion engine with a crappy muffler.
The streets were clear of the wandering undead, every single one of the mindless things had converged on the worn shop.
The up-armored Humvee that appeared seemed to weave drunkenly before it pulled up, tires screeching and horn blaring in front of the shop. The horrid walking dead barely responded, merely glancing for a moment uncertainly at these new arrivals before returning to their mindless clawing and bashing of the brick building. The camouflage painted vehicle parked itself at the entrance to the property, where the gated fence used to stand before the crush of the undead brought it down. Though my line of sight was partially blocked by the roof of the heating and cooling shop, it really only blocked the bottom half of the military vehicle. As soon as the Hummer came to a complete stop someone popped up in the armored fifty cal. turret while the driver and passenger got out, hooting, hollering and letting off rounds into the air. The Reds acted as if they were drunk, sometimes staggering about as they clearly made their presence known. A long burst from the fifty caliber machine gun rent the air, with tracer bullets flying high into the darkness.
“Attention, attention...”, blared from a loudspeaker. Although I couldn’t see who was using the bullhorn, I figured it had to be the driver. Both the turret man and the passenger were in plain sight, with the passenger rooting around in the backseat for something.
“You’re surrounded. Come out with your hands up!”, the words came out slightly slurred and the other men with him laughed.
“Get the fuck out here now you little bastards!”, the words were tinged with anger now, as minutes passed with no response being given at all.
With a motion from the infested man in the turret, the passenger disappeared from my view, rushing towards the huge mass of undead at the front of the building. Without warning, the huge group of undead at the front of the building spilled out and away from the area. It almost looked like the undead were fleeing from something. I was about to get up and sneak my way around to another location for a chance to get a better view of what they were doing, when I saw the passenger come around the corner. If they knew something that could cause the uncontrollable zombies to flee, then I would risk a lot to unravel that secret. I waited as quietly as I could and in a minute I saw the carrier spraying something at the zeds from what looked like a metal fire extinguisher. As he rounded the corner to the rear, he saw a lone unboarded window set high up upon the back wall, where a large fan was once installed, and he smiled. He stopped, pumped up the canister and sprayed something that the undead tried to get away from with as much speed as they could muster. With whatever it was in that can he completely cleared the front of the building, the side and the whole rear. Made it look so easy. I became determined that before the night was through I would know the secret. I tried to smell the air, hoping to catch scent of what they were using but I guess I was too far away. The zeds remarkably moved at least twenty feet away from the offending substance, refusing to go near the sprayed liquid even though they clearly wanted to get back to their pummeling and punishment of the brick shop.
Setting down the canister and unshouldering his AK, the passenger took a kneeling position at the corner of the building, bare yards from my hiding spot, keeping the back window in his sights.
“Last chance to come out!”
Receiving no answer the driver briefly appeared in my view again, angrily stomping back to the driver’s side of the vehicle. As he proceeded to reach into the Humvee’s backseat on the far side, he was once again out of my sight. When the half naked driver came back into my view, behind the hood of the vehicle, he was holding a homemade Molotov cocktail.
“If you don’t come out now, we’re going to burn your asses to death you motherfuckers!”, the driver shouted. Obviously he meant what he said and as he brought out a Zippo lighter to light the rag extending from the gasoline filled bottle, a single shot rang out.
Immediately the driver dropped to the ground as all hell broke loose. I had been hoping that the driver had been killed but as the Molotov, with its rag burning brightly, flew in a lazy arc towards the shop, I knew things were going to go badly. The constant roar of the fifty caliber, as it spit fire and slugs into the shop, was deafening. Automatic weapons fire was being returned at the marauders, the bullets ineffectually bouncing and ricocheting off the bulletproof, war built machine, providing excellent protection to the parasite maddened aggressors. The turret mounted machine gun literally chewed through the shop, with bullets spewing out along the whole length of the building. The driver lobbed Molotov after Molotov at the building while the gunner fired, causing the entire front end of the building to become engulfed in an inferno.
The sole man at the rear of the building, the only person I could get a good shot at, still had not moved, waiting for something. I figured that it was time for me to act, just as I was ready to pull the trigger, my target jumped and raised his weapon towards the window where the old fan used to be. Someone had thrown an old wheeled office chair through it and started kicking the broken glass away from the bottom of the pane, not wanting to slice themselves open when they crawled out. That’s why the Red was waiting in the back of the building, he was going to murder anyone he caught attempting to escape from the rear. All he was waiting for was a good shot at whoever was trying to escape. As soon as a head popped out of the window, I saw the carrier move to shoot. It would only have taken a second for him to line the shot up but I was already ready to fire. The whole top of his skull disintegrated as my shot flew true, scattering his diseased grey matter over a wide area. The head quickly ducked back into the shop, uncertain as to what was happening.
I know the gunner heard my weapon speak. Each weapon has its own individual, unique sound. As soon as my rifle added its voice to the chaotic battle everyone knew. I had to take my shot in plain view of the gunner, I’m sure he saw the muzzle flash. I’m sure he saw his vile comrade die. Without hesitation, the gunner adjusted his aim and started to fire at me. It had become time for me to move. Chunks and splinters of the office’s walls and windows were being punched out by the half inch diameter slugs like shrapnel. I made my way back down to the first floor, dodging flying debris and lead all the way. Once on the first floor, the number of bullets coming at me slackened as the slugs had to travel through the shop before entering the office behind it.
The second I saw the person crouching down in the ruins of the window, trying to make herself as small as possible, I knew she needed help. She was terrified, her eyes were wild and wide and she was screaming and crying at whoever was returning fire at the raiders. She was stuck. She couldn’t go back into the burning building, thick black smoke was starting to pour out of every crack and crevice and she couldn’t jump
for fear of the huge mass of dead that were waiting for her just twenty feet away. She was screaming for Matt to leave with her, to help her but there came no answer. When she realized that there were no longer any reports from his weapon she wailed and I thought she was going to go back into the building.
The horrible walking dead were desperate to get at the woman but they were unable to bring their horrid selves any closer. They were packed tightly together, forming a wall of outstretched and grasping hands eager to grab hold of any living human being and devour them alive.
As the machine gun bullets and tracer rounds came ever closer to ending her life, she started shooting at the undead waiting for her, attempting to make a hole through which she could run. Her aim was bad and out of fifteen shots she only managed to kill three of the things. The gunner on the other hand, was indiscriminately wasting plenty of the undead that were unlucky enough to be in the line of fire.
I ran outside the office, risking the random, deadly hiss of hot lead in order to get the terrified woman’s attention. In no time she saw me and although she raised her handgun towards me, she didn’t shoot. I raised one hand and lowered it, palm down, hoping that she would understand I wanted her to stay low. I was behind the row of undead, they were so intent and focused on the fresh flesh of the woman in front of them that they never even noticed me. When I held up one of my purloined grenades she understood what I wanted to do. Then I lobbed my two grenades towards packed line of the ghastly monsters and ducked. The dual explosions tore open the air itself and killed or knocked down every zed within twenty five feet. The teary eyed survivor quickly crawled out the window, only hanging on for a moment before letting herself drop, knowing that time was of the essence. In less than a minute the undead, those that had been knocked down or wounded but not killed would be back on their feet. While she ran through the gap, screaming for Matt all the time, I put a half ounce of metal into as many undead heads as fast as I could twitch my finger. The smell that came to me reminded me of cat piss. I recognized the smell, it was very familiar but I couldn’t place my finger on it exactly. The sharp smell brought to mind image of the old lady that had lived next door to me before the holocaust, the old lady with six cats that mauled her to death. I’ll figure it out though, it’s too important for me not to. By the time the black haired woman reached me, I knew something was very different about her. She was pregnant. By the time she reached me the two mad men in front had stopped shooting, I heard the engine revving up. Then they started driving and firing around the building towards us as we fled. I heard the distinct sound of multiple bodies being hit and run over by the military Humvee, as I looked back the driver was wildly running over the undead that got in his way. With the sound of gunfire and splintering bones approaching ever closer I turned and fired, loosing the majority of my double clip at the gunner’s face. None of the bullets I shot at him hit but I did make the brute duck down.
There was no real way we could outrun a vehicle, as we ran and fired I thought about the claymore I still held on to. If I could reach the residential section of the neighborhood, I thought, we might be able to lose them. If not, if I became mortally wounded, I would hold on to my life until my attackers got close enough, then I would trigger the claymore killing all of us if I had to. As it turned out, with the Humvee bouncing and running over and through the herd of zeds, the driver lost control as the vehicle got caught up on the limbs and torsos of all those undead that had gotten stuck or jammed into the Hummer’s undercarriage. Somehow, as the driver swerved and ran over more zeds, he drove over a part of the downed fence that was bunched up. The chain link fence, grabbed by the spinning wheels, wrapped itself around one of the front tires like a blanket. As expletives issued forth the gunner’s nasty mouth at us, the driver and the hungering dead, he continued to fire blindly at us and the mindless automatons around him. The driver had started to “rock” the camouflaged transport back and forth, slowly trying to work the vehicle free of its entanglements.
I led the terrified, pregnant woman back to the house overlooking the garden, making sure to impress on her the need for her to be quite, that crying wouldn’t help us at all. She was desperate to know the fate of Matt, the father of her child. I noted that the two remaining attackers were taking their time extracting the Humvee from its mired status. No more gun shots were coming from within the burning building, there was no sound of anything but the crackling of burning wood. We both watched anxiously as the gunner donned a gas mask and climbed up the rear of the building to disappear inside the broken window while the driver cut away the rest of rusty chain link fence and assorted body parts from the mired undercarriage. I was tempted to snipe them, once in awhile I would have a good shot, I could easily kill at least one more of them. If it were just me I would have. Now though, I have a distraught, three or four month along expectant mother-to-be with me. Discretion being the better part of valor, I let it go. We had escaped with our lives. If they thought we were long gone then so much the better. The last thing I need now is for them to call more of their insane brethren and hunt us down in earnest. If Matt is still alive I’ll risk it though, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else, my conscious wouldn’t let me.
Minutes later, the body of Matt, ridden with multiple holes, fell limply from the broken window. The gunner jumped down, clothes slightly smoking and grabbed Matt by the hair and laughed with the driver. After posing like a hunter with a magnificent deer, I heard them shouting and carrying on like they forgot all about us and their dead companion. A few minutes later they had loaded up Matt’s corpse, freed their Humvee from its predicament and drove off, leaving the body of their friend behind.
Her name is Nancy and she’s just past her first trimester, I got that out of her at least. Her weeping and silent tears lasted well into the morning, when she finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
Monday, December 2, 2013
I swear, that first day I found Nancy, she slept for sixteen hours. I’m sure she had gotten very little sleep while the dead were furiously trying to tear her building apart. I know, first hand, how hard it is to get any shut eye at all in that situation. Sleep only comes when one finally passes out from exhaustion after days of fear.
Twice, while she slept, I left her a note in case she woke up while I was gone. Neither time I left did she so much as even change position by the time I returned. The first time I left, I went food scavenging. I barely found a couple of old, labeless cans in the surrounding houses. The cans that I did find, I ended up having to fight for. Not that it was much of a fight. I’m getting much better with the gladius. The blade has a few dings in it now but it’s still capable of removing someone’s head from their shoulders with one good swing.
The second time I left Nancy alone was to check out the now smoldering wreckage of the heating and cooling shop that she had barely escaped with her life from. I had desperately wanted to know if the infested Reds had taken the canister with them. The undead were still thick in the immediate vicinity of the now charred ruins, with many of them having burned to death. The unfeeling corpses show no fear of fire, when the splash from the Molotov’s lit them on fire they paid no notice. One by one, the undead that hadn’t been forced away by whatever it is that the Reds sprayed at those along the other three sides, became a part of the inferno. The smell of burnt, rotted, flesh hangs in the air. Between the stench and the smoke of the charred remains of the shop, it effectively blotted out any chance I had to catch a whiff of whatever I smelled last night. Half of the necrotic fiends gathered around that shop must have been exterminated last night, their ruined bodies lie strewn haphazardly all around the property. The remaining undead no longer care about the building, knowing their prey had long since disappeared. There were still too many of the horrid things for me to safely search for the shiny silver canister, it was only days later that I could return.
When Nancy finally woke up she was much calmer. She was hesitant and unsure of me, I could tell. There was some tens
ion in that dark, unlit and abandoned house, I was also unsure of her character. It took her awhile to open up enough to tell me what had happened. One of the first things she wanted was water. The way she drank it down almost alarmed me. She explained that Matt and her had been quite low on the precious fluid, having to ration it out severely as the undead surrounded them. When I shared with her the vegetable soup I had cooked up earlier, while she was sleeping, her eyes widened slightly in recognition of the fresh vegetables. Even though the potatoes and other fresh ingredients, pilfered from the little garden, were mixed in with the mystery cans (which turned out to be a can of corn, two cans of peas and a can of mixed veggies), they clearly stood out. She ate the vegetable soup with the same gusto as she had with the water. Between mouthfuls, she related how Matt and she had initially planted three gardens, hiding them out of sight of prying eyes. The other two gardens didn’t fare as well, with the summer heat and lack of rain conspiring to whither and kill the plants before they grew an inch. By the time she had finished the simple meal, her few sparse words turned into a river of conversation.
Nancy was twenty six years old when the animal madness struck. Now, a little more than a year has passed and her once raven black, long hair has streaks of grey. She didn’t look her age, in fact when she told me how old she was I almost didn’t believe her. She looks older, the stress and hardships she had lived through makes her look closer to forty than thirty.
Even before the troubles that heralded the end of the world, the economy had been stagnant. Her husband, Sean, had worked as a carpenter since graduating high school. When the economy ground to a crawl, he suddenly found himself as one of the long term unemployed. Since Sean had been considered self-employed, as he had done subcontracting work, and therefore wasn’t eligible for unemployment checks he received no unemployment benefits. They struggled to pay the bills, when their first child was born just before the rat death made its way around the globe, it was only her job as a substitute teacher for a private church run school that kept them going. Her husband stayed home and tended to their beautiful, healthy newborn daughter, almost reversing the traditional family roles. Things were tough, but with the help of family and friends, they were keeping their heads above water.
