Blood 4 Life

by M. Lorrox

  He pushes hard to get to the shed.

  In a series of movements almost too fast to see, he unlatches the set of double doors, opens them enough to slip in, and then closes them behind him. Not a second passes before the two closest zombies crash into the door. The entire shed shakes on their impact.

  Charlie is winded. Those fuckers are fast. He looks around for his shovel as he hears zombies bashing their bodies against the doors. He’s frustrated and doesn’t see it, even though it’s right in front of him.

  Shit. Where the hell is it?

  Outside, three zombies happen to strike against the walls at the same time, and the shed shakes more violently. The shovel, which is technically a drain spade—a much more civilized tool—falls toward Charlie’s face.

  He catches it. There you are…and nice try.

  The zombies continue banging on the doors even though they hear no sound from inside. They’ll eventually tire or get distracted by another sound, but that could take a while. If Charlie waits them out, he might be able to escape when they’re less aggravated, and maybe he could try to catch them off guard and take them out one at a time.

  That’s not his style.

  The doors of the shed burst open and throw the zombies to the sides. By the time they’re standing again, Charlie is outside and opposite the shed, swinging a five-foot-long fiberglass rod with its fourteen-inch drop-forged steel blade around his head. The tool slicing through the air sounds like a prop plane warming up. The zombies hear it and charge.

  They rush at him like stupid idiot zombies that want to get their heads cut off by a vampire knight that whirls an incredibly durable earth-moving tool around his head with the strength of almost a dozen men. Charlie takes a step toward the zombies to put them in the shovel’s range. The first pass decapitates two.

  The next pass is a little off balance, and of the three zombies within the weapon’s range, the first two heads are cut clean off, but the third zombie’s head is smashed and crushed by the flat of the blade, letting out a resounding -CLANG!-

  The zombies drop, but the momentum of Charlie’s swing broke long enough for another set of zombies to get inside the swinging radius of the shovel’s blade. Charlie takes a big hop backward, swings with purpose, and slices at both of their necks. The shovel’s blade travels through both zombies’ rotten flesh so quickly that the heads stay roughly in place—hovering above their neck holes—before they crash to the ground.

  The last zombie approaches Charlie—the one with the messed-up leg. “Come on, you slow poke.” Charlie takes a breath, charges, and stabs it in the forehead with the drain spade. The force tears the head off the neck, but to Charlie’s surprise, it also securely attaches the zombie’s head to his favorite landscaping tool.

  Charlie bends down and spins the handle in his hand to look at the zombie’s face. The eyes popped out with the force of the blade entering the skull, and the mouth hangs open. Gross.

  Charlie swings the drain spade behind his back, and like he was going to blow the top off the strong-man sledgehammer game at the fair, he overhead-smashes the zombie’s head down into the ground.

  -Scree-icke!- The fiberglass handle of the shovel explodes into pieces.

  Damn… I’mma need another shovel.

  Charlie looks around. There aren’t any more zombies. He looks to the roof of his house—the humans from last night are gone, and they left the blanket. Later.

  He looks at the shard of the shovel’s handle in his palm, then he tosses it aside while he walks over to the shed. As he approaches it, Rusty lands on its roof. His bat-like light-gray wings fall off in a -poof- of dust, vaporizing into the air with a flash.

  Rusty surveys the yard filled with zombie corpses before he looks at Charlie and wags his tail.

  Charlie sighs. “Gee, Rusty, thanks for all the help.”

  -Bark!-

  Charlie grabs the wheelbarrow from the shed and pulls it toward a corpse while muttering to himself, “And as a thanks, our great hero gets to clean up stinking zombie-death bodies. Yay!”

  -Clong- A zombie head bounces and settles against the metal of the wheelbarrow.

  Rusty hops off the shed, sniffs at a corpse, bites its leg, and then drags it off toward the gate in the corner of the yard. He shows an absurd amount of strength for such a small thing.

  Charlie is picking up another zombie’s body to drop into the wheelbarrow when he notices Rusty. He smiles at the little guy. “Thanks, Rust.”

  Charlie pauses for another moment before returning to himself, and the smile fades. He looks down at the headless, rotting zombie carcass cradled in his arms. “Ugh. So gross.”

  He drops the body into the wheelbarrow, then walks over to grab another carcass to pile on top.

  When Eddy and June arrive at the practice area, their friends are happy to see them. Joe and Jess got to the school first, and some other kids were playing Frisbee in the area designated for archery practice. Once Tomas arrived, the three of them asked the Frisbee players to move somewhere else. The friends have just finished setting up the archery targets at twenty, thirty, and forty yards.

  Tomas walks over to Eddy and June and waves. “Hey, Eddy. Hi, June!”

  June waves.

  “Hey, Tomo.” Eddy sets down his bag and bow then bro-nods at Jess and Joe. “Hey, guys. Thanks for setting up.”

  Jess stands. Some strands of hair have fallen out of rank from her ponytail and are aggravating her face. She blows them away, loudly and dramatically. “Sure thing. Hi, June. How’s Heather’s dog?”

  June’s face grows long, and her brow creases as she prepares to answer. “It’s really sad; he had to be put down. He got out of the fence and then into a fight with…something. Whatever it was took some big mouthfuls out of his hind leg and tore open his belly. It was pretty awful, actually.”

  Eddy had forgotten all about that situation last night. He bites his lip, then takes off his shades, reaches over, and sets his hand on June’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  She livens up a little. “Yeah, I’m alright. I’ve seen some pretty rough things at the vet’s with dad. Heather was destroyed, though. It was her dog—she raised him from a puppy.”

  Tomas steps in. “Yikes. Glad nobody was hurt, though.”

  Jess nods. “That’s true. Sorry, June.”

  June forces a smile. “It’s alright. So, who’s first?” She motions to their pile of backpacks and the school’s storage container of supplies.

  Jess looks at Eddy with a smile. “Well, first I’m parched. Eddy, what did you bring?”

  Eddy squints at her, then abruptly tilts his head. “Umm…”

  She throws her hands up. “Eddy, I asked you to bring something to drink, remember?”

  He grimaces. “Sorry, I…I completely forgot. All I have is that weird tomato juice my parents buy.”

  “UGH! No, that stuff is nasty. Forget it.”

  “Sorry.”

  Nobody says anything for a moment. Finally, Tomas clears his throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “Well, seeing how I need the most practice…” He steps over to the large plastic storage container set against the brick wall of the school that says Tuscola High Swimming on its side. Inside, the school stores the equipment students can use for archery practice. He opens the lid and grabs a beat-up recurve bow that has been spray-painted blue. Its black rubber handle has lines scored into the sides for grip, many of which are ripped or torn from age.

  He also grabs a handful of old arrows, then drops all but one of them to the ground before he takes up the shooting position. The group stands behind him as he tries for the first target. “Twenty yards, right, Jess?” Tomas smiles as he aims, squinting an eye.

  Jess sighs. “It says twenty on the marker there, doesn’t it?”

  Tomas closes both his eyes and sighs. He already knew the answer, but he wanted to ask Jess anyway. He opens his eyes and aims again. “Oh yeah.” He takes another breath and lets loose the arrow. For an old arrow, it flies
straight, right into the outer ring of the target at eight o’clock.

  “Not bad.” Joe steps forward and reaches for the bow.

  “I’m just warming up.” Tomas hands it to him.

  Joe had put on an arm guard as Tomas shot, and now he has an arrow ready.

  He shoots, and his arrow hits the next circle in on the same target, at three o’clock.

  Jess steps forward with a different bow from the container. She selected the same one she always uses; it’s orange with black stripes made from electrical tape. She shoots. Great. Her arrow strikes just an inch or two above Tomas’.

  Tomas grins. “Got your sights on me, huh?”

  “Blech!” Jess pretends to vomit.

  Eddy chuckles and hands June an arrow. “Do you want to go next?”

  She looks at the arrow he extended toward her. “Yup!” She walks over to her archery bag and grabs her own bow—a fancier, high-tech compound bow painted white—then returns and grabs the arrow from Eddy. “Thanks.”

  She draws back, and after just a second, releases and hits the edge between the bull’s-eye and the first ring. The kids cheer.

  Tomas, louder than anyone, shouts, “Alright, June!”

  Eddy walks over to get his bow.

  June turns around and is excited to see some hands held high, waiting for fives. She hits them all, one by one.

  Eddy steps up and into position with his own compound bow. His is a hunting weapon more than a competitive bow like June’s or Skip’s, and it has a camo design on it.

  He takes a breath and pulls back the arrow as he raises the bow. He hardly pauses to aim before he releases the arrow. It hits the bull’s-eye.

  June and the others cheer. “Nice one, Eddy.”

  Eddy nods. “Your dad has taught me well.” He looks at his friends. “Bows down. I’ll get the arrows.”

  When practicing archery with his friends, Eddy always tries to go last, and he tries to always be the one to get the arrows. He doesn’t do this because he’s courteous. He does this because his arrows are always buried the deepest into the targets, and they can be a real challenge for the others to pull out. In the past, when someone else had trouble, Eddy would give it a try. After its almost immediate release, he’d say, “Oh, you must have loosened it up…”

  Eddy pulls out the last arrow. When he turns to walk back to his friends, he sees a pair of taller figures walking toward them, a guy and a girl. He squints to see their faces, but he doesn’t recognize either of them.

  Sadie turns off the main road and heads toward a more industrial part of town. The farmers’ market used to be held on a few intersecting streets in the middle of Waynesville, but it was too open and security proved to be too difficult.

  She drives past the most recent of the town’s losses—the train yard closed yesterday. So much has changed and so fast. As she drives alongside the large fenced-in facility, she can’t help but slow down and look out her window at row after row of parked and abandoned freight cars.

  Waynesville is on the Norfolk Southern Railway system, whose 21,500 miles of track crisscross almost every state east of the Mississippi. No more trains will be pulling into this station. Nearby in Asheville, however, the rail is still running. One line heads north through Roanoke to DC and then on to New York City; one line heads south then splits toward Charleston and Atlanta; and another connecting line heads across the mountains to the cities in the west—where this all started.

  Sadie steers the Jeep around a corner and then makes another turn. It happened so fast.

  No one knew what was happening until it was too late, and there’s one thing the world may never know despite scientists’ best efforts: what exactly started the zombie outbreak. One theory seems to have the most subscribers, though.

  Six months ago, a hippie-turned-researcher in California received some publicity when he developed a process to reroot cut flowers and reboot their growth. In his process, the flowers were soaked in an inorganic, highly reactive chemical, and then they were blasted with high-energy electromagnetic radiation.

  Late-night talk shows had fun with the news at first. They suggested that the research was ludicrous; after all, you could just buy another rose at the gas station for a dollar a stem. After a few days, coverage died down as the media moved on to the next joke, the next fashion snafu, and the next celebrity engagement.

  A week and a half after the late-night jokes and the now-iconic and horrifying cartoon of the cut flower raising from the grave was published, the west coast was annihilated.

  The first recorded incidents were from Travis Air Force Base, near San Francisco in California. It was the busiest military air terminal in the United States, but it doesn’t even exist anymore. Shortly after the first reports of “hyper-aggressive, brutal attacks,” there were outbreaks at Edwards Air Force Base, near Los Angeles, and at Kingsley Field Air National Guard Base in Oregon.

  The nonairborne virus—as best as anyone can tell—was initially spread through air travel. There is so much that is still unknown, but burned into the minds of all survivors across the globe is the timeline of infection.

  Time (h:m)

  Symptoms / Events

  0:00

  Infection (bodily fluid contact)

  0:20

  Subject becomes contagious

  0:55

  Headache and dry mouth

  1:10

  Nausea

  1:35

  Fever

  1:45

  Loss of consciousness

  2:30

  Reanimation as zombie

  When people started to freak out and leave town, they brought the virus with them. In cars, trains, and on planes. The only reason the USA still exists is because the country itself is so big and the outbreak took place on a coast. Any infected individual would die and rise long before crossing the country.

  The west coast, though, was gone overnight. Any major city within a two- or three-hour flight was doomed. As soon as the government, military, and police agencies nationwide knew what to look for—the day after the outbreak—every remaining town and city in the country was on alert. People hoped the outbreak could be contained, but mistakes happen.

  Parents “forget” that they have their zombie toddler caged up in the back of a camper while they hope against all reasonable hope that a cure is discovered and the child can be spared. Instead of that miracle materializing, the little zombified scamp escapes and infects a careless family member. Fast-forward a few hours, and there’s a crashed camper on the highway with zombies inside, bashing and breaking the windows, and trying to claw their way out—and into someone’s backyard.

  The heroes so far have been the everyday folks. The warriors who fought the zombies hand-to-hand, who saved others and got infected in the process. The lone souls who took their own lives when the fever hit, making sure their brain was destroyed to prevent reanimation. The self-sacrificing nurses who sealed off their entire ward—from the inside—to prevent any escape of the now-realized infection.

  It was logical for the president to call in airstrikes on the most populated urban centers of the west; one could escape or survive in the large metropolitan areas that millions of zombies were now calling -Mmuuurrrr-.

  With millions of zombies come millions of opportunities for the outbreak to spread.

  The plan was announced and repeated for a week on every emergency broadcast system in the targeted cities. To no one’s surprise, at the end of the week, there were no instances of radio contact, no signal flares or fires, no sort of human communication—at all—coming from the targeted cities.

  The president sobbed on TV when the countdown ended. When a general asked for the final order, all the president could do was release a flood of tears from closed eyes and nod.

  The cities were leveled. Spirits were crushed. The financial and business worlds were crippled. The entire world got its front teeth kicked in, and the USA got almost every other bone in its body broken as well.
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  It has been months since Operation Tourniquet, but the zombies haven’t been cut off. They’re still walking, mistakes still happen, and the outbreak is still spreading. As it comes, people are leaving their homes and leaving their livelihoods, but they’re keeping their lives.

  There’s not as much interstate business going on anymore. Many goods and services that Americans were used to are now unavailable, implausible, and dangerous. Instead, people are focusing on one another—family, friends, and their community. Farmers’ markets everywhere are thriving as people come together to trade and sell goods that might otherwise be unavailable in the post-apocazombic-America. The markets help their communities survive.

  Sadie drives toward her town’s farmers’ market. As she passes an abandoned facility on the way, she notices a couple zombies near the building, far inside the chain-link fence along the ground’s perimeter. The zombies are often attracted to the road and its noise. Once they reach the fence, they’ll be trapped by their own blind rage and hunger. They’ll tear the flesh off their fingers as they claw at the fence.

  They’ll be easily dispatched. She takes note of where they are.

  When she approaches the armed guards at the fence surrounding the farmers’ market warehouse, she tells them what she saw.

  “We’ll radio for a patrol to come by. Thanks for the tip.”

  Sadie smiles at the middle-aged man sporting the scoped rifle. “You’re welcome, and thank you.”

  He replies with a shy smile.

  She drives to the building and parks in the shade. “Alright, Minnie, let’s get you ready to go outside.” She pulls a vial of blood and a tube of sunscreen out of her bag.

  Minnie waits patiently. She’s used to this procedure by now. Every time she goes outside during the daytime, she gets sunscreened. But she doesn’t mind too much. It smells good—like flowers.

  There’s an armed volunteer stationed at the front of the warehouse—a bearded, portly man in his forties that Sadie doesn’t recognize. She approaches with one hand holding Minnie’s, and the other towing a small folding luggage cart loaded with their cooler and supplies. The man holds open the doors for them.