Dead Man's Land

by R. J. Spears

  Russell shot out a hand for the nightstand, feeling for his gun, but his hand hit the barrel instead and sent it skittering off into the darkness.

  Zombie Devin yanked hard on Russell’s calf and pulled him down to the bed. He bent over with his teeth clacking together expectantly, waiting to get a good mouthful of Russell’s flesh. Russell drew back his other leg and smashed his heel into the zombie’s forehead, knocking it back, but the zombie still clutched on to Russell’s calf. Unfazed, the zombie came back for that bite. Russell tried to pull away, but the zombie held on tightly, his fingers digging into Russell’s calf.

  Russell desperately reached out for anything, and his hand wrapped around a metal pole of some sort. It turned out to be an IV pole. He brought it forward, caught it in his other hand, and swung it forcefully, all in one motion, just as the zombie started another dive for his leg, mouth open wide for breakfast. The pole connected with the side of the zombie’s skull just as it opened its mouth.

  If a zombie could see stars, it would have seen them, but zombies were far from seeing or even caring about stars. It did stumble across the room, but caught itself on a bed and launched itself back at Russell. In those few seconds, Russell pulled himself out of the bed and brought up the IV pole like a spear.

  Russell, his bad shoulder aching from all the exertion, yanked the pole back and brought it forward in concert with the zombie’s forward momentum. The impact sent waves of pain across Russell’s shoulder, but the pole worked a number on the zombie’s face, smashing into the bridge of its nose (or where the bridge use to be). It went down as if someone had a rope around its neck and had yanked it backward. It brought up a hand that wavered in the air, weakly clutching for Russell. Russell brought the pole down again, and this time it broke through the zombie’s skull, ending it.

  Russell panted, resting on the pole, impaled deeply in the thing’s head, when a question came to him like a waking nightmare. Where’s Paige?

  Brandon and I left Aaron with Sally Jeffers. She had a nasty bite wound on her shoulder, but she had escaped from Paige, for all the good it had done her. The bite wound was a death sentence, and she knew it, but maybe that was the point. She hadn’t survived to save herself, but she had escaped to warn us. None of this made what we were going to have to do to her any easier, but it was a question of first things first. We had to find Paige.

  Brandon opened the door to the stairwell, and we both clicked on our flashlights, sending beams cutting into the dark. The stairwell was empty, but long streaks of blood decorated the wall in a rather unattractive way. I guess zombies weren’t into interior design.

  We wanted to think we were safe inside the walls of the Manor. We had taken all the precautions, keeping guards on duty and placing alarm systems around the perimeter to warn us of any intrusions from the living or the dead. But none of this would protect us if we let the problem in the front door with open arms.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs creaked loudly when I pushed it open. This certainly must have sounded like a siren for any undead thing in the basement. While there was the dim ambient exterior light upstairs, the basement was as dark as a cave. We kept only a small amount of lighting turned on down there with the exception of the Doc’s infirmary.

  The infirmary sat to our right, and a long dark corridor led off to the left. I decided that we needed to check on Doc and Jason first, so we headed toward the infirmary. I moved along slowly, listening intently. Each little sound was the harbinger of doom.

  We turned a corner, and the light from inside the infirmary spilled into the hallway. A body laid sprawled in the hall. Even in the dim light, I could see blood pooling around it. A gun lay at its side.

  “Is that Phil?” Brandon asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Shit.”

  He moved up beside me, and we went down the hall, side-by-side. Something moaned in the dark just past the infirmary door. Something moaning in the dark was almost never a good thing, at least not in a world full of zombies. Before zombies inhabited our world, maybe it was different, if you know what I mean.

  We slowed, and Brandon brought his rifle up into a shooting position, and I gripped my pistol in both hands.

  Paige came out of the darkness, into a shallow pool of light just a few feet down from the infirmary door. I felt every muscle in my body stiffen as I came to a stop. Blood drenched her face, shoulders, and chest. It dripped off her fingers in large globs as she shambled along, leaving heavy splotches on the floor. She didn’t see us as she shuffled in uneven steps with her head down. Her jaws worked on chewing something, a tendril of it dangling out of the corner of her mouth. I didn’t want to think about what it was.

  Then, she saw us, and her moan changed in intensity as she started in our direction, wanting seconds. She would want third and forths, too, because zombies could never get enough. That was their way.

  My finger tensed on the trigger. I just about pulled the trigger when the infirmary door flew open, blocking both of us.

  Russell stepped into the hall, but our view of him was mostly obscured by the door. I could see that he was holding a pole of some kind.

  “Russell,” I shouted, “Shut the door; Paige is coming.”

  His head swivel our way slowly. He looked dazed, his motions exaggeratedly slow.

  “Wake the fuck up,” Brandon shouted. “She’s coming at you from the other way!”

  Again, he moved in slow motion, turning his head slowly back down the hall. The large window on the door acted like a picture frame, but the painter had worked up a truly terrible and gruesome scene. Something from my worst nightmare.

  The horrible tableau was that of a man watching the woman he loved turned into something horrible and deadly as she came toward him. He was unable to act for any number of reasons. Half dazed from whatever happened before, he came out the door, and he stood, frozen by shock and uncertainty. He couldn’t get his mind to wrap around this twisted turn of events. He couldn’t see past the reality of what this woman had become, only seeing what she had been. Whatever it was, it locked him in place, and he was unable to do anything but wait for his inevitable doom.

  That’s where I came in. Brandon’s aim was completely blocked by the door. His only choice was to shoot wildly, hoping not to hit Russell, but knowing that was probably impossible. Besides, the door would take the impact of most of his shots.

  My aim had never been that great. With a rifle, I’d made it to ‘good’ with great being a long way off. With a handgun, I’d rate as fair: a five on a scale of ten, maybe a six on my good days. It didn’t matter because I was the only hope for Russell.

  I leaned my body to the right, bracing myself against the far wall. I tried to remember all of the training drilled into me by Greg and Mike; their instructions coming from beyond the grave. ‘Breathe,’ Mike had always said. Stay calm and focused was Greg’s motto.

  I took a breath and exhaled. Paige was ten feet from Russell, who was frozen in place like a statue. All the tension flowed out of me, I focused on Paige’s forehead and nothing else. She was down to five feet and her blood-soaked hands were out in front of her, clutching the air, ready to tear into Russell. Then I said a single word of prayer, “Help” and pulled the trigger.

  The painting changed a split second later as Paige’s head exploded, sending chunks of her skull and brain matter back down the hall as her head snapped back and she collapsed.

  I took another breath a century later, letting the air come back into my lungs. Russell stood looking down at the ground, his back to me, but his body language told me everything I needed to know. His shoulders slumped as he staggered to a nearby wall and slid down it; putting his head in his hands, he started to weep. I felt for him. I felt for all of us.

  Brandon moved past me, his rifle still up. A door slammed open down the hall past Paige’s body, and Jo stepped into the hall, her rifle at the ready. Her hair looked on the wild side and her face was puffy from sleep.

&nbs
p; “What the hell happened?” she asked as she looked over the bodies in the hall and then to me.

  “Is Jason safe?” I asked as I came up to her.

  “Sure,” she said, “he’s inside.”

  “What about Doc Wilson?”

  A door on the other side of the hall opened, and Doc stuck his head out. He looked just as confused as Jo.

  “What’s going on out here?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story,” I said.

  Jason came out of the door, bewilderment and fear on his face. Jo moved down the hallway past me, her aim held on Paige’s body.

  I ducked into the infirmary and saw Devin’s body on the floor and a whole lot of blood. I didn’t want to see anymore and left to check on Jason.

  “You okay?” I asked when I got to him

  He nodded his head. He brought up his small dry erase board and wrote, “What happened?”

  I recapped the sad story for both him and Jo as best as I knew it. His face, already somber, seemed to fall more. He rallied a little and wrote something on the board, but worked to block anyone else from viewing. His writing said, “What we talked about. It’s going to happen soon.”

  Oh great, I thought. The hits just keep coming.

  I surveyed the scene once again. Doc Wilson tended to Russell, who seemed inconsolable, and Brandon barked orders into a walkie-talkie, asking for some back-up help.

  I gently ushered Jason inside his room and said, “I know.” I sensed he wanted to write more. “What is it?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure we’re safe here,” he wrote, and his face twisted as if he were in pain.

  “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  He held up a hand to interrupt me and wrote some more. “It’s something else, too. I get the feeling that I should leave.”

  “No, no,” I said, “you need to stay with us.”

  “I have a vision,” he wrote quickly and emphatically. “I see myself in a hospital.”

  “I’m not seeing that,” I said.

  He erased and wrote again, “You believe me, don’t you?”

  That was the hell of it, I did. I nodded my head but said, “We’ll keep you safe.”

  He erased and wrote again, “You may not be able to.”

  “We’ll do our damndest then,” I said. “Please trust me.”

  “I do,” he wrote and then withdrew the board and wrote, “But.”

  I didn’t know how to answer. There were no promises that were ironclad anymore. No guarantees.

  “All I know is that we’ll do our best.”

  The long and the short of it was that we had just lost three of our people, and we had no idea how. On top of it was the fact that Sally Jeffers was now infected and would have to be dealt with.

  That couldn’t instill Jason with a lot of confidence. Paige had taken out Phil and infected Devin. It was a small miracle that Russell had been able to defend himself against Devin’s attack, and we were grateful for that. Still, the incident sent a ripple of panic and outrage through our little community. We thought we were safe, but now all bets were off, and nothing was more unsettling than that.

  Brandon went over it again in his head; he never saw Paige get scratched or bitten. On the trip back to the Manor, he grilled her on what had happened, and she said they had barely made it to town when the truck was disabled. They were attacked, but she had gotten by the zombies, and that’s why he didn’t follow the protocols.

  To make matters worse, we had one victim of the attack who was still alive, but infected. Sally knew that there was no hope and probably accepted that, but that didn’t make it any easier. That it happened on my watch didn’t work in my favor, either. The wolves were circling and smelling the blood.

  “How did this happen?” Brother Ed shouted while holding his arms in the air for dramatic effect.

  It seemed that few in our group were tired of these impromptu emergency gatherings as they filled the dining area. Most of the people stood, but a few sat, their expressions a mix of concern and fear. Maybe they were bored. Maybe they didn’t have anything better to do. Surviving the zombie apocalypse was a lot like how some soldiers described their experience at war -- long moments of tedium and boredom broken up with savage moments of stark terror. I felt like that summed it up.

  “It happened because we became lax,” Brother Ed said.

  His face pinched and red, Brandon stood up and said, “She was not bitten.”

  “Then how did she turn?” Brother Ed challenged.

  A murmur went through the crowd.

  “You weren’t there,” Brandon said. “While we had an encounter with the undead, she was not bitten. She said she didn’t even get close to the zombies until after we arrived.”

  “Maybe she lied,” Mrs. Hatcher said from the crowd.

  “She didn’t lie!” Russell stood and yelled.

  Mrs. Hatcher shrank back in her seat, feeling the heat of Russell’s outburst.

  “Russell, calm down,” I said, “we’ll get this sorted out.”

  “What if the virus has gone airborne?” Steve Hampton asked.

  If people unsettled before, they now teetered toward outright panic.

  “Hey, don’t go there,” I said. “We don’t know anything yet.”

  “What do you know?” he asked, not hiding the direct challenge of his question.

  Doc Wilson weighed in, “Listen, there is no reason to think the virus has gone airborne. Even considering that is wildly speculative and has no scientific basis. Going there does nothing but cause baseless fear.” He stopped and held Steve Hampton in his gaze until Hampton looked away. “I’m going to exam the girl’s body and do an autopsy today. As soon as I know anything, I will let all of you know.”

  An older lady with glasses put her hand up. I acknowledged her with a nod of my head.

  “What are you going to do with Sally?” Her voice quavered when she spoke, and her eyes were rimmed with tears. “She’s my friend.”

  It was as if someone had sucked the air out of the room. Any anger and any political agendas went out the door. While life hadn’t been easy at the Manor, many there hadn’t faced death head-on in quite a while. Yes, zombies wandered onto the compound somewhat regularly, but our system of safeguards worked so well that maybe we had become complacent. Only a small percentage of the residents ever went out on foraging missions, so they didn’t face the dangers face-to-face. Maybe they had fooled themselves into thinking they were immune to death.

  To be truthful, I hated taking away that sense of security, but getting too complacent could be very dangerous. Death had come back into our walls, and it rocked many of them, me included.

  “We’re...we’re assessing Sally now,” Doc said.

  “But she…she’s been bitten,” the woman said, and I could see her working her way around the weight of what she had just said, almost as if she were walking into a room full of venomous snakes in the dark.

  “Can’t you give her the transfusions like you did with Hub?” the woman asked.

  “That is not a viable long-term solution,” Doc said. “I’ve explored some options, but I simply do not have the equipment or the experience to say I’m anywhere near with coming up with something that works permanently.” He looked down at his hands and kept his attention there.

  The room was quiet for several seconds, and I felt all the focus come back to me, so I dug deep, trying to think what Greg would say at a time like this. A part of me knew what he would say: the hard thing, but he’d do it with compassion and understanding. The more I thought about what he would say, the more I felt unfit to walk in his shoes, but there I was.

  I cleared my throat and spoke, “We’ve discussed this, and we’re going to leave it up to Sally.”

  “But what if she wants to stay with us?” Steve Hampton said.

  Yeah, leave it to Steve Hampton to be so bluntly crass.

  “Sally knows the rules,” I said, “she has some choices, and none of them are good
, but we’ll let her make them.”

  Chapter 14

  The Devil’s Choice

  She didn’t look good. Even though Doc Wilson had treated her, the spider web of black veins were spreading out from underneath the bandages and up her neck. Her face was flushed with fever, and sweat dotted her forehead and upper lip.

  “It’s nice out here today,” Sally said as she looked across the gentle slope of the rolling hills just beyond the golf course behind the Manor. White fluffy clouds floated above us, and birds sang their happy little songs in stark contrast to the mood of our little group.

  She wrapped her arms tightly across her chest as if she were cold. A breeze blew the scent of freshly bloomed flowers our way. In any other circumstances, I could call it a beautiful day, but there was nothing beautiful about what we were going to have to do.

  Not one of us wanted to be there. Not even Brandon. Brother Ed, despite all his bluster, was uncharacteristically quiet. Kara’s eyes were red, but she held back the tears. Travis didn’t look much better. I could tell he was barely holding it together.

  Doc stayed back at the Manor because he knew whatever we came up with would not be anywhere in the vicinity of “First, do no harm.” Plus he wanted to look over Paige’s body one more time. His first pass had uncovered a small wound on the back of her leg. After inspecting that, he had discovered a small pellet. What he found when he put it under closer inspection was that the pellet had tiny holes in it. His best theory was that there had been some sort of foreign substance inside the pellet and his best guess was that it had been filled with the zombie virus. That sent chills up all our spines. Some sick bastard was incredibly inventive and incredibly evil. Still, he was out there.

  I didn’t know Sally well, but what little I did know of her, I liked. She had come to the Manor a few months ago with a couple of other survivors. Despite being half-starved, she had pitched in immediately anywhere she could and had become a regular face at the Manor, always helpful and never complaining. We needed more like her, but we took what we could get.