Bitten

by Tristan Vick

  Flicking off the radio, Barnes sighed and looked back out across the cityscape and watched the small specks carefully scaling the ledge of the building.

  “What’s up?” asked Noble.

  “The old man wants us to head back in. But before we pack up and go, I’m thinking we ought to save a couple of halfwits.”

  “Ah man,” Noble complained. “Do we have to risk our necks to save a couple of civilian numbskulls?”

  Barnes slung his rifle over his shoulder and punched Noble in the arm. “If not us, then who else?”

  “Alright, fine, goddamn Captain America. Have it your fucking way.”

  Barnes smiled and headed over the building’s edge and down the emergency latter. Sergeant Ulysses Noble reluctantly packed up his gear and followed suit.

  Barnes and Noble slowly made their way toward the high-rise buildings in the corporate district. About a block ahead of their position a small boy ran into view. Turning toward them with a crimson stained chin he snarled and bared his blood soaked teeth. Barnes immediately raised his rifle and flipped on the scope. But before he could pull the trigger the monster child lumbered off at a brisk pace and disappeared out of view.

  Ulysses Noble turned to his partner with a shocked look and said, “That always freaks me out.”

  “What? The eyes?”

  “No. The fact that the little ones are faster than the adults. It’s just creepy.”

  “Just avoid schools, playgrounds, and Chuck E Cheese and you’ll do just fine,” Barnes said.

  Noble gulped hard. He hadn’t actually stopped to consider the sheer horror of it. Even the children weren’t safe. He gave Barnes a nod in the affirmative.

  Barnes looked at Noble with a somber look that expressed the full gravity of the situation. This wasn’t anything to joke about. Barnes flung his rifle back over his shoulder and continued onward.

  Balancing on a razor’s edge forty-eight stories up, Jennifer Hurley scaled her way to the corner ledge of Newcastle City Bank. Jesse Zanato fearfully treaded behind her.

  “Shit,” Jennifer said in a low voice.

  “What now?!” cried Zanato, trying not to let the fear of heights get to him.

  “It’s just that I hadn’t thought this all the way through,” she stated.

  “What do you mean? I thought you had a plan.”

  “I did have a plan,” informed Jennifer. “I was going to lead you to the window washer’s bench I saw earlier and save your sorry ass.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  She raised her finger and pointed at the floor above them.

  “The problem is, the bench is on the forty-ninth floor, the floor we were on, and this floor is…” she paused momentarily and then disappointedly added, “the forty-eighth.”

  “What?” Zanato asked, less than amused.

  “In all the chaos and excitement I must have gotten what floor we were on mixed up.”

  “You think?!”

  Jennifer frowned, feeling embarrassed for having made such a stupid mistake. Now they were stuck out on the ledge of the building, their lives literally on the line. “We have to go back. It’s our only option.”

  “Uh… I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Zanato said looking over his shoulder in time to witness the zombie mob break through their barricade and stumble into the meeting room they had just exited from.

  “Great! Just fucking perfect!” Jennifer shouted.

  “We’re gonna die out here, no thanks to you.”

  Jennifer shot Zanato a sharp look that said don’t push her, and then scooted herself back to the corner of the building.

  “Wait… where are you going?”

  “Well, we can’t go back that way, so I’m going to look around for an open window or something.”

  “Great … or something,” Zanato said, nervously glancing down at the distant pavement below. The cars were so far away that they looked like little toy cars.

  Rolling her eyes, Jennifer was already beating herself up over the fact that she allowed herself to be had by such a whiny, little coward. What she mistook for a young strapping man was really an immature boy.

  After getting to know his personality, he was a real playboy. Zanato seemed just the type to waste his youth laying around in wait for some post menopause grandma who wanted to stick it to her old dried up raisin of an ex-husband. But Jennifer desired something more. She had needs. She craved the raw, aggressive, take charge kind of man—someone who could pin her against the wall, put his hands around her neck, and ravage her until she gushed like Niagara Falls. Sadly, it wasn’t Jesse Zanato. He had turned out to be a lame duck.

  Suddenly, the large glass window in-between the two of them burst and a deadhead flew over the ledge and plummeted down to its gut-splattering demise.

  “Holy fuck!’ Zanato shouted in fright.

  Scrambling to get out of the reach of the other zombies which reached through jagged shards of glass to grab them, they edged away from the flailing pale limbs that reached out from the broken window.

  Jennifer couldn’t help but roll her eyes so hard she felt as though they might tear out of her eye sockets as Zanato’s soprano melody of terror-filled shrieking echoed off the glass walls of the surrounding buildings. Looking back, Jennifer bit her lip, and seriously considered leaving the screeching coward behind.

  The situation was rather hopeless. Zanato couldn’t go back the way he came no more than he could get past this new obstacle. But, still, Jennifer felt she owed him one. He did save her life in the stairwell, after all. Reaching out her hand, she said, “You’re going to have to jump.”

  Zanato eyed her with a look which said you’ve got to be kidding me.

  “Do you want me to leave you here?” screamed Jennifer.

  “Fuck!” Zanato barked, his voice full of desperation. He looked at her like he wasn’t going to make it. As if he’d thrown in the towel.

  “Just hold on,” Jennifer shouted above the moaning. “I’ll bring back help.”

  But they both knew it was an empty promise. Those monsters would reach him long before she’d ever get back.

  Putting his back against the wall he took a deep breath and then looked fearlessly down as the expanse of streets below. Cars dotted the road like tiny insects. Sliding his front foot forward, he made up his mind. He would jump. Better to take his own life, he thought, than endure the horrific pain of having his body tore open and his flesh and muscle peeled from his bones while he was still breathing.

  Jared Barnes and Ulysses Noble stood staring at the small crater left by the suicide jumper. Barnes looked up at the building stretching upward into the sky. Suddenly, moaning came out from the newly fashioned pothole. Both men jumped in fright as their eyes panned back toward the body lying in the street and watched in dismay as it tried to get back up.

  “Holy fucking George A. Romero!” Noble shouted. “It’s getting up.” Barnes and Noble looked at each other, as they had done a thousand times before, and quickly played a round of “Rock, Scissors, Paper.” Noble got paper which beat out Barnes’ rock. Noble sighed with relief.

  Barnes pulled out his hand gun, fired two rounds through the monster’s head, and slipped the gun back into its holster.

  Zanato shook as he whipped his head back and forth looking at the zombies pushing their way out onto the ledge. A couple more fell over, but one managed to get its footing on the ledge outside of the same window they had escaped from. “Oh, you acrobatic fucker,” Zanato growled.

  “Give me your hand,” shouted Jennifer.

  “What?!” Zanato screamed.

  Reaching out toward Zanato with even more urgency, Jennifer shouted, “Give me your hand and I’ll swing you across to my side.”

  Looking at the tangle of arms reaching out of the window grasping for anything which they could cling to, like the flailing tentacles of a menacing giant squid, and looking down toward the dizzying plummet which awaited his slightest misstep, Zanato considered the odd
s. “No, thanks Spiderwoman, I think I’ll pass.”

  “You wanna die up here?”

  Zanato pulled his hair and screamed. “Fuck this shit!”

  Just then several gun shots rang out and several more zombies flew out of the window and fell to their gut splattering deaths.

  “Who the hell is shooting at us?” Zanato screamed pathetically.

  “They’re not shooting at us, genius. They’re shooting at the Walkers.”

  Searching the skyline, Jennifer noticed a U.S. Marine perched on the rooftop directly across from them.

  “Over there!” she exclaimed, pointing in the gunman’s direction. Zanato looked out across the divide and spotted the marine.

  “It’s the Marines! Thank God! The Marines are here!”

  From inside the building they heard several more shots. The zombies which were grasping for them now were all slumped into a massive dead heap, half of them hanging out of the window. They looked like ragdolls hanging out of a child’s toy box.

  Just then a tall, dark, and handsome marine appeared in the window and put his hand out for Jennifer to take. “I’m Sergeant Ulysses Noble, and I’m here to rescue you.”

  Taking his hand, Jennifer smiled graciously, and said, “My hero.” As their eyes met Jennifer felt some definite sparks fly. “I’m Jennifer, and…” as he scooped her into his strong arms, she added, “I’m all yours.”

  As they walked toward the stairwell, a voice called out, “Hey, what about me?”

  Noble stopped and looked back at the window with the man clamoring over the pile of dead zombies.

  “Well, don’t diddle-doddle,” Noble said with the urgency of a combat veteran. “This ain’t fucking recess, son.”

  Jennifer couldn’t help but laugh at that last part. It was all too accurate of a description of Jesse Zanato—the boy wonder—a wonder why she had put up with him for this long. But Zanato was yesterday’s news. She had other cravings.

  Jennifer licked her lips, hungrily, and gave Noble her most alluring look. Raising his left eyebrow, he smiled back at her, letting her know that he caught her message loud and clear.

  General Thompson Greer leaned back in his office chair and checked his watch. He didn’t like it when he lost contact with a team.

  “Dammit! Where are those boys?”

  General Greer’s hair had gone white long ago due to the stress of the job. Although he was pushing fifty-eight, he still had the physique of a rugged soldier who had seen his fair share of combat. Not only did he look like a hard-edged Cary Grant, he looked good in army green to boot.

  A small scar above his right eyebrow marked where some shrapnel had grazed him the time he nearly got taken out by a fanatic suicide bomber who set himself off in the middle of a Bagdad market place. Thirty casualties that god-forsaken day. A lot of bloody nightmares of women and children with missing limbs roaming the streets like ghosts for months afterward too. It wasn’t his best day, that was for goddamn sure.

  Major Valentine strode over to the general’s desk and saluted. General Greer responded in kind. She could tell he had a lot on his mind. Starring at him with her light green eyes, which complimented her military uniform, she waited for him to say something.

  “Sniper team sixteen sighted survivors and decided to take a detour before proceeding to base, sir.” As she updated the General, Corporal Anderson brought over some coffee.

  “Well they better goddamn hurry it up. It’s already getting dark and we’re going to have to activate the quarantine barrier in T-minus fifteen. As of twenty-one hundred hours Newcastle City will be officially sealed off.”

  Corporal Anderson placed the general’s mug down on the table and began pouring. As he did his eyes drifted to the major’s ample chest. Undressing her with his eyes, Anderson became distracted and spilled the coffee all over the general’s desk.

  Gritting his teeth and flexing his jaw, General Greer turned toward his officer and snarled, “Goddammit Anderson!”

  Valentine almost smiled but kept herself in check. She knew the general didn’t tolerate slip-ups. For him they were a sign of poor discipline and carelessness. Two things which could get you or your unit killed on the battlefield.

  “Sorry, sir,” Anderson stammered. “I was … it was … er … I mean … I’ll have this cleaned up in no time.”

  Greer sat back down and rolled back in his seat with a huff and turned to Major Valentine. “Tell the guards at the south gate to remain vigilant. I want those boys back safe and sound before we lock her down. Also, get me a progress update on the evacuation of the remaining officials of Newcastle City.”

  The major promptly saluted and then turned on her heels and left the control room.

  Greer leaned back in his chair and pulled out a cigar from the inside of his uniform’s breast pocket and lit it up. Puffing on it, he watched as the smoke formed rings which wafted away and then dissipate almost as quickly as they were fashioned.

  The damned contagion had decimated the city population almost overnight. There wasn’t any way to prepare for such a thing. You could only deal with it once it arrived. Whoever survived the initial outbreak was being evacuated from the city. Of course screening continued as usual, and hopefully he’d make sure every one of the uninfected had a chance to get out before he went in to sterilize the whole goddamn city. Deep down in his gut, however, he felt the worst was yet to come.

  Valentine made her way out of the barracks and headed toward the main gates which overlooked the city. The base was set up as a semi-permanent cantonment. Inside the perimeter the base was lit up with halogen lights. At the main entrance there were two guard towers with spotlights and armed soldiers.

  Funneling the survivors through the entrance ensured that anybody coming through would be properly inspected for signs of infection. If they cleared the initial inspection, they would be guided inside to a special room for a chemical shower and sterilization.

  Personally, Valentine didn’t like the idea of quarantine check points and sterilization camps. It seemed too eerily similar to America’s dark flirtation with eugenics and the sterilization camps of the quack American scientist Charles Davenport. Indeed, it was this very American idea of cleansing the “defective,” fueled by Davenport’s deep seeded racism, which would go on to influence Adolf Hitler’s Holocaust and give rise to Auschwitz.

  She couldn’t help but feel it was wrong to simply put down the infected. They weren’t defective, per se. They were sick. But maybe in times of crisis the line of demarcation between the two became blurred. Whether it was a terrorist or a virus the first rule of survival always stayed the same: kill or be killed.

  7

  Almost Road Kill

  Standing on the side of the road, Alyssa stared up at the body of an elderly woman high up on the telephone pole clinging to it for dear life. Seeing the poor old woman stuck up on her perch, sitting listless with eyes wide open, and stricken with fear deeply unnerved Alyssa. Obviously she had climbed up there to get away from the Walkers only to have died of the cold, dehydration, or sheer terror. Alyssa bet it was probably the cruel combination of all three that did the poor woman in.

  “What is the world coming to?” Alyssa asked herself, speaking out loud. Looking down at her leg she checked the gauze bandages. Everything appeared fine. Her stitches were holding, at least for now. She decided to press on.

  Looking back down the road, the way she had come, she saw the shambling horde of Walkers slowly stalking her. Lucky for her, they didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Some of them were walking aimlessly about, bumping into other Walkers. Another one wandered off in the wrong direction entirely. If they weren’t so horrifyingly blood thirsty, she thought, their fumbling, shambling, lack of intelligence was rather quite amusing. But there was nothing funny about them.

  Alyssa had made her new friends when she had mistakenly come over a hill in a nearby meadow, and like a herd of grazing cattle, there they were. Alyssa considered taking them out on the spot
but she was low on bullets.

  So instead of wasting what remained of her precious ammunition, she slowly backed away and just kept hobbling along the road. Apparently several of them had spotted her, however, and now a couple dozen or so were pursuing her. As long as she kept her distance she figured it was no big deal.

  Upon getting to the zenith, she looked out across an expanse of nearly fifty or sixty mindless roving heads. She hadn’t anticipated a second horde just over this hill. At least not so close.

  “Shit!” Alyssa cursed, keeping her voice to a whisper. She was caught between two groups of Walkers prowling for their prey. For fresh meat.

  Quickly, Alyssa ducked down to make herself less noticeable, picked up her rifle and began loading shells into its chamber. She was outnumbered nearly ninety to one with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Her streak of luck had finally run dry.

  Crouching there, out in the open, she turned her head up and looked at the wretched corpse of the old woman stuck up on the telephone pole. “I take it you ran into a similar situation?” As the surrounding hordes’ footsteps encroached upon her, Alyssa cocked the rifle, and said, “Here we go again.”

  It had taken Rachael Ramirez nearly all morning just to dress herself. She was too in shock to act like the day was like any other. It wasn’t.

  Finally getting her stuff together she set out to look for her son. Getting into her Audi, parked on the side of the street, she started down the road. It was strangely deserted. It was like a mid-afternoon lull at the peak of evening rush hour, but still, not a car in sight.

  As she drove along she occasionally ran across an abandoned vehicle, but the real trouble weighing on her mind was how so many people could simply disappear in less than forty-eight hours. Where did they all go?

  With her mind on her son, Rachael drove out of town toward his private school. Deep down inside she realized he wouldn’t be there, but perhaps she could find some survivors.