by Tristan Vick
Stepping softly down the hall, Jamal Treslan lovingly carried his sleeping daughter back to his room. As he took her past the other rooms, he could hear the sound of whispers murmuring about the miracle woman who had cured Treslan’s precious daughter. Reaching his room, lit by soft candlelight, he gently laid Dahlia onto his bed, pulled a flower embroidered blanket over her, and tucked her in.
Brushing her hair out of her face, Treslan smiled, then got up and went over to his desk and flicked on a small kerosene desk lamp. The lamp illuminated the room with a doped glow that soothed. Taking out a notepad, Treslan began jotting down theories about Rachael Ramirez’s blood, her rare immunity to the virus, and several ideas on how to implement it in processing a cure. It was the first time since the outbreak that he felt like a real doctor again and not just a mad scientist—or a father barely hanging onto his sanity. As he wrote, his head bobbed with the weight of sleep and soon enough he gently nodded off.
The clock struck midnight and chimed. Arousing from his slumber, Treslan lifted his head from his desk, which revealed a small puddle of saliva where the corner of his mouth had been, and sat up. Groggy, he wiped the sleep from his eyes and the drool from his mouth with the back of his sleeve. Treslan turned to look at his sleeping baby girl, but upon finding nothing but an empty bed, he jumped up in a dreadful panic. Dahlia, his precious Dahlia, was gone.
Noticing the door had been left open just a crack, he figured she must have wondered out to fetch a glass of water or find the bathroom. But why hadn’t she woken him up? She always used to wake him up for that sort of thing. A deep seeded anxiety overcame him. Jumping up, he grabbed a flashlight and went out into the hall to search for his missing daughter.
Alyssa gently shook Rachael awake, in bed, beside her. She whispered, “You have to wake up.”
“What is it?” Rachael asked, still half asleep.
“We have to get out of this place. It’s not safe for us here.”
Rachael sat up in bed and yawned. “What are you talking about?”
“Treslan is out of his mind. He is farming people’s blood against their will. This place is a prison.”
“Treslan?” Rachael said in disbelief. “Treslan saved my life.”
“Did he take your blood?”
“Well, yeah. But it wasn’t anything deceitful. I offered it to him.”
“Why would you do that?”
“To help find a cure his daughter.”
“His daughter is a monster!”
“No, not anymore.”
“What do you mean, not anymore?”
“Believe it or not, it actually worked. My blood cured her. The little girl, she’s well again.”
Alyssa chewed on the information. “I understand you’re immune to the virus and all, but that just doesn’t make medical sense. Are you certain it healed her?”
“Yes, she actually recognized her father. She even spoke to him. You should have seen how happy he was.”
Alyssa hopped out of bed, still in her day clothes, and went over to a dresser. She opened it and pulled out her purple diary and tucked it into her back pocket, then drew out a sleek, skintight one-piece Ponte dress and handed it to Rachael. It was white with thick black stripes down the sides.
“Here, put this on,” she said. “I know it’s not ideal, but it’s the only other thing they gave me. You’re slightly larger than I am, so it might be a little tight on you, but it stretches.”
Without hesitating Rachael threw off her hideous tutu and blood encrusted sash and changed right in front of Alyssa’s eyes. Alyssa could tell she was relieved to get out of that crazed Black Swan get up. Or whatever it was supposed to be. She also tossed Rachael a jewel-neck white and yellow biker jacket.
Rachael tucked her breasts into the open top of the one-piece and pulled it snug and made sure everything was securely in its rightful place. Alyssa was right. It was a little on the tight side. Her cleavage bulged out of the top of the dress with a prominent bulge, although she’d take anything she could get over that god awful Dark Angel outfit.
Alyssa handed Rachael a pair of black knee high boots.
“One of the ladies down the hall thought they would fit you. I hope they’re your size.”
Rachael inspected them and nodded in approval. She slipped them on discretely and whispered, “These will do.”
Motioning with her hand for Rachael to follow her, Alyssa stepped quietly into the hall. Out of the large windows she saw the deep purple sky fading up to a navy blue and white spackled starry evening. The sun would be up any minute now. They had to hurry if they were going to slip out in the cover of darkness.
Alyssa couldn’t believe they had made it all the way to the main lobby without being detected. No guard detail, nothing. A little unusual, but Alyssa wasn’t complaining. She only hoped their streak of good luck would continue. As they approached the front doors they suddenly heard a man’s voice come from behind them.
“Have you seen my Dahlia?”
Both women spun around to see Jamal Treslan standing slumped over in the hall. He looked like a sad wreck of a man.
“Your daughter? I thought she was with you,” Rachael said.
Treslan reached behind his back and pulled out a gun. It was a two-tone SIG Sauer Mosquito. “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, Miss Ramirez. Not now. We have to find my daughter first. She needs another treatment.”
Alyssa tugged on Rachael’s arm. “Don’t try and reason with him, he’ll just take what he wants and keep you a prisoner here. Trust me.”
Rachael leaned over and whispered in Alyssa’s ear, “I trust you.”
“Mrs. Ramirez,” Treslan called out in the fullness of voice. “I promised you I would help you find your son. We can cure him together! All you have to do is lend me your trust in return.”
Stepping out of the dark shadows behind Treslan crept black-eyed Dahlia. She had reverted back to a zombie.
“Oh lord!” Alyssa cried out, covering her mouth with her hands to muffle her scream.
Treslan spun around to see his daughter staring up at him with that haunting black-eyed gaze looking up at him. She cocked her head to the side, like a small curious animal would, and growled softly. Treslan dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face.
“There you are, baby. Don’t you fear a thing. Daddy is here. Daddy will take care of you.”
Dahlia staggered up to her father. He dropped his gun to the cold hard floor and held out his arms to embrace his daughter. “Yes, come to me, my Dahlia. Daddy is here.”
She sprung into his embrace and sank her teeth into his neck. He smiled as she tore into his flesh. A fitting end for the father of a monster, he thought. The father who had become a monster long before he had lost his humanity. “If we can’t be together in this life, then I will join you in the nightmare world.”
Rachael took a step forward, as if to raise her voice in protest, but Alyssa’s hand was instantly around her elbow.
“No, leave him be. It’s too late now.”
“Still, we need that gun.” Rachael slowly made her way toward the bloodbath. Jamal Treslan sat on his knees and let his daughter Dahlia gorger herself on his flesh. Cautiously, Rachael bent down and snatched up the weapon before the expanding lake of blood could engulf it, and shuffled back as quickly as possible. Then she raised the gun and aimed it at the small black-eyed girl chewing up Treslan’s jugular.
“No,” Alyssa whispered. “You’ll wake the guards.”
Rachael lowered the gun and watched with sad eyes, all her hopes squashed. Her blood was not a miracle cure after all. It was only temporary. This meant her son was lost to her. Forever.
Together, they ran out of St. Martin’s Hospital as fast as their legs would carry them. The sun peeked over the horizon and lit up the sky with the bright pink of dawn. Several blocks later they slowed to a jog and then stopped to look at the bags of blood hanging from the trees and lamp poles, upon fences, and stapled to the walls of buildi
ngs.
“So this is how they kept the Walkers at bay.” Alyssa mused.
“Like ants following a trail of crumbs,” Rachael added.
“Over there!” Alyssa cried out.
Spinning around, they looked at the shadowy figure hunched over in the middle of the street. It was a small boy, crouched over and feasting on one of the blood bags he managed to tear down from a low hanging branch.
“I don’t believe it,” gasped Rachael. Her voice cracked, tearing with emotion as she spoke. Alyssa looked over at the small creature with white eyes.
“Is that—”
“Yes,” Rachael blurted out in disbelief. “That’s my son, Hector.”
26
Family Reunion
HECTOR NOT REMEMBER THINGS. HECTOR only remember how hungry he is. Hector look for meat. Meat filling. Hector want to eat meat. Eat meat, Hector. Eat, eat, eat!
“How can that be him?” Alyssa asked as Rachael fell onto her knees in dismay. Alyssa didn’t know what it was, but after everything they had gone through, the entire moment, this family reunion, felt hollow and empty. It was like a dream within a dream. None of it seemed real.
“Yeah, that’s definitely him. That is, was, my Hector.”
“What do you want to do?” Alyssa asked.
Rachael, with dry red eyes which lacked the tears to cry, stood up and pulled out the gun she had taken off Treslan. As she approached Hector he stood looking aimlessly at the sky, but he wasn’t oblivious to her presence, since he was busy sniffing the air.
Hector smell fresh meat. Hector smell blood!
Rachael raised the gun and pointed it at what used to be her son.
Hector’s head snapped to the side and his white eyes locked right onto her. Hector hungry. Hector want meat! Hector eat you! “Grahrrr!”
Holding the gun steady, she aimed it right at Hector’s head. He let out a hiss and abruptly jolted forward. Unable to feel, unable to cry a single damn tear, Rachael did the only other thing she could do. She pulled the trigger.
Standing above the body with her eyelids clenched tightly shut, Rachael told herself was better she did it than someone else. It was certainly better than suffering to live out such a miserable existence. Deep down, Rachael new she couldn’t have protected him against any of this, which tore her apart inside. But at least she could put him out of his misery.
Alyssa looked down at the fallen body of the small lifeless boy and winced. She didn’t envy Rachael, not even for a minute. It couldn’t have been easy to do what she did. Treslan couldn't bring himself to harm his beloved Dahlia, even after she had reverted back into a monster, and it proved to be his ruin. Rachael was stronger, but even so, Alyssa knew that this was killing her inside. Reaching out, Alyssa reached over to console Rachael.
“Let’s get a move on,” Rachael prompted, before Alyssa could say anything. Then she handed Treslan’s gun to her. “Here, you’ll need this more than I will.”
Alyssa waited back for a moment then reluctantly took the gun. She didn’t like guns. But they had become a necessary evil, to say the least. She tucked it into the back of her pants waist and followed after Rachael.
Walking up the desolate city streets they passed a litany of abandoned cars and shops—most of them looted by scavengers. A newspaper wafted down the street like a lonesome tumbleweed drifting by in an old Western. Alyssa bent down and picked up the paper. It was a week old. The headline read, “The Dead Walk!”
“No shit,” she muttered, then ditched the paper. It wasn’t like she was expecting there to be good news or anything. Continuing along, Alyssa scanned every street corner with suspicion. Rachael didn’t seem to be concerned whether or not hidden dangers lurked in the shadows cast by tall buildings or what things might crawl up out of the subway tunnels. Alyssa couldn’t tell if Rachael was brave or had just given up all hope.
From behind a nearby car a female zombie jumped out at Alyssa and hissed. Alyssa tripped over her own feet as she scrambled back. Landing on her ass, she frantically back-pedaled as the Walker bore down upon her. But before she could get to her gun, however, a shot rang out and the Walker fell dead at her feet.
Rachael stood in front of an open police cruiser holding a recently acquired shotgun in her hands. She pumped it once and the gun spat out the spent shell and automatically reloaded the next round.
Alyssa sighed with relief, but then noticed Rachael’s knuckles were bleeding. Not just that, but the skin had peeled all the way off the knuckles revealing cartilage and bone. “What happened to your hands?”
“It was locked. I had to get the gun out somehow.”
Before Alyssa’s very eyes, Rachael’s hands mended themselves.
“Wow,” she murmured.
“Doctor Hemingway spoke of an Air Force base on the outskirts of the city.”
“Yeah, I know it,” Alyssa replied. “Bradley’s Air Force base. It should only be another couple of miles east from here. But I have a feeling we are going to have to pick up the pace if we’re going to get there before dark.”
Rachael put her finger to her lips and quietly whispered, “Listen.”
Alyssa cupped her palm around her ear and strained to hear whatever it was Rachael had heard. Sure enough, every ounce of shade that surrounded them began to murmur with hunger pains—the sounds of moaning. All around them, stepping out from the shadows, emerged the hungry horde of the undead.
Jogging up the road, they quickly found their stride. Running in a continuous “S” pattern, they moved toward the left of the street and zigzagging back to the right as they went. This strategy seemed to confuse the Walkers as to which direction they were headed. If they kept their pace, then the Walkers wouldn’t have time to convene on any one location. Avoiding getting overrun was key. A densely packed group of undead pinning you against a wall would almost certainly spell your imminent demise. So they ran. They ran until their lungs burned, and then they ran some more.
27
Death Camp
Bradley’s Air Force base was deathly silent. It had been overrun on the third day of the outbreak. To General Greer it looked like a ghost town with its empty fighter jets all lined up waiting on the runway. Empty tanks littered the compound where a last stand was made. Shells of spent ammunition littered the ground all throughout the base creating a thin veil of copper bullet casings that shimmered in the light of a setting sun.
Wide-ranging carnage prevailed as the entire grounds of the base was spread over with the bodies of dead soldiers and the remains of the undead. Small lakes of blood coagulated around the clusters where numerous men fell. The bloodshed was thick as was the coppery smell of the crimson puddles coagulating in the afternoon sun.
Greer pulled out a white handkerchief and wiped his glistening forehead. Looking up at the flight tower, he thought it was strange that there wasn’t a single black winged scavenger in sight to feed on the field of carcasses.
General Greer turned and went up the side stairs of the flight tower. Reaching the top, he stepped into the control room and grinned. He was glad to see the satellite link was still operational. He picked up the portable satellite transceiver and picked up the black suitcase sized device and made the long trek back down the stairs. Once back on the ground, Greer went over to his Komatsu LAV, opened the back hatch, and slid the transceiver inside.
The Komatsu was a sleek looking armored vehicle used specifically by the Japanese Self Defense Force. Only a handful of them ever made it to U.S. soil, but he had won it in a high stakes game of Texas Hold Em’ with some high-ups in the Japanese chain of command. They were all pride and no skill. But in order to save face they “loaned” him the vehicle as a gesture of good faith between the two allied forces.
Although Greer had originally gone to Japan for some official business of wining and dining the top brass, in his down time he was no stranger to the red-light districts of Osaka and Tokyo. Greer was fond of schmoozing and canoodling the wonderfully beguiling Asian women. Thei
r exotic olive skin, elegant almond shaped eyes, and highly reserved and sophisticated etiquette, especially the sort he found in Japan. Every furlough he got, Greer made his way to Japan. He came for the “health” spas, which was the official way of saying, “Mrs. Warren’s Asian profession.”
Wiping the sweat off the back of his neck, Greer tucked the handkerchief into his back pocket and then slammed the LAV’s door shut. He was a little out of breath from having hauled that goddamn contraption down five flights of stairs. Still hot, he stripped down to just a white t-shirt and his army-green cargo pants to keep cool. From behind him, he heard footsteps approaching and he discretely reached for his gun. Sliding his finger around the trigger, he spun around only to see a troupe of people headed his way.
Taking his hand off of his gun, he smiled in recognition of the ragtag group. It was Barnes and Noble along with the two civilians they had rescued from earlier that week. As the group sauntered up to him, he greeted them. “Well ain’t you boys a sight for sore eyes.”
Barnes smiled and saluted. Noble followed his lead and did the same. The general saluted them back then took Barnes’ hand and shook it heartily. “Have you heard anything from Major Valentine? She never made it to the rendezvous point as planned. I was hoping she’d be with you two.”
Barnes face grew stiff as he tried to fight back the flood of emotions that sprung up the moment her name was mentioned. The general immediately knew by the reaction on Barnes’ face what the answer was. “No, sir. I’m afraid the Major didn’t make it.”
“Oh, I see,” Greer replied, his tone growing grave. “She was a damn fine soldier.”
“She was a damn fine woman, sir.”
Greer simply nodded in agreement. There simply wasn’t anything else to say.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” Jesse Zanato interrupted, “but what the fuck happened here?”
Everyone took a moment to eye their surroundings and scope out the amount of devastation that was wrought by the battle with the living dead. It looked like a jumbo jet exploded two hundred meters above the base and just rained corpses and random body parts everywhere.
