Zombies! (Episode 8): The Good, the Bad, and the Zombie

by Turner, Ivan

  All clear.

  Lefferts and Chopra were again assigned guard duty. He wanted them watching that downward staircase. There would be nothing left to chance. With the rest of his squad, he proceeded up the stairs, again taking the lead. Each flight went up eight steps and then turned a corner. Another eight steps led to a landing and a door onto the specific floor. Through the glass window, he could see the flickering light of a shorting bulb. He was reminded of the church all over again. Despite the cold outside, which had been seeping inside, he was sweating inside of his gear. Maybe Heron’s office job wasn’t as bad as all that. From this vantage point, battling demons seemed a lot less dangerous than battling zombies.

  The second floor door opened in toward them. His people were spaced out two abreast with plenty of room between them. The corridor beyond the door was pretty narrow. It ran to the right and to the left with an apartment door just ahead of it. Smith wouldn’t be able to bring more than four people into the hallway. The staircase was his focal point. They needed a clear escape route. Signaling to the two people with him at the top of the stairs, Bulder and Lewinski, he pulled open the door. Immediately, a mass of bodies pressed through the entranceway. Bulder and Lewinski didn’t wait. They opened fire immediately, filling the landing with corpses while Smith cowered behind the door. After ninety seconds, Bulder called out that it was clear.

  Smith had to shove at the door to get out from behind it. Eight zombies lay unmoving on the landing. The only sound was the dust as it fell from the ceiling and the walls in the aftermath of the gunfire. The police officers waited for more zombies to appear but none did. Stepping gingerly over the bodies, Smith made it to the entrance and poked his head through. The corridor was dim, only a bit of fluorescent yellow light coming from the flickering bulbs overhead. Five paces to his left was the body of a police officer. It was so badly chewed that Smith had trouble identifying the gender. The officer’s sidearm lay a few paces behind, the hand still clutching it. There were other bodies too. Some looked as if they had been dead a long time. No doubt, they were zombies that the police had managed to shoot. Nothing moved.

  Bulder and Lewinski moved into the corridor behind them and they made room for two more officers. There were nine apartments.

  “This is the police,” Smith shouted. “The first floor hallway is clear. Please come out of your apartments and we’ll get you out of the building.”

  They waited for a minute. Suddenly, the door just opposite the stairs shook as something on the other side banged against it. They watched it as it happened again and again. Smith looked at his officers and shook his head. Nothing living in there. Bulder and Lewinski took up firing positions but Smith held them off. He repeated his announcement. Tentatively, at the end of the hall, a door opened. Five guns trained on it, but there was no need. A teenage girl and her grandmother, hobbling with a walker, came out.

  “Are you hurt?” Smith asked them.

  The girl shook her head.

  “Is there anyone else in the apartment?”

  The girl shook her head again.

  Smith signaled to his officers and they ran forward and helped the couple to the stairs. They had to lift the grandmother and carry her down. They double checked the apartment just to make sure. It was messy and filled with old furniture, but there were no signs of the undead. Smith sealed the door and marked it with green paint. Then they went to the apartment opposite the stairs. The banging had not stopped, but they had grown accustomed to it. Reaching down, Smith grabbed the knob and turned it. The cylinder came away from the plate. Smith took one step back and kicked the door forward. Whatever was behind it didn’t go down. There was a lot of resistance and then the door came forward again and clicked into place.

  “Do you want me to get a battering ram?” Bulder asked.

  Smith pulled a face. It was a stupid question. “Get on my left. Follow my lead.” He indicated the two officers on the landing. “You two be ready to shoot.”

  He grabbed the knob and turned it again. Pushing the door forward, he stepped back and kicked it again. The whole sequence would have repeated but Bulder stepped in and kicked the door also. Then Smith again. Then Bulder. Together, they forced the undead further and further back. When the door finally swung fully open, Smith cried out, “Dive,” and the two of them hit the ground. There were gunshots and when Smith and Bulder finally got to their feet, they found a family of zombies shredded by automatic gunfire.

  The swept into the apartment and found two more zombies. One was locked in the bathroom, pounding on the door the way the rest of the family had been trying to get out of the apartment proper. The other was strapped to the bed in the bedroom. It was an elderly man, probably the grandfather. Trapped with the sick, these people had tried to ride out the catastrophe. It had been a miserable failure.

  They went through the rest of the apartments without incident, which doesn’t mean they didn’t see zombies. One apartment was empty and each of the others was occupied with the dead. They were clustered about the front door, making each door just as difficult to open up as the first. That would probably happen on each floor. His announcement would bring them all to the front door. There was nothing for it, though. The announcement needed to be made otherwise they ran the risk of shooting living people. That was unacceptable.

  As they finished their sweep of the second floor and started up toward the third, Bulder sighed. “This is going to take a long time.”

  Smith nodded and started up.

  ***

  Rollins ordered the concentration of their fire against the line of zombies blocking their exit. He initially ordered them into a circle, like a stage coach caravan fighting off a group of Indians. But he could see almost immediately that this wasn't going to work for them. The zombies pressed forward, heedless of their own safety. For every zombie they dropped, three got to take a step. And there were more behind them. So a quick retreat was the only answer. With twelve of the sixteen people firing behind them, the zombies in front were advancing faster. Of course, the back was the front and the front was the back now. Rollins looked over his shoulder and ordered his people toward the exit. They needed to make the ramp leading up to the ground level. If they could break the skirmish line of undead, they could make a run for it.

  That was his plan, anyway.

  "Punch a hole through it," he cried over the gunfire. Only those people closest to him heard the order, but they took aim and complied. Others saw what was happening and joined in. Soon, there was a narrow path through the line. They had a minute, maybe a few seconds more.

  "Go!" Rollins shouted. "Run!"

  They broke formation and ran. The first of them got through the hole with two feet to spare on either side. But the zombies were quick to react and started closing the gap. Half the squad got through before they closed it up. By now the skirmish line was within a few feet of the remainder. Those advancing from behind were a little further back, but not far enough for comfort. Those eight people were the meat in an undead sandwich. A very tasty sandwich.

  Forgetting about the other people, Rollins dropped to one knee, secured his rifle and began firing wildly. He dropped fourteen zombies before the first of the line from behind him put its hand on his shoulder. When he felt that touch, he felt no fear. He twisted away from the grasp, found his feet and crushed its face with the butt of his rifle. He then began clearing out those nearest him with a spray of bullets.

  Two more officers had been able to squeeze through the hole he had made. Those eight that had made it through the first break were firing from behind. Three of the remaining five went through while the others became separated among the mass.

  "You can't have me!" Rollins cried at them, all red rage. "When his rifle was empty, he swung it like a club. They were endless, the undead. But so was his wrath. He was deadly serious about his statement. He refused to become one of the walking dead. He would not spread this vile infection. At this point, his plan was clear enough room so that
he could pull off his helmet, draw his pistol, and shoot himself in the head. He wished he had a way to make himself inedible, but in that there would be no joy.

  Given his wish, he began his three step plan to extinction. As he pulled his pistol, one got close enough that he had to shoot it. It was a small guy wearing flannel, fleece, and denim in layers. His pants were dark blue and had some grease stains on them. Mechanic? Janitor? It didn't matter. Rollins wasted a second and a bullet on him. Then he heard his bullet joined by a symphony of others. The crowd around him began to thin out, their attention diverted. Someone else was shooting. Instead of turning the pistol on himself, he began shooting the zombies that were around him. He began to make his way toward the exit, careful now of both the undead and the flying bullets. Without his helmet, he could easily be mistaken for one of them. Wouldn't it be ironic if he were to be taken down by a police officer's well placed head shot?

  When he cleared the throng of zombies he saw a double line of police firing into the crowd. He took cover behind a support beam while they cleared the area. They noticed him and four officers stopped firing to give him a window. He charged through into safety. Henry himself stood there, directing the assault in person rather than over the radio. He was in gear but not wearing a helmet. When Rollins saw him, he burst into a fit of tears and laughter. Henry took him by the shoulders and led him up the ramp and out into the air. The bite of the cold was much less threatening than the bite of a zombie. The clean wetness of the snow felt much better than their blackened, infected blood.

  "How many casualties?" he finally asked, not really wanting to know.

  Henry smiled a big wide smile. "Not even one. You got them all out."

  Rollins looked him in the face, deadly serious. "You're joking, Al. My luck can't be that good."

  "Really?" Henry asked. "You're standing here alive aren't you?"

  "Yeah." Rollins leaned back against a squad car and just breathed in the air. He was still a cop and still a member of the zombie task force but he was still alive, still able to feel the cold and taste the crisp New York air. And even if it was just for today it was enough.

  ***

  Spinelli lay on the broken concrete bleeding and broken himself. He didn't know how he was still alive. He had spent the last couple of minutes wishing and praying that he wasn't, but he was. At least the pain was gone. All feeling had left him. It wouldn't be long now. Turning his head, he saw a zombie squatting on the ground and eating something. It was a policeman's leg.

  It was his leg.

  Crying a little bit now, Spinelli tried to take comfort in the fact that he had done the honorable thing. He had gone in to save four other lives. He hadn't saved them. Not even one. Two of them had been torn to pieces by the ravenous things they were fighting. The other two had suffered fatal but not destructive wounds and had now joined the ranks of the enemy. Spinelli would soon do so as well. If only he still had his gun, he could shoot himself in the head and protect the rest of the world from what he was about to become.

  If only…

  Perhaps he had another option. Lifting his head off the ground, he slammed it back down. Okay, he'd found pain again. And not just the pain in his head. He'd found the pain in his leg and the pain in his arm and the pain in his belly. A wave of dizziness consumed him and he blacked out.

  …

  He came to moments later without having any understanding of what had just happened. The pain was gone again as was the memory of him banging his head against the ground. He stared at the sky, watching the snowflakes drift through the atmosphere. The sun was hidden behind the grey clouds, its light sifting through the mist. It was an ugly day. It was a beautiful sight.

  Turning his head, he saw a zombie squatting on the ground eating a policeman's leg.

  It was his leg.

  Crying a little…

  Wait. He'd already lived this part.

  Gathering up vital moisture from his body, he spit a wad of bloody phlegm at the zombie. It looked up at him, snarled, actually snarled, and then went back to its leg…his leg.

  Fine! Be like that!

  For the first time he noticed that the zombie was a man in a dress. It was a spring dress, bright yellow with straps for sleeves. Over one shoulder, he could see the remnants of a bra and, as he looked more closely, there was the swell of the cups underneath the dress. But the zombie had definitely been a man. His hair was cut short and greased back so that he could wear a wig. There were the remnants of makeup on its face. It was tough to tell with all of the blood, but Spinelli could make out the running mascara and that stuff women put on their eye lashes (what is that stuff?). It was a zombie transvestite.

  "You're a handsome devil," he said to it. "What's your name?" But the words, while clear in his ears, came out as gurgling blather. It didn't really make a difference for all that the thing could understand.

  It looked up at him again, then down at the leg. Something must have clicked inside its infected brain because it discarded the leg and approached.

  Yeah! Spinelli's troubled mind cried out. Bring it! Then the pain returned as the thing started on its much more satisfying meal.

  ***

  Zombies are slow, awkward, shambling things. They are also as deadly as any creature nature ever put on the Earth. Even the most ferocious animals have an instinct for self preservation. But not zombies. Very little will hurt them, let alone kill them. When it was over, there would be the speculation that Lefferts and Chopra let their guard down. That was the problem with having more than three months of zombie experience. People grew complacent.

  Oh, there was a zombie at the bus stop today? How terrible? What's for dinner?

  You are, you dumb son of a bitch.

  There would also be the speculation that the zombies mounted an organized attack against the two officers.

  Regardless, it took the officers too long to open fire. In two seconds, one zombie was far enough through the door that two others were squeezing into the frame. It was another two seconds before Lefferts and Chopra started shooting. They dropped the nearest zombie together instead of splitting their fire. The other two came through the door and started up the stairs while two more came up. They didn't know how many were behind the door. It didn't matter. The other side of complacency is panic in the face of the reality. As the two zombies closed in, completely unfazed by the bullets hitting them everywhere but the head, Lefferts turned and ran. Chopra, frozen by both the approaching death and his partner's behavior, was a sitting duck. They dragged him down the stairs and began the long process of holding him down and tearing through his gear while others crawled over him.

  Three floors up, Smith heard the shots. They had just completed their sweep of the third floor. Six survivors were headed down the stairs. They had found Officer White in a previously infested apartment. She was bleeding from a wound on her arm. There was a lot of blood and she was squeezing it to get out some more. At first, Smith didn't realize what she was doing. She was white a ghost. On the battered coffee table was a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a steak knife. She must have cut into the wound and tried to bleed out the bacteria. It wasn't working. All she'd managed to do was weaken her body so much that the infection was taking over even more quickly. When she saw the police officers, she begged them to shoot her. One man leveled his gun to comply but Smith put a stop to it. There had to be boundaries to the things they did. Shooting the living, even the sick, was outside those boundaries.

  So she was headed down the stairs with the other survivors while Smith and his team were just about to move to the fourth floor. Grabbing his radio from his belt, he shouted for a status update. All he got in return was static. He called the survivors back up and shouted into the stairwell. This time he got shouts in return. Rushing headlong into the stairs, he was met by more gunfire and his men coming up toward him.

  "What the hell's going on?" he cried.

  "We're cut off," Jessen yelled back. "There's like a hundred of them."r />
  Looking over the railing and down the spiral of the stairs, he didn't see a hundred zombies. But he did see chaos. One of his people was struggling through a tangle of dead limbs in an effort to get away. Another of his men had already turned. Dipping the barrel of his rifle over the side, he fired his clip into the oncoming swarm.