by Jeremy Dyson
“Target down,” breathes Fletcher as he exits the screen.
I stare at the image on the screen. I can’t take my eyes off the bodies on the ground. It isn’t the same watching it on these screens. At first, it doesn’t seem real, so I become absorbed in the violence. Once the action cuts to a new scene, the story will go on. Except those bodies don’t move, the scene will never change. The corpses of the people will remain lifeless in the grass, and they will always be there for as long as I keep watching.
“Proceeding to the east perimeter,” whispers Fletcher. “You still got eyes on the other ones?”
“Yeah,” I say. I manage to pull my eyes away from the bodies on the screen and search the control panel to try and pull the east perimeter up on the monitor. Danielle stares at the corpses too, but she snaps out of it then and finds a switch that brings up the camera outside the east perimeter.
They are two young women with long, dark hair, wearing long dark dresses. They aren’t clawing at the fence like the others, just loitering side-by-side along the edge of the road. Their blank eyes stare up at the camera. I swear it’s like they can see us somehow.
“They’re twins,” I mumble.
One of them has a face that is half devoured. She has lost an ear, and her cheek has been eaten away leaving her teeth and jaw entirely exposed. The other sister had her throat ripped open. Her head lolls slightly to one side.
“It’s like they’re looking at us,” says Danielle.
“That’s impossible.”
“What else could they be doing?” she says.
“What’s wrong?” asks Fletcher over the radio.
“Nothing,” I say. “These two just aren’t acting like the others.”
“How so?” he says.
“They’re just staring at the camera,” I tell him.
There is another long pause.
“You sure they’re dead?” Quentin asks.
“They’re dead,” I say. “They’re all messed up.”
“Alright base, we’ll check it out. Over,” whispers Fletcher.
“Roger,” I respond. “Over.”
The pale empty eyes continue to stare at me. Now I want to switch the screen off. If I don’t have to look at them, it will eliminate the terrifying power of their presence.
“Wish they’d hurry up. These two are freaking me out,” says Danielle.
“They weren’t doing that before were they?” I ask.
“No they were walking down the road,” says Danielle. “I wonder what made them stop.”
I try to come up with a rational explanation, but I find nothing. They were heading north before. If they heard the other gunshots, they should have kept heading north. I haven’t seen any of them show any signs of intelligence before now. So what the hell is this?
After several long minutes, bullets pierce their craniums sending the twins down to rest among a splatter of gore upon the ground.
“All targets down,” says Fletcher. “We’re heading back now, base. See you in ten.”
Sixteen
“They saw a light on top of the camera,” says Fletcher. “That’s all. Nothing to freak out about.” He unstraps his helmet and sets it down on one of the benches between the storage lockers. The dog, collapses down beside my boots, panting deeply, it’s tongue lapping at the air as though to drink it. I reach down and rub the dog’s soft, exposed belly wishing I could have that kind of trust in the people around me.
“It’s like they saw us,” Danielle protests. “Didn’t that seem at all weird to you?”
“Define weird,” says Fletcher. He waits a moment before he adds, “The whole fucking world seems pretty damn weird to me right about now.”
Danielle looks to me, but I can tell Fletcher is not thrilled about the topic and decides it’s best to let it drop. He grabs some more supplies out of the pack and deposits them into a nearby locker.
“If we’re all done here, I’d like to eat something.” He tosses a package to Danielle, then another to me.
We follow him to the common area and tear open our MRE pouches on the mess table. I have a pouch marked as jambalaya, which I’ve never actually eaten before in my life. I was surprised to see it also contained a pound cake, a cracker with peanut butter and jelly, some dried fruit, and a dairy shake. There was another pouch with coffee, salt, chewing gum, and even a moist towelette.
Quentin gave us a quick rundown how to use the flameless heater by adding water to a bag containing a sodium and magnesium pad to generate heat. It took like fifteen minutes to warm the little bag of jambalaya.
“When we go out, this is how we eat,” says Quentin. “We don’t make any fires out in the open that will draw more attention to ourselves.”
“When we go out?” Danielle asks. “Why would we go out? We have everything we need down here, right?”
“We won’t sit in here and twiddle our thumbs all day until it’s all gone,” interrupts Fletcher. “We need to requisition medical supplies, not to mention more fuel and water. There’s a lot of stuff out there now, but it won’t last forever.”
“Plenty of it has probably been looted already,” adds Quentin.
Fletcher nods in agreement.
“That’s right,” he says. “So eat up, doll. We got work to do.”
I take the bag out of the heater and put a spoonful of jambalaya in my mouth. I gag and have to try hard to swallow the nasty concoction down.
“This is fucking awful,” I groan.
“Just like mom used to make,” says Quentin and I notice he is eating the same meal as I have. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Maybe I just don’t like jambalaya.
“I’ll save the jambalaya for you from now on,” I say. I extend my pouch toward him, and he takes it and inclines it against his open beer while he finishes his portion. I stare at the sorry wheat cracker and withered dried fruits, then shove them back in the bag. Getting some real food might be a good idea. I don’t know if I could get used to eating this stuff on a daily basis.
I use the hot beverage bag to heat some water the same way as the food. The only part of these meals I seem to enjoy is heating them. I watch as the others finish their pouches while I make my coffee. I add the pouch of instant grounds to a bag of hot water and shake the mixture. I retrieve my mug that is still sitting on the table from breakfast and pour the coffee. It tastes about as bland as any coffee I’ve ever had in my life, but it’s better than nothing.
“I wouldn’t mind if we hit up a coffee shop too,” I say.
Fletcher points his empty spoon at me. “Now you’re talking,” he says. “I have my mind set on finding a liquor store.”
“I don’t suppose this place has any supplies for feminine hygiene?” asks Danielle.
“I didn’t see anything in the supply room,” I say.
I look down at the dog who is eyeing us from beneath the table, waiting patiently for a morsel to fall. I hand the dog the cracker and several pieces of dried fruit from my MRE. It inspects them on the floor, then reluctantly eats them one at a time.
“The pooch probably won’t complain about getting some real dog food either,” I say.
“Well damn,” says Fletcher. “We got plenty to do now then.” He drops his spoon into the pouch and heads toward the kitchen to throw it out. He steps out of the room and returns a minute later with rifles slung over his shoulders and a couple of large knives and handguns. He hands me one of the pistols, then passes the other along to Danielle.
“This is your new best friend,” Fletcher smirks. He pulls his own version out of his side holster and attaches the suppressor to the muzzle. “It’s an MK23 SOCOM .45 with a suppressor. This is going to be your primary weapon.”
Fletcher meticulously shows us how to take it apart, clean it, and load it, and makes us do it over and over until I want to use the damn thing to shoot the hard-headed bastard.
After what seems like the millionth time I take the thing apart, Fletcher asks Quentin to take over and
leaves the room. I put the damn gun together again and lay it down on the table.
Quentin looks at the weapon and gives me a smile.
“I think I got it,” I say.
“It’s your ass,” he warns.
I’m not sure if he means Fletcher will give me hell for disobeying, or that I better know how to take care of the firearm. Fletcher doesn’t intimidate me. He knows a lot more than I do, or even Quentin, about how to survive in this mess. Right now, I want to learn from him, so I deal with this condescending bullshit. Still, I’m not about to let him start to think he can order us around like we’re his new recruits.
“I want to shoot this thing,” smiles Danielle. She points the gun at the wall, squinting down the sight. “I really want to try it.”
“Well, let’s gear up and we’ll go out.” Fletcher watches us from the doorway. “I just checked out the perimeter. There’s one or two out there we can use for some target practice.”
With a helmet strapped on, a pack over my shoulders and the MK 23 gripped tight in my hand we exit out into the dark of night. It’s getting close to five in the morning, but with the recent time change, the sky has yet to show any signs of daybreak. There is just a sliver of the moon visible above. I pull the night vision goggles over my eyes, and I can see again.
We walk up the steps and exit out into the silent field. We move slowly through the tall grasses, crouched and scanning the surrounding landscape. I follow Fletcher toward the western fence line. Danielle trails behind me, and Quentin watches our backs.
“Don’t get lazy,” orders Fletcher. His voice is like a whisper in my ear over the radio. “There’s miles of fence. Never assume the perimeter is still secure.”
His tone kind of annoys me. It’s not like we haven’t had to fight these things off for several days already. Still, he knows a lot more about the art of killing, I guess.
We walk single file. Stitch moves swiftly alongside our formation, keeping his body low to the ground as we do. About one hundred yards from the fence Fletcher pauses and holds up a fist. We wait and watch as two figures wander along the road.
“Alright, showtime,” he says. He gestures to Danielle and me. “You two work your way up to the fence and take those two out as quietly as possible. We’ll cover you from here, then rally to your position.”
I keep crouched and move forward slowly, checking the ground for any sticks or objects that may cause me to trip and give us away. We move right up to the fence unnoticed. I look through the chainlink and realize these aren't just corpses. They’re kids. A girl with blonde pigtails, torn corduroys, and one shoe follows a slightly older boy wearing a baseball hat. Neither of them can be older than nine or ten.
“I got the one on the left,” whispers Danielle. “The girl.”
Maybe she thinks this will make this easier for me. The girl looks nothing like my daughter, but it makes me imagine Abby wandering the streets like this kid. I lower the handgun.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “You have a better angle on the boy.”
“You sure?” she asks.
I nod and lift the firearm up again.
“Let’s move this along,” Fletcher groans over the radio.
I ignore Fletcher, and wait while Danielle takes aim at the dead boy.
“Ready?” I ask.
She nods.
Two suppressed shots drop the corpses on the road. The bodies lie motionless on the asphalt. I lower my gun and stare at the small shapes. In spite of everything we’ve been through, nothing compares to pointing a gun at the head of a dead child and pulling the trigger. I can’t swallow. My tear ducts burn. I close my eyes, but the image of the scene is already imprinted onto my memory.
“Good shooting,” says Fletcher. “You two were born to kill.”
I open my eyes and see Danielle still has her gun raised toward the road. I reach over and put my hand on her wrist, lowering the weapon.
“I spent my whole life learning to keep people alive,” she says. “It was all I wanted. Now, I just wish they’d stay dead.” She sniffs and wipes a sleeve below her nose, then returns the pistol to the holster.
Quentin and Fletcher are making their way to us through the brush, still scanning the terrain for any other indications of the undead. Over their heads, I can see the hint of daybreak emerging in the eastern sky. I remove the night vision goggles and look around in the dawning blue light.
“Shit,” says Quentin when he gets close enough to see the young bodies of children on the road. “Those were just kids.”
“They aren’t kids,” says Fletcher. “They’re fucking zombies.”
“You shouldn’t have sent them,” Quentin says. He strides ahead of Fletcher to hurry toward our position. “You knew those were kids out there. You saw them on the camera, and you sent them to take care of them anyway.”
“So?” asks Fletcher. He shakes his head in frustration. “I don’t see why that’s such a goddamn big deal. Christ.”
I put the MK23 back in the holster and stand up. I don’t know if Fletcher was testing us to see if we could put down these children. I don’t really care. It wasn’t shooting them that bothered me. It was seeing them shambling alone in the dark road. I know if those were my kids, I would want them put to rest. I blink to bury an image in my mind of Abby, wandering through the halls of her school like that. It is too horribly vivid.
Stitch is first to reach us at the fence and does a lap around us before settling down next to Danielle and licking at her face. She instantly smiles and rubs his scruffy neck. Quentin stalks up to the fence, raising his arms in a show of confusion.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “We were going to have to come up against something like that eventually. Better now than out there.” I tilt my head at the other side of the fence.
“Guess you two don’t need any target practice after all,” offers Fletcher. He removes the goggles and tries on a smile. He looks down at his boot, toeing a spot of dirt. “Sorry, by the way. I underestimated you. Both of you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Really.”
“They are tough,” he admits to Quentin. “You weren’t lying.”
The songs of birds signal the approaching morning. Far overhead, I can hear the bickering of a flock of geese on their return flight north after the long winter. The air is crisp with the scent of fresh buds on the trees. Life proceeds, all around us, as humanity breathes a final death rattle. Through a fog so thick I can feel it caressing my face, we head back toward our bunker. The hole in the ground seems more and more like a grave we are already living in. We’re all dead. Sure, our hearts beat, and blood flows through our veins. Whatever that means. It isn’t the same as living anymore.
It feels good to get back inside and pull off my pack and gear. I’m not in shape for this kind of thing, especially with the injuries I’ve endured the past few days. My shoulders and back ache and I can feel a headache coming on.
“We’ll head back out at dusk,” says Fletcher. “There’s a strip mall with a pharmacy and a gas station about two miles west. I saw it on our flight in.”
“We’ll have to go under the expressway, Fletcher,” says Quentin.
“Yeah,” he sighs. He opens up one of the lockers along the wall and places his helmet inside. “Might get a little thick around there, but we can get through.”
Stitch wags his tail, but the dog is the only optimistic one in the room. We follow his wagging tail into the common area and collapse onto the couches. Stitch hops up next to me and curls up into a ball beside me.
The second hand of the clock on the wall makes a few circles as we sit in silence. Fletcher picks up the remote from the table and turns the television on again. The movie starts over. He pulls the tab on a can of beer and takes a big gulp.
“Can we not watch this?” asks Danielle.
“There isn’t anything else to do, doll. Unless you want to play some strip poker.”
“Doesn’t all this bother you?” she a
sks him. “How can you just sit around drinking beer and watching television like nothing’s happening.”
“And what do you propose I do about it?” he asks.
Danielle folds her arms and leans back in her seat. “I’m not saying you should do anything about it. Just stop acting like you don’t give a shit.”
Fletcher takes a long swig of his beer, and then he picks up the remote and shuts the television off. He lifts the deck of cards off the table, then puts them back down.
“I drink and watch the television because I give a shit,” he sighs. “It won’t do any good to drive yourself nuts thinking too much. That’s the last thing you should do.”
“It’s not that easy,” says Danielle.
“You got family out there?” he asks her.
She nods her head.
“Where?” he asks.
“Pennsylvania.”
“Mom?” he asks. “Dad?”
“My dad and my brothers,” she says.
“You talk to them since this started?”
Danielle shakes her head.
“I got a brother, too,” he says. “Ain’t a minute that goes by that I’m not thinking about him.”
Quentin shifts in his seat then he leans forward to grab a beer off the table.
“Where’s he at?” asks Quentin.
“Fort Collins,” says Fletcher. “Colorado. At least, he was. We have this old cabin up there in the mountains, been in the family for years. That’s where he was heading.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to go to New Mexico?” I ask him.
“That’s part of it,” he says. He looks down at the deck of playing cards on the table. “I told him I’d meet him when I could get out there.”
“This place,” I say. “This cabin. You think it’s safe there?”
“It’s real out of the way,” Fletcher says. “There’s a lake between the cabin and the city. Mountains for miles on the backside. If he made it there, he’s alive. Jimmy is a tough son of a bitch.” For a moment he chuckles at the memories of his sibling, then, with a sigh picks up his beer and drinks.
