by J. Thorn
EVEN ZULUS LONG FOR HOME
The PO’s breathing was shallow and fluttery, but his pulse steady and strong. He wasn’t going to die of his wounds. And he wouldn’t die from the infection, assuming he’d been infected, for many minutes, or maybe even hours. After hauling him aboard, Homer carried him to the back of the cabin, and Predator did some of his battlefield medicine magic. This was more in basic decency, than any kind of hope. The PO’s face was a bloody mess. The poor man had flipped his face shield up when he hit the rope. Homer thought placidly: it’s always the one from the direction you’re not looking that gets you.
He shook his head and tried to reconcile himself to it. No one can out-think the mind of God.
He looked out the cabin doors, where the very last light was all singed orange as the sun set on the west. The wind whipping through the airframe was cool and without sin. Homer breathed deeply and let the wind gently take the beading sweat off his face.
Looking back inside, he saw Predator working on Juice, who was coming around now. That was good. Shifting his gaze down again, he removed his glove and placed his palm over the trembling PO’s forehead – sure enough, the skin was ratcheting up to stovetop temperature. If there were any hope of him escaping infection, after deep scratches like that, the fever sunk it. Homer shook his head at Pred to let him know. He kept his hand on the man’s simmering head and started reciting Psalm 23.
“The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need. He lets me rest in green meadows…”
“Hey, Homer, mate.” Homer looked up without reacting. It was Henno, the other SAS soldier, and Captain Ainsley’s man. “Why don’t you ask the bloke if he wants last rites before just charging in?” Homer smiled at him, in as much honest kindness as he could manage. No point in explaining that there’s no basis in Scripture for last rites, which are a man-made (and Papist) invention. Anyway, the wounded man was too doped up on morphine to consent to anything. And the terrified look in his eyes told Homer he wasn’t going to turn down consolation – of any denomination, or none.
“He leads me by peaceful streams. He renews my strength, he guides me along right paths…”
“Let him alone,” said Predator to Henno. “If nothing else, the pious shit makes Homer feel better. And when Homer feels better, I feel better.” Pred swiveled in his squatting position toward Handon, changing the subject. “Okay, boss, I’ll bite. What the fuck was that?”
Homer looked up and watched their top sergeant, Handon, maintain his poker face; it hardly ever deserted him. Homer’d always personally thought the sergeant major was a dead ringer for the Punisher. That heavy, lined brow. The wavy black hair. And the shadowed, ice-blue, deeply sad eyes. Weight of the world. The world that was.
“Runner?” Handon said, though even as the word spilled out Handon knew he wasn’t convincing anyone that it was merely that. He knew, and more importantly he knew that everyone else there knew, that this was something different. They’d all taken down runners before.
Predator laughed rumblingly. “Yeah, the zombie of Michael fucking Jordan, maybe. With a forty-eight-inch vertical leap.”
Handon in turn looked to Captain Ainsley. The British spec-ops officer, and team commander, shook his head, looking just as confused as Handon was. “Never seen the like.” His expression changed fractionally as he scanned the cabin. “Say – where’s your PO?”
Handon shook his head. No.
“Both of them. Christ.” The last word was almost a curse. “Secure the data?”
Handon patted the big ruck full of pharma research drives.
But Ainsley shook his head again. “Fuck sake, Handon. We can ill afford to lose more tech guys. You’ve got to be more cautious. What in the hell happened out there?”
“Bad luck.” He nodded toward the dying man in the back of the cabin. “How about yours?”
Ainsley held his gaze. (Staring contests in the spec-ops world can be epic. Backing down is really not the done thing.) “You saw it as well as I did.” Handon didn’t respond to that. But it was a poorly concealed secret that he thought Ainsley, who commanded Alpha team, had been showing unexceptional tactical judgement lately.
And no one needed wonder about Ainsley’s feelings for Handon, the American senior NCO, whom he believed to be systematically undermining his authority with the mostly American team. Homer figured one day there was going to be a reckoning between those two. And God save them all then – from tearing themselves apart from the inside, when the whole Rapture was tearing at what was left of them from every other side. Would they destroy themselves from within, in the end?
The English Channel appeared now on the horizon, the setting sun flashing on the white tips of wind-driven surf. Another change from the old days, Homer thought – daylight ops. SOF, Special Operations Forces, used to own the night. Now even they feared it. There are things more dangerous than us out there now, Homer thought. Predator saw the sweat pouring off the PO, and gave Homer a pointed look. Five minutes, Homer mouthed. They didn’t have to do it until just before they cleared the Channel. And something made Homer want to give this man the blessing of a last few minutes alive. Amongst the living. Amongst his brothers.
He unwrapped the shemagh, the black-and-white checked scarf he’d picked up in Libya, and worn habitually ever since. He used it to mop the man’s sweat-drenched brow.
* * *
“I think I caught it on my shoulder cam,” Juice said a little weakly, pausing to spit tobacco juice out into the slipstream. “Whatever it was.” Handon nodded at him. Combat video feeds could be seen as a luxury, for a military unit, a whole species, on the brink. But even more than in the high-tech terror wars, all data was precious. They captured everything, so it could be analyzed and exploited after they returned to base. If we return to base, Homer mentally amended. But knowledge was definitely life.
They were flashing toward the cliffs of Dover now, and Homer spotted the cruciform shape way out. It was a landmark for them. The lacerated, worm-gnawed figure nailed to it didn’t resolve until a few seconds later. But it was still there. In the early days of the quarantine, English country people, farmers mostly, had gone around nailing the soulless up on crosses, all along the coast, at mile or two intervals. Homer figured it was nice that Christian symbols retained some of their talismanic, or protective, power.
Unfortunately, many of the ones they nailed up never did get properly destroyed. Homer didn’t know whether it was through carelessness, or cruelty, or as some kind of warning to the others. But many of them were wiggling up there to this day. Some of course rotted right off, or pulled free of their own limbs, tumbled down, and wandered off to kill and infect more. Which was a reminder that you didn’t want faith getting in the way of tactical considerations. But, at a certain point, faith, however groundless, however forlorn, can be all you’ve got left.
The helo continued its unrelenting flight, landfall coming up on them faster and faster. The PO’s remaining seconds in this world ticked down.
And then Homer saw the other one – the buddy. He recognized this one, he’d swear he did. You see millions of the soulless, you kill thousands, they blur. But this one he knew. Usually it just walked or stood on the cliffs, a hundred meters or so from the edge, all alone, shoulders slumped, looking lost and profoundly forlorn. The Lord alone knew how it’d survived, what with the regular shoreline patrols, the recons in force going out to tamp down outbreaks, the combat air patrols over the Channel… but somehow this one poor creature was almost always there, when they flew back in this air corridor. It looked like it was searching for someone, or had lost something. Like nothing mattered enough – or it all mattered too much.
The Existential Zombie.
As noted, it was usually alone. But sometimes, like today, it would stand at the foot of that crucifix, its last shreds of clothing flapping in the wind, head bent down toward the ground, standing almost perfectly still like it was on some kind of vigil. Like that was its brother up there. This
vision was deeply affecting to Homer, and also, of course, extremely creepy. Homer wondered how long it would be until they would fly over this way and see the clifftop devoid of that figure. Would it eventually give up its post and wander off, or maybe find peace at the bottom of the cliffs? Everyone had put a bead on the thing at one time or another, but for some unfathomable reason no one ever pulled the trigger. Maybe one day it would look up and see what it had lost. Or maybe it would be there forever.
Homer pulled his eyes from the scene outside and looked down into the pale blue eyes of the fevered, dying, frightened man before him. His pupils were already growing paler and more translucent, dark flecks and lines already forming in that spiderweb pattern as the blood vessels died, even as Homer watched. It was a sign of the turning. But then his expression softened. Homer thought he’d maybe somehow passed through the fear, and found some kind of peace. Waving Predator off when he tried to help, he cradled the man under his arms and eased him over to the open cabin door. They held each other’s eyes as Homer put the single round through his brainstem. The deformed bullet left him and sped off out into the lonely Kingdom of Heaven, way out above this fallen world.
As they approached the tall, noble clifftops, Homer’s mind’s eye flashed back to the cliffs of La Jolla, near San Diego, back when he was stationed with the West Coast SEALs at Coronado. His wife, his son, and his daughter, he could see them with such beautiful clarity, the four of them together amid so much peace and joy, their bellies and hearts so full, basking in the warmth of that world’s California sunlight, the ocean named for peace stretching out past God and man’s horizon. Knowing nothing of what was to come.
The dead man’s own weight took him right over the edge, and as he fell he picked up speed, tumbling peacefully toward the last stretch of the darkening water.
“Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies…”
SHADOWS IN THE MIST
Andrew Wesley, Corporal with the UK Security Services, and officer in charge on the night watch at the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Folkestone, England, shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He pulled a precious cigarette out of the crushed packet on the desk in front of him and lit up. He looked up at the clock and was relieved to see there was only an hour and a half of his shift to go. It had been another long and boring night. Addison and Chambers, his two subordinates, were likable enough, but boy did those kids talk a load of rubbish, and he had to put up with it night after night. If it wasn’t aliens then it was superheroes. If it wasn’t superheroes, then it was Bible conspiracies. He was tired of it.
“They never bother with zombies anymore,” he muttered under his breath, guessing that subject was now far too real to allow for many “what ifs,” even with the mystery of the creatures’ origin still intact.
It had been half an hour since he had sent the pair of young recruits out into the dark to walk the perimeter. They had to do it every hour, on the hour, and even though they complained about it, Wesley had to admit that they always just got on with it – even though the Channel Tunnel terminal was probably one of the dullest security duties going. The soulless still walked up onto beaches, straight out of the Irish Sea or the North Sea, well into year two of the ZA. But the Channel Tunnel was sealed up tight. It had been for a long time.
As usual, the two young men had complained a bit before trudging out into the cold. Tonight was particularly miserable as far as the weather – the mist that had descended at around 2am was biting cold. Wesley normally smoked outside of the building, even though no one bothered with the smoking laws anymore – or any of the other old health and safety laws, for that matter. Tonight he had gone out for just one smoke outside the door, and he hadn’t been out since.
He took a deep drag on the cigarette and watched the smoke swirl around the room as he exhaled. He wondered how long his two apprentices would stay at the tunnel. They were very young and far too enthusiastic, he thought, to be stuck in a post this dull.
How many zombies had been spotted in this sector? Maybe ten in the whole year that he had been in charge, and they had been putrefied enough that they were barely mobile. And none had come out in the last six months, which meant the Conspiracy Twins – as Wesley liked to think of them – had quite likely never even seen one. Why Central Command, CentCom, had even bothered to send him two additional people was puzzling. He could understand them replacing Jones; the old man was just too frail to be traipsing around at night, and the old guy had been suffering with his knee joints for the whole time Wesley had been there. But two young and untrained guards? Wesley would have traded them back in for Jones any time, even with the arthritis.
He stubbed his cigarette out and looked up at the clock again. Where the hell were they? Twenty minutes, tops, was all it took to walk the perimeter and check the tunnels. They didn’t even need to check them, really. Both entrances were sealed off, and the maintenance tunnel was locked up tight. He hadn’t been there when the teams of soldiers had blocked the entrances off completely in just a couple of days, with debris from abandoned buildings; that had been done before he arrived, but old man Jones had told him all about it. They had filled the tunnels with the rubble from demolished buildings, and there were plenty of those around Folkestone. No one wanted to live near the tunnel anymore, at least not after the early days when the dead making a break out of it represented a constant threat, even after the military had flooded some of the sections to get rid of the problem.
Wesley picked up the radio from the desk.
“Addison, come in,” he said, and coughed. He needed a drink. A beer would be nice. His throat was dry.
“Addison, come in,” he repeated.
All that came back was a static hiss.
“Addison, come in, you little git. Where are you two?”
Nothing. Just dead air.
“For crying out loud,” he cursed, heaving himself off his chair and grabbing his coat from a row of hooks near the door. He stepped out into the cold, pushing the radio into its holster and pulling his torch and short-handled axe from his belt. He glanced back at the cabinet on the wall of the office, wondering whether he should take the shotgun with him, but then decided that getting it out and loading it was more hassle than it was worth. He knew exactly where the two young guards would be and why they were late.
The gravel underneath his feet crunched as he started along the track toward the fence, carelessly leaving the door open behind him. The cold mist that had settled over the entire area seemed even colder now. It was the kind that clung to you and bit your throat with every damp breath. Wesley hadn’t realized quite how thick it had become while sitting there in the warm office. It also meant that visibility was reduced to a few dozen yards, the white blanket of it seeming to just hang there, casting an oppressive pall over the landscape. Wesley always found it creepy in the yard when the mist settled, which seemed to be more and more often these days. He had never lived this far south before taking this posting, but he was sure that Folkestone was supposed to have had reasonably clear weather most of the year. He had no clue where that idea had come from.
He went the opposite way round the perimeter, trudging up the long gravel track that wound around the fence, and eventually descended back toward the train tracks themselves. Years ago the area had always been clear, but that was back when the trains ran with a startling regularity through the tunnels to France, and before the military had taken over Folkestone. Where there had once been open ground, with only the tracks running toward the tunnel, there were now row upon row of containers and derailed train carriages, all used for storage. He had never asked what the military stored in them, but it was important enough to warrant daily visits, enough for the dirt trail from the gate to the storage area to have compacted and formed a road of sorts. They never spoke to him, the soldiers who came and went each morning, they merely showed him their badges and went about their business. And Wesley had been given str
ict instructions to stay in his office when they were onsite. Dodgy as hell, he thought. But he also knew it was in his best interests to ignore it. Ignorance was sometimes best.
Tonight, the outer fence was quiet. Too quiet, he thought. The only sound was the crunch of his own boots on the gravel path, and he was relieved when he finally rounded the fenced edge and started down the slope back into the yard. He presumed Addison and Chambers would be sitting there, on one of the containers, chattering as usual. He had lost count of the number of times he’d had to tell them to get their circuit done on schedule. It wasn’t as if he was that bothered, but over at CentCom they liked their regular calls to confirm that all was still clear. One more box to be ticked. This didn’t seem to have registered with the pair of new recruits, but at least they had taken note of his complaints about their endless nattering and scheming, and taken their conversation elsewhere. No doubt they were arguing about what secrets were held in the yard right now, instead of seeing to their own jobs.
Wesley had been a security guard for most of his forty-five years, including in a number of very well paid jobs back before the zombies turned up and changed everything. He had actually been working over in France when the outbreaks began, and he vividly remembered standing at the bar in his favorite drinking hole in the Latin Quarter and staring up at the TV screen, dumbstruck, as report after live report from around the world played out. He couldn’t remember the exact night it had happened, but he could remember how haunting it had been when the first live news team went down under a zombie swarm attack.
The whole world had been shocked by that scene, and until then most people had talked about the trouble as though it was a foreign thing, and something that would never affect them. Then the footage had been shown of the reporter and the camera crew being pulled to the ground and literally torn to shreds by the marauding dead. Even though the camera had fallen on its side, it clearly captured one of the horrendous creatures gorging on the neck of a reporter. Within an hour of that news event, which seemed to replay on nearly every channel over and again, Wesley had received the call from his boss, instructing him to get his ass on the next train home.
