by Bible, Jake
“Fall back!” Joe T yells. “Get the fuck out of here!”
He runs backward, firing until his pistol clicks empty. A quick glance over his shoulder tells him he’s close to where he wants to be and that’s by the main valve system.
“Let’s purge,” he scowls.
He bashes a Z over the head with his empty pistol, crushing the thing’s skull. Kicking out, he knocks another Z against the ever encroaching herd. It gives him enough time to hop up onto a metal platform and turn his attention to a large valve prominently painted red. The warning sign by the valve reads, “Danger. Do not open fully. High pressure. Do not open fully. Danger.”
“Let’s schedule some maintenance,” Joe T says. “HEADS UP!”
Those men and women still alive glance his way, see what he’s about to do, and book it to higher ground. They jump up on vehicles, climb utility poles, scramble on top of the trailer used as an office. They all get anywhere that isn’t the ground.
Joe T twists the valve with all his might. It doesn’t move. He braces his legs and readjusts his grip. His muscles strain, tendons in his neck close to snapping, as he cranks, and cranks, and cranks. Finally, the valve starts to ease. He turns as fast as he can and a loud warning claxon rings out across the station.
Joe T steps back, grabs a fresh magazine, ejects the spent one from his Desert Eagle, and slams the fresh one home. The Zs surround his little platform, their hungry faces looking up at him, their arms outstretched, needing, wanting, yearning.
“Hungry, fuckers?” Joe T asks. “Too bad because all we got is drinks tonight.”
There’s a groaning within the complex of pipes and Joe T smiles down at the undead herd.
Then everything bursts around him, enveloping his body in an explosion of water and iron.
***
“I want all bitten in the house next door!” Dr. McCormick shouts. “I don’t care what their other wounds are! The infirmary is for people I can fucking save, not for the already dead!”
“We can’t just leave them to die,” Greta Stanford snaps. Fourteen years old, she is a tall, long legged mix of her mother and father. “They need help!”
“There’s nothing I can help them with!” Dr. McCormick snaps. “A bite is death!”
“My dad was bitten and he cut off his own arm! We can help them!” Greta says.
A woman screams as she is dragged into the infirmary, clutching at her stomach as her intestines spill from between her fingers. A man wails as he stares at what used to be his hands, but are now mangled twists of bone and flesh.
Dr. McCormick looks around and realizes what she’s seeing and it’s like a veil has been lifted.
They’ve all been bitten.
She turns to Greta. “I need every saw we have. I want blowtorches, propane stoves, anything that can cauterize a wound. Get me axes, machetes, whatever I can start hacking with. And I need more people! We’ll start at this end and work down. Someone hacks and someone burns. Got it?”
“Got it,” Greta nods as she runs from the infirmary.
“Sweet, God, help me,” Dr. McCormick whispers, “God help us all.”
***
“Close it up!” Stella yells. “Close the gates!”
She stands at the top of the watchtower next to the massive gate that marks the entrance to Whispering Pines. The wounded keep coming, most of them clutching others that are in even worse shape than they are. She knows that if she closes the gates she’ll strand dozens outside. But she has no choice.
The Zs are right behind them. She can see hundreds coming, shuffling and moaning their way to the buffet on legs.
She has no choice.
***
“AAAAAAAAAHHHH!” a man screams as Greta hacks off his leg at the knee.
“Burn that!” she yells to the woman standing next to her with a hand held butane torch. “Don’t fucking stand there! Close that wound!”
“But I…I can’t,” the woman says.
Greta grabs the torch from the woman and presses the blue flame against the man’s leg. He screams again then passes out.
“Fuck you,” Greta says to the woman, “get your useless fucking ass away from me.”
Hatchet in one hand, torch in the other, Greta moves to the next man. He looks from the hatchet to the torch as he clutches his wrist.
“Take the whole arm,” he grunts, “only way to be sure.”
“Fucking A right it is,” Great says as she raises the hatchet.
***
The Humvee hops the curb and races up the front lawn of a large Victorian house on Charlotte Street, followed closely by a second Humvee.
“No com, nothing,” the driver says as men and women jump out of the Humvees and take up positions along the house’s front porch. “Radios won’t work.”
“Full jamming,” Shots says. “Fuck it. I don’t need a radio to kill some zeds! Take ‘em!”
The ten PCs open fire on the front wave of the herd that fills the street. Undead bodies shudder and dance as they are ripped apart by .223 caliber rounds. Someone tosses a grenade and yells, “Frag!” just before the thing goes off. Putrid limbs and offal fly everywhere. One of the PCs steps forward and unleashes a geyser of flame from his thrower. The herd turns into a burning wall of flesh.
“Keep it going!” Shots yells. “Do not stop until you go Winchester! Then get in the Humvees!”
Huey Team keeps firing, emptying every magazine they have on them. When every last cartridge is spent, the Team jumps back in the Humvees and speeds off, turning up a side road, ready to flank the endless column of Zs that marches towards the Grove Park Inn.
***
Duey Team stand on top of the old Claxton Elementary school building, rifles to their shoulders. Two of them hold RPG launchers at the ready.
“Just give us the go ahead, chief,” a man says as he glances over at Babs.
“Don’t worry, Connor,” she says, “I will.”
The herd of Zs fills every square inch of available space on Merrimon Ave as it stretches as far back as downtown where she can see them pouring over the sides of the I-240 overpass, falling to the road and joining their undead comrades.
“Mother of God,” she whispers then takes a deep breath.
She turns to her Team and smiles.
“What day is a good day to die?” she yells.
“TODAY!” they all yell back.
“Then send them to Hell,” she orders.
Duey Team opens fire. Bullets fly down into the herd, rockets spit flames as they scream into the mass. Zs fall, RPGs explode. Duey Team screams at the top of their lungs, never stopping, telling the Zs that Hell is above them, not down on the gore covered pavement.
And to come and get it!
***
“Charges set, sir,” a PC whispers as he crawls up to Poker Face.
“Good,” Poker Face nods, “on my mark.”
He stares at the mass of Zs coming from downtown, joining the other Zs that fall from the I-240 overpass that stretches across Broadway.
“Three.”
He looks across the street and sees part of his Team there. He glances down Broadway and sees the rest set and ready to charge once the shit hits.
“Two.”
To say this is the largest herd he’s seen would be a lie. There was Detroit, Toronto, Chicago, Indianapolis. Cleveland. Fucking Cleveland. Way more Zs there. But they had choppers then for air extraction. No choppers now. He hasn’t seen a chopper in over a year. Fuel, parts, pilots. Just too much to maintain.
“One.”
Poker Face raises his rifle to his shoulder and tucks a knee up underneath himself, ready to get up and move.
“Mark.”
Brick buildings all up and down Broadway explode. Fire, stone and smoke fill the air. Poker Face feels the heat, gasps as the breath is almost sucked from his lungs. He’s up and sprinting towards the chaos before the last explosion has left his ears.
Through the haze, he sees shapes mov
ing forward.
“Headshots! HEADSHOTS!” he screams. “Make it count, motherfuckers!”
***
“What do you mean?” Buzz asks as he stands next to the cot draped with a bloody sheet. “He can’t be gone.”
“He wasn’t a young man anymore,” Dr. McCormick says. “The shock of his wounds was too much for his heart to take. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Lord,” Buzz says, “what now?”
“I don’t know,” Dr. McCormick says as she hurries away.
“But the Farm?” Buzz mumbles. “I can’t run that by myself. I can’t.”
“BUZZ!” Charlie yells as he runs into the infirmary. “We need you down at the gate! It may not hold!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Buzz says.
Charlie catches sight of the cot and frowns. “That’s not…”
“Yeah, it is,” Buzz says.
“This day sucks dick,” Charlie says.
“Yep,” Buzz says as he turns from his father’s covered corpse. “Let’s go.”
***
“Mother of God, where did they come from?” The driver asks as Lourdes stands by the railing of the Elk Mountian Rd overpass, her scope to her eye as she studies the herd of Zs that pushes past the abandoned cars and trucks on I-26.
“South, obviously,” Lourdes says, watching Zs stumble up and down off/on ramps, spilling into the neighborhoods like a virus spreading through arteries. “We need to move.”
“You think Whispering Pines will hold?” the driver asks.
“I don’t know,” Lourdes replies, “maybe. They might have a chance if the zeds don’t make it all the way to them. They might disperse enough that we can manage a few waves.”
“We?”
“Yeah, we,” Lourdes says as she comes around and hops back into the Humvee. She reaches out the window and gives a thumbs up to the convoy of six Humvees behind her. “Get us there fast.”
The driver nods and punches the accelerator. They twist and turn their way down Elk Mountain Rd until they hit Hwy 251. He turns the Humvee left, but slows the vehicle after going only a hundred yards or so. They crest a small hill and see the nightmare before them.
“Back,” Lourdes says.
“But we can cut up 6th Ave and sneak in the back way,” the driver says. “I can take this left here.”
“Too late,” Lourdes says. “Back. We’ll double around to the cliff. Go in that way.”
“But…”
“Do it!” Lourdes yells, pointing out the windshield. “We’ll have high ground. We go up 6th and we’ll be trapped there in minutes! Look at them all!”
The mass of Zs before them groan and hiss. Many of them scrape at the hillside, knowing there is food in Whispering Pines if they can just get to it. A few turn and spot the Humvee convoy. They bare their teeth and start forward.
“See,” Lourdes says, suddenly very, very tired. “Go.”
The driver reaches out the window and twirls his arm about. The Humvees all start to turn around then pull to the side to let Lourdes’s vehicle take the lead once more. Back up Elk Mountain Rd they go. They turn onto Jonestown Rd and speed through the twists of the small, residential street.
“There,” Lourdes says as they come to an unassuming ranch house.
The convoy stops and PCs instantly hop out, rifles ready, eyes on their surroundings. Lourdes does a head count.
“Vehicles one through three stay,” she says, “the rest head back to the Grove Park. Evacuate the place. Anyone that doesn’t want to go can rot.”
“Where to?” a PC asks.
“Take them to Reynolds Mountain,” Lourdes says, “it’ll give you the higher ground. Dig in. I want gun nests every twenty yards. If we can’t hold Whispering Pines then we’ll be coming your way. Be ready.”
The PCs nod and hop back into Humvees four through six. Lourdes watches them speed off then turns and starts hiking towards the field that connects with the back cliff that Phase One of Whispering Pines butts up against. She plans on finding out their status and then making the call from there.
“I’m going in,” Lourdes says to her people. “I want you all to scour the area for vehicles that will run. The bigger the better. Bring them back here and secure the area. If we need to evacuate Whispering Pines then we’ll be coming fast. Jonestown Rd connects to Riverside down below, which connects to I-26 back near Broadway. We may not have much time before the Zs figure that out.”
***
“To the cliff!” Stella shouts.
“Mom!” Greta screams as she sprints towards the watchtower. “Dr. McCormick won’t come with! She says she’s staying with the wounded!”
“Like hell she is!” Stella growls. She climbs down from the watchtower, the ever present roar of the Zs at the gate grating on her last, frayed nerve.
Stella sprints up and down the hills of Whispering Pines until she gets to the infirmary. Out of breath, adrenaline pumping through her, she bursts in, spots Dr. McCormick and grabs the woman by the arm.
“Hey!” Dr. McCormick yells. “OW! Stella, stop!”
“We get everyone out that we can,” Stella says, “and that includes you.”
“I have thirty people dying here,” Dr. McCormick says, “I’m not leaving them alone. I’m not.”
“Reaper is off with Platt and John,” Stella says, “that means you are our only trained medical professional. We have fifty plus men, women, and children that will need your help if shit goes wrong. Which it will. I can guarantee that.”
“Stella, listen…”
“You are coming!” Stella roars. “Do what you can for whomever you can. Get those that can move ready. We are evacuating to the cliff.”
“The cliff?” Dr. McCormick laughs. “Now I know you’ve lost your mind. We’ll never get half these people up those stairs, let alone maneuver them through the razor wire, fencing, and ditches.”
“Then half stay,” Stella states as she turns and hurries from the room.
Greta stands there, her mouth wide open.
“Is it that bad?” Dr. McCormick asks. “Are the gates coming down?”
Greta can’t speak so she just nods.
“Fine,” Dr. McCormick says. “Grab me a marker. I’ll tag those I think can move on their own. Everyone else will need help. We leave no one if we don’t have to.”
***
When Lourdes gets to the bottom of the cliff stairs and sees the groups of Whispering Pines residents hurrying towards her, she knows the shit has hit it and it’s all a fucking mess.
“Where’s Stella Stanford?” Lourdes asks a resident.
“She was down by the gates,” the woman says, holding a toddler to her chest. “But someone said she may be at the infirmary.”
“What happened here?” Lourdes asks.
“The Zs,” the woman says as she pushes past and hurries away.
“Nuff said,” Lourdes mumbles. She readies her rifle as she hikes against the throng rushing to the cliff.
She gets to the bottom of the hill, where Phase One stops and the entrance to the subdivision begins. People are running everywhere and it’s complete chaos. She can hear the moans of the Zs and the sounds of their putrid hands smacking against the thick wood of the front gates.
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away,” a raspy voice says off to her side. “Revelation 21:4.”
Lourdes turns to see Preacher Carrey standing there, his white hair a wild tangle about his head, his eyes rolling, rolling, rolling madly in his skull.
“Whatever,” Lourdes says as she sees Stella running back towards the gates.
She hurries down and intercepts the woman.
“How long will the gates hold?” she asks Stella.
“What? Lourdes? When did you get here?” Stella asks, her arms waving madly, directing people from Phase Two and up into Phase One. “How many are with you?”
“I have fifteen up
on Jonestown Rd looking for vehicles,” Lourdes replies, “looks like we’ll need them.”
“Good, good,” Stella says. “I kept meaning to have some up there ready, but we’ve just been so busy rebuilding.” Stella stops and looks around. Her chest hitches and she starts to breathe quickly.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Lourdes says, “sit down.”
“Can’t…breathe,” Stella says.
“You’re hyperventilating,” Lourdes replies as she helps Stella to the curb. “Put your head between your legs and take some deep breaths.”
“It’s just…so...sudden,” Stella says.
“Hush. Calm, even breaths.”
It takes Stella a second, but she gets it under control.
“I don’t know where Jace is,” Stella says, looking Lourdes in the eye. “I don’t even know where my kids are. I’ve told them to help with so many things I can’t remember what I said last.”
“First, I’m sure Jace is fine,” Lourdes says, “he’s a wily bastard.” This gets a small smile from Stella. “Second, I’ll handle things down here. You go find your kids.”
“I don’t know where to start,” Stella says.
“My nephews’ll help,” Critter says as he comes up and crouches down next to Stella. “They’ll go with ya. I’ll help the lady soldier get your folk up and out.”
Stella looks up and sees Pup and Porky standing there.
“I’m sorry about your father,” she says.
“About what?” Critter asks. “What happened?”
“Oh,” Stella replies, “Hollis died. I thought Buzz would have told you.”
Critter sighs. “Haven’t seen him for a while,” he says, “but I’m not surprised. Shit’s crazy wild ‘round here. Ain’t surprised ‘bout Hollis, neither. He was hurt bad.”
“Mom!” Charlie yells. “Mom!”
“See, boss lady, I found one of them for ya already,” Critter smiles. It’s a smile that doesn’t reach his sad eyes. “Now we just have to find one more.”
