Detroit Reanimated

by Michael Halliday

  “What is this?” Daley asked the lieutenant.

  “You should have received an order on what to do with that. Good luck, Lieutenant,” the army lieutenant said.

  “Received an order?” August Daley asked.

  “You’re bringing them in too slowly,” the lieutenant said. “Just let them in, and do what you need to do.”

  The lieutenant turned to leave, refusing to take anymore questions from August.

  ‘Should have received orders?’ August thought. ‘What orders?’

  August studied the box. An emblem on the side stated the contents were extremely toxic.

  ‘This can’t be,’ August thought. ‘I’m supposed to kill these people? Why?’

  She took the box with the football sized cylinder to her tent and cleared the safe that was tucked below her desk which held her Glock and ammunition. She placed the cylinder inside so she could forget about it.

  In the medical tent, a female private handed the resident military doctor a new set of orders. Captain Nikolai Grayson rubbed his eyes after he read the directives.

  “’Due to new information, orders are to eliminate all refugee inhabitants with supplied means,’” was all it stated.

  ‘Well, that’s quite vague,’ the doctor thought. Folding the paper, he placed it in his back pocket. Doctor Grayson knew better in keeping the order to himself, but he wasn’t about to commit to the order or allow anyone else to. Not when he had the perfect opportunity to study the growing phenomenon up close. He turned to look at the man who recently lost consciousness from a critical fever.

  The man had gotten bit after he broke up an odd fight. His family wanted to take him to the hospital, but they thought there may also be help at the refugee camps.

  Francis Lidmont, a resident from the Eye neighborhood of Detroit, had suffered greatly before his body gave out. His temperature had climbed to a fatal 107.9 degrees. He had begun to vomit blood and other internal fluids just ten minutes ago. His breathing was now shallow and faint.

  An emergency broadcast aired over the radio that the doctor had on his desk. For the sixth time this hour, the broadcast told residents to go to three shelters in Detroit. He was thankful that Lieutenant Daley was letting people in slowly. He had more time to study these people.

  The doctor examined the bite mark on Francis’s arm. It had generated abnormal blackened blood vessels which resembled tree roots. Also around the wound was extreme swelling and pustule blistering. Francis died as the doctor checked his blood shot eyes and severely dilated corneas.

  “Jesus, not again,” Doctor Nikolai Grayson groaned and threw his mini flashlight in frustration.

  In a tent fourteen yards behind the medical center lay three body bags. The contents of the bags were victims of bites and subsequent fever, but one of the bags began to move.

  Two National Guard troops came into the tent. They were carrying on about a woman they both wanted to lay. They grabbed one of the bags and lifted it up when one of the guardsmen noticed the moving bag.

  “Kyle, get a load of that shit,” a PV1 said to his companion.

  “What the fuh? The Doc’s slackin’. He can’t tell who’s alive and who’s not?” Private Kyle Powell said in a deep southern twang.

  “No shit. This poor shit-lick was probably doped up or something.”

  Private Keith Byers started to unzip the body bag. The top portion of the occupant rose up and looked right at Byers. The mistakenly dead individual leaned forward to grab Keith and took hold of his head with both hands. The supposedly dead man tore away the private’s nose with unnatural strength.

  Keith began to shriek. Kyle fell backward and pulled his pistol from his holster, but it had no clip installed. The man in the bag had finished Byers by sinking his jaws into the left side of Keith’s cheek. Keith’s eyes rolled back into his sockets as he fell backwards and began twitching. Blood ran freely from each side of the attacker’s mouth as a large chuck from Byers’s face hung from his teeth.

  The bag that the guardsmen were about to remove also began stirring until the bag ripped open. The occupant heard the sound of the private’s screams and smelled fresh blood. It searched the room and spotted Byers, who had gone still.

  “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!”

  Kyle came to the realization that the entrance was the other way and beyond those freakish things. The third bag ripped open to reveal a woman. She snarled and glowered at Kyle with those horrible eyes. The first man turned his attention toward Kyle. He stood up to join the other two toward the outnumbered guardsman.

  Unarmed soldiers came running toward the fracas, unaware of what was causing the disruption. Doctor Grayson also walked out to see what was happening. No one noticed Francis reopen his eyes or his head rise up. He struggled as he tried to raise himself up and toppled off the table.

  Private Julie Ungren was stationed at a nearby desk. She stopped typing to inspect the racket. She decided it was just her imagination that was toying with her. She shook her head, looked back at her monitor, and back again toward the sound.

  She couldn’t see the table where Francis was lying because the doctor had it closed off. When she was certain that there was nothing to worry about, she went back to typing.

  A clank from within the medical tent caused a cold chill to run up Julie’s spine with a feeling that she wasn’t alone.

  Julie stood up and went to the doorway. She thought of any reason to abandon her post. She was unaware that Francis had stood up behind her. He slowly made his way to her, and with a strong lunge, he took her down. She fell to the floor with Francis’s weight pinning her down. The attack caused her jaw to hit the ground first with an extremely painful snap. The pain from the break caused her to lose consciousness. Francis had no resistance to begin devouring the doctor’s clerk.

  In the body tent, Kyle had been taken down by the three reanimated civilians. The doctor merely stood and watched them devour the PFC. Grayson had a pistol in his hand, but he made no move to destroy them. He cocked his head at the feasting undead. Grayson was pushed out of the way by three armed guardsmen. The squad leader ordered one of his men to shoot at the nearest target, but the private missed. All of the undead looked right at the attacker.

  “I do believe that didn’t work as you intended,” Grayson quipped.

  The squad leader, Specialist Henry Vraybel, aimed at the woman and pulled his trigger. The shot hit the woman’s shoulder which directed their attention to him.

  “Ok, you are a piece of degenerate shit. Who taught you how to shoot?” the doctor said snidely to the specialist.

  Doctor Grayson snatched the gun and pointed it at the woman. Before the doctor could pull the trigger, a set of jaws barely missed biting into his arm. He moved back and pushed a soldier in his way.

  The soldier was bit on the left cheek by a reanimated Private Byers.

  Grayson’s eyes widened as the soldier screamed while his attacker bit ferociously into his scalp next. The squad leader was stunned with Doctor Grayson’s cowardly act that cost him a soldier. The doctor and the two soldiers fell back toward the medical tent, but they saw Francis come out.

  Specialist Vraybel was now unarmed and he ordered his remaining PFC to fire. The gunfire pierced into the medical tent, which got Francis’s attention. The PFC aimed squarely at Francis’s chest, wasting preciously low ammunition. Julie had now reanimated and joined Francis that caused the guardsmen to panic.

  Vraybel grabbed a gun from a fleeing guardsman to take a shot at Francis. He hit Francis’s shoulder, which caused the risen man to stagger backward. Francis righted himself to continue toward the squad leader. Julie and Francis were soon joined by five more from the body tent, including Private Byers and Powell.

  “Fall back!” Vraybel yelled, and he shot twice more. Both shots whizzed by Julie’s head. “Fall back!”

  Lieutenant Daley came to investigate who had been doing the shooting. She witnessed the growing chaos unfold around her. She ordered a small
unit of troops to shoot at Francis. They complied with a couple run down M-16s and Berettas. No one had aimed at his head, again wasting more invaluable ammunition.

  Francis and Julie jutted from the bullet impacts, but they still continued to move toward the troops with a quick pace. August grew frustrated as more and more refugees came to see what was going on.

  Scores of undead, called in by the gunshots, came from nearby neighborhoods and accumulated at the outer fences of the camp. They collapsed and trampled through the cheap fences. They swarmed into the camp toward the gathered crowds.

  Doctor Grayson saw Lieutenant Daley trying to destroy the undead with no success. He took a shot at Francis, but a click came from his handgun. He put the handgun away in the back of his pants. He called out to the lieutenant to flee.

  “Let’s get out of here Lieutenant, these people are lost,” Nikolai said bleakly.

  He tried to convince the lieutenant the situation was futile. He heard the increasing screams from citizens within the camp as they realized they weren’t safe. Within minutes, the camp would be a blood bath.

  “We have to try and save them,” Lieutenant Daley replied. She looked around her at the quickly unraveling situation.

  “Save them by leading as many out of here while you save yourself,” Doctor Grayson insisted. “Use the rest of them as your way to escape. Lieutenant! We don’t have the means to combat this!”

  A sergeant made a critical error when panic took hold. He thought he saw a reanimated man in the crowd and began to shoot wildly into the refugees. Those who were killed soon rose to add to the already uncontrollable disaster.

  August was forcefully pulled away by the doctor. They were followed by two others from her unit. Sergeant Gage remained behind to try and lead other survivors out. August gathered as many women and children as she could on her way out.

  People ran in all directions with no direction to go. They were soon lost as the risen took them down.

  At the entry gates, tempers grew short and refugees provoked fights with others that had tried to cut into line in front of them. A few of the National Guardsmen went to break up the fights, which distracted the others from their unit and prevented them from seeing an uninjured reanimated man arrive.

  The reanimated man took down a woman that caused a panic that scattered people in multiple directions. The guardsmen began to shoot in a panic at incoming undead and bullets hit the living as well as the risen.

  This was the end of thousands in Farmington Hills. Detroit was once called the motor city. On this particular day, either in the camps or on the run, the city’s motor came to an abrupt stop. This new nature wasn’t selective. It claimed the young and the old, man or woman. Detroit died this day.

  -----

  A block from the Radisson stood a 7 Eleven. A man carried an armful of unpaid food and supplies toward the door while a cashier noticed and tried to intervene. She gave up the pursuit when a fight broke out in front of her as two men began pushing and shoving each other over a carton of cigarettes.

  “Hey! We’ve got more in our supply room! Knock it off!” The attendant frantically yelled, but she gave up when the men ignored her. One of the men pushed the other out the door. Feverishly he struck the man again and again. The brutally beaten man fell to the ground and was left to suffer.

  A car full of Hispanic gangsters pulled into the station. They bypassed the entire line of impatient escapees. They pulled in front of a family in a minivan and each pulled out a semi-automatic handgun or sub-machine gun.

  “Get the fuck back, we here now! This shit is ours!” the leader of the gang yelled in broken English. His posse pushed people away from the pumps. A man with a spark of brevity jumped the driver and knocked the gangster’s gun from his hand. Another gangbanger sprayed bullets at the attacker without thinking of the consequences. The bullets riddled through him and the gang’s leader.

  They also hit the pump…

  The explosion instantly killed a hundred and eighty people. The heat vaporized everyone within the radius of the explosion and critically injured dozens. An enormous fire ball rose into the air. Fire and heat that could melt metal engulfed a massive crater where the pumps and half the store once stood, while the other half burned wildly. A crowd ran from the carnage in all directions. There was no one to get the fire under control.

  -----

  Steve was busy fetching people to go downstairs while Doug led a small group he had gathered from the fourth floor.

  Doug had the group wait at a fire escape while he knocked on some more doors. One door opened after a few attempts to reveal a bleach-blond haired man in a robe. Inside the man’s room hid a twelve-year-old girl he had slept with. Under the bed, the girl held the ten thousand dollar stack he had given her for the rendezvous. After a few minutes, they were dressed and they created a story she was his daughter.

  “Attention, all available units. Gas fire reported at 7 Eleven at 12033 North 28th Street,” Doug’s radio aired as he rejoined his small group.

  “Jesus, so that’s what the rumble was,” Doug uttered.

  Evan and Doug went to a window in a vacant room to see if they could watch the chaos. Down below, they saw a long line of abandoned vehicles that snaked from the 7 Eleven and the nearby Chevron. People simply abandoned their vehicles to run from a billowing fireball. Doug nudged Evan and gestured for him to follow.

  “Huh. No one is responding,” Doug said.

  The hotel shook violently as something else exploded, much closer to the hotel.

  “Come on. We have to get out of here,” Doug told the group.

  “What’s going on?” a woman with horn-rimmed glasses asked.

  “I’m unsure of the specifics ma’am, but the first explosion came from the 7 Eleven down the road,” Doug told her. “I have no clue what that second one came from. Let’s keep moving.”

  (“Evan, its Colleen, I know you don’t like listening to your voice mails, but I need to hear your voice Evan. Please, I’m really scared. Oh, Evan, please answer… I love you Evan,” Colleen said on a voice mail. He never received it as dozens of other unheard messages existed in front of it.)

  -----

  Driving slowly westward was a lone police car. Two hands shook uncontrollably as the driver rested them on top of the steering wheel. He gripped the wheel tightly to get them to stop. Around the car, the officer helplessly watched as the living ran from groups of the undead. It was a nightmare that refused to end. Those who didn’t heed instructions to go to the camps fought others for essential supplies.

  Crimes, such as murder and rape, as well as looting went unchecked while multiple gunshots popped around the city. Small explosions created pillars of smoke that filled the skyline.

  Mark Carter drove faster until he felt safe enough to come to a stop. He opened the door and looked around to make sure the area was clear. He walked over to the abandoned Greyhound Station, placed his hands on the brick wall and vomited.

  Mark looked around again. The nearest zombified form was more than a hundred yards away and walked sluggishly in the other direction down 15 Avenue. Down the street stood Blondie’s Tavern, where a body lay unmoving right outside. It was likely the victim of the undead figure that just hobbled away. Something didn’t feel right. Mark couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched. He looked around him thoroughly.

  Something clattered onto the road to his right. A rock that wasn’t there earlier wobbled. Mark picked it up and found it had writing on it. ‘Keep quiet, look up,’ it said. He looked up and down both sides of the street and found a couple of people looking back down, waving their arms at him from the roof of Composite Forgings. One of the men wrote on another rock and tossed it down.

  ‘Opening door, meet there,’ it said. He looked up again to see the man pointing toward the left hand side of the building. There was a partially open green gate that Mark cautiously walked through and he found the door. He pounded on it and waited. The door opened to reveal an e
xtremely dirty middle-aged man who was covered in oil residue mixed with sweat and grime. He smelled horribly of body odor, urine and alcohol.

  “Why, hello officer. I do appreciate your visit,” the grotesque man said politely with a lisp. Mark saw quite a few of the man’s front teeth were missing.

  “Can I help you get out of here?” Mark asked.

  “That’s quite alright, officer. Do come on inside,” the grimy man insisted with the fake politeness.

  “I don’t think so. How many people are here?” Mark asked. The hair on the back of his neck rose.

  “Come on, man! Don’t play me like this. They’ll come back!” the man said in a harsh whisper. The politeness was replaced with edginess.

  “Tell me how many people are in this building,” Mark grumbled. He was clearly losing his patience.

  “Three! There are three of us in here, ya happy now? Come in or get locked out. It’s your choice!”

  “I can get you outta here and get everyone to safety!” Mark shouted.

  “Ha! You don’t get it! This is safe!”

  “Then what did you want from me?” Mark asked with a new sense of fear.

  The dirty man quickly pulled out a knife faster than Mark could react. He plunged the blade deep into Mark’s stomach. Mark’s face turned deep red as the man twisted the knife and cut upwards. Mark tried to reach for his gun, but the disgusting man pushed his hand away with each attempt.

  “Oh, just this,” he replied with a sneer.

  The grimy man unbuttoned Mark’s holster to take out the gun. He then searched Mark’s belt for extra clips and his radio.

  “Enjoy your sufferin’,” the man said before he walked back inside.

  Mark felt his stomach to find blood was pouring out uncontrollably. His legs went out from under him, as suddenly, they went numb. He crawled back to a wall and sat up against it. He winced when he tasted blood in his mouth, which meant he likely would die soon.

  A shot rang out and a bullet hit the wall a couple feet above Mark’s head. The grimy man laughed and waved down at him. Someone shouted for him to stop wasting bullets.