Jerry felt his stomach tighten, the acidic burn and excess salivation that preceded vomit, hit him like a blow to the head. He watched, horror-stricken, as the infant chewed through its own hand. Two fingers were removed sending blackened tar-like blood spurting from the wounds. Delighted, the greedy infant sucked it down without hesitation.
Jerry turned away from the bed, sending a long, arcing stream of brackish vomit across the room. It projected so far that it streaked the wall as well as staining the carpet. Maddie stood back, staring at the crib, unmoving. Her eyes just as vacant as the creatures they were fighting against.
The sight of the baby had broken the walls and allowed the full realization of the world to hit home.
She started to shake as she stared at the bed. In her mind, she could not replace the image of the self-mutilated baby, so tiny and delicate, yet still consumed by such uncontrollable bloodlust. On top of that, her mind chose that moment to throw her a flashback to the time in Afghanistan when a peasant woman had left her baby at a checkpoint. The child had been screaming in its baby carriage. Her best friend on the base, Maria Gonzalez had responded to the cries and picked the baby up. The pressure switch for the bomb the baby lay upon blew Maria into so many pieces they didn’t have anything tangible to ship home.
It was the one moment from her career that continued to haunt Maddie, and as she listened to the zed baby’s shrieks, drifting away into an abyss of terrifying numbness, she knew that the nightmare now had a friend.
“Jerry,” Maddie spoke, her voice sounded distant, not her own. “Jerry, come on, let’s leave it. There are plenty of other houses.”
She moved forward, her legs not her own. Everything was falling apart, and suddenly the idea of being outside, surrounded by the dead or not, was the most appealing thing in the world.
She reached out and lay a hand on Jerry’s shoulder. She could feel his body shaking, and it grounded her. Her own fears were okay; she was allowed to be scared, or to feel the weight of the horrors they had seen.
“Can you walk away from that?” he asked, looking Maddie in the eye.
Maddie hesitated, steeling herself; reminding herself that the people the dead once were, were gone.
“Yes,” she said, unaware of the emotion that choked her words.
“I don’t believe that any more than you do,” Jerry said.
Standing up slowly, he turned and looked back at the crib. The dead baby had silenced itself, for the time being.
“It can’t hurt anybody in there. What if we seal up the house?” Maddie suggested.
“Someone will get in, and if it bites even one person, that would be on us,” Jerry answered, his voice resigned to the act he was going to commit.
He took half a step toward the crib, his hands frozen by his blade, but unable to close around the handle.
“You don’t have to watch,” he said to Maddie.
“Why, because I’m a woman?” she said, her voice coming from beside him.
He didn’t rise to the bait. He understood she was saying it to distract herself. Creating a wall that would keep the act and the lingering memories of it at bay for as long as possible.
“Then we do it together,” he said, finding the strength in her presence to draw his blade. Even the metal seemed dull, as if not truly up for the task.
The undead baby lay in its crib, sleeping, of all things. Its thumb in its mouth, not in hunger, but in what passed for slumber.
“Oh man, it looks vaguely peaceful,” Maddie said, catching her tears before they could fall. “It’s not too late.”
Jerry raised his knife and moved over the crib, lowering the weapon on the other side of the bars.
The baby opened its eyes: the black, dead, shark-like eyes, and immediately began to groan and claw at the air. Its small hands found the knife, clutching at the sharp blade, which sliced through the chubby fingers without effort.
“Fuck,” Jerry said, as the baby drew the blade into its mouth, budding milk teeth clamping down on the metal with tiny clicks.
He watched and could not help but wonder if it was deliberate.
“It wants to die, it wants to be put at peace,” he said, choking on the words. Tears flowed freely, and he didn’t care.
“It can’t think. But it deserves peace,” Maddie said, as she reached over and placed her hand over Jerry’s.
Both turned their head, so they did not have to watch the final moments of the infant’s life, but the silence that followed its end was the most powerful thing either had experienced.
They left the house through the front door. They stared at the floor, ambling mindlessly like the dead they were trying to stave off.
The rest of the group appeared across from them. Benny was covered in blood, his ax still clenched in his fist, lumps of rotting flesh still clinging to the blade.
“We’ve cleaned out two houses across the way. One was infested, but Benny here got ‘em all. Son of a bitch is like a fucking animal when he gets going.” The lieutenant clapped the blood-soaked driver on the shoulder and gave a laugh.
It was only then he noticed the looks that Jerry and Maddie wore. It was a look he had seen before. The look that soldiers get when they are broken.
“What happened in there?” he asked.
Neither spoke. They stood with the rest of their small unit, grey-faced and silent. To observers, they would have looked more like the dead than the living and would most likely have been left behind.
“Jerry, Maddie, talk to me. What happened in there?” Lou asked, his voice soft, no longer that of the tough military man, but now the mentor, and confidant.
Jerry raised his head first, his tear-stained eyes looking at each man in turn, holding their gaze long enough for his pain to be understood.
Opening his mouth, he took a long, deep breath, and told them everything that had happened.
By the time he was finished, the entire group looked as if they had been told their mothers had died. All jokes and joviality were gone, stripped away by the cold facts of the new world.
“You did the right thing. This world isn’t the place for their kind, and a … a … young’un doesn’t deserve that fate. Come on, let’s get off the street. We’ve got two clean over there, and enough food to give us all a good meal,” Lou said, placing a hand on both Jerry and Maddie’s shoulders. “We’ll fill our bellies and rest up. We can move on in the morning.”
They followed him, falling in line with the rest of the group. Together, they disappeared into one of the buildings the group had cleared. The odor of death hung in the air, but they didn’t care. Stepping over the corpse of an obese man, whose stomach seemed to be melting in all directions over his frame, they moved into the kitchen.
Sanjay and Benny got to whipping up a meal. Mostly tinned goods, but after the food they had grown used to eating while out on deployment in God knew where, it all tasted like heaven.
They ate in the living room and spoke as if they were watching TV. Shouting random answers to questions they recalled from the various TV quiz shows they watched before things changed.
Slowly, the gravity of the day melted away, as it had to do if they were to carry on. Even Maddie and Jerry seem brighter, although neither truly spoke.
As night fell, none of the soldiers were willing to pass up the chance to enjoy the comforts of a real bed. Spreading across the two houses, there were enough places for them all to sleep comfortably without having to worry about being climbed over and prodded in the back by a rifle butt or stray knee that was sent flying by some dreaming soldier.
Jerry tossed and turned, but despite the soft mattress and the floral bedspread, both of which made it feel as if he were trapped inside a cloud, he could not settle. His mind continued to show him the images he had tried so hard to force away.
He heard the others snoring, an impressive din that seemed to resonate through the otherwise empty house.
The new world ushered in a new, lifeless atmosphere. Even thou
gh the house was decorated, furnished, and filled with marines, it felt empty and hollow.
Turning once more, Jerry sprang bolt upright in his bed, his eyes wide and his revolver in his hand. He stared at the figure in his room.
Maddie did not flinch. She stood in the doorway, staring at Jerry, her own eyes just as wide, and intense as his. Their stares locked for a moment before Jerry lowered the gun.
Maddie walked into the room and closed the door. She was as naked as the day she was born. Her slender, toned body seemed to glow in the moonlight streaming through the open curtains. She didn’t say a word as she walked up to the bed. Likewise, Jerry remained silent as he threw back the covers and welcomed her to him.
Their lovemaking was silent, and it was hard, almost brutal. The end of the world as they knew it had damaged the foundations they had so heavily relied upon. Everything they had locked away for decades was now starting to seep through the cracks.
There was no passion or tenderness to their congress, and when it was over, Maddie slipped from the bed and walked back to her own room without ever muttering so much as a word. Likewise, Jerry merely rolled over with his back to the door and fell asleep within moments.
Chapter Four
When the alarm went at four the next morning, Taron wanted nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep. He couldn’t, and he knew that, but he wanted to, nonetheless.
Getting up at the butt-crack of dawn was not something strange to him. A surgeon by trade, he had worked his fair share of crazy hours and double shifts, especially during his residency and during general training. Whenever the alarm sounded in his life, Taron wanted to go to roll over, but he was instantly awake, alert and ready for anything. Be it a multi-car pile-up with blood and limbs littered across the highway, a heart-attack at a hot dog eating contest, or simply to head out and watch, to make sure the undead didn’t come chomping at their door. He had seen and done it all in his years.
Rolling out of his bed, he dropped to the floor in the middle of the bunker and blasted out a quick set of fifty press-ups, fifty crunches, and fifty squats, stretched his back and headed out the door. There was no time for coffee, no time for a quick bite to eat. Hector had been on duty for the past three hours and needed to be relieved from the watch.
They had tried several combinations for guard duty, before settling on three-hour watches. It was hard, especially that last half an hour, but it worked way better than their initial four hours, and the hourly switch was not long enough for people to rest when off duty.
Three-hour shifts meant they each had two guard rotations per day, which worked out well with the other duties.
Taron didn’t mind the guard shift, the quiet time actually relaxed him. Only twice had he been forced to fire his weapon, and on each occasion, the single zed had been the only post-human he had seen.
After the herd movement from the day before, he was sure there would be a few more sightings today, but they had made the agreement, much to Hector’s disappointment, they would only shoot if necessary. Zeds could pass them by unharmed if they remained oblivious, or whatever word described a postie’s ability to move by them without noticing their presence.
Taron understood why Hector disagreed with their stance. Any zed stood a chance to infect, tens of people, possibly more, before it got taken out. To let them live was effectively signing a death warrant for someone else.
Yes, to shoot and miss, possibly drawing the attention of a group or even a herd of them, that would spell the end of them all. Their camp was well stocked, but at the end of the day, they were just four people and one kid. They would not stand much hope against a large force of the undead.
Leaving the shelter, he looked around, his hand already curled around the blade of his knife. He knew Hector was watching, but it always paid to be cautious. All it took was one moment for something to slip through unseen.
While none of them had really held any long conversations on the subject, Taron knew the dead were not the only threat lurking in the world. For now, they were the priority, but there would come a time that survivors fought back, that people grouped together and fought for what they needed. It was human nature, and with the laws of modern society purged from existence by the sweeping hordes of the resurrected dead, there was nothing enforcing control on anybody.
Welcome to the wastelands, he thought to himself, remembering a catchphrase from some wrestling tag-team.
As he crossed over to the lookout post, confident that the coast was clear, Taron let his mind wander back to the time before, which although fairly recent in terms of linear time, felt as if it had occurred several lifetimes ago. Wrestling had been something Taron watched with his father and had grown up enjoying. As he became an adult, then a doctor, and then a surgeon, he never lost his love for it. If anything, he believed he appreciated it and enjoyed it more as an adult. Understanding the process, knowing the secrets only increased his admiration for what the men would do to their bodies.
He even had tickets to WrestleMania one time, a couple of years back. He bought them as a surprise for his father. Front row seats, ringside.
His father was sick, dying in fact. There was nothing anybody could do to save him. Taron knew this. He knew it from talking to the doctors treating his father. He knew it from his own knowledge, having read the medical charts and files during one of their many hospital visits together. Worst of all, he knew it as a son. The sense of living on borrowed time was a sobering one.
As he knocked on the door to the lookout post, he took a deep shuddering breath. For the feeling he had as a son for his father were the same feelings he had now. Borrowed time … it was all any of them had.
Hector opened the door, his rifle in his hand. His sharp-featured face and cold, steel-grey eyes were stained pink with fatigue, but he never allowed it to truly show.
“Anything to report?” Taron asked as he stepped inside, allowing Hector to close and lock the door.
“Nothing really. Had a damned fox trying to get into the back building, but I chased it away,” he said, dropping into one of two chairs in the lookout. He had a flask of coffee with him, which Taron eyed silently.
“No zeds?” Taron asked.
“Nope, quiet as a snowy morning.” Hector smiled. He seemed relaxed, in spite of what had happened to them only hours before.
“Good, now go inside and get some rest, man. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us, after the havoc of yesterday,” Taron said, as good as hustling Hector out of the door.
Once he was alone, Taron settled down into the lower level and got comfortable.
The lookout post they had created was an iron building with deep-seated foundations beneath a framework of interwoven tree branches, essentially a wicker construction, atop which they layered dirt and mud, then grass, building it up over time to look like a hill. An out of place hill, which, given the nature of their current enemy, did not draw any unwarranted attention.
Simple in design, it had four lookout spots, one on each side, with small slats built into the structure to allow the on-duty guard a good line of sight at all angles. While the structure sat close to ground level, they had actually raised the floor about a foot off the ground. The intention was to create four sections of ground-level space where the guards could lay down and watch for any threat. The central raised island connected to the door, the only entry or exit point in the structure, held two chairs and a small table. There was no need for anything else. For the night shift, they had night-vision scopes on two of the rifles, and there was an old-school oil lamp for use in case of emergencies.
As he got comfortable, the pitch of night begging to lift, Taron felt himself relax. Not to the point of dereliction of duty, but simply because when on watch, life became even simpler. You watched, you waited, and you shot when needed.
The time drew on, and not long after five, he saw Henry appear outside, taking his now customary morning job around the compound. The site was not large but running on
the inside of the perimeter for half an hour was certainly enough to start the day right and keep people in condition for life in the new world.
Taron watched Henry run for a moment but returned his eyes to the tree line. While they had four stations, the main focus was always the campsite’s main entryway. It was the weakest part of their current fortification, and often a topic of conversation. In the long run, they knew they would need to reinforce the entire site, that or pack up their belongings and move completely. An option none of them every truly entertained, but always kept in reserve for when the conversation inevitably came around.
As he sat, and the new day dawned around him, Taron even allowed himself to feel content with things.
He had lost loved ones and friends. Even the deaths of those few people in his life through circumstance, and whose involvement he cared little for, were felt as losses. They had all been through it, but now, with life being rebuilt on the other side, he realized that much like grief at the loss of a loved one, the stages for the loss of one way of life were no different.
His grief was over, denial and anger long in the past, forced there by the unwavering and unsympathetic onslaught of the damned. Now, having accepted their fate, he found comfort in the simple things life had to offer. He had a place, a community that he belonged to and while it lasted, they were determined to make the most of it.
All he wished for was a radio and some tunes. What he wouldn’t give to hear some music, just to break up the silence of being on watch.
After an uneventful three hours, Taron was relieved by Vanessa, who, while not one to venture outside of the camp without severe cause to do so, had proven herself to be a dead shot with both the rifle and a bow and arrow. Yet oddly enough, she found the crossbow uncomfortable and her aim suffered as a result.
“How are things?” she asked, the standard greeting at the changing of the guard.
“Quiet as can be. Didn’t even get a sniff of movement through the trees. Hector mentioned a fox or something sniffing around the rear building, but I didn’t see anything. Whatever it was, it’s long gone now.” Taron gave Vanessa the run down on things, before leaving her to her duties.
ZPOC: The Beginning Page 8
