by Smith, Aaron
“Well,” Brandon began his answer as his voice began to shake. “Zombies are dead people that came back from being dead and now they kill people, right? And they eat them!”
“Well, yes,” Danielle nodded, “at least according to horror movies that’s what they are, but there has to be another explanation in real life. I think what’s happening is some kind of sickness.”
“Yeah,” Brandon said, growing excited, “a zombie sickness! And I’m telling you … it started because of me! My brother was dead! And then I brought him back and he wasn’t dead anymore. But when he came alive again … there was something else with him! He was a zombie, wasn’t he? And he killed my Mom and my Dad, didn’t he? You can tell me. It’s okay, because I already know!”
“Yes, Brandon,” Danielle nodded sadly. “That’s what happened. Now what do you mean, you brought your brother back? As I understood it, your mother did that when she got him to breathe again after he fell in the water. Isn’t that what happened?”
“Yeah, that finished it, but I started it by putting him in rice and praying.”
“Why would you put him in rice?” Danielle asked, confused.
“Because it got the water out of Mom’s phone and I thought it might work with Joseph too. I didn’t know what else to do. I was scared. So I got rice and I put him on it and then I prayed … but I don’t think God heard me.”
“You don’t?”
“I think it was the wrong number and I called the Devil by mistake. That’s how I made the zombies come. It’s my fault.”
“Brandon, none of this is your fault.” Danielle felt sorry for him. “There’s no way anybody can blame a zombie infestation —I can’t believe I just said that seriously— on a seven-year old boy. Now finish your breakfast. I need to tell Claire to hurry up. We have to get going.”
She stood up, wishing she could make more sense out of what Brandon had just told her. Maybe, she thought, the chain of events that was tearing Chicago apart really had started with that poor family and their nearly drowned son, but there had to be a real, scientific explanation to how it had begun. Her interest in science and medicine made her want to sit down, close her eyes, go over every bit of information she’d stuffed into her head since starting med school, and solve the mystery that was tearing her home city apart. If only she had time to think. No, she told herself, shoving that thought aside; the first priority has to be to get to safety. She began to bang on the bathroom door to hurry Claire along. As she knocked, she glanced at the window. It was beginning to get light outside. She predicted a great tangle of traffic once the sun rose as people rushed to leave the city. She had hoped to beat what would probably be the worst morning rush hour in the history of Chicago.
Claire finally came out of the bathroom. Danielle sent Brandon in to wash up, gave him a spare toothbrush to use. She and Claire packed bags, one large bag each, with clothing, other small necessities, laptop computers and all the cash they had at the apartment. The money was not much; they would have to find an ATM on their way. Danielle felt a surge of adrenaline as she led the way, bag in one hand, crutch in the other. Claire walked behind her, holding Brandon’s hand. Claire was nervous and felt a few tears forming in her eyes. Brandon grinned with the look that only a child can have when he thinks he’s about to embark on a great adventure.
Doug woke up, blinked a few times. His brain registered that it was early morning. He sat up slowly, tired, gradually recalling where he was. He felt a bead of sweat trickle slowly down his face. As his mind adjusted to being awake, he remembered two things. He was in Kacey’s bed, and he had been dreaming.
The dream clung to his consciousness for a moment and he knew it had caused his perspiration. It had been a shadow-self dream. In the vision, Kacey sat across from him smiling. She had laughed as she announced that she had a surprise for him, a gift. He had smiled in anticipation and then watched in fascination as she had slowly, teasingly unbuttoned her shirt to reveal her naked body, but it was different. The left breast was gone, cut completely away, and a gaping hole, staring back at him like an empty eye socket, was in its place. Still giggling, Kacey reached one hand behind her back and produced her own heart, still beating, and offered it to Doug. “Look,” she said with glee, “it still works. Do you want to hold it?”
The dream was gone now, but Doug was disturbed by it. What if he had awakened enthralled by the dream’s content and been driven to make it reality? He could have killed her as she slept. Was being there with her a chance he could not afford to take, for her sake or his?
He got out of bed, suddenly uncomfortable with his own nakedness. He found his jeans, stepped into them, walked over to the window with his heart pounding. Part of him wanted to finish dressing and get out of there before Kacey woke, but part of him wanted desperately to be there with her, to be normal, to have no shadow-self, and to make love to her again. He sighed in frustration. He would stay, he decided, and see what happened next, but he vowed to flee at the first sign of trouble from his own corrupt soul.
After several minutes of gazing out the window into the driveway, Doug remembered everything else. He recalled the events in Chicago that kept him from returning home. He wondered what the status there was. He turned around, switched on Kacey’s small, old television and watched in morbid fascination as he came to understand just how serious the situation in his city had become.
The death toll was high but still only the roughest of estimates. People were being turned away from hospitals for fear of the contagion spreading. Most businesses were closed and the school system was completely shut down. Even the mail was suspended. The police, in tandem with the military, were in the process of locking down the city and setting up armed blockades on many roads. Some people were allowed to leave the city, but no one, unless affiliated with some branch of the government, was permitted to enter Chicago.
Doug knew he would not be going home soon. But, it occurred to him, he really didn’t care. Who did he have in Chicago? Nobody, and nothing but an apartment with a computer and some books and tools; there wasn’t much to go back to. On the other hand, what he had found in the obscure little town of Bellamy was far more intriguing than anything in all of mighty Chicago. His night with Kacey had brought him to a place he had not been before, and it had made him, however briefly, happier than he had been in a very, very long time. Still, doubts lingered. How long could he remain with her, how powerful could his unexpected affection for her grow, before his shadow-self went into action and the urges to understand and explore the puzzle pieces that made up the beautiful machine overwhelmed him and made him do something irreversible?
Yet, despite knowing he could not go back to Chicago, and most of his mind telling him he didn’t want to, there was a segment of his soul that whispered its desire to go and see the mayhem, the death and the violence, firsthand. He knew it was his shadow-self expressing its lust in one way when he had commanded it to shut up in regards to another.
“Morning,” was the word, spoken soft and sweet and still a fraction asleep, which pulled Doug’s attention from the TV. He turned. Kacey had sat up in bed to look at him. She smiled as she loosely held a blanket in front of her body. One breast, small and pale was visible in the half-light of dawn. Doug made his own facial muscles smile back, but he was faking it, for that breast was the one that had been absent in his shadow-self dream and those images flashed through his mind now as he saw it with waking eyes. As he looked, externally at her as a whole woman and internally at her as she had been mutilated in the dream, he felt arousal begin and could not be certain to which sight his body was reacting.
“How bad is it?” Kacey asked.
Doug momentarily thought she was referring to how he felt. How does she know? Is it so apparent? But he realized it was the TV she was looking at now.
“Bad enough,” he said, his thoughts redirected, mercifully. “The city’s shut down; army’s taken over, maybe hundreds dead. It’s all fucked up.”
�
�I guess you’re stuck with me, huh?” Kacey smiled wider now, a full gleaming grin.
“If you’ll have me,” Doug answered. Just go with it for now, he reminded himself.
“Well, then,” Kacey quipped flirtatiously, “I hope that means I can have you like I did last night. That was … awesome! Are you okay now? You got a little weird at the end there, right before we fell asleep.”
“It must have been the bump on the head,” Doug lied. Take it slow, Doug, take it slow, and tread carefully. It’s a very thin line.
“Fair enough,” she said, letting the blanket fall away completely as she walked quickly to the bathroom, completely naked and not trying to hide it, and shut the door behind her. “I’ll be out in a few.”
Doug turned back to the TV. He tried not to think of Kacey’s body in motion, fully exposed and inviting. His mind was split, with one side utterly spellbound by the carnage going on in Chicago and the other almost overwhelmed by feelings about Kacey. He wondered if—or perhaps when—those two parts of the mind would collide. Had he been a religious man, he might have prayed that the collision would not be disastrous for her; but there was no god within the mind of Douglas Clancy, only the outer Doug and his shadow-self. He did not know what the future would bring.
Chapter 10
Many of Chicago’s city blocks were densely packed, allowing Terence Trumbull to cross from one rooftop to the next without having to descend to the danger zone of the streets below.
He sprinted across the rooftops, making small leaps over the narrow alleyways. He stopped, scanning the avenues below from his perch, looking for any sign of trouble, any indication that the Empty Ones were near. His ears remained sharp and his hand never left his gun. He stayed alert and wary, knowing any lapse in his attention would surely bring his death—and an unwelcome resurrection.
For several minutes there was nothing but small background sounds: litter blowing about in the gentle spring breeze, the soft cry of distant sirens, the chatter of a radio that had been left on in a now-empty apartment. It was peaceful in an eerie doomsday way and the unnatural stillness of the morning sent shivers through him. Then another noise broke through—the familiar sound of running feet clad in military grade boots. He leaned over the front edge of the rooftop, to see a man, in uniform. He was running, out of breath and almost frantic, slightly limping as if injured, but certainly human and not an Empty One.
“You down there,” Trumbull called out, “stop! That’s an order, son. I’m a captain! Slow down and wait there. I’ll come to you.”
The soldier looked up, saw Trumbull leaning over the edge of the roof, and paused. He stood still but his head moved as though he were worried about staying in one spot too long. He looked impatient and afraid, but obeyed.
Trumbull descended the fire escape and sprinted up the alley to the lone soldier. Having a closer look now, Trumbull saw a young man, perhaps twenty-five, with the chevrons of a corporal on his collar.
“Relax, Corporal. I’m armed.” Trumbull gave the butt of his gun a firm smack to reassure the younger man. “You’re safe. I’m Captain Trumbull. Now tell me what happened to you? Why are you alone? Where’s your squad?”
“Dead,” the young soldier answered, looking at the ground, “they’re all dead except me. I’m only alive because I ran! I left them there in that slaughter and I ran!”
The poor kid’s voice was shaking. His accent, Trumbull thought, sounded Minnesotan. His face was a little green too, as if he was fighting the urge to vomit.
“All right, soldier. Just tell me how it happened,” Trumbull said.
“We were patrolling, sir. We went down a street because we heard voices, laughing. It was a bunch of civilians, college kids probably. They were being stupid, walking around out in the open with their phones out trying to film the mess for YouTube or something, just being dumb, not getting that it was a life or death situation. We chased them inside, told them to go home, to get off the streets. Once the block was clear, we started to move on to the next area, but then it happened. We heard a loud cracking sound, like wood breaking. We all turned at once and we saw a door shatter across the street, broken open like somebody hit it with a sledgehammer from the inside. Then they came out. There must have been twenty of them, those things. There were only eight of us. Those things were horrible, sir! Men, women, even a couple kids, and they were all torn up and bloody, some had pieces missing but they didn’t seem to feel any pain. Their eyes were empty like … like they had no souls! They came at us all at once and we fired but only a few of them went down. They were fast, really fucking fast! Sarge was in front and he got hit first! One of those motherfuckers just ran up to him and ripped his face apart! Everything went crazy after that! I just saw blood spraying everywhere, people falling down, our guys and those things all at once! I snapped, sir. I snapped and I started to scream and I dropped my weapon and I just started to run. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I had to run, had to get out of there. We had no chance.”
Trumbull watched the corporal’s face crumble into a mass of streaming tears and reddened eyes and the visible anguish of fear and disgust and grief and shame.
“It’s not your fault son, you’d be dead, too, if you’d stayed.”
The corporal said nothing. Trumbull remembered that the young man had seemed to be limping slightly. He glanced down at the soldier’s pants and saw a tear in the left leg of the uniform with what appeared to be a bloodstain around the jagged edges of the hole.
“Are you hurt, son?”
“I … I tripped while I was running. It’s not bad.”
“Let me take a look. Roll up your pants leg, corporal.”
The soldier did as ordered. There was a wound on the knee, but it was no scrape from falling. Terence Trumbull knew what a bite mark looked like. He noticed that the corporal’s hand had begun to shake.
Trumbull took a step back. He did not hesitate. Any hesitation would only make things worse. In one swift motion, he brought his weapon up and fired a single, precise shot into the young man’s head. The corporal fell back; his shattered skull hit the pavement. Trumbull stepped around the body and continued on down the street. He felt no remorse, for he knew exactly what the corporal would have become. But he did feel anger. “Eighteen,” he muttered, and kept walking.
Danielle and Claire had been stopped four times in their first ten minutes of driving, either by the army or by the police. On each occasion they had been asked where they were going, as if any sane person would be heading anywhere but out of the city. Each time it had been the sight of Brandon in the back seat that had prompted the men at the checkpoints to give them the go ahead to proceed. “Get that kid out of here,” the sergeant at the fourth stop said, “and good luck.”
For those first ten minutes, they had seen dozens of police and military, on foot and in vehicles, but none of the walking semi-dead, the “zombies,” as every witness interviewed on the news seemed to be calling them. Danielle was glad for that and hoped it would stay that way. Claire was mostly silent, though at one point, Danielle heard her mumbling and realized she was praying. Brandon, seeming to have pushed his grief aside for the time being, anxiously turned his head back and forth, looking out the window for any sign of the creatures that had infested the city, as if they were on a grand adventure and not a run for their lives. Danielle was glad children tend to see the world that way. It was making her life easier for the moment.
They drove through a section of the city where nothing was happening; no military activity, no police presence, and, most importantly, no visible violence. Danielle knew there would be roadblocks when they reached the perimeter of the city. She hoped the route would remain clear until then.
Three blocks later, Danielle applied pressure to the brake pedal, just enough to slow down slightly. There were people up ahead. Claire, feeling the slowing of the car, looked up, saw the figures in the street and mumbled, “Shit.”
The car slowly rolled ahead. There were seven of th
em, all dressed in fatigues. “It’s the army!” Brandon observed from the back seat. One of the green-clad men turned toward the oncoming vehicle. Danielle pulled to a stop. Claire, thinking the soldier was going to ask where they were headed and if they were injured, began to roll down the window.
“Claire, wait!” Danielle said as the glass panel began to slide down into the door.
Time seemed to slow down from Danielle’s point of view. The window dropped all the way. The hands of the Empty One in the green uniform reached into the car. Claire screamed, piercing and shrill. Then came the pulling, the terrible tug, backed by great strength and a tremendous lust to consume. Danielle watched, frozen and horrified, as the laws of physics seemed to bend before her eyes. She would have thought it impossible for a human body, an adult one at least, to fit through the small square of space made by opening a car window. But it happened. Claire’s head went out first, followed by the shoulders that had been grasped by those terrible hands, then the trunk of her body, and finally her flailing, kicking, struggling legs.
“Holy cow,” Brandon said from the back seat, hiding his eyes and screaming. His voice pulled Danielle out of her haze. She blinked, her mouth opened wide with shock and horror, and she cried out her friend’s name in pure desperation.
“Claire!”
Instinct and loyalty told Danielle to act, to get out, and to try to help. Reason stopped her. She knew there was nothing she could do. There were too many of them. And there was Brandon to consider. Danielle could not leave the boy to the mercy of a world gone mad. She would not leave the car. But she could not look away either; her eyes, at the very least, would not abandon Claire until all hope was lost, and it soon was.
The Empty One that had torn Claire from the car dragged her several feet away and the others crowded closer. As they moved on Claire’s position, Danielle could hear her roommate’s screams. Danielle rolled up the open window, managing to get it shut just as one of the Empty Ones, unable to get close enough to Claire to join in the assault, tried to get more food from the car. The thing slammed its fist up against the glass but the window held. Brandon made a noise from the back seat, a sound of fear beginning to overtake his curiosity.
