by M. Van
| 3
I was panting, and my shoulders slammed the wall. I slid down to the ground. “I can’t breathe,” I said, my voice raspy. I cradled my knees with my arms, and Mars dropped down next to me.
“You’re not the only one,” he said. I raised my brows in disbelief. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. As if a trained soldier wouldn’t be able to keep up with a disease-riddled woman going on thirty, I thought but didn’t say. He grinned as if he could read my mind, handing me my backpack. He had been kind enough to carry it for me. I took it from him, probed inside until my hands found a bottle. I opened it and took a couple of long swigs of water before I handed it to Mars.
“Thanks.” He took a few sips and then returned the bottle. Lights flickered above, and I glanced around the half-lit hallway. Gray concrete walls with exit lights over green doors surrounded us.
From one of the maps plastered on the wall, we had plotted a route to the far southeast end of Terminal Four. There should be a long-term parking lot from where, the plan was, to hot-wire a suitable vehicle. The trip had us weaving through maintenance corridors, and we had gotten lucky. Decks’s assessment of the deserted office levels had been correct. The zombies we’d encountered hadn’t been a match for Decks and Mars. Those two had some serious skills. Those things had dropped like flies around them. I couldn’t wrap my head around the images of human beings acting like predators. The sight of their mutilated faces haunted me.
“You’re doing okay, you know,” Mars said. He patted my knee. I let my head fall to the right. His face reflected the greenish glow of an exit sign. It emphasized the color of his eyes. I released a strained laugh.
“I’m actually in full-blown panic mode here,” I said. “I just have a tendency to express things differently.”
His face lifted with a smile that made his eyes light up. “Then you’re hiding it well.”
I smiled back at him, but my smile soon faded. It wasn’t that I didn’t fear death, but the shock of it hunting me had settled years ago.
“These zombies,” I said, “they were people like five minutes ago. How is this possible?”
Mars let his eyes drift off into the darkness of the hallway. He tapped a nervous finger on his weapon before he spoke. “I know, but you can’t see them like that anymore.” For the first time, I could see he had his own trouble handling our situation.
“That’s just the thing. I don’t. Like it’s a bad video game or something,” I said and swallowed. “Does that make me a bad person?”
Mars shook his head. He eyed me with a saddened expression, but then he said in a firm voice, “No, it doesn’t. It makes you a survivor.”
I snorted a laugh at that; his words sounded weird to my ears. Since we had left the small office, it had occurred to me that falling behind might be a good solution to my problem. Being eaten alive by a horde of zombies didn’t seem appealing, but it meant a quicker way out than the one I was facing. A slow decline of my body was something I might fear even more than death. To whither like a fallen leaf, dependent on others for everything. I shuddered at the thought and grabbed hold of what Mars had said. It could have been the adrenaline coursing through my veins, but for some reason, I wanted to survive this. Maybe I didn’t want to disappoint Mars, or maybe if I survived this I could survive anything, but that meant hope, and for me hope killed.
Mars smiled a sad smile as if he knew what I was thinking. Then his eyes drifted into the darkness. For a second, he seemed to have spaced out. “Someone screwed up,” he said under his breath. I felt my eyes widen at his words.
“What?” I asked warily. He looked at me with a startled expression. His pale jade eyes, intensified by the exit lights, bored into me. There was something behind them that came close to frightening, but the soft features of his face reassured me of his kindness. Suddenly two gunshots sounded near the entrance. I jumped as Mars lifted his rifle. He lowered it again when Decks peeked around the door and shoved Elizabeth out ahead of him.
“Sorry. Got held up by a pair of heels,” Decks said. He signaled with a hand, and when Mars sat down, I figured it meant the coast was clear.
About an hour ago, Elizabeth had fallen into complete shock, and the men had had to drag her along. Elizabeth now stumbled to us. I hadn’t envied her in those elevated shoes and that tight skirt. I had never been much of a girly girl, and over the years I had received a lot of crap about it, but I felt grateful for my dark-green cargo pants, basic black long-sleeved shirt, and dark denim jacket. To think I had almost discarded my old Timberland boots. With clothes, I had a tendency to go for comfortable and practical rather than fashionable. It had served me today.
When Decks and Elizabeth dropped down on the floor next to us, I noticed Elizabeth’s heels reduced to flats. I tossed her my bottle of water. It bounced off her chest and fell to the floor. Decks picked it up, took a sip, and then held it to Elizabeth’s mouth. He looked her over before he glanced over to me.
“You seem to be reasonably calm considering this shit,” he said. I shrugged.
“I already live on borrowed time,” I said. My head leaned against the wall, and I closed my eyes. When he didn’t add anything else, I was glad he’d gotten my hint. I could do without the I’m-sorry conversation. A psychiatrist would probably call it the denial stage, but I didn’t care what people thought. I refused to deal with it. I had accepted it but refused to deal.
Images of mutilated people filled my head, arms ripped from torsos, shredded faces combined with guts that made the floor slippery and sticky at the same time. The rage that poured out of these vile creatures would once have been unimaginable to me. The image that made me open my eyes with a shudder wasn’t one of all the gore I seen, but the clouded milky white and soulless eyes that had belonged to my friend, Emily. I couldn’t get those eyes out of my head.
“Let’s take five and then head down to find a car,” Decks said.
“Traffic’s going to be a bitch,” I replied absently. Mars snorted in amusement.
“Where’d you say you’re from?” he asked with a grin plastered on his face. “Because I can place the language but not the accent.”
“I didn’t, but I’m Dutch,” I said with a sigh. “Guess I’ll be overstaying my tourist visa.”
Mars’s grin widened. “Well, you were right about not heading down to the departures hall, so for that I’ll let you stay at my place.”
I looked up at him. “Are you flirting with me, Lieutenant Marsden?”
He smiled a row of white teeth that sparkled in contrast to his dark skin. I couldn’t help but return the smile, and I caught a glimpse of the boyish cheekiness that hid inside his eyes.
“I was building up to ask you out on a date,” he said and grinned like a little kid.
Decks rolled his eyes.
“Great timing, Mars,” he said.
My cheeks burned red hot, and I felt grateful the dim lights wouldn’t betray me. A loud thud wrenched me from those eyes.
“Time to go,” Decks said. He pulled Elizabeth to her feet. Mars held his smile as he helped me up, and I eyed him with curiosity.
“How come you’re so relaxed?” I asked.
“I’m not relaxed. I just have a tendency to present myself differently in certain situations,” he replied. “Besides, I thought of the place I’m gonna take you out to.”
“But I haven’t said yes.”
He grinned, threw my backpack over his shoulder, and followed the others
As we walked, I looked back down the long empty hallway from where we had come. At the end of it, four zombies tried to squeeze their bloodied forms past a door. I felt trapped in the narrow space between these concrete walls. The zombies moved sluggishly, heads bobbing like Stevie Wonder. They appeared blind as bats. They didn’t seem to pose much of a threat until one of them stuck its nose in the air similar to the way Emily had done. Except, unlike Emily, this one seemed to spring to life. I guessed their senses of smell worked better than their sight.
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A zombie dressed as a security officer accompanied a zombie in a worker’s coverall. As if synchronized they picked up the pace. Two others followed in their step.
“Eh, guys,” I said and gestured in the direction of our new company. At the sight of the decrepit figures scrambling through the door, Decks set off in a sprint with Elizabeth in tow. She turned her head at the upcoming zombies. Her eyes widened, and she started to scream at the top of her lungs. Apparently averse to screams, the zombies growled at us and started to move with a newfound motivation.
Mars stopped, turned, and lifted his rifle. I covered my ears at the loud shots that echoed inside the hallway. Within seconds, he sprinted out from behind me and took Elizabeth from Decks, placing a hand over her mouth. When he reached a steel door with an exit sign overhead at the end of the hall, he placed her against the wall and whispered in her ear.
Curious, I turned around and saw a pile of four bodies on the floor. I wanted to commend Mars on his shooting when a head peeked around the door, and I swallowed the words. The face looked bloodied and scratched. One of its eyes hung out of its sockets, dangling by a thread of muscle. I turned to Mars, but he was too busy with Elizabeth down the hall. My eyes returned to the end of the hall where zombie bodies littered the floor. The pile gave Mangled Face some trouble as we hit trouble of our own.
“Dammit,” Decks spit out and shoved his weight at the steel door. Without thinking, I ran toward the zombies to another door we had passed halfway down the hall and grabbed the handle. It didn’t budge.
“Shit,” I muttered before my eyes fell on Mangled Face. It had gotten itself past the fallen zombies and had stopped a couple of feet from me. The zombie eyed me with an empty gaze as its nose rose into the air. I swallowed. Mangled Face shook its head, which must have made its whole body vibrate because something slipped out of its pant leg. I gagged at the sight of something organic but felt no desire to identify the mass of goo and averted my eyes. As it hovered, I didn’t dare move. The thought of becoming a zombie snack found new appeal, if only for a heartbeat. What was it I had to lose? I had no husband or kids in my life, not even a boyfriend. I lived estranged from my family, and the only friend I’d had sat in an infirmary somewhere inside this building, banging her head on a door. Besides, I already had a death sentence. Cancer had accompanied me since my late teens and wouldn’t disappear by surviving a zombie-infested airport.
“Mags, get away from it,” Mars shouted from behind me. At the sound of his voice, I wanted to turn and run, but there was something weird about this zombie. Why hadn’t it attacked me? I should have been dead already. The zombie had reacted to Mars’s voice, but after it sniffed the air, it seemingly lost its interest. I took a tentative step back. When it didn’t react, I took another. Maybe this thing had already eaten.
Over my shoulder, I saw Decks fiddle with our exit, but it didn’t seem to budge. Mars had closed in on me with the same careful steps I was taking toward him, his rifle raised. Several zombies passed the door, joining Mangled Face. A man wearing an orange vest, a woman wearing flight attendant colors, and a little girl stomped through the opening. I swallowed bile at the sight of the little girl that, with her pink tails, resembled my neighbors’ kid back home.
They shuffled from foot to foot but kept their distance. I didn’t mind, but Mars raised his brows with a curious look. I peered over my shoulder at him when he said, “The zombies downstairs didn’t act like this.”
“I know. Weird, huh?” I said in a low voice, still backing up.
Decks cursed when he couldn’t get the door open and kicked it with his boot. That seemed to wake up the zombies again, and I scowled at him.
“Piece of shit,” Decks said, cursing the door.
“Let me see, sir,” Mars said and headed over to Decks.
I returned my attention to our slow-motion zombies. The mangled zombie stuck its nose in the air again, which looked weird because basically it didn’t have a nose. Growls that seem to come from deep down in its throat raised the hairs on my neck. The zombies kept hovering as if they were waiting for a bus. My stomach twisted at the eerie sight of looming zombies shifting from foot to foot. These things acted nothing like the zombies I had seen in movies or on the plaza.
“Guys, I’d really like to leave now,” I said. The words nearly caught in my throat. Decks glanced up with a frown. When I got closer, he shoved Elizabeth my way. I don’t know what Mars had said to Elizabeth—she had stopped screaming—but she did feel like a sack of potatoes in my arms. The men pounded their boots against the door. The zombies, captivated by the sound, started to shuffle our way. At least I presumed it to be the sound.
Rhythmic drums of boots on doors filled the hall, and with every kick, the lifeless figures edged closer. I looked over my shoulder, holding Elizabeth’s slumped body between the soldiers and me. Two figures joined Mangled Face in a group shuffle. These people appeared newly changed and didn’t bear the classic horror-movie look. I didn’t even know whether they ever would. They might not even be dead. It might be, as Decks had said, a virus that affected their behavior. Although the man venturing through the door, with his entrails threatening to burst out of his stomach, looked as if he should have been dead.
My heart slammed in my chest while nervous energies rattled my bones. Elizabeth groaned, and for a second she appeared to be turning, but she grabbed my arms around her waist, and I understood that I’d been holding her too tightly. I pressed her shoulders to the wall, and she managed to keep upright on her own. This meant my shaking hands had nothing to do. To contain the nerves, I wrapped my arms around my body and pressed my hands to my sides. Between nervous glances, I inched to the soldiers, hoping for a miracle that would break open the door, leaving Elizabeth to her own devices. When Mangled Face moved its nose in the air again, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Guys,” I shouted, and the door gave a loud crack. It didn’t open, though, and only gave me about two seconds of confidence.
“Almost,” Mars grunted. “Here. Take this. Safety’s off.” My eyes widened at the sight of the weapon he was offering.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said when he placed the gun in my hand. Decks reached for his sidearm, then considered Elizabeth, and thought the better of it.
“You know how to work that?” Mars asked. I swallowed and nodded. The metal felt cool in my hand when I wrapped it around the handle. I knew how to handle guns, shot plenty of them at a local gun range back home. It had been a feeble attempt to rebel against my parents, to do something remotely dangerous in the wake of their protectiveness. But I wasn’t much of a shot, and the targets at home didn’t move. These targets moved, although they were acting weirdly. I gripped the gun with two hands to steady it. Elizabeth pushed herself off the wall and walked a few steps toward the zombies.
“This is not real,” she said when I took hold of her arm and pulled her back. She jerked her head to me, eyes wide.
“Look at them!” she screamed in my face. “This is not real!” Over her shoulder, I saw heads pop up like meerkats. Forgetting about Elizabeth, I glared at them as they sniffed the air when simultaneously the little girl growled. With a renewed undeadliness, she shuffled toward us. I shoved Elizabeth at the wall next to the door where Decks and Mars still stood, pounding it.
Bodies shuffled with renewed purpose as if they had rediscovered us. I raised the gun. My hands shook, and I had trouble keeping the firearm steady. I pulled the trigger only to hit Mangled Face in the shoulder. He didn’t even jerk, but he kept moving, faster now. Dammit, I silently cursed, aimed, and shot again. The second bullet lodged in its neck.
“Head shots, goddammit,” Decks called out from behind me.
“Fuck you,” I yelled back, my voice filled with nervous tension. “Get that damn door open.” It took everything for me not to freak out. I pulled the trigger again. The little girl’s head snapped back, and she tumbled to the ground. Shock ran me over like a freight train,
and I pushed down the bile that threatened to make an appearance. Determined, I pushed the image from my mind and remembered what Mars had said about not seeing them as humans. I shot two zombies in the front row, which made the ones who were following trip over them.
Hands rose to grab me. Even disregarding the long-dead look, hands with broken fingers and missing fingernails drove me over the edge of freaking out. Without taking proper aim, I fired the gun several times frantically to get them off us. I dug my boot heels to the wall when Mars and Decks threw their bodies at the door in a combined effort. It cracked, snapped open, and both guys tumbled through the opening.
I grabbed Elizabeth around the waist, pulled her to the door, and fired again. My aim was even less successful with a one-handed grip. I couldn’t get Elizabeth to move. Fear had frozen her stiff. I fired several shots until the gun clicked empty. Bloodied hands reached out for us. Full-blown fear grabbed me by the throat when two arms wrapped around my waist. They pulled me backward through the opening after which the door closed in front of my nose. Decks shoved a heavy looking barrel in front of it. I released Elizabeth, and Mars’s broad smile made me sigh with relief.
“Let’s go, this way,” Decks ordered after taking Elizabeth by the hand.
| 4
Mars’s strong arms lingered a beat longer than necessary. I noticed he had about an inch on me in height. It was a stupid thought, but it was something that didn’t happen often, as I was a solid six-feet tall. I squinted against the blazing afternoon sun when my eyes fell on the wide-open space over Mars’s shoulder. We were outside. The terrain resembled a concrete-plastered wasteland. Passenger planes lined up on the tarmac in the near distance, waiting for passengers who would never board. An airliner with all-too-familiar blue and white colors stood out as if waving a silent good-bye. Part of me wanted to run for it as if there’d be a pilot inside, waiting for me to get on. Mars squeezed my arm, returning me to a reality where I would probably never go home. His smile grew, seemingly in sympathy, as if he knew what I was thinking. He forced my legs to move.
