by A. J. Sikes
Little dude probably thinks we’re all here to save him. Shit.
Jed would’ve saved the kid if he had to, but that would mean stopping the truck and walking around on the street, climbing over wrecked cars and trash. And bodies. Jed had wondered if the monsters took people away to eat. He hadn’t seen any bodies when he and Chips were running that morning, or when he’d hooked up with the Army guys outside his grandma’s place. But he saw the bodies now. Lots of them, all tangled up inside the cars, bloody and broken apart. And the street up ahead was filled with corpses.
The kid was probably still back there waving as the last truck in the convoy rolled past his apartment. Jed felt a tug on his heart for a second, but he knew there was no saving that kid. There was no saving anybody but himself.
The soldiers behind him must have seen the kid, because they started talking up a storm. Jed was going to tell them he’d seen the kid and wished they could have helped him, but one of the other guys started firing. The sergeant up front hollered “Cease fire! Cease fire!” and gave the hand sign as he rushed back and slapped the soldier’s hand away from his trigger.
“The fuck’s the matter with you, son? You hear the order to light it up? Who gave the order? Corporal Haskins,” the sergeant yelled at the black dude next to Jed.
“Yes, Sergeant,” the corporal said back.
“Keep your squad in line!” The sergeant gave the soldier who’d started shooting another whack on the helmet.
The soldier shrank back, but didn’t say anything. The sergeant gave the whole truck a glare and went back to his position up front.
“Eyes out, on the city. High and low. And you report when you see something. You do not fire until you are ordered to do so. Hooah?”
Every man in the truck replied, and Jed joined in, even though he was watching the truck behind them. They were second to last in the convoy, and the one in the back was lagging a bit.
“Sergeant,” Jed said.
“What?” the man said, not turning around.
“The truck in back. They’re—”
“You supposed to be watching the truck behind us or your zone of fire, Private?”
“My—Shit!”
As Jed and now the other soldiers watched, the rear truck jerked, skidded sideways and began to tip. The men in the back held on, trying to stay in the bed, but the truck went up on one set of wheels and came crashing down on its side. Soldiers spilled out of the bed and landed on the pavement.
Up front in Jed’s truck, the sergeant banged on the cab and yelled for them to stop.
“First squad, dismount! Second squad, cover them and watch for movement. You see anything looks hostile, now you shoot it.”
Jed wasn’t sure, but he thought something sprayed inside the cab of the last truck in the split second before it went over. He was going to say something, but he felt the man behind him pushing him. Then the sergeant gave him an earful.
“Let’s go, Welch!” the sergeant yelled.
Corporal Haskins was already off the truck and moving with his weapon up, getting closer to the soldiers lying in the street. One of them wasn’t moving at all, but the others were all rolling around holding their arms or sides, except for one guy who was up on his feet and backpedaling from the truck.
“Hey,” Haskins called out to the guy. “You wanna help them up? Some of them hurt.”
Jed jumped off the truck and moved to join the guy who was backing away. He looked like he knew what was up and didn’t want any part of it.
Only fool out here has any sense. Shit’s going down. We should just go. Get the guys ain’t hurt and just go.
Jed caught up to the guy and put a hand on his shoulder. The soldier spun around and had his rifle up in Jed’s grill.
“Stay the fuck off me!” the soldier screamed at him. The guy was just a kid, barely out of high school probably. And his face was crazy, like he’d seen the inside of hell.
Jed backed off and the dude lowered his rifle. But he kept stepping backwards, moving his head left to right and looking like you did when the big kids find you on the schoolyard in summer. His eyes were all big and his mouth kept shaking like he wanted to say something. Jed got a few more steps away from the kid and went back to scanning the area. Corporal Haskins held a position between the trucks. He was right out in the open, watching the street and the high rises across the way. The rest of the squad from Jed’s truck had reached the guys who fell and were helping them up.
The sergeant shouted something. Then Jed heard the pop-pop-pop of M16s. He scanned around the trucks and spotted movement again, from one of the high rise apartments across the boulevard.
But the gunfire was aimed down low, street level somewhere, and Jed couldn’t see anything to shoot at from where he was. Corporal Haskins fired at something across the street while the rest of the squad helped the injured guys get to the truck. Jed tucked back up against tailgate. He was in full view of the injured guys and the squad helping them, so he did his best to act like he was holding a covering position. Jed scanned the area with his weapon at the ready and kept flashing a glance at the corporal, who was popping off rounds.
Jed almost saw the monsters in time. He’d turned to check where the crazy kid had gone. He heard something back there, at the edge of the street, and was looking around the end of the truck to see what it was. Then a swarm of the monsters just tore into Haskins. The corporal vanished under a knot of sickly white skin and sprays of blood. Jed pivoted and brought his weapon up in time to take out one that was coming his way, charging at him on all fours like a mad dog. He lit it up with three rounds to the chest, and the monster fell on its face with blood leaking out of everything.
Haskins was done, just gone under the mass of shrieking monsters that leaped on him. A foot and one hand were all Jed could see of the man. Jed heard more gunfire from the truck now, and the sergeant was still shouting. The guys in the street scrambled for the truck, and two of them had to stop to reposition the unconscious guy they were carrying.
Jed went to help and reached a hand to take the injured guy’s weapon, but they all barged into Jed and shoved him out of their way.
“Just fucking shoot them!” one of the soldiers yelled at him as they moved for the truck bed. “Shoot the fucking things!”
Jed backed up a step. He lifted his weapon, but the half dozen monsters that had taken out Haskins were all dead now, shot to shit by the guys still in the truck. A series of shrieks and growls echoed across the boulevard and Jed looked in the direction of the sound, across the street. A cascade of pale white flesh raced down the high rises, like ants pouring out of a hive. He could hear their joints clicking and snapping as they moved, and the shrieks and snarls they made nearly turned Jed’s stomach inside out. He backed up another step, bumping into the truck. Someone up there was yelling his name, telling him to get up on the truck. But Jed knew where he was going. He turned on his heels and ran like hell.
☣
Shouts and gunfire shifted to screams and howls of pain behind him. Jed raced down a street that cut off the boulevard and ran between two buildings, sucking in air and pushing it out as fast as he could. He skidded to a stop when he heard a car alarm nearby. Lights flashed in time with the alarm on a BMW with tinted windows. The car was angled into a parking space behind the buildings. The driver’s side door was open, but Jed didn’t see any movement. He brought his weapon up and went closer until he saw blood on the ground, and then an M16 lying beside the rear bumper.
Jed went closer still, keeping some distance from the car as he went around the bumper. The crazy kid from before had been torn up and left in a heap on the other side of the car. Blood spattered across the doors on the passenger side, and the windshield was smashed in like something big had landed on it.
Jed snapped his rifle up and aimed at the roof of the building beside him. It was two stories high, just like the row houses across the way. Jed scanned left and right and moved to the kid’s body. He still had ammo
on him.
Right as Jed reached for the kid’s LBE harness, the body twitched and the legs began kicking. The kid was still alive. His chest was ripped up and blood was all over him, but he was still alive.
Jed didn’t waste a second before he aimed and fired right into his chin. A bloody mess spattered from inside the kid’s helmet and his body went still again. Waiting a beat, Jed kept his aim but flicked his head back and forth, and up, to check for movement.
He looked at the kid’s ammo pouches now. They were dripping with blood. He’d have to touch it. In a rush, Jed backed away from the kid’s body, casting around the area as he moved out, making sure nothing had snuck up to watch him. He’d seen the way the swarm moved from the high rises. He’d also seen one of them sitting on top of a parked car, watching the others.
Fucking things ain’t zombies, like that dude said. They can think. They’re smart as hell.
Jed could still hear the pop-pop of small arms from back where the trucks were. An engine roared and then cut out and Jed heard the screeching of metal on metal. He moved across the street, farther from the sounds and the screams.
The row houses behind him were all painted dark colors, some of them red and others brown or black. Trees shaded the fronts and concealed the windows, but Jed could tell some of the houses were occupied, and not by monsters. Curtains flicked back and forth and faces peered out from some windows.
A scream from down the street put Jed on the move in the other direction. He ran, ducking low behind parked cars and keeping an eye on rooftops and trees as he went. He had to get inside. If he stayed out on the street—
Shrieking and howling echoed into the afternoon sky along with more gunfire. Something big opened up a few streets over and Jed felt the heavy choop-choop of a grenade launcher, followed by a string of detonations that shook some of the houses nearby. He was careful to keep an eye out this time, watching for movement anywhere in his area. With his rifle up, Jed scanned left to right, from the street level up to the rooftops.
Left to right. Up and down. Left to—
Two of them came crawling like spiders down the walls of a house on his side of the street.
They had shreds of clothing still on, and Jed could see they were both women before they changed. Jed lifted his rifle and aimed at one of them. Another string of explosions rocked the city around him. The thing on the wall snapped its head up and stared straight at Jed. He fired, putting a round right into its mouth.
It dropped like a dead cockroach, straight down to the sidewalk.
Its partner reared back and shrieked long and high. Jed pulled his shoulders up tight, trying to block his ears. Then the monster jumped for a tree next to the house. It climbed down branch to branch, moving like it was out for Jed’s blood. He shifted his aim and fired, but it was too fast and his shots missed. The monster made it to the lowest branch and seemed to hold there, like it had forgotten why it was climbing down instead of up.
The monster clawed at its own chest, leaving deep gouges in its pasty white flesh. Thick lines of blood drooled down its skin and it shrieked again. Jed went into flight mode. He turned and ran, slowing every few steps to spin back and fire off a three-round burst.
At the end of the block, Jed heard shouting and more gunfire from a few streets up. The one behind him jumped from parked cars and up into trees, onto the walls of houses and down to the street. It stopped to claw at itself sometimes, or to bite its arm before leaping after him again. Jed fired a burst at it and missed. At this rate, he’d have to change magazines before he hit it.
“Stay still, motherfucker,” Jed shouted as he paused against a van parked on the street. He fired another burst. He only had three rounds left in the magazine before he had to change. The monster was getting closer, leaping from car to tree, to the wall of the nearest house. It hung there, staring at him before jumping to the sidewalk and scrambling on all fours straight at him. It slid left and right as it moved, like it knew he had to aim to hit it.
“Shit! Stay fucking still!” Jed screamed, as he held his rifle with shaking hands and squeezed the last three round burst out of the magazine.
Upper East Side, Manhattan
“It seems like it’s over,” Rex said while Meg made sure the survivors all had blankets on their cots. They bundled up extra uniforms for pillows, and even pulled the couch cushions from the day room.
“I don’t know about it being over,” Meg said when they were done with the cots. “But it does seem quieter. If any of them try to get inside, we have the hose,” Meg said, motioning at Eric. He was still by the door to the chief’s office with the hose wrapped around him and the nozzle up and ready.
The survivors sat on their cots, looking shifty and uncertain. The Muslim woman, who was named Abeer, held her baby close and sat off to the side of the main group. She’d been given a few looks and stares from some of the survivors. Still others seemed ready to just ignore her. Meg realized she couldn’t let it continue this way, so she said what had been on her mind the minute the survivors showed up.
“Look everyone, we might be all that’s left. We don’t have radio contact with anyone out there.”
“What?” Rex asked, surprised.
“I checked while I was upstairs,” Meg said. “The phone’s dead. So whatever information we have is contained right here.” Meg tapped a finger against her temple. “And whatever chance of survival we have left, it’s right here,” she said, tapping her finger over her heart.
The group stared at her, even Eric, but he had a smile on his face. “Tell ‘em, Meg,” he said.
“For now, we are all any of us have. That means that you, me, the person next to you, any one of us might be the one who saves your life. So we’d better get used to knowing each other and treating each other like family.”
As Meg finished, a few sirens sounded from distant neighborhoods, and gunfire popped off nearby. The survivors, as one, looked to the shutter doors. One of them held her hands up to her throat in fear. She was a heavyset white woman in a thick pink sweater and plaid skirt, like the kind Meg had seen in too many office dramas back when she watched television.
Before I met Tim and took up running as a hobby instead of holding down couches.
The large woman said, “We don’t have any guns. What if those are criminals out there? We aren’t armed!”
“Yes we are,” Meg said. “And I don’t think those are criminals. The only people I saw with weapons were the Army, and a couple of guys trying to kill those things. I’m sure there are bad seeds out there, but for now I’d say we’re safe. Criminals will probably go for banks and liquor stores, and not necessarily in that order.”
That comment got Meg a few laughs, but the pink sweater woman wasn’t impressed.
“I don’t see any guns here.”
“That’s because this is a fire house, ma’am. We don’t have guns. We have axes,” Meg said, holding hers up and using it to point out others that hung in a rack along the wall.
“What about food?” a dark-skinned woman asked. She sat in the front of the group with her young daughter by her side. The girl had pigtails and a look on her face to match her mother’s. But she held a hand over her stomach like she hadn’t eaten in a while. The girl couldn’t have been older than six or seven.
“We have two pantries full of dry goods. Plenty of crackers, cookies, and pasta. Cans and jars. Plus the shift fridge. If we eat through that, we’ll dip into the other fridge.”
“How can we cook it?” the pink sweater lady asked. “I mean some food you can heat up in a microwave, but . . .”
“We have a kitchen, ma’am. Upstairs in the day room. Full stove, oven, and yes, a microwave. We won’t starve, at least as long as the power holds out. After that, I suppose we can start a fire somehow.”
That got more laughs, and from almost everybody. Meg let the glimmer of happiness swell into a smile, even for just a second.
Might be the last time we laugh for a long while.
“We’ll need medicine,” an older black woman said. She was the one from the door, with the gloves on her hands. She’d taken them off upstairs before she showered. Now she sat beside the mother and her daughter, and she still had the same determined look on her face. “I need to take my dailies. If I don’t—Well, it’s a wonder my heart is still ticking, but you know what I’m saying.”
Meg nodded. “I do, ma’am, and I’m sorry we don’t have more to offer. There’s a pharmacy a few blocks over. If it ends up looking safe, we can probably get what you need there. Later.”
Meg paused, looking at the group of survivors. “Like I said, we really don’t know anything more than you all do. If the military can be trusted—”
A loud laugh stopped Meg and she looked to the person who had complained about Abeer getting her own shower. The young woman sat on the opposite side of the group, but also at the edge, like she was announcing how much of an outcast she was.
“Did you have something to say, ma’am?”
“Do I have—What is this, fucking Kindergarten?” the girl shot back. When she showed her whole face, Meg could see the girl was probably a teenager, maybe in her early twenties at most. She had a shock of blue hair stuck to one side of her head that mostly hung down in front of her eye. The rest of her head was shaved and she had more jewelry in her face than Meg had ever owned in her life.
“No,” Meg said, keeping her cool as best she could. “This isn’t Kindergarten. It’s either the end of the world or, at best, an epidemic like nothing we’ve ever seen. Whichever is true, I don’t really care. My only goal is to keep us all alive and safe. As I was say—”
