Cage The Dead

by Gary F. Vanucci

  She passed several open doors on either side of her, including a bathroom and a walk in closet, until she stood before one that was closed. She listened and heard nothing behind it, paused in silence, and continued listening for several more minutes thankful that the creaking sound ended.

  Finally, attempting to back away, she shifted her weight to her back foot and the floor beneath her creaked.

  She barely had time to register the sound of footsteps coming toward her from behind the closed door.

  A heartbeat later and that very door exploded into wooden shards.

  Emerging from the shattered and flimsy material of the door was a pair of hands followed by the rest of a zombie. It was dressed in similar garb as she wore, indicating it to have once been an employee of the zoo, as it barreled into her. The sheer surprise and ensuing impact startled Gaia as the zombie slammed into her, the pistol flying from her grasp, bouncing down the stairs.

  Their momentum took them through the stair supports, shattering the wooden banister and stunning Gaia for an instant, the pain from the old wound on her forehead rudely reminded her of its presence with a throbbing pain.

  She looked in horror as the gun plummeted away, the impetus of Gaia’s arm action taking it further down the steps. But she could not focus on that for long as the zombie bit and clawed at her, trying to rend flesh.

  Gaia fought with all of her might as the sheer weight of the creature—a large man in its life before it had transformed into one of the living dead—easily pinned her to the floor.

  In her struggle, she noticed one thing. The creature was incredibly strong. It took everything she had just to keep its one arm from—it only has one arm!—pinning her down. Then she finally stared into its crazed face, its eyes grayed over and its mouth dripping blood

  It was someone she knew after all.

  He was a very kind one-armed man in his former life, Hank, that had worked here doing whatever he could to help out, but was mostly used as a consultant. He’d worked at many zoos in the past, losing most of his right his arm in a terrible incident with a grizzly, leaving behind only a stump.

  As the creature sat atop her snapping its jaws, her fighting with every ounce of her strength just to keep it at bay, Gaia knew that these undead creatures never tired, but she soon would—very soon in fact. She managed to maneuver its remaining arm in between them, using it to keep those teeth from gaining purchase in her flesh.

  She had one choice here, and that was to try to wiggle out from under—no, she realized, as she felt something hard and thin under her head as the zombie snapped at her repeatedly—she would try something else. She shifted again in order to allow herself one brief instant in which to grasp what she hoped might save her life.

  She grasped the rigid cylindrical item, and brought it forward with force, jamming the wooden spindle through the zombie’s head.

  She suddenly felt its entire weight upon her as it collapsed completely. She couldn’t even breathe. Shifting from beneath it with all of her might, she managed to take in a deep breath, but then it rested on her uncomfortably once more.

  She was beginning to black out, when she felt the things weight shift again. She was overwhelmed with panic now, believing that the undead creature was somehow still alive and ready to kill her once and for all.

  It rocked back and forth on top of her a few times before it finally rolled off her completely. Where once the zombie occupied her line of sight, Justin stood above her now, looking down at her with concern.

  “Did he get you, Gaia? Are you—“

  “I’m…good, Justin! Thanks…to you!” she said, in between labored breaths.

  “I brought you this,” he said, handing her the fallen weapon. As the weight of the gun rested in her hands, she caught sight of movement from the hall directly behind Justin.

  ”And it’s a good thing you did.”

  She kicked out with her boot, catching him sharply in the lower shin as hard as she could. The ensuing look of surprise coupled with pain made Gaia feel bad about it initially. Then she fired the gun at the onrushing pair of zombies that were racing toward them. She hit the mark truly on the first, missed the head of the second one with the first try and then hit it perfectly with the second.

  Justin stared up at her again with confusion. That is, until he looked back at where Gaia now signaled, seeing the target of her gunshots.

  “Get behind me,” Gaia instructed, making to her feet and preparing for more zombies to come running out of the adjacent bedrooms. After half a minute, however, nothing more happened. She quickly went from room to room with the gun at the ready, but each room was empty. She entered the hall again and looked at the dead zombies that stained the hardwood floor. “We need to get rid of these bodies.”

  “Whatcha wanna do with ‘em?” Justin asked, scratching his nose. Gaia thought about that for a little while.

  “We could drag ‘em down the steps,” Gaia said aloud, as if working her way through the issue. “Or,” she added, moving into the next room, “we could toss ‘em out the door there. That seems like less of a strain, right?” Justin shrugged and then nodded, pointing at the door leading outside to a balcony. Gaia stood over one of the three, the big man’s corpse, and grabbed its hands and tried to move the thing. It barely budged. “Well, this could be a problem.”

  “Can your friend help? Gorillas are strong, right?” Justin asked, causing Gaia to consider that question. She had been teaching both Solomon and Molly rudimentary sign language, with which the pair responded very favorably. They had been working on that for over a year now, and she had seen Solomon flip a tire back and forth across their pen with relative ease. So, he could certainly move these bodies, too.

  “It’s worth a try, hon,” she said to the boy, impressed with his ability to think along those lines. Gaia slid the safety in place on the gun, tucked the gun in the front of her belt, and waved for Justin to follow. “Are you sure you’re only nine?”

  He nodded with satisfaction, recognizing her words as a compliment and smiled proudly.

  Gaia shook her head, not knowing what to make of it all as the pair climbed down the stairs. Gaia stared out the windows on the far side of the house nearest the veterinary facility, where she and Nick had gone not even twenty-four hours ago. All seemed pretty quiet outside.

  Almost too quiet.

  “I better get an extra clip,” she said to no one in particular, as she headed toward the basement door, scrambled down the stairs, opened the gun safe and the hard shell case within, and put the extra clip in her jacket pocket.

  Another thirteen, she thought, hoping that she wouldn’t even need to empty the current clip in the gun. She quickly ascended the stairs and rejoined Justin, who was staring out the glass pane on the door. He stepped aside and nodded for her to go first.

  She turned the handle on the door and pushed it open wide. Nothing stood within eyesight there except for a pair of lions in the far distance, tearing at something. She had no idea if their meal was a zombie or another animal, but she did admit that things were chaotic at best, and that she couldn’t do anything about it right now anyway. She needed to head in the opposite direction, to check on the gorillas and from there she could see the wolf and hyena pens, too. They were probably getting hungry, she thought, shaking her head at the collective misery through which these animals were suffering.

  “This way, Gaia whispered, heading off and toward the section of the zoo that held the primates. She almost leaped out of her skin when Maye hopped up from behind her and climbed up her leg. Maye was chattering and a bit frantic, which had Gaia concerned.

  “It’s okay, Maye. We’re fine,” she said, until she rounded a corner of the veterinary lab and saw half a dozen zombies kneeling on the ground, feasting on an animal corpse. She saw only a hoof and assumed it to be a moose, and hoped that the animal had at least taken some of them down before they killed it.

  They quietly walked past the zombies, who were more than fifty or
so paces away, out in the open, were probably too wrapped up in their meal to notice them—until Maye squawked unexpectedly.

  “Run!” Gaia said, taking off running toward the primate enclosures. As she pumped her legs harder, Maye clutching her shoulder and neck uncomfortably, she peeked back to see that Justin was keeping pace with her.

  She looked back and saw that the zombies were a good distance away and that only two chased them. What felt like a full minute later, the gorilla pen was near, and as she got closer, she noted Solomon sitting before the rest of the family, which struck her as odd. She tapped the keys in her pocket, but realized unlocking the pen would spell doom for the both of them. She began to remove the keys and noted a breach in the fencing and changed direction toward it.

  It appeared that something bent the fencing inward, causing a gap in the links.

  As she arrived, she saw that Molly and the babies were lying still. She managed another quick glance over her shoulder and noted with terror that the zombies were closing the gap, less than twenty paces from Justin now and closing.

  “Here!” she yelled to Justin, running to the opening in the pen’s fencing. It was large enough for them to squeeze through, and so she removed her pistol and raised it toward the onrushing undead, allowing Justin time to carefully climb through the gap. She stopped and spun to face the oncoming undead, but as she lifted the gun, it flew from her hands.

  Maye leapt from her shoulder and onto the pen, scaling it, leaving an unarmed and disheartened Gaia behind.

  They were a mere few paces from her and so she turned and saw Justin holding the fence open for her. She dove into the opening, scraping her forearm on the exposed steel and running a thin gash along her skin.

  She felt a hand grasp her boot. She kicked in a panic more than once, until she wiggled free, the zombie pulling it loose with a tug. She began to crawl forward, managed to regain her footing, and ran to where Justin stood, staring at Solomon. The gorilla beat his chest angrily and maneuvered in front of Gaia and Justin and as the first zombie came through the breach in the chain link.

  Solomon pummeled the first one that came in smashing its skull with his fists twice, the first one bending its neck as Gaia heard the bones snap under the ferocity of the attack. The second blow caused its head to explode under the impact.

  Solomon was angry. Gaia had never seen the silverback behave with such ferocity and it made her feel terrified.

  The second one came into the pen, and again he beat his chest as the creature lunged for him. He slapped the zombie away with such force, that once again Gaia heard bones shatter under the impact. Solomon beat his chest, hooted, and knuckle-ran straight into the onrushing zombie, which latched on and bit into Solomon’s hide, but did not get a firm grasp before the gorilla seized it and launched the undead creature into the air. He then struck the zombie on the way back down with such force that he broke its back.

  The zombie, unfazed by the devastating blow it had just received, lay on the floor in a crumpled heap, trying hopelessly to crawl forward toward the gorilla. Gaia looked from the zombie back to Solomon, who was clearly still upset, pacing back and forth and grunting some more.

  She strode up to the zombie and jammed the machete tip through its skull, wiped the gore off on the grass, and then put it back in her leather sheath.

  Then she waited a long minute before turning to witness the horror that she knew awaited her. She spun and gazed upon the corpses of Molly, along with two of the babies, all lying dead. She collapsed on the grassy surface of the enclosure and began to weep uncontrollably, Justin staring at her in an uncomfortable silence. A moment later, she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Solomon staring down at her.

  But, the odd thing was that there seemed to be an intelligent understanding behind his gaze. She knew better though, realizing the absurdity of that notion, but appreciated it nonetheless.

  She stood and hugged him, and then backed away, using sign language to ask him to come with her. He shook his head and banged the ground in front of the deceased gorillas.

  “You want me to fix them?” she asked. “I can’t, Solomon. I’m sorry,” she added, gesturing with the appropriate signs. “You need to come with Gaia, okay?”

  Solomon again ran around the pen angrily, stomping on the dead zombie body, beating his chest, screeching, and generally showing her that he was angry with the zombies. And rightly so, she knew.

  “You come with me, okay? Come with Gaia. I will take you to be safe,” she said, again signing it out for him. The enormous silverback finally calmed and sat in the pen again, gesturing to Gaia that he was sad. She leaned over the huge animal and hugged him, something she had done many times in the past. But this time, she noted that there were wounds on his hide and matted blood in his fur.

  She scanned the area inside the enclosure, finally seeing a pile of zombie corpses, at least three of them, all dead and torn to pieces, lying in the far corner.

  “Come with me and I will get you some fruit,” she said, trying to entice the gorilla to follow her. Then she noted that some more zombies in the distance were heading their way, wandering slowly. She needed to cut them off. Through the binoculars, she could see four of them.

  “As a matter of fact,” she stated, ‘You stay here with Justin for a minute. Wait with him, okay,” she said, signing first to the gorilla and then instructing the boy, who nodded, saying nothing. She reached for the gun in the small of her back and then recalled she had dropped it. Quickly scanning for and then recovering the gun, Gaia walked slowly toward her prey.

  She chambered a round and drew close enough for them to see her. The first one came charging toward her, blood and gore staining its face and dripping from its mouth. Then the second and the third began that same frantic charge. Gaia dropped the first one squarely, allowing it to get close. She repeated with the second and then the third, the gunshots echoing throughout the open space.

  Howls and cries from the nearby wolves and laughing from the hyenas broke the silence next. Gaia had an idea.

  She waited for the last one to see her, it was possibly another of the many children that had come yesterday to see the animals. But right now, she didn’t care. She saw the thing that came toward her as something much more sinister.

  “You killed my family,” she said evenly, shooting it in the knee, causing it to run more slowly. She turned in that moment and ran, racing past the pen with Justin and Solomon in the distance, keeping far enough away from the pair so that the zombie could not see them as it shambled wildly after her.

  She raced to the pits, purposely dug out and fenced in so that the hyenas were ten feet below, and she waited for the approaching zombie. On one side were the wolves, and on the other side were the hyenas.

  It closed the gap quickly, charging along despite the wounded leg, and driven by its need to sate it’s never-ending hunger. As it arrived in her personal space, Gaia bent low.

  She knew the zombies were not smart and so she used that lack of intelligence against them. The zombie grasped at the empty air where she had just been and tumbled over her. Gaia stood, finishing the zombie’s reckless momentum and tossing it to the hyenas below, launching the body over the half fence. It crashed to the hard ground, landing in a way that saw one leg snap in half.

  She stared down over the edge and smiled as the hyenas approached. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a pack of cigarettes lying on the ground and picked them up.

  “Fuck it.”

  She opened the pack, removed a cigarette, a neatly tucked-in lighter, and stared at them both. Gaia was a reformed smoker of five years now, but she shrugged, placed the cigarette in her mouth and lit it.

  She took a long drag, looked down at the ensuing chaos as the hyenas tore pieces of flesh off the zombie and she smiled with gratification.

  Chapter 10

  She heard Justin’s voice calling in the distance, interrupting her from the grim satisfaction of watching the hyena’s feasti
ng on the undead thing. Despite the fact that it was once a young boy had no bearing on Gaia right now. She only knew that these undead creatures had been responsible for the deaths of everyone she’d held dear.

  They’d taken Adam, Nick, Molly and the babies, Aubrey, and every other zookeeper and employee that she could—wait, she thought—not all.

  Someone else that worked here has to be alive. Someone opened the cat enclosures. Who was it, then? Who could—?

  “Miss Gaia!” called the voice of Justin, derailing her train of thought from the mystery at hand, namely: who opened the pens and were they still alive?

  She tossed the butt away and tucked the pack of cigarettes into her jacket. Gaia made her way across the open area to the gorilla pen and unlocked the door there.

  “What is it, Justin?”

  “I…I was just worried about you, that’s all,” said the young boy, causing Gaia to smile at his attempted deflection of concern for her, when she knew very well that he was scared, too. And she didn’t blame him, as she was just as frightened by this whole turn of events. Maye was resting comfortably on his shoulder and he seemed to like her there.

  “Come with Gaia, Solomon. I have fruits for you,” she said as she signed the ‘eat’ gesture to him. The massive silverback shuffled along, then seemingly full of sympathy or concern, looked back again at the deceased female gorilla and her babies. “We will come back and bury them,” she said, patting Solomon on the back. He made a sign to Gaia that he was sad and Gaia’s anger mounted knowing that these zombies had done this. She wanted to make them pay.

  As they made their way back toward the house, Gaia passed the veterinary lab, remembering Nancy and what she’d had to do to the undead creature that stood in her stead. Then they passed the storage shed that housed the freezers full of food, as well as skids of dried foods, and she decided to stop there. She stood before the freezers and heard the humming and knew that they still had power, as did everything in the facility…for now.