by Steven Till
For more than an hour now, the dog ran with unequaled determination. Ignoring the pain that he felt in his shoulder, Boomer pushed through the snow. More snow had come, and with it, loud machines that moved in the air. They filled the sky and spit fire down on the people below, not only killing the dead things that still moved, but the human people as well.
He had changed directions before reaching the river. Something had told him that Master was not there; he had moved. A voice had whispered in his head. Not a human voice though. This voice he understood completely. It was a comforting voice. A friendly voice.
[“You must change your path, little one. Your Master is no longer among the towers that touch the sky. It is important that you find him, for he will need you.
Follow the water until the moon is highest. There you must swim to the land across. Run towards the trees ahead and you will find him.
You must not stop. You must not rest.
Hurry little one. HURRY!”]
The dog sped down the highway, following the road as it curved past the city. Fires burned everywhere. The machines in the sky floated in the air, spitting more fire and death. He weaved around the mass of cars, evading bodies, both alive and dead, as he pushed on.
Men in strange clothing, wearing bowls on their heads, shot fire from the noisy sticks which they held. He heard the never-ending chorus of screams all around him, as the men with the noise sticks killed everything that moved. Many of these strangers died as the dead-things hunted them.
His progress slowed as the bloodbath raged around him. No one had noticed him as he weaved throughout the labyrinth of wreckage. The road sloped upwards, elevating over the cross streets that connected the North Shore to downtown. The fighting was much lighter here and he was able to go faster along the berm.
A few minutes later, he darted down an off-ramp that took him back to ground level. Boomer sniffed the air and shifted his course towards the scent. Before long, he could see the water. Adjusting his course a second time, he continued on parallel to the mighty Ohio River.
An explosion knocked out a nearby transformer, plunging the North Shore into darkness. The fires that burned provided more than enough light to travel by. Gradually, the dead-things, soldiers, and humans became fewer and fewer as the little dog ran. Soon he was alone; the massacre that he had seen faded into the background.
As his little paws thrust him forward, the snow that had been falling had tapered off to a few lingering flakes floating in the air. Boomer looked up and saw the clouds begin to break; the full, swollen moon peeked through with its comforting effulgence.
His muscles burned. His stomach growled. His wounded shoulder throbbed with every stride. He thought about Lady. He worried about her. Master would know what to do. He would help Master find Lady. The thought of reuniting with his family drove the dog through the pain and the hunger.
Boomer ran, guided by the moon—and the whisper voice inside his head.
CHAPTER 21 TWO AMIGOS
“Holy shit, dude! It’s like the fucking apocalypse out here man!” exclaimed Pete as he peered through a crack in the door’s blinds.
“Great. How ‘bout you get away from the door before you attract attention to us. I’ll be pissed if you end up getting me killed,” replied Bill in his usual deadpan, monotone voice.
The two store clerks were stuck at work, like many others in the city, ever since the outbreak began. The two men weren’t all that fond of one another — hated each other in fact — but for some unknown reason, the pair were inseparable. Now they hid out in the store with no weapons, a few supplies, and no way to leave. Their building, with its windowless facade, offered them the only protection they could hope for.
Pete was a large man in his early twenties. He had a promising chance at playing center for the Steelers. His opportunity shattered, along with his knee, during the “Backyard Brawl” against West Virginia last year. Now, with hopes of a pro-football career in the toilet and an $8.50 an hour job, Pete coped with his shitty luck by harassing his counterpart.
Bill was a few years older than Pete. His long, shaggy hair and ten-inch long beard had earned him the moniker “Bearded Bill” from the shop’s regular clientele. He hated that nickname. It always made him think of a pirate. Having served two tours of duty in Iraq while in the Air Force, Bill was content working this boring job. He didn’t even care that the pay was shit; he was just happy that there wasn’t any excitement that came with it. The one thing he couldn’t stand though, was the never-ending stream of garbage that spewed forth from Pete’s mouth on a constant basis.
Pete made his way from the door towards the cash register, where Bill leaned on the counter and read the Frank Miller graphic novel that he had picked up the day before.
“How can you read that shit when the world is going all to hell outside?” Pete asked.
“What would you rather I do? Stock the shelves? Take out the garbage? Scrub down the back rooms? I’m pretty sure we’re not going to have any customers come in, so how about you go fuck yourself,” Bill responded, without even looking up from his book.
“Fuck off, Blackbeard,” Pete retorted. “How long did Sam say he’d be?”
Bill shrugged off the pirate reference, although he was getting closer to popping his colleague in the nose. “He didn’t. He just said that he had to run home to grab his lunch, then he’d come straight here, so just untwist your panties and calm the hell down.”
That was hours ago. Pete paced up and down the aisles looking for something to do. He was bored out of his mind; had been ever since the TV went off the air. Now with no news of what was going on, he was starting to panic. The store was silent, save for the screams, explosions and other noises of Armageddon. He began to sing the lyrics to Aerosmith's “Don't Want to Miss a Thing.” The sounds outside were beginning to drive him insane. He walked behind the counter and into the back office. A moment later he returned with a small boom box. Setting it down, he opened the lid and loaded a CD.
The deafening roar of Gwar thundered from the stereo and boomed throughout the empty store. Bill jumped from the sudden explosion of death metal music and bounded towards the end of the counter. In a split second he ejected the CD and flung it aside. “What the fuck do think you’re doing?” he asked.
Pete stood there stunned. “I was going crazy listening to all that shit outside. Figured it would help take our minds off of everything.”
“You’re going to attract every one of those things to our doorstep. Sam told us to ‘play dead’ and that’s what we’re gonna do. That means we keep quiet, you fuck.”
“I thought you liked Gwar,” Pete replied with a slight smirk on his face.
“You really are an asshole,” Bill said, as he picked up the stereo and tossed it into the back office.
CHAPTER 22 BAIT
Sam and Evelyn drove in silence. They had to backtrack a lot, since every road they ventured down choked with abandoned cars and bodies. Finally, after about an hour of poking up and down various side streets, they managed to make their way back onto Babcock.
Evelyn gazed out the window at the upside-down world. Everywhere she looked, the same images appeared. Death, destruction, and blood. Lots of blood. Everything seemed deserted. Not a soul, living or dead, could be found. This struck her as odd. She had at least expected to see the zombies scurrying around like insects swarming for food.
“Hey Sam, where is everybody?” she asked, looking out all the car windows.
Sam slowed the car a bit and took a quick glance around. “Hmm, that doesn’t seem right, does it? Looks a little too quiet.”
Evelyn’s eyes met Sam’s. “That’s just it. Everyone’s gone. The last time we came through here, there were a ton of those things running around killing everything that moved. Now they’re all just… Gone.”
Sam gave a grunt, signaling his agreement. He didn’t know where the dead had run off to. Maybe they were hiding. Maybe they moved on in search of more prey. It was
impossible to say why they left. As far as he was concerned, it was damn impossible to explain any of this mess.
BANG!
The gunshot rang in the air, causing both travelers jump and Sam to swerve the car in an evasive maneuver. He slammed on the brakes and brought the vehicle to a screeching halt in the middle of the road.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Sam and Evelyn ducked down behind the dashboard. As the gunfire continued, both realized that they weren’t the ones under attack. Raising his head, Sam chanced a quick peek above the dash. Fifty feet away, in a large parking lot next to their car, a school bus sat covered with undead. More gunfire erupted from the bus, throwing off one or two zombies with each blast.
Sam ducked back down out of sight. His expression contorted into a rock-solid grimace of indecision.
“What is it?” she asked. Gunfire continued to erupt from the bus.
Sam looked at her, the intensity frozen on his face. “School bus. Don’t know how many are inside, but those creeper things are swarming it.” He made another quick glance towards the bus. “Looks to be maybe forty or fifty are out there surrounding those folks.”
“We can’t just leave those people there to die, Sam. What’s the plan?”
Sam looked in the back seat at the bag of ammunition, then back at his gun. “Well, I’ve got enough ammo to take care of every creeper out there and plus some, but there’s no way we’ll be able to reload fast enough. They’ll overtake us after we blow our first load, so to speak. There’s no telling how many people are on that bus or how many bullets they have left, so we’d be stupid to assume that they’d be of any help. Safe bet is to stay in the car.”
Evelyn pondered Sam’s words for a moment, then chanced a glance out the window at the swarming mass of bodies around the helpless bus. Guns blazed out of various windows of the vehicle, throwing off more gore and bodies. The nearby car fires cast an eerie glow upon the carnage.
“Okay, Sam, here’s what I need you to do. I want you to circle around the bus with the car, but make sure you give it a wide berth.” Evelyn checked her pistol, making sure it was fully loaded.
“That’s it? That’s your plan? What the hell is that going to do?” Sam asked.
“We need a diversion. Divide and conquer. We don’t have to kill them all, just disperse them so those people can get that bus moving.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “Great, so what kind of diversion did you have in mind?”
“Bait,” Evelyn said as she opened the car door and jumped out towards the mob of undead.
Sam nearly shit his pants as he watched her sprint towards the bloodthirsty zombies. Bullets continued to spray out of the bus as Evelyn started firing her pistol at the mass of bodies. He could hear her screaming as she continued forward.
“Get that fucking car moving old man!” she yelled behind her.
He snapped out of his shock, popped the car into gear and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. The car lurched forward and roared towards the large parking lot. The murderous gang noticed the woman screaming and shooting at them and began to give chase, completely forgetting the humans on the bus. The mass of bodies began to peel away as if it were a single organism.
The instant the creepers abandoned their quarry for the much easier prey, Evelyn changed direction and moved away from the bus along the outer edge of the lot. Sam made a wide arc around the bus and gunned the engine, speeding the car towards the center of the group, which was now in hot pursuit of the bat-shit-crazy woman running around the lot. The car hit at least a dozen pair of legs and arms, kicking some of them up over the roof, while crushing several under the speeding tires.
Evelyn zagged to the left, circling around in the opposite direction of the car. Looking back to the bus, she saw the tail lights kick on as the large vehicle began to pull forward. Good, they’re clear, she thought as she cut in towards the middle of the lot. At the same time, Sam screeched towards her on the outside, taking down another five zombies.
The surprise of their attack had passed and the creatures now moved towards her. Sam saw the crowd careen towards Evelyn. In a split second, he knew that they would get to her before the car would. With each blink of an eye, the advancing dead closed the gap between her and inevitable suffering.
She knew she was in trouble. The distance to Sam and the relative safety of the car was much farther than that of the creepers. Panic set in, forcing her legs to pump even quicker than before. Her boot found the only patch of black ice in a thirty foot radius, sending her sailing into the air. She belly-flopped onto the asphalt and the wind left her. I’m dead, she thought.
Willing herself to regain her senses, Evelyn raised her head and turned to see how many more seconds she had before ravenous teeth and claws tore her flesh away. Her eyes rose up and met the cold stare of the lead zombie, a mere three feet away. The ghoul erupted into a spray of thick, red goo as the school bus plowed into the advancing mob, nearly hitting Sam in the process.
“Jesus Christ on a cracker!” Sam exclaimed.
He cut the wheel to the left, missing the bus and his fallen comrade. Slamming on the brakes, the car stopped next to Evelyn, who was already getting back to her feet. She fired off three quick shots to the nearest monsters as she jerked the door open and jumped into the car.
“Go! Go! Go!” she screamed.
Wheels spun, rocketing the car forward as the dead began throwing themselves at the vehicle. The bus had turned around and was now coming up on the pursuing zombies, crunching over them as it gained momentum. Gunshots rang out on both sides of the bus as it cleaved through the herd of creepers. Sam made a sharp left turn back onto the street, never letting up on the gas. The bus followed, smearing a dark stain onto the road as it skidded into the turn.
With the dead now behind them, the two vehicles sped down the road, putting as much distance between the weary survivors and the horrors that had almost ended their lives.
CHAPTER 23 FORT PITT
The little dead girl stood in ankle-deep snow and stared at the Fort Pitt Tunnel entrance before her. Sunshine’s eyes followed the trees up to the top of Mt. Washington and traced the edge of the summit towards the right. Her gaze returned back to the mouth of the tunnel and then continued on to the left. The man had not passed by here yet.
The Horde had made its way across the precarious bridge support and now waited for her command. Their numbers swelled, now totaling in the neighborhood of twelve thousand and climbing exponentially; absorbing new members as they travelled. The trek across the decimated bridge had proved treacherous, with many falling off of the ten inch wide I-beam. Not that it mattered of course. None of the toppled dead had perished from the fall. They just sank to the bottom of the river where they wandered, confused at their new surroundings. The River Styx born anew.
Sunshine turned to her right and hissed, pointing to the tunnel. Forty of her children scurried into the darkness and positioned themselves behind several of the disabled vehicles inside. A maniacal grin appeared on her face. The trap was set. The man and his companion would travel past here and when they did, her minions would collect them and bring them to her. Although she was certain her prey would travel this way, she wasn’t stupid. She would take the rest of her brood and move to the summit of Mt. Washington, should her quarry try to be smart.
With another hiss, the little queen moved forward and climbed the steep hill face. The Horde moved as one behind her, scaling up after her on all sides. Claws dug into the frozen earth, pulling at the roots and foliage that covered the hillside. The dead made their way towards the summit above the tunnel entrance.
Five minutes later, Sunshine stood on the sidewalk that stretched along an overlook above her trap and looked out across the ruined city as it burned. She saw military aircraft bombard downtown proper with fiery explosions. The muzzle flashes of hundreds of weapons peppered the surrounding urban sprawl as soldiers tried to contain the outbreak. She laughed a guttural chuckle. Mankind couldn't contain
this. No matter what the humans did, their reign of power and control had come to an end. Their corruption of Paradise will be cleansed. She closed her eyes and reached out with her senses. In her mind’s eye she traversed city after city, country after country. Each image that she perceived told the same story. Fire, death, destruction, pain, chaos, and anarchy had spread over the globe. Languages swam in her ears and mingled together like an audible soup. She could understand each one, but didn’t bother to focus on one voice. They all said the same thing. God help us.
There was no God. Not today.
She opened her eyes and allowed the flood of stimuli from her mental “uplink” to subside. A noise caught her attention to her right. As she turned to look for the source, an Apache attack helicopter rose over the tree line and began firing a rain of bullets into the mass of her followers. Blood sprayed in a geyser as .30mm rounds from the M230 chain gun ripped through her loyal subjects.
The helicopter circled around and lowered its altitude as it continued to cut a wide arc of carnage. It finally stopped and hovered a mere thirty feet in front of Sunshine. The chain gun had stopped and glowed white-hot from the barrage. Without hesitation, the girl dropped her mangled, bloody teddy bear onto the ground, walked two feet to her left and broke off a parking meter at the base. In one fluid motion she spun the meter over, bashed it on the ground and snapped off the meter, spilling change onto the ground.
Raising the metal post, she effortlessly hurled the makeshift javelin with incredible speed towards the helicopter. The pilot’s eyes grew wide as the post shot through the canopy glass and over the gunner’s head. It continued on through the pilot’s helmet, his skull, his brain, and out the back of his head, embedding into his headrest. Immediately the Apache pitched forward and crashed into the side of the mountain, erupting a huge ball of fire into the air. As the rotor blades shredded, shrapnel flew into the Horde, embedding into dozens of her children.
