by Todd Sprague
“Emmet, kill the light for a minute.” Emmet shut his flashlight off seconds after John switched his own off. Stifling blackness surrounded them. Moments later, as their eyes adjusted to the gloom, they could see a slight glow beyond the more thickly packed Zeds. John turned his light back on.
“We need to see what’s down there.” He pointed towards the glow.
Emmet nodded and switched his own light back on. They moved as quickly as they could through the Zeds. Emmet looked down at a pile as they passed it.
“These don’t look fresh at all. In fact, some of these are barely held together. Older, I think.” He paused and looked around. “In fact, I don’t see a fresh one anywhere.”
John nodded and kept moving. The piles of Zeds grew so thick the closer they came to the far end of the room that they found themselves brushing against the stiff, cold bodies.
“Shit!” Emmet muttered. John heard a clattering noise behind him and turned just in time to see what was left of an arm fall to the floor. Emmet disentangled himself from the body he’d bumped into and shrugged. “Sorry.”
John turned and continued, now able to see the glow even with his light on. It seemed to be coming from a wide doorway at the end of the room, set directly in the middle of a cement wall. Zed bodies lay piled directly in front of the doorway, stacked three or four deep.
Emmet came up short as they reached the wall. “John, do you smell that?”
John shook his head. “Can’t smell much of anything inside this helmet except the bacon I had for breakfast.”
“I think it’s gas. I can’t be sure.”
John peered over the wall of bodies, into the room. A murky haze, lit from within by an orange light, met his gaze, obscuring any details of the interior of the room.
“We’re running short of time, John.” Emmet said.
“Right. Let’s get in there.” John walked forward to the center of the wall of bodies. He picked one in the middle and placed his foot on it. He pushed until the whole wall began to tip inward. Bodies spilled into the glowing room, arm and leg bones cracking audibly as they fell to the floor.
John stepped over bodies and walked in to the room. Emmet followed behind, standing in the doorway. As John walked further into murky glow, a blurry form moved past him. Something bumped him from the side. He turned, but saw nothing there.
“Something’s in here with us!” he shouted. His P90 came up, the light reflected back through the orange haze. He heard Emmet yell from behind him. He turned in time to see two Zeds, most of their flesh gone, rotting muscles and bits of bone all that remained of their once human forms, rush at Emmet. He pulled his shotgun up but the Zeds hit him first. The three crashed through the doorway and out of the room. John started towards them when something gripped his arm in an iron-hard grip. He spun toward the creature and came face to face with a bone-white skull. Dull, shriveled eyes met his gaze. A thick, purple-black tongue protruded from the creature’s mouth. Strands of muscle ran from the lower jaw down into the collar of a tattered tan jumpsuit. John brought his P90 to bear, his finger tightening on the trigger. The creature slapped the gun out of his hand.
“Youuuu dieeee...” the creature moaned, its voice deep and echoing in the room. John gasped in shocked terror as the words bounced back at him from the low ceiling. Behind him, Emmet screamed. Two more creatures, not quite as decayed as the first, came out of the gloom and grabbed John’s arms, holding him still as the first creature let go. John managed to look behind him as Emmet came hurtling back into the room propelled by a huge Zed, the same one that had rushed him before. He fell to the ground next to John, his shotgun nowhere in sight.
“What the hell?” Emmet asked, blood dripping from a deep gash in his forehead.
The Zed behind him brought a heavy, rotting hand down on the back of his head, hard. Emmet slumped over and moaned.
John felt the firm grip of his captors despite the heavy armor. The creature that had spoken stepped closer to him. John caught more movement behind the creature and felt more than saw that there were more Zeds waiting in the gloom.
The creature, John couldn’t bring himself to call it a Zed even in his own mind, reached a skeletal hand up and touched the helmet on John’s head. It tapped his face shield with a bony finger, once, twice, three times. Then, it laughed. The laugh was slow and deep, and perhaps the most frightening sound John had ever heard in his life.
I’m sorry, Sara, John thought to himself. He struggled against the arms holding him, trying to rip them from their sockets, but they held firm. He saw Emmet stir from the corner of his eye just as the creature pulled its arm back and made a fist, preparing to drive the appendage through the face shield and in to John’s head.
“Down!” Emmet yelled as he rolled over. John looked down at him as Emmet pulled his pistol from his holster.
Confusion turned to horror as John realized what Emmet was doing. His knees buckled as he let his full weight pull himself to the ground. The two Zeds on either side of him were caught off guard and let his arms slip through their rotting fingers. John hit the ground just as Emmet fired. He saw the creature reaching down towards him right before he heard the sound of the gunshot. Sudden fire lit the room. John felt himself hurtling through the air until a wall intercepted him, slamming the breath from his lungs. Fire filled his vision right before he blacked out.
* * *
Uncertain as to how much time had passed, John blinked. Stinging sweat or blood, he wasn’t sure which, dripped into his eyes. Fire lit the room, pieces of debris, old furniture and other detritus, burned angrily all around him. John tried to sit up but something heavy lay on top of him. He pushed, struggling against the weight. Finally, the heavy burden rolled off him and he was able to sit up, despite every bone in his body protesting. A burning Zed lay next to him, most of its head and shoulders missing, having been blown off in the explosion.
Other bodies writhed nearby, most on fire. John looked to where he thought he’d been when the gas combusted, but saw no sign of the Zed pack leader. He crawled over toward the exit, trying to stay below the heavy smoke billowing throughout the room. As he neared the door, he saw movement beneath a pile of burning Zeds. He rose to his knees and pushed the burning mass off from Emmet. Emmet’s face and hands were blackened and burnt. His hair was gone completely, the skin of his face pulled tight in pain.
“Hold on, buddy. We’re getting out of here right now.”
Howls and moans echoed through the room. He heard the tread of thousands of Zeds above him as they woke from their cold-induced slumber. The Zeds outside of the room began moving as they too awoke, burning from the gas explosion.
Emmet tried to speak but no air came from his singed lungs. He looked at John, his eyes unblinking, until John realized he was gone.
Suddenly, the radio attached to John’s suit crackled to life. He looked down at his belt and saw that parts of his plastic armor had caught fire. He squashed the fire with his gloved hands and reached for his radio. The radio came out of its holster, but John could see it had been damaged from his flight into the wall. He held it up to his face and pressed the button to talk. The button fell off and dropped to the floor.
“John, Emmet, come in!” John heard over the radio. Its speaker still worked, and it was receiving.
“John! We’re under attack up here. Zeds are everywhere, and the building’s on fire! Can you hear me?” Roger’s voice echoed from the little radio.
John looked around but saw no sign of his P90. He still had his Sig on his belt, and the spikes in his arm pieces seemed to be functional, but he had no other weapons. He started towards the door, intent on escaping. Movement through the doorway, revealed by the flickering firelight, showed him the dozens, if not hundreds, of Zeds that stood between him and the staircase. Heat from the fire began to seep through the heavy armor.
“John! Can you hear me! We’ve got to fall back! There are too many of them. We’re losing up here!” John heard Roger, panic clear
in his voice. Get the hell out of here, John screamed at them in his mind. He looked around for another exit and saw a small doorway at the far end of the little room, opposite to where he’d come in. The door had buckled and lay half in the doorway. He could see nothing from the other side.
“We’ll come back for you, John, Emmet! We’ll be back with help, I promise. Hang in there!” Roger yelled over the radio. John heard the sound of an engine start, and the stutter of a heavy machine gun. Then the radio went dead.
He moved toward the far end of the room. As he reached the buckled doorway, he caught movement from the corner of his eyes. He turned just in time to see the blackened skeletal Zed pack leader stand up, shrugging off burning Zed corpses as it stood. It turned to John and pointed.
“Youuuuu!” it screamed, its deep voice echoing eerily in the fire filled room. John turned and kicked the buckled door out of his way and ran through the doorway. The creature behind him came after him. He saw other Zeds come after him, most of them ablaze. Panic caused him to run faster. Light from the fire lit another stairway in front of him. More piles of Zeds had been here, but most had been toppled by the explosion.
Now, individual Zeds began standing up. They moved towards him, most shambling, but a few running. Howls echoed in the cavernous basement. He caught movement on the stairway ahead of him. He tried to focus on it just as a second explosion knocked him off his feet. He landed hard on the ground. Zeds all around him blew apart in the explosion. Pieces of flesh and bits of bone landed on him, a pattering rain of the dead.
Smoke cleared for a moment, and John saw movement heading towards him. A howl erupted behind him, followed by the sound of machine gun fire. Dark figures in camouflaged uniforms swept past him, deeper into the fiery basement. More gunfire followed by another explosion echoed behind him.
John remained perfectly, playing dead as the men moved past him. The smoky haze along with the hundreds of bodies laying all around him helped to hide him among the Zeds. He lay there as he listened to the gunfire. Dozens of uniformed men moved past, reinforcing those who had come first. He watched from inside his helmet, only the feet and legs visible as they thundered by. The gunfire died down, though he could hear men yelling orders. He couldn’t make out anything they said, however, until one yelled triumphantly. “Fall back! Mission accomplished.”
He risked being caught by moving his head slightly so he could see up and into the room. The same uniformed men rushed back past him, some firing behind them, others holding on to cables. The cables were attached to the Zed pack leader. It struggled uselessly against the braided metal strands and the dozen men who held them. Angry noises came from its mouth as it was dragged past John.
A soldier walked behind the creature, talking in to a headset. “Mission accomplished, the informant’s intel was good. We are extracting now.” The men continued past John, a rear guard firing behind them as they left. The last one was up the stairway and out of sight before John dared to stand up. He looked behind him and saw most of the Zeds near him were down, riddled with bullet holes, though some were still moving. He ran for the stairs, hoping the soldiers were gone.
He made it up into the ground floor of the organ factory and saw a swath of destruction heading towards a wide open doorway directly in front of him. Zeds moved in on all sides. He ran as hard as he could, every battered muscle in his body working to keep him alive. He burst out through the darkness into the clear light of day ahead of a pack of howling, hungry Zeds. As he ran, he saw two Blackhawk helicopters flying away to the Northwest. Under one, he saw some kind of cage hanging from a cable, swaying in the wind.
John risked a glance behind him and saw hundreds of Zeds, some still on fire, chasing him. Most were shambling along slowly but dozens were running, gaining on him. He ran, the heavy armor slowing him down.
John found the road plowed by his team on the way in. He ran faster on the packed snow, but still the Zeds gained on him. He had run for over a mile before the first ones caught him. He knew they were going to catch him, so he flicked out the two spikes on his arms, setting them in place. He drew his pistol and gripped it tightly in his hand.
They jumped on him, grabbing at his arms and legs. They hauled him down to the ground like a pack of hyenas on a zebra. He went down hard. He watched grimly as they bit at him. Their sharp, jagged teeth closed tightly on the armor, but never managed to puncture it. He fired into them at close range, each shot hitting something. As Zeds fell off him, more raced in to take their place. He pulled the trigger a final time. The big pistol clicked empty. He dropped it and punched out with each arm. The spikes drove into undead heads, through eye sockets or rotten skulls. Each one he killed was immediately replaced by another.
As he managed to kill Zed after Zed, he saw the bigger pack of shambling Zeds getting close. He was tired, and slowing down. If I don’t get out of here now, I’m a dead man, he thought to himself. I promised Sara...
He punched and punched, and kicked out with his heavy boots. More Zeds fell. They bit his armor savagely but still he punched with the wicked spikes on his arms. Finally, amazingly, he stood alone. Zed bodies lay in a circle around him. He looked up. A tidal wave of Zeds approached him. His moment of triumph washed away in resignation, he stood waiting to die.
Suddenly, he remembered the package Jose had given him. He reached down and pulled it from the pouch at his side. He unwrapped it quickly and gasped. An olive green grenade lay in his palm. Without thinking, he pulled the pin and threw it toward the oncoming Zeds just as they rushed toward him along the narrow street. Lines of parked cars acted as a funnel, grouping them together in a savage, slavering mob.
John dropped to the ground as the grenade exploded right in the midst of the mob. Cars on either side of the road exploded as white hot fragments ripped through their gas tanks. A shock wave rolled over John’s back. Moments later, he looked up. A smoking crater smoldered where the mob had been. Burning metallic hulks stood to either side. Through the smoke, John saw slow movement as more Zeds, the slowest of them all, shambled after him. John climbed to his feet and started running towards home.
* * *
An hour later, John rounded a bend. He’d given up running and now walked, conscious that if he stopped to rest, he’d likely be buried under a Zed mob again. He could hear them getting closer, always closer. As he turned the corner, a big pickup truck with bright flames painted on the side and an old steel door mounted to the front sat there, idling in the frozen twilight. Jose stood there in his armor, a pistol in one hand and his sword in the other. A white headband had been painted on his modified motorcycle helmet. He grinned through the clear visor as John approached.
“I thought you’d never get here, man.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” John said, his voice a mixture of relief and curiosity. “And where did you get a grenade?”
“Found it. And I’m here to give you a lift home. They already radioed back and said you were probably dead. I told Sara you weren’t but I don’t think she believed me. She really loves you, John. She’s a wreck.”
“How did you know I’d be here?” John asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Not that it matters. You might want to grab that extra P90 in the truck.” Jose reached into the cab of the truck and turned the stereo up. Loud, screaming music ripped out into the evening. Jose yelled. “Dude! All Nightmare Long by Metallica. It’s my zombie killing song!” He pointed his pistol at John and pulled the trigger.
A Zed fell right behind John, a neat round hole in its forehead. Behind it, more shambled along, their rotting hands reaching for the two men. He ran to the truck and opened the passenger door. He grabbed the black weapon from the seat and turned to fire. Jose fired his pistol into the throng. A Zed got too close and Jose sliced its head off, whipping the curved sword clean through its neck. John fired, each shot taking a Zed down, one after another, until they were all gone.
When it was finally over, Jose bent dow
n and wiped his blade off on the dirty red dress of a female Zed, laying prostrate at his feet.
The two armored men climbed up into the truck and turned towards home. John took his helmet off and breathed in cool, fresh air for the first time in hours as Jose radioed back to the compound.
* * *
“John! Don’t you ever do that again!” Sara yelled as she hugged her husband tightly. “I love you so much,” she said as her anger began to show itself as anxiety followed by relief. He hadn’t even had time to take off his scarred, melted armor before she’d leaped into his arms. Her eyes were red, and teary streaks flowed down her cheeks.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m okay. I’m right here,” John said as he kissed the top of her head.
Sara cried into the hard plastic of his chest piece. She pushed back and pounded her fists into his shoulders. “They said you were dead! I thought you were dead!” she cried.
“I know... I would have been if it hadn’t been for Emmet,” he said. His voice cracked as he was caught up in Sara’s pain as well as his own grief over Emmet.
They held each other like that for some time. Princess flashed in and out of their legs, reminding them of her existence with the occasional happy bark. Finally, Sara wiped her eyes and drew back from John. “You can’t go out there again, John.”
“Sara,” he started, “I have to. You know that. We have things to take care of, people that count on us.”
“John, there’s something I have to tell you. I know you said we’re bursting at the seams here, but there’s going to be another person coming in soon. Don’t worry, though,” she said, smiling. “They won’t take up much room.”
He looked down at his wife’s now-beaming, tear streaked face, and broke into a happy grin as it was his turn for tears to fill his eyes.
EPILOGUE
Spring 2011
Brattleboro, Vermont
