by Javan Bonds
Devin Landers looked at his friend solemnly. He’d known this would occur. Something like visions or dreams had told him of the loss of his comrade. Benji’s heart sank. The knowledge hit everyone like a brick.
Once the door was closed, the bitten sailor looked at his injury and sighed. “Give me some full mags. I can keep the fuckers busy.” They all knew by now that the zombies would ignore anyone infected.
“Really? You really want to go back out there?” Benji said.
“I ain’t staying in here. Of course I’m going back out there!”
The Asian pilot grabbed a first aid kit from the wall. “Maybe we can—”
“Don’t be a fucking idiot! You know as well as I do I’m a goner.”
Benji dropped his shoulders and embraced the brave sailor a final time. The other war fighters were loading up magazines and giving the young man back pats.
They walked slowly to the side door and Devin almost burst into tears. “Give ‘em hell, brother.” He hated the way this script played out sometimes.
“You know I will. Get Benji home. Find his mama. Then find a place to live in peace.” With that, the serviceman leapt out the door and began sending rounds into the undead.
The AC-130 remained on the tarmac for the rest of the day, the crew watching as Schwartz executed peevies still coming over the fence. They watched him until night fell and could still catch the occasional flash of gunfire as he discovered a monster in the dark.
They heard one final shot and Benji instinctively knew they would hear no more from The Sacrifice.
☠☠☠
In the morning, Benji scanned the multitude of bodies until he could see the fallen sailor with a clean hole in his temple. He mourned internally and started up the plane. They would soon be in Marshall County.
Part II
On Solid Ground
6
Electrifying
AS EZEKIEL “EASY” COLLINS unfolded his muscular frame from the driver’s seat of the procured silver Mitsubishi Eclipse, his fiancée, Akambiya Ngona, stepped out from the opposite side. They met at the front of the vehicle. He had taken to wearing the Iron Man suit, while she screamed about claustrophobia every time she tried to get into a suit of armor. She felt more comfortable in the Storm outfit and he felt comfortable seeing her in it. The leather pulled tight in all the right places. Just seeing her in that bodysuit sent shivers up his spine.
Iron Man’s red and gold helmet was clipped to his thigh. He had removed his gauntlets before getting in the car just so they could hold hands as they walked into what they were expecting to be a peevie hive.
☠☠☠
Before Easy and Aka could start walking again, his metal helmet clanked onto the ground, he dropped down to pick it up and she turned to face him. There he was, down on one knee and holding a beautiful diamond ring up to her. “Aka.”
She gasped. The entire company knew what was happening, but it was completely unexpected. He spoke with a tear in his eye and a tremor in his voice. “Will you make me the happiest man in the world and do me the honor of marrying me?” He must’ve been spending too much time around his brother, Mo, because he almost laughed. There aren’t that many men left in the world, but you can still give it the old college try.
She looked down at him, tears of joy streaming down her face. “Of course I will, Easy. I thought you would never officially ask.”
He shot to his feet and pulled her to him before kissing her long and hard.
The accompanying soldiers along with The Phantoms began clapping and hooting. A sentimental was sure to flash a few Polaroids of the moment. For the briefest time, all assembled forgot there had been a world-destroying zombie apocalypse that killed nearly everyone’s future. At least these two would surely have a bright future together. Nothing could take that from them.
The survivors were so used to being constantly surrounded by the vomit-inducing sludge extruded from the peevies’ rectums that they didn’t even notice the stinking piles of barely digested remnants everywhere. Pictures of Easy popping the question were sure to be full of steaming diarrhea, something future generations would undoubtedly look at with amazement. There would be future generations, Easy decided, and they would know of the zombie scourge only as history.
All they had to do was clear this TVA hydroelectric dam of cannibalistic, blue, yellow-eyed, completely naked animal people without getting bit and becoming immediately infected. It took nearly eight hours for the average human to turn into a real life Smurf, but the exchange of infected body fluid resulted in immediate infection. The love of Easy’s life was the only survivor on Guntersville Island with the know-how to operate a dam. Today, she would restore electricity to the island.
The couple had only landed in Guntersville yesterday. They’d been passengers on a single engine plane being piloted by Marlon “Smokes” Williamson, an extremely unhealthy black gangsta Mo had titled The Oracle. Smokes had flown Mo, The Hero, Captain Petunia “Hammer” Sledge, The Expert, and the couple back from the Joseph A. Davidson Correctional Facility. The engaged pair had been told the prison was a safe haven for survivors, but they had been held there against their will by the insane prison warden. Warden Slice had filled the role of The Dictator. They broke out of prison unscathed just as the zombies became tolerant of sunlight.
As they were flying into Guntersville, their plane had been shot by The Villain and his group of followers. They crash-landed and were assisted by The Tech, Gene Stanley, the owner of Excelsior Comics. When asked why he had been given that title, Mo explained “because he can build shit.”
The protagonists, with the help of the now day-walking peevies, had successfully defended the island and won the day. Captain Jonathan Bobbitt, The Villain, attempted to assassinate Hammer and make a getaway before being permanently stopped by the woman he thought he had just murdered.
It was a bit awkward at first. The soldiers packing heat around them were the surviving followers of this madman. They rescinded their former postings and swore allegiance to this surviving city. Their oath had remained solid for the few hours they had been soldiers of Guntersville. Easy was growing ever more confident that they would remain loyal as long as they were not undead.
Easy opened the door from the front office at the dam and threw his fingers in the direction of the powerhouse after snapping on his helmet. “Let’s get this over with!” He was ready to be done with this and marry the woman of his dreams. They had already been engaged for a few weeks. It was a rushed job and Easy had not even had a ring at the time to present to her. Now though, everything was working out perfectly. They could make plans. His plan when they left here was to take their vows as soon as possible.
☠☠☠
The whole crew moved through the dark and completely quiet powerhouse. The dam was obviously a peevie lair. The large room was coated in crusty, black feces. The zombies must have moved further into the complex, considering the first two rooms had not been sprayed with fresh excrement. The revenants hadn’t been coming through these rooms to exit. Easy shrugged and supposed they could have found another door.
Lit only by the rifle flashlight beams and a few flares, the only things stirring in the room besides the humans were the swarms of flies. There was no way to detect the faintest scent of anything else, as the horrendous odor of soured peevie poop overpowered every nose. If any of the assembled troopers had a weak stomach, they would surely have not been able to enter this giant compost heap. Thankfully, there was no way the undead could detect the smell of fresh meat over the rotting diarrhea.
Down a ramp at the far end of the powerhouse was a door that led deeper into the complex. Everyone grew noticeably tense and clenched their weapons a little bit tighter as they moved forward. Two soldiers passed in front of Easy, who was unknowingly playing the role of The Protector, and hugged the wall on either side of the door, expecting a horde to charge. Nothing. They were met with an eerie silence. Another soldier moved to leapfrog in fro
nt of these two and crouched through the doorway. About halfway down the hall, a snapping could be heard. Easy knew what it was and opened his mouth to speak. As he did so, a massive explosion rocketed out from the hall. The Protector had only been saved from the shrapnel shooting out of the door because he was just at the right angle. He still felt the heat, and the overpressure knocked him back, but it was nowhere near the mortal hit it could have been.
The lead soldier was torn apart by tiny projectiles. Easy was grateful the man probably never knew anything after that initial snap. The body was minced into uncountable and unrecognizable fragments as the fireball consumed the hapless soldier. Several of the men in the direct line of the open door received small pieces of concrete or metal flying into their bodies. One man caught a piece of shrapnel in the right eyeball. He immediately fell as the jagged piece of tiny death destroyed everything between his eyelid and the back of his skull. Gray matter cushioned the projectile so that after it broke through the skull, it tumbled to the ground. Blood and brains trickled from the exit wound.
The Protector looked back over the soldiers. The man in the hallway was obviously gone, the man missing an eyeball was another casualty, but the rest of the company had survived. Quite a few sported jagged tears in their faces, chests, or legs, but they would be in fighting shape after some minor medical attention.
There was one question on every mind. Peevies setting booby-traps? There was definitely an antagonist deeper in this dam, it just happened to be not blue.
There was a human here, that much was obvious. There had at one time been undead in this tomb. Where were they now? What were they about to face?
☠☠☠
After the first booby-trap the entire team remained unmolested as they moved deeper into the complex. Each room grew cleaner, and eventually the rooms were almost completely free of zombie crap.
The Protector led the assembled company to the end of a long hallway and stopped at a closed door. The two lame soldiers made their way around Easy to hug the door frame. The soldier on the left turned the knob. Before it could make a full turn, a large machine crashed through the particleboard tiles in the ceiling directly over the soldiers in front of the door. The heavy machine had only one obstacle between it and the floor: the humans. They were smashed under the weight of the massive construct. They died screaming as organs ruptured under the pressure and bones were driven through their skin. None of the others could do anything as they watched their comrades crushed to death. A macabre symphony played a torturous ballad with the grating of bones and a flattening of bodies.
Easy turned to see his future wife doubled over, gagging and dry heaving. Watching compatriots be sent to their graves with the inability to do a thing about it was one of the most gut-wrenching experiences one could deal with. It was impossible to remove from memory the screaming faces of men before they literally exploded under ridiculous pressure.
Soldiers were crying or puking and they grew even more depressed when they realized they had to get through that door. They would have to push the heavy machine over the liquefied remains of their fallen brothers to get past. The sludge underneath might make the move easier, but it certainly would not make the process anywhere near enjoyable. The Protector and The Phantoms moved forward to do the work. They realized the soldiers would not be able to stomach the task and volunteered themselves.
Even with the help of the gelatinized mush on the ground, it still took five insanely muscular behemoths to slide the massive unit out from in front of the door. The juicy trail of remains in its wake disturbed the soldiers nearly as much as watching the detritus being created.
As the door swung open, the men scattered throughout the room jumped back. Though everyone was prepared, they were beyond grateful to The Screenwriter that they did not have to deal with any more booby-traps yet. The door opening had resulted in no explosions, no member of the team being impaled by a flying piece of rebar, and no piece of monstrous equipment crashing onto anyone.
One of the Clone-Trooper-suited HITS stepped into the open doorway and fired a strange-looking, stubby rifle at the ceiling on down the hall. A wire net burst open and fell to the floor. There were no tripwires in this short hallway. The ceiling was cement, so there would be nothing falling through. The same NSG Phantom tossed a glow stick in the room and stepped back with an “All clear!”
Only the suited protagonists entered the hallway while the rest of the team remained in the previous room. They slowly crept into the direction of the closed door and communicated with hand gestures. Rather than attempt to press the bar to open it, they would attach small explosives to the hinges, retreat to the previous room, and then watch to see what was on the other side.
Though their enemy must have been human, The Protector prepared himself for a mass of reanimated corpses. He didn’t know why he expected this. Perhaps the enemy was a human using peevies as if they were attack dogs. He remembered Mo telling him about The Villain using zombies as guard dogs back in Douglas. Would the next human antagonist be so evil and demented?
The group collectively held a breath after three small pops and puffs of white. They peered down their sights at the door, waiting for the enemy to be exposed. There was no more room to run, the control room being the only other room after this. The doors slowly collapsed to reveal a wall of sandbags with a grenade launcher sticking out. Everyone froze. A shot could be taken to disable the grenade launcher, but if that shot was millimeters off, it would be the last shot any of them fired.
“Hey! We’re not here to hurt you. We just came to see about getting the power on.” And please, for God sake, don’t shoot that thing! Easy wanted to scream.
☠☠☠
It took The Protector walking into the hallway un-helmeted, unarmed, and alone before the rocket was no longer aimed at the protagonists and the tension gradually lowered. Alfonso Looney was a black man in his early twenties who had been employed at the Guntersville Dam at the beginning of May. He just so happened to be at work when things started going blue. Before the zombies first overtook the dam, he called his younger brother to come to his place of employment and hole up with him. They had been hunkered in the control room with Liam, the only surviving certified dam technician. Before Liam could show Alfonso how to operate the dam, he had to go outside to make sure the shutters were operating correctly. “And that’s the last we seen of him,” was how Alfonso ended his explanation.
Easy had to ask the question. “And why were the first couple of rooms full of shit?”
The dam employee smiled. “We didn’t do it, the zombies did. They went out one night and we locked the door behind them so they couldn’t get back in. They eventually wandered off and must’ve found somewhere else to nest. I guess because this place smells like infected live here, none of the other peevies bother us. They think the territory is already marked, I reckon. We even got to where we don’t have to worry about locking the doors. We cleaned up the rest of place pretty good. Any people must think that zombies live here and don’t try getting in. Well, until ya’ll.”
By now, the entire group had assembled around The Protector chatting with this survivor. Alfonso gestured to the only other door in this room. “My bro, Curtis, and his girlfriend are in the control room waiting for me to give the all clear.” One of the soldiers began moving to the door. “You might want to knock three times before–.” The soldier began walking through the door without a thought.
Everyone could hear a shout from within the control room. “Freeze, motherfucker!” The soldier turned to his left with his rifle at the low ready. Those in the control room did not know of the truce and were prepared to defend themselves with deadly force against interlopers. The soldier made a split-second decision not to get shot and sent a three-round burst into the room. A bullet hit Curtis in the hip and exploded out the upper leg, severing the femoral artery and ending any chance of survival. Blood began pouring from the exit wound as the next round impacted his left lung. As it bo
unced around inside him, it punctured his heart and he was dead before he hit the floor.
The third bullet hit his girlfriend at the base of the neck and removed the bottom of her skull as it impacted the wall. Gray matter ran out the bottom of her head before she collapsed, gurgling and gasping. The blood of the two now deceased pooled as the soldier looked back out the door, stupefied. He had taken the only option before him. If it was not them lying dead on the floor, it would have been him.
Alfonso knew, just as everyone else, what the terrified soldier had just done. “Nigga, you just busted a cap in my brother!” He stepped forward and lifted his shirt, pulling a pistol from his waistband. This was a horrible situation and it was not going to be good for someone. Easy made a similar split-second decision to the one the soldier had just made. He sent a round into Alfonso’s side. He was too far away to lunge to stop Alfonso from shooting the soldier, and he regretted doing it, but the blood was going to be spilled either way and he at least attempted to keep the blow from being fatal. A gut shot would surely not end Alfonso’s life anytime soon. Blood sprayed as the pistol round sank into Alfonso’s abdomen.
He spun to face Easy before he fell. “What the fuck? I’ll show you–.” As he lifted his pistol, Easy cut him off with a double tap. The bullets caught the former TVA employee in the upper left chest, burying themselves in the pectoral muscle and sending blood gushing. Alfonso fell with a scream.
The Protector had had to defend himself. It made him sick, but he knew there was no way around it. Either he, the soldier in the control room, or Alfonso and his two had to be on the floor. There was no way around it.
Easy spit to his side as he looked at the soldier in the control room vehemently apologizing. He spoke to his fiancée without looking at her. “Baby, can you go turn the power on?” They had to complete their mission. Even though new friends lay dead at their feet, the show had to go on.
