by Javan Bonds
7
Enemy At The Gates
MAYOR RANDY COLLINS waited in the Humvee driver’s seat, relaxing with the three other men who were sleeping in the hot sun. The Iron Kingdom’s Storm Night armor would have been intolerably hot had he not set the helmet on the floor board. These hot days were so relaxing. He began thinking about different foods from the old world and focused on a story The Expert had told him about Salt and Vinegar Pringles. His mouth was watering at the thought of crunching a chip. Once you pop, you can’t stop. He must’ve been drifting off because he could vividly smell the best potato chip ever.
He shook himself and sat upright when he heard a distinct crunch. He looked back at the pair on the rear bench seat and his eyes grew wide. “What the hell are you doing, son?”
The guilty man smiled sheepishly. He attempted to speak over the mouthful of chips. “Sorry. We found these at the grocery store and I figured now was as good a time as any.” He offered the tube forward. “You want some?”
Randy almost reached out for a chip but clenched his teeth. “That’s vinegar!”
The man holding the chips shrugged. “You don’t like vinegar?”
The mayor was flabbergasted. What kind of decent human being would not like vinegar? He had to fight back a smile. “Of course. But so do peevies.”
“Really? How do you know?” The second man in the back reached for a chip.
This was amazing. Did the general populace not know of the insatiable craving by zombies when they caught a whiff of vinegar? The mayor had heard some of the men talking about it, so they weren’t all ignorant. Just a few, and those few happened to be defending the only dam technician known to be alive. The Screenwriter was an asshole sometimes! If he had opened a bag of Beer and Brat’s Lay’s potato chips, maybe the scent of something like alcohol would have kept them away. He was going to have to remember to let every island dweller know of the peevie attraction to vinegar. They would certainly be rampaging from every angle to get this delicious treat.
“They’re already coming for that.” The mayor pointed at the snack in his hand and the young man closed the tube. They began hearing animal shrieks and howls from deep within the forest. Randy snapped on his helmet and opened the door. “Let’s get ready. They’ll be here shortly.”
Mayor Collins and one of the unarmored guardians walked to close the gate. It was a shame they didn’t have enough plate armor for every Islander that traversed to the mainland. He was sure they could devise something to provide protection. There would need to be a discussion at the next town meeting. These suits of armor would not necessarily be pretty and decorated with fancy paint, but not being consumed by a peevie trumped vanity.
This gate in the fence surrounding the complex would do little more than slow the zombies down. “They will be coming here!” Randy stood beside the Humvee and pointed to the ground at his feet, where the vinegar scent originated. After the first prize had been taken, they would undoubtedly search the rest of the dam and discover the group inside. But, thankfully, the defenders would only need to protect the ground they were standing on. At least as long as they were standing. Concertina wire would have been ideal to top the fence with if it had been available and there had been time.
The first half dozen blunatics charged the gate, latching onto the links with apelike toes and fingers before vaulting to the top. The mounted machine gun on top of the Humvee started mowing down infected, ripping apart bodies and raining eviscerated shreds to the ground. The three peevies closest to the top of the fence were minced before being dropped onto their fellows below them, drenching them in steaming blood and shit as their rectums expelled a final sound-off. The second line of undead were coated in a mix of crimson, black, green, yellow, and every other color under the sun. The rainbow of lively colors one witnessed from decimated bodies was astounding. These now dripping peevies crashed to the ground under the weight of their destroyed brethren.
Rampaging nudists swarmed the fence, attempting to get to the delicious vinegar inside. The other three defenders opened up from their windows in the Humvee, sending rabid scourge after crazy cannibal to their blue graves. Dozens of bodies were piled up along the fence, so high in places they blocked the ground behind them for yards. Not that any living human would want to see the ground behind them. It was layered with ridiculously huge piles of steaming feces. There appeared to be twice as much peevie poop than could possibly be created by these demons.
The horde began using the dead, massacred, bloodied bodies as a springboard to launch themselves higher onto the fence. They were now crashing into the fenced-in yard, truly dying just as they came over the chain-link. The defenders were losing ground an inch at a time and the number of infected seemed to be limitless. They just kept pouring out of the woods, leaving a spattered path of goop behind them.
Empty boxes of 50 cal, dozens of empty magazines for every rifle in the company, and countless brass casings lay on the ground and in the floorboard of the jeep. The insanely persistent undead continued to rush for the one prize they so craved. They did not care about the untold number of blue bodies surrounding them. As long as they got what they came for, it was worth every gallon of blood spilt.
Wave after wave kept inching closer until Randy could almost reach out to touch one. He was amazed that he could put a 762 round in a coming zombie’s face or chest, possibly even impacting the one behind, and the one behind it would still ignorantly charge. They were getting close enough the defenders could smell their reek even over the scent of burnt powder.
Just as the mayor dropped another empty mag and reach down to replace it, the man in the passenger’s seat was jerked through his window. The man’s rifle went to the ground somewhere in the tussle. Two monsters grabbed his arms while a third put an arm around his kicking legs. The man screamed and fought as they carried him to the fence. Once they reached a certain angle, the mounted 50 could assist the captured comrade.
When the machine gunner pulled the trigger to launch a single round at one of the carriers, his weapon was silent. “What the fuck?” he screamed at his machine gun, continuing to hold the trigger down and follow the infected carrying his compatriot.
They began to carry him up the fence, tediously but successfully. Just as they reached the top, the machine gun came to life and shot a dozen automatic rounds at the mass. Bullets careened at the two arm holders—the machine gunner would never be sure if any rounds impacted his fellow defender—and the entire group began a slow-motion fall.
The captured human, still alive for the moment, screamed in terror as he tumbled to nothing but pavement. The desiccated bodies and fluids following along with him almost looked as if they were motionless. He crashed onto the asphalt and was stunned into silence. His screams faded but the pain surely did not. Bones were broken and probably sticking through the skin, but the man could have survived the fall. Before another breath could be taken, one of the peevies with a leg bone off at the thigh fell on top of the defender. The weight would obviously not have been fatal, but the jagged thigh bone that punched through his neck was. The man made no sound after the thud of the dismembered revenant landing on him. The defenders knew without a shadow of a doubt their brother in arms was at peace after his brutal demise.
The defenders were demoralized seeing a human lost while fighting the malicious flesh eaters. The man behind the mount would never be able to forgive himself if he survived the day. He would always feel responsible for sending that man to his death.
At least, Randy thought, the man died in the presence of his comrades, not captured by the peevies to be used as cattle or for whatever reason they were taking him. The fellow soldier would feel guilty, no doubt, but he surely gave his friend a quicker and less painful death than the excruciating torture the twisted monsters had planned.
The guardians continued to eat through ammunition, destroying enemies as they drew ever closer. Randy shot one beast in the shoulder and the hollow point sent the arm flying as
blood exploded from the freshly dismembered joint. The jagged bone collided with one of the nearby blunatics, striking it in the chest and slicing down hard at an angle to the pubic area. The undead scourge was disemboweled and its steaming guts spilled onto the ground in front of it. The beast’s forward momentum caused it to continue running, slipping on greasy, crimson intestines.
The man who had first opened the chips stopped shooting to pop the top of the tube. The mayor paused in his firing to speak. “Damn, son! You popped and you can’t stop?” He chuckled as the man stuck the tube out the window and threw it to the fence. As it spun through the air, peevies reached up, attempting to grab something way out of their reach. It was almost funny to watch. Zombies turned from the humans to run after the Pringles. It was comical to watch them sprint like naked children to get a taste of candy.
Comical, but the shooters would definitely take full advantage of this opportunity. The Screenwriter must have been smiling down on them, allowing them to rip the undead into shreds from behind. The mounted 50 tore into one of the infected with a spray of bullets, plugging holes into it from the lower back to the bottom of the skull. The tracer rounds exploded from the other side, sending lifeblood, the contents of its stomach, and juicy organs onto the ground. The beast toppled over into its own pile of body parts.
Mayor Collins chose to focus on the animals still scaling the fence. He found that shooting one before it could reach the top of the fence and sending it crashing down, usually impacting at least one of its fellow demons, was economical. At least two birds for one stone. Plus, he simply enjoyed seeing their evil faces when they realized they were not only shot, but would be falling several feet to the hard ground.
The rabid nudists fought each other to get some of the crispy snacks. They would bite at each other’s faces, covering the delicious treats in dripping blood as one attempted to grapple shards of potato chips from another. They completely ignored the three different calibers of rounds coming at them from behind.
Randy could see the flow from the woods was slowly tapering off. There were either not any zombies left or the rest just had better things to do. He knew it had to be the second option. Any break the survivors received would only be a temporary reprieve and it would surely cost them something, somewhere. With their stores of ammo becoming low, he was thankful to The Screenwriter for at least this temporary hiatus they had received.
The interim mayor of Guntersville tossed a white phosphorus grenade at the mass of creatures surrounding the Pringles. The tiny canister exploded and covered every blunatic in the vicinity with molten pain. Blue flesh began melting and sizzling and dozens of mouths wailed in indescribable pain. The smell of cooking blood, meat, feces, hair, and undigested food turned the strongest stomachs. The machine gunner was puking over the top of the Humvee, while the man in the back seat gagged and coughed. Randy’s Storm Knight headgear functioned nearly as a gas mask, but even he was having trouble holding down the bile threatening to come up his throat.
The infected tried to crawl away from the place the pain came from, but they continued to be devoured by tiny flicks of fire eating through their skin. The already downed demons screamed as they were cooked. Some bodies exploded, blood, organs, and tissue being scattered within the circle of death.
The disgusting stench of zombies being cooked alive was worth every regretted intake of air. The explosion of lava ended—or came close to ending—the unnatural lives of every one of the damn monsters within its reach. Whimpers and dying groans were emitted from the downed zombies not lucky enough to die immediately. The few still breathing would eventually be shot, truly put to rest after a second life marked with butchery and cannibalism. The defenders only had to deal with the ones still outside the fence.
The demonic crazies were dropped on either side of the fence, either being killed by a bullet ripping through craniums or spilling vital organs to the ground, or being wounded by the shot and crashing to the pavement, breaking bones and rupturing the things necessary for life. The occasional peevie stupid enough to make a sound as it lay on the ground, bleeding and in intense pain, was summarily shot by one of the three surviving men.
Everything grew still and the defenders finally realized they were exhausted. Untold numbers of desiccated blue bodies were strewn for dozens of yards around them. Swarms of flies were drawing to the stinking scene of gore. Not a single zombie remained alive in what seemed like thousands of bodies. The defenders collapsed into the truck, still trying to grasp what they had just been through.
A vehicle could be heard lazily coming up the road. A yellow pickup came to the ragged opening where the gate used to be. After being melted away by the white phosphorus and shot through with 50-caliber rounds, there was little of the chain-link standing. A sickening popping and squishing could be heard as the all-terrain tires plowed over the bodies of the undead. The lone Brotherhood of Steel Paladin wearing adamantium blades on his wrists stepped from the driver’s seat and stared at the massacre around him in amazement.
Gene walked up to Randy, who was still out of breath, and gestured at the massive death scene. He smiled. “It looks like you have a story to tell.”
The mayor realized the vehicle that had left in tandem with The Tech was not coming and there were not even any other humans with him. He spoke, still breathing hard. “Yeah. Looks like you do, too.”
8
Too Bad
THE TECH PARTED with the unit at the first gate leading to the dam. A black Silverado housing four men similarly outfitted to the packed crew cab he was riding in followed them to the end of Dam Road and turned left to complete an easy mission. He had outright refused any military backup and demanded they go with the dam technician.
He proudly boasted, “I don’t need to be protected, I am a main protagonist!” He remembered pointing to Aka. “She doesn’t have a title. Keep an eye out for her.” He readily accepted the truth according to Smokes and was willing to bet his life on his newfound faith.
☠☠☠
The Tech climbed down from the passenger side of the Naboo Fighter after they reached the small power station where the lines would be severed. It was a small, windowless building surrounded by gravel. It didn’t look like much, but this tiny shed would be one of the locations where the fate of the island would be decided. Not that receiving electricity would mean life or death for most, but it would give an enormous morale boost to all island dwellers, giving them something to fight on for. Electricity would signify progress, progress would bring more progress, and that’s what islanders needed to see.
The vehicles stopped on the highway and half of the team moved as one the short distance to the power station. Gene stood at the door and raked his adamantium claws together, preparing himself for the battle surely to come. His reinforcements had stayed in their truck and relaxed, expecting nothing. The Tech knew that a defender should always remain vigilant. He scoffed at these noobs and their inability to prepare for a rush. The ignorance of these rookies would surely get them pwnt.
☠☠☠
Adam and Eric were twins. They were also partners in business as electricians. They had been sent with Eli, the lineman working on disconnecting the power lines alongside them, Gene, and four other men who would remain on guard outside. Everyone in the group knew how to disconnect these power cables, but the three of them volunteered for an easy job. They could cut this connection and be back on the island, lickety-split. The only trouble was going to be searching this dark little building. Even leaving the one door open didn’t give them light in the far corner to their left. That had to be where the disconnection would be.
Adam turned to leave the shed to get a flashlight from the truck. As he spun, his knee banged against a shelf and a large jug toppled to the floor. Before it hit the ground, he realized the shelf contained cleaning supplies.
The jug hit the floor on its side and rolled before coming to a stop. Nothing happened. Crisis averted. Nothing to see here. Moving on. They w
eren’t supposed to make any extra noise if it could be prevented, and he let out the breath he had been holding momentarily.
Maybe the built-up pressure from the fall caused it, or maybe it was just The Screenwriter’s direction, but the lid of the plastic jug popped off. Liquid began gushing out and Adam breathed in through his nose. A tangy odor almost made his jaws lock up. Vinegar. Oh, shit! “Back to the trucks. Now!” He knew they would have company soon.
“What the fuck? Vinegar? You just killed us all, you stupid summbitch!” Eli screamed before pulling his pistol from his hip and pointing it at Adam. He was furious that the man had just rung the dinner bell for every carnivorous ape within smelling distance.
Eric fumbled for his own pistol and pointed it at Eli. “Why are you pointing the gun at my brother?” he shakily asked.
☠☠☠
The Tech heard animals howling. It wasn’t the howls of dogs or coyotes. It was distinct. It was certainly a predator. A lot of predators. The men inside the building had been speaking loudly, but that would surely not draw out the peevies. He walked to the open door, tapped on it, and stuck his head in. “Hey–.” That was all it took to cause Eric to apply a few more ounces of pressure onto the trigger.
The bullet from his pistol launched into Eli’s side just below the ribs, puncturing his right lung. The projectile lodged in his stomach and an exhalation of air came from the entry wound. A torrent of blood sprayed out.
The shock caused Eli to pull his own trigger, sending a round into Adam. The piece of lead impacted his upper left chest and he dropped without a sound. Blood began running from his now lifeless body.
