The End

by P. A. Douglas

  “Slow it down some! You’re going to need to veer right onto Fifteenth Street in a second.” Megan sat in the passenger seat bouncing up and down, pointing at the road ahead of them, as the massive civilian cargo bus barreled down the highway.

  Even though they were both equal in rank, Luke didn’t mind that she barked orders at him. He actually liked it, even when in front of other officers. Sure, he caught some flak for it, but it didn’t bother him because he knew where Megan’s heart was. And at the end of the day, he was the one who reaped the rewards. Luke was the one who held the cards both on the job and in the dark.

  They had been a serious item for the last eight years. The trash-talk attitude Megan had toward Luke in public was their attempt at keeping up politically correct work-related appearances. They both found that the closer they became, the smoother the operations went on the job. Funny thing was everyone knew about their relationship. No one cared. Not even their commanding officer. The Commander knew a good team when he saw one.

  With the Rhino Runner now racing down 15th street after veering right, Megan scanned the GPS tracker to determine the next turn they might need to take.

  “I think we’re going to be on this road a while,” said Megan, eyes examining the gloomy city streets as the scenery rapidly changed from an emptiness of the murky highway to a ghost town of congestion. Wrecked cars and abandoned storefronts all without power sat in wait, ghouls lingering in its wake. As the armored bus drove deeper into the city toward the Panama City Beach Hathaway Bridge, a presence of the living dead became more and more manifest.

  Zombies staggered in the streets and in abandoned parking lots, all turning their gazes toward the oncoming vehicle, high beams lighting up the night as it rolled down the winding road. 15th Street was dead; Panama City was dead. It was exactly what they had expected to see and had seen for the last few days.

  In the still of night under the half-lit moon, the bus slowly came to a halt, parking in the middle of the street. The bridge was in sight. The bus headlights revealed what they didn’t hope to find. So far, the zombies they had passed along the way had been relatively spread out and low in numbers, but this was no longer the case.

  “It never can just be an in and out OP, can it?” Megan said looking over at Luke behind the steering wheel.

  “Well, shit. What do you suppose we do now? I haven’t seen so many in one place like this before,” Luke replied.

  “Ha… You remember when we escorted the U.S. Secretary of Defense across the Baghdad International Airport and the confinements?”

  Luke smirked, nodding, gripping the wheel a little tighter. “Yes, but don’t forget we had two Humvees with us. Let’s also not forget that one of those vehicles blew the hell up.”

  “Oh come on, Luke. You act like there’s going to be landmines on that fucking bridge.”

  Megan and Luke sat there, bus idling, the engine’s hum lightly roared at a steady rate. Beyond the headlights, what they could see was unmistakable. An ocean of the dead slowly made their way across the bridge, most likely headed to the same destination as the Rhino Runner. Easily a couple hundred rotting corpses meandered across the manmade construct. There were so many of them it was hard to tell if the bridge was congested with vehicles too. With the way things had looked on their way in, it was more than likely going to be the case.

  With more undead still pushing against the passing hoard that hadn’t made it onto the bridge yet, some attention toward the idling bus started to form. Several stragglers in the streets making their way to the bridge took notice of the Rhino Runner, quickly making a U-turn. Their moans and hissing helped attract the attention of several others as the inevitable trend began to take effect. A steadily growing mob of zombies trekked in their direction, features becoming clearer with each step forward as the bus lights beamed down on the growing crowd of putrid flesh and bones.

  The milky-white gaze of a handful of zombies lit up from the headlights of the bus as they crept closer and closer to the idling vehicle. Megan and Luke glared into the eyes of death as the creatures slithered toward them and surrounded the front of the bus. The zombies’ torn flesh and bones visible. All hands stretched out ready to attack the people inside.

  One zombie walked toward them, with only one hand outstretched, unlike the rest. The lights divulged its reason. It diligently kept hold of a severed limb. As it paced toward them, it instinctively refused to release the partially devoured arm.

  Megan glanced at Luke again as they both witnessed in horrifying detail the atrocious mob falling upon them. Luke reached for the bus radio and clicked the receiver while holding it to his face. “Blue Bravo, this is Red Tango come in…”

  Static, and silence.

  “Blue Bravo, this is Red Tango come in… Over.”

  The undead mob reached the vehicle pressing their bodies into it, beating and pushing against its sturdy hull. The bus shook violently from side to side.

  “Blue Bravo, this is Red Tango, come in…”

  More static, and silence.

  “Red Tango to Blue Bravo, what’s your E.T.A?” the voice said.

  *

  Nothing had changed at the radio station. Gus, Willy, Seth, George, and Billy sat upstairs twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the extraction to happen. Seth had run out of cold beers by this time. Between him and Willy, they had both drunk a good eight or nine beers apiece.

  Gus refused to have any alcohol, knowing that things were going to get a little hairy once the secondary team arrived. Gus originally didn’t feel it to be a good idea that anyone drink before getting back to the base, but Seth was persistent, with saying Might as well drink up, don’t want to let them go to waste.

  Gus had also opted out on telling Willy not to drink, against his better judgment, but knew that he had taken Bo’s death a lot harder, so Gus let it slide.

  Billy had fallen asleep on the floor surrounded by tons of open discs. He had decided to sift through almost every last record in the room, feeling the need to pick out the best song to listen to before they were rescued. This, of course, was only if Mr. Seth was willing to let him do all of the button pressing. He had fallen asleep before even picking out the song.

  George stood by the window watching the steadily growing mob outside. “Hell,” he said.

  “What?” Seth asked.

  “They had to come from Hell,” George said with one hand in his pocket holding tightly to something.

  “Ha… yeah, that and then some, old man,” Seth said slurring his words a little as he leaned over the empty mini fridge.

  Willy had passed out on the couch in the same spot he had been laying when they first arrived upstairs.

  “We’ve got another delay,” came the robotic monotone voice on the other end of Gus’ handset. Familiar grunts and hissing came from the background noise of the radio. Moans of the dead echoed beneath the static.

  “Details,” Gus replied.

  “We are approximately thirty clicks out but have a delay. There’s a mob of zombies who would like nothing better than peeling this vehicle open and eating us like sardines,” Luke said.

  “Take your time. Don’t compromise the mission. Just be safe. I’ll inform the base of the delay,” Gus said.

  “Roger that, Red Tango out.”

  Gus immediately radioed in headquarters speaking directly with First Class Lieutenant Rob Foster. While he relayed details of the extraction delays, he couldn’t help but wonder what was in George’s pocket. The man had pulled it out eyeing it several times but had turned away from Gus preventing him from seeing it. Not only that, but the old goat kept fidgeting with it.

  *

  “You ready to light these mothers up?” Luke asked.

  Megan unbuckled her seatbelt and made her way to the back of the bus. The Army had confiscated a number of flamethrowers offered by a survivalist company. She had minimal training on the torch’s use, but she was a disciplined soldier and had full confidence in her abilities. The sa
fety goggles went on first but as the most basic form of protection. The two tanks were on a backpack and she struggled to get the straps secured around her shoulders.

  With the device in place, she ascended the ladder to the hatch on the roof. Releasing the latch and pushing open the hatch, she stuck the upper half of her body out.

  “Fuck you, bitches!”

  With a pull of the trigger, the bright flame erupted from the nozzle. Its bright golden glow lit the world around her, exposing what lingered out in the near distance previously hidden by shadows. An ambush of zombies steadily approached the idling bus. An easy twenty had already made their way up alongside the vehicle, frantically attempting to get inside.

  “Let’s do this!” Luke steadily gave the Rhino some gas, sending the armored monstrosity across the field of walking corpses.

  Megan narrowed her aim in on the cluster of ghouls surrounding the front of the bus. The flame shot out as she pulled the trigger and swung the nozzle from side to side. Instantly, over a dozen bodies were drenched with the near thousand-degree inferno. Skin crackled and popped like puffed rice as it blistered and burned.

  Luke watched from the driver’s seat as the mob of angry flesh-crazed zombies ignited. The zombies scattered about, flailing their limbs in the air. Flesh scorching on their bones sent a few to the ground. Others bumped into one another, catching who they touched on fire. Dead flesh popped and sizzled like bacon cooked in a frying pan.

  As the bus inched forward and zombie after zombie burst into a fiery glow, the stench of burning rotten skin and hair filled the air. Megan swung the flame back and forth, dousing the zombies along each side of the bus. The decomposed smell of rancid tissue as it melted on rotting bones reached Megan’s nose. The stench had her gagging. She forced back the vomit as it raced up her throat and let out a gasp from holding her breath. Thankfully, everything stayed down.

  The numbers of the mob directly in front quickly dispersed, allowing the bus to move forward toward the bridge. Zombie bones crushed and heads popped shooting brains along the road as tires rolled over. Meagan’s body swayed as the Rhino trekked over the fallen dead.

  The vehicle passed down the street leaving behind a wake of zombies still chasing the bus. The goal wasn’t to get rid of the problem but to simply get past it.

  The bus made its way up to the bridge and forced its way through the crowd as far as it could, running over countless zombies. As the bus slowly moved forward, blood and gore drenched the windshield and splattered across the grill as faces met its force.

  Once at near center of the bridge, the mass of zombies around the Rhino Runner brought it to a halt. The bus shook more violent than before, zombies ten and twenty deep on all sides pressed against it. The moans and screeches from the undead plague grew so loud that when Megan squeezed the trigger of her flamethrower, the roaring hiss of its blaze was drowned out.

  Zombies lit up the night, and their screams grew louder.

  5

  People filled the cafeteria. Most wore green and gray uniforms. A select few dressed in black and sat together apart from everyone else. An even smaller number of men and women wore slacks and white coats. Those, too, separated themselves like a small flock of birds. Almost everyone had a weapon of some kind, but generally just the standard issue 9mm sidearm holstered at the hip.

  The room was quite loud, filled with the chatter of small talk, and a movie playing in the background on three separate television sets all positioned in different corners of the room. The movie was of no real importance and no one showed it the slightest bit of attention.

  Dinner time was taken in two shifts, one at 7 p.m. and the other at 7:45 p.m. Theresa Gibbs generally took hers along with the first batch and took thirty minutes to eat, spending the remainder of her time back in her lab, which she deemed of the utmost importance.

  Not one to follow trends, Gibbs found herself seated with General Baker, Lieutenant Rob Foster, as well as a few others, one of which was missing. For a moment, she had forgotten that Clay had been sedated earlier that day due to stress and lack of rest. The man needed it, and she was glad to see that he was getting to sleep it off.

  Gibbs didn’t really get along with Baker, but he generally held his manners at the dinner table and liked to keep to small talk. To her, that said a lot about the man’s character.

  Even though Foster could be a bit annoying at times, she had to admit, at least to herself, that he was quite adorable with his boyish charm and witty sense of humor. She was on to him and appreciated his attempts to win her favor, but just didn’t want to take the time away from her work to build a relationship. She did, however, enjoy the attention.

  She and Baker talked about their favorite jazz singers, while Rob strutted down the aisle carrying two trays of food, one of which belonged to the lovely Dr. Gibbs.

  “Here you are, little lady,” Rob Foster said as he handed her the plate of food.

  Gibbs did her best to push work into the back of her mind, deciding to take the entire forty-five-minute break today, knowing that after dinner they would be having a meeting. “Thank you, kind sir.”

  “Why don’t you two just hook up already?” Clay said at his abrupt, unexpected entrance. He pulled out a chair and flopped down on the seat.

  “Jared Clay, what are you doing up already? I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow,” Gibbs said coolly.

  “A man’s got to eat sometime,” Clay said, ending his sentence with a mouthful of whipped potatoes. He swallowed, and said, “Thanks, by the way, for the shot. I feel tons better. I really needed the sleep.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, son. We’re going to need you tonight too. Going to be a late night for some. That’s if you’re going to be up to it, of course,” General Baker said.

  Gibbs frowned and narrowed her gaze. “He should take things slowly.”

  “I’m fine,” Clay said with food in his mouth. He was a southern boy through and through. Born and bred in the South, the rest of the world remained a mystery for the most part. After getting into trouble a time or two with the law and the inevitable knock down drag out he and his folks had, his future didn’t offer many options. Working for his old man the rest of his life as an electrician, despite the decently sized pay, didn’t seem like the life he had always hoped to have. Clay wanted to see the world, wanted to meet different ladies of all nationalities.

  One day, sitting in the rundown trailer park in the rundown trailer he rented from his uncle, Clay decided his life had to change. It had to change now. As he sat back in the rickety old recliner watching the black and white television set, an Army commercial came on promising that he would see the world. Two days later he joined, and see the world, not so much. More like see that next few states over. Originally from Mississippi, Clay was stationed just down the block in Florida. Now, only two years remained on his enlistment contract.

  “Ha-ha… check that out. If I found a cookie that big, I would be set for life!” Clay pointed to the television set playing Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and laughed out loud. A mashed potato mustache outlined his upper lip.

  The four discussed small topics, keeping the conversation light between bites. Gibbs felt out of place at times when the men treated her like she wasn’t there.

  Her eyes eventually wandered over to Rob. She watched him as his muscles flexed and his facial expressions changed back and forth between a series of emotions while the guys shared stories. He might have come on too strong at times, but she did find the man rather handsome. After a few moments, she caught herself staring at him, mostly because he had caught her staring too.

  Awkwardly and spastically, she gathered her things up from the dining table. “Um… I… I um, I need to go back to my lab and gather my notes and go over a few samples before the meeting tonight.” She stomped off heading out of the cafeteria.

  “Man, what the hell was that all about?” Baker asked.

  “Mr. Romance over here has got the lady all flustered,” Clay said
and lifted his spoon from his plate, mashed potatoes covering it as it pointed toward Rob.

  Rob’s face was beet red. He excused himself from the table following after the perturbed Dr. Gibbs leaving his half-eaten plate of food on the table.

  “You think he’s going to be back to eat that?” Clay asked.

  Baker shrugged his shoulders.

  Clay smiled, shoving his spoon into the Lieutenant’s remaining mashed potatoes.

  *

  “Hey.” Foster dashed up behind Gibbs in the hallway, catching her on her way back to her lab. She seemed anxious. “Everything okay?”

  She turned around and met his gaze. She reached up and lightly grabbed his wrist. As she looked up at him, her breathing slowed, and she began to calm. “I’m fine, Rob. I’m just overwhelmed with my work right now. You’re a really nice guy, and I mean that… but…”

  “I think you’re beautiful, and I don’t even have to tell you that I think you’re smart.”

  Blushing from the compliments, Gibbs smiled, realizing she still held his arm. “Thanks, Rob. That is really sweet. You’re really sweet.” She leaned in having to step up on her toes to reach his face. She gave him a light peck on the cheek, then turned and walked away, leaving him to stand alone in the hallway perplexed. As she rounded the corner disappearing from his sight, she stopped and ducked into the women’s restroom. Overwhelmed with emotions and clashing rationalities, it all came down to one thing. She felt giddy. A feeling she hadn’t felt since junior year of high school.

  But my work is too important. I just don’t have the time for this, she thought to herself as another lady exited one of the stalls. Realizing she seemed out of place just standing around, she left the restroom and continued making her way to the lab, blushing still.

  6

  The El Camino set under the gas station pump covering, the big seashell gas station sign no longer fully illuminated as it laid shattered half in the street. The pole that supported the sign was now bent all to hell as a crashed car had met its base. A single body slouched over in the driver’s seat covered in blood was still strapped in by the seatbelt. What was left of the giant shell flickered and sparked, electricity dancing free into the street along with the once tall sign. At least that meant there was still hope that this part of town still had some form of power, though the gas station itself remained in the dark.