by Brown, TW
“This is a Springfield model 1861 replica. It’s a remade copy of the old rifled musket from the Civil War era. It uses percussion caps and fires a .58 caliber Minié ball. Believe it or not, a little practice to break off the rust, and I can make percussion caps basically by hand. We could have an actual rifle.”
Jim was so excited that I did not want to burst his bubble by pointing out the obvious; that one point being how one single rifle did not suddenly make us a military power. As he opened the pack like a kid on Christmas morning and started pulling out a few tools and contraptions that looked like they’d been cobbled together from spare parts you would find in a junkyard, I went for a look around this old grocery store.
As I wandered the litter filled, dirty aisles, I tried to imagine what it would be like to walk around and just put things in one of those ratty looking metal carts to take home for a family to cook and eat in their own residence. So much of this stuff just seemed so foreign. I could not imagine a huge truck loaded with just fruits and vegetables brought from miles away from some farm for other people who had no part in growing it to simply purchase and take home.
I was just about to turn down another aisle when something on the floor caught my attention. I knelt, inspecting the dirty little square of cardboard with any picture that might have adorned it long since faded and washed away. But inside a little plastic shell was something that made me smile. I stuffed it into my hip pouch as I searched around to see if there might be any more wonderful treasures such as this that had managed to survive.
“Okay, cupcake, let’s get this stuff back to Platypus Creek.” Rising to his feet, Jim was just putting the last of the tools in the knapsack when that back door suddenly swung open and slammed into the wall causing both of us to jump.
Standing in the doorway was a tiny figure. It was sort of backlit, so all of its features were hidden in shadow, but I wasn’t stupid, I knew damn well what had apparently just found us. I had my blade coming free when there was a sound in the front of the store. I spun to see the double-doored entry full of small zombies stumbling through.
“How?” I gasped.
“Worry about that later,” Jim barked.
He was already scrambling up onto one of the wall-mounted storage units. It looked pretty sturdy and ran the length of the aisle with a bunch of doors that had once offered a view of whatever goods sat on the shelves inside. As soon as he was on top of the unit, he reached down and grabbed my hand to pull me up.
I had to walk hunched over, but we made our way to the end of this aisle which put us all the way in the front of the store and closest to the fifty or so zombie children that were flooding into the building. It only took me a few seconds to realize what he was doing as Jim knelt down and started banging on this huge metal storage compartment with a hammer that had been part of the tool set in the knapsack.
Naturally, the zombies would all come to where the sound was originating. If he could get them all here in the front of the store, it would be an easy thing for us to hurry back to the rear and exit out that door that opened to the alley. That was my thinking until I saw another fifty or so of the zombie children filter in that back door where the one had first appeared and thrown open that door.
“That lone zombie was the signal,” I breathed.
Jim stopped pounding and turned to look at me with a questioning expression. “Remember how it threw that door open so hard that it slammed into the wall and made such a loud noise?” Jim nodded, his expression changing to one that was a mix of dubiousness and genuine concern. “I think it was signaling the ones in the front when it was time for them to make their move.”
“If that’s the case, we may as well just do a swan dive into them now and be done with it,” Jim groused.
“You first,” I said, making an ushering gesture with my arms.
Jim glanced down at the zombie children gathered around our perch and then looked back at me. He shook his head and muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like, “Everybody likes a little ass…nobody likes a smart ass.” But I may have heard him wrong.
The zombies in the front of the store did exactly what we had hoped and expected them to do; they all moved in close and gathered around where Jim and I were hunched over. The problem came with the reaction of those in the back of the store. To be more precise—the absolute lack of reaction.
The zombies in the rear of the store continued to simply stand around; all of them just swaying a bit and shuffling their feet, but basically remaining in between us and any chance we had of escaping that way. I felt my level of panic starting to build.
I don’t know why, but for some reason, I have always felt like I was somewhat invulnerable. The bad things have always happened to somebody else…never to me. Not that I have not had my fair share of bad things, but I have always considered myself smart. Zombies, by their nature, are stupid. Heck, they can’t even be called stupid. I think they are just drones that stumble about their business and, for the most part these days, do little more than trample fields and cause a certain degree of annoyance.
So how did I get here? Trapped in an old ramshackle excuse for a building that was once a grocery store with Jim (who I also think is above average in the intellect department) by around a hundred zombies with no apparent escape.
“Okay, cupcake, here is what we are gonna do,” Jim said as he sat down beside me. “I am going to use this musket and start bashing their little heads in. You use that crossbow of yours and see how many of the bastards you can plug. You got what…thirty bolts?” I nodded. “If we work fast and those little bastards in the rear of the store stay put like they have so far, then we can thin this group up front out enough to give us a chance. As soon as I say ‘now!’ I want you to scramble down and make a run for it. We don’t stop until we reach that collapsed bridge a mile or so up the road.”
It seemed like as good of a plan as any.
***
“I swear to God those things must have known we were in that old store and planned that ambush,” Jim gasped as he waded out of the creek.
“It sure did seem that way.” I was having enough trouble catching my breath. Part of it was due to the bat-out-of-hell sprint that Jim and I had done for almost a mile. The other part was due to the freezing cold water I was emerging from with my pack held up over my head so that my book would not get wet.
I froze in my tracks as I looked at Jim closer. He had been behind me when we exited the store, insisting that I go first so he could cover our butts. He’d brandished a weird-shaped plastic bottle full of a clear liquid with a long fuse at the top and produced one of our torches which he quickly got lit. He had hurled that bottle at the remaining cluster of zombie children and it had burst into a bright orange ball of fire. That had sent any of the cats twining around the ankles of the zombie children running for the exit.
I had jumped to the ground and run as fast as I could. I know I’d heard Jim hit the ground, but after that, I was so focused on running for my life that I had not paid attention.
Jim had a nasty rip on his right arm that was bleeding freely. The blood was mixing with the water that was dripping from him, but if he had tried to rinse off and avoid me spotting his injury, he had failed; it was simply bleeding too profusely for him to be able to mask or hide it.
“Oh, Jim…” I started to sob.
He looked at me with confusion and then his eyes went to his injury. His eyes went wide and then he started shaking his head.
“It’s not what you think, cupcake,” he started babbling fast. “I had a touch of bad luck is all. I caught my arm on a piece of metal sticking out from the shelf at the end of the checkout aisle we had to jump over to get out of the store.”
I took a tentative step closer and examined the wound as Jim knelt down and opened his pack, pulling out a first aid kit. It was a long, jagged rip in his arm, but having seen enough bites in my life, I could tell for certain that it was a gash and not a bite. Relief flood
ed me and my knees actually went wobbly for just a moment as I processed this bit of information.
“Thank God,” I gasped.
“Now, let’s get this taken care of and then go home,” Jim said as he grabbed a bandage and started wrapping up his arm. A few minutes later, we were headed back for Platypus Creek. I had a journal full of notes and observations to share with Dr. Zahn and Jim had his musket thingy.
All in all, I had to feel pretty good about my first excursion out into the field as a child zombie observer. I was already running over things in my head as to how I would do things differently the next time.
16
Vignettes LXXII
Juan moved up onto the walkway that ringed the barricade made from the seemingly endless supply of trees that the Alaskan Wilderness had to offer. Della was at his left and Denita at his right.
“How many you think?” Della asked.
Juan shaded his eyes. “Perhaps a few thousand.”
Della reached up and grabbed the rope. It was connected via a series of wheels and pulleys to a group of barrels that were full of oil that had been harvested from rendered animal fat.
“Not yet,” Juan whispered.
“I know,” the girl huffed, that last word being drawn out in the way that it seemed only a teenage girl could manage.
Juan took a moment and looked at the girls. Their thirteenth birthday had been just a few weeks ago. They were looking more and more like their mother every day. Both girls had her athletic shape and long legs. Their long, black hair was kept in braids that dangled around the middle of their backs.
He could not believe they had been here for almost six years. In that time, their community’s size had not grown that much. Other than addition by the occasional birth, they had only had four people from the outside come and actually stay.
That was fine with him.
Over the years, he had come to the conclusion that he’d made the right choice in staying here and not moving on to Anchorage. That fact was reaffirmed when a massive fire destroyed about half the town a few years back. The plume of smoke could be seen even from way out here. The word was that over three hundred people lost their lives in the blaze and the resulting breach in the walls. Some said that over two hundred thousand zombies converged on the town, drawn by the fire.
Juan had joined a small group that traveled to Anchorage to offer assistance and help with repairs on the wall. He’d been happy to run into Keith during his brief visit. They had only seen each other once since he’d decided not to continue on to Anchorage.
The two shared a few beers, and Juan had actually stayed with Keith and his family while he was in town to work on the wall repair job. That brief period reminded him of how right he had been in choosing to stay in the village. Hell, the place didn’t even have a name. Juan had once asked Kit what they called the place.
“Home.” That had been the one word reply. It was good enough for Juan.
“Papi?” Della whispered.
Juan snapped back to the situation at hand. The zombies were well inside the clearing now and had shifted their slow trudge in the direction of the walls. Still, they were not close enough.
“Not yet,” Juan said with a shake of his head. He earned a sigh of annoyance in response.
Yep, they are definitely teenagers, Juan thought.
Actually, that was more of a reason to celebrate than it was anything else. His little girls were growing up. Despite living in a world where the undead ruled, both his girls were growing up healthy and (for the most part, despite their seemingly endless griping and complaining about practically everything) happy.
Not that it had been easy. Far from it. There had been the blizzard a couple of years back that almost punched the cards of everybody in the small community that they called home. Despite all the cabins being well-equipped, and the stocking of the food supplies that were the norm during the winter months with just that exact possibility being planned for, the snow did not seem to stop, and by the time it had stacked up to the point where you could no longer see out the windows, everybody was cabin-bound.
Even with rationing, they were almost totally out of food by the time that he’d been able to dig his way out. He’d found the tops of a few of the cabins and dug down. The first one had almost been his last as the occupants had suffered a terrible fate. One of them had been immune and obviously infected. The undead face that was standing there when he managed to clear enough snow to open the door had been enough to scare the piss out of Juan…literally.
He’d sought Kit’s cabin next. The man was nearly starved to death. The third cabin had been Dee’s, and she was actually doing well. The two of them had managed to eventually dig their way to others and help free them. It was determined that Juan’s cabin being up on a raised platform had been the reason he’d been able to get free. After that, all the cabins had been modified so that they had an additional four feet of clearance underneath. Of course, since then, they had not experienced another winter quite so terrible, but who knew what the future would hold.
“Now?” Della elbowed Juan; her tone made it obvious that she had tried more than once to get his attention.
Yes, Juan thought, he was okay with his life.
The leading edge of the herd was just now reaching the trench. A few had already been nudged over the lip by those coming up from behind.
“Now,” Juan whispered.
Della almost squealed with joy as she tugged the line. One by one, the barrels tipped and dumped the oil into the trench. Denita brought her bow up after lighting the strip of cloth wrapped around the tip of the arrow. Pulling back, she let it fly.
The flaming projectile flew in an easy arc, plunging down into the trench. There was a moment, and then a “WHUMP” as the oil caught. A black cloud roiled up and flames rose up above the edge of the trench. Just as planned, the zombies bringing up the rear surged forward to get closer to the heat. The zombies in front were shoved forward where they instantly caught and added to the conflagration.
Other people on the walls were performing the same task. In no time, the entire trench was a wall of flame and the zombie herd was being dispatched by the drive and unexplainable desire to get close to a large heat source. To add to the clamor, the three sirens mounted along the wall were now being cranked to add noise to the mix.
“Tight,” Della whispered.
“Like a tigah,” Denita added.
***
“Fall back!” somebody yelled.
Vix looked around for the source, but it didn’t matter. Whoever it was doing the yelling was correct. The undead were now in control of everything from the seventh floor on down.
She glanced over her shoulder as she retreated. The androgynous faces of the undead stared back. It had long since become almost impossible to tell the gender, but she also saw a few fresh faces in the mix. She had to figure those were additions from some of the communities that had fallen to Dolph during his campaign.
Emerging into a long corridor with a dozen others, she spied Paddy giving instructions to a pair of young men and then smacking them in the hip to send them on their way. She strode over to him and her eyes immediately went to the rip on his right arm.
The man glanced down at it and shrugged. “One of ‘em caught me just a few minutes ago. My damn blade got stuck in the skull of one of them freshies. Forgot how hard the skull was on the newly turned versus the older ones.”
Vix looked into the man’s eyes and saw the start of the tracers. Her throat grew tight. Despite everything they’d already endured in the past day and a half, it did not make it any easier to see the man in the early stages. He apparently saw the look in her eyes and his face lit into his usual wide grin.
“Not like I plan on living long enough to turn, lass.” He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze.
“But if we manage to escape this, I think I am going to miss you.”
“You know better than that,” Paddy crowed. “We are as dead as t
hose idiots who thought to make a run for it.”
That comment actually made Vix shudder. There had been about fifty or so people who decided that they would chance trying to run. She and several who had tried to warn them all watched helplessly from the roof as Dolph’s men sprung up from several locations where they’d been placed obviously well in advance of the main force’s arrival. One team was so close to the Waterloo complex that it had made her shudder to think of how close she might have come to such a fate.
What had been done to those people defied description. The inhumanity shown was horrifying. In those moments, the death of even Harold paled in comparison to what she witnessed.
“Where is Seamus?” Vix asked as the two stepped in to help bar the door using the materials that had been set at each stairwell door as they awaited the arrival of the Undead Army.
For the first time in as long (or as briefly) as she had known the man, she saw a look of sorrow on his face. The man finished driving in a nail before he replied.
“Went down under a dozen of those bastards a couple of floors down. We were in the stairwell accumulating quite a stack of corpses; he reached for the accelerant as I prepped the torch and somehow lost his footing. I never knew if one of the cursed things had managed to grab his ankle, or what exactly, but when he fell, it was like a wall of serpents lunged out. Arms took him and yanked him away before I ever got the chance to even end the poor, big bastard. His screams were blessedly brief. That is me only solace.”
Vix shuddered at the thought. She had considered more than once taking the quick way out as many of their number had. Still, there was simply something in her that refused to allow it. She’d had a difficult enough time helping Chaaya. The woman had pulled Vix aside and explained that she could not kill herself. But, she had rigged a noose, and all she needed was for Vix to kick out the chair. The women had held hands and prayed silently to whatever might still be listening, and then, Vix had helped end the woman.
