by Jim Couper
Sergeant Jane felt helpless, as did every other who watched the distant fight. Her emotions urged her to race across the huge schoolyard and fight beside the women warriors. Her rational side knew zombies held at least 50 children hostage and warned against interfering. Jane agonized as to how they would interpret this assault from two women. Everyone who watched from the sidelines remained frozen with the same rigid dilemma. No one had any idea of how a zombie thought or how a zombie retaliated. No one had ever imagined a zombie could speak.
The creature with leg reduced to jelly crawled under the car and grabbed the riflewoman’s ankle. Jane could no longer stand and watch. With gun in hand she ran towards the fight and saw the woman with red locks raise a shovel and in one mighty stroke plunge it into the attacker’s arm and chop off the hand that held her ankle. At that point she could have jumped into the car and saved herself and three children. To leave one child alone in the hands of an undead stretched beyond her contemplation: she was a mother. Three cannibals staggered towards her and each faced a shovel swung with accuracy and ferocity. One blow removed a white-haired scalp and another took off most of the meat from a hip. Her long red hair swung in the afternoon sun and she moved with the majesty of a trained ninja. When two zombies backed her against the schoolyard fence she slipped between them and then exchanged her shovel for a steel pole and again made strategic blows against their knees. Bewildered spectators watched and silently cheered for this woman who risked everything to save the child that remained in a zombie’s grasp. Jane ran as fast as her short legs allowed. The soft, slippery grass made her feel mired in bad dream quicksand: she couldn’t get there in time.
Flushed and sweating, with pole in hand, the woman kept a safe distance from her attackers and now thrust strategically at eyes rather than knees. One zombie who had been struck in the face several times was blinded by constant poking and loss ofsunglasses. He bumped into the Jaguar and moved around groping for door handles. Of the two pursuers still able to walk, one had an empty left eye socket and a smear of yellow across his face. The other, who stubbornly held the last child on its shoulder, remained farther back, unscathed.
It was a beautiful thing to watch the woman in action, strategically backing up, thrusting forward, remaining close to the car to protect the children. Her movements looked to be choreographed by a Japanese animator as she leapt across the hood to deal blows to the one-eyed assaulter and then circled back to club the other from behind. The battle continued while Jane surged towards it, frustrated that the distance between them diminished so slowly.
Zombies didn't grow weaker, but the fighting woman tired. Blows to legs and faces took a toll, but her swings lacked strength. While she fought she kept a mental tab on the whereabouts of each zomb, never letting one get behind her or catch her unawares. The beast with the missing hand and one working leg crawled after her and tried to get behind her, but always, at the last moment, she evaded and landed more hits on a pulpy head that leaked. She did not keep track of a discarded shovel and as she backed around the car she tripped on it and her battle against the forces of evil entered the danger zone. Jane raised her revolver, dropped to a knee, braced herself and aimed at the attacker’s eyes. The little bullets hit nothing of significance: she wasn’t close enough to sharpshoot an eye. Jane got up and raced towards the car as the warrior with red hair gave her death scream. A shovel smashed a rear window and zombies pulled out three children. On broken rubbery legs they shambled towards the school with crying captives on their shoulders. Jane reloaded, sighted the monsters’ lower bodies and fired hopeless shots as they neared the school with hollering children on their shoulders. Jane threw her gun at a zombie's head then rushed up and grabbed a child on the shoulder of the zomb who struggled to move with legs that didn't function. It grasped the child like it was a sack of stolen gold. Out of the school came three snarling creatures that looked at Jane as a hungry homeless person looks at a restaurant meal. They started to chase, gave up and stood vacant while the four with children went inside.
The three vacants grabbed shovels, picks and other tools and began scratching trenches into the ground. Like slobbering, rabid dogs they snarled at Jane, dropped their implements and moved towards her. She held her ground, fired her taser twice and got direct hits. It seemed to speed them up, but they had no hope of catching her so after their unsuccessful attempt at running they went back to digging. Jane stood alone on the massive field, helpless. She had little choice but to stifle her unspent anger and walk back to police and army where her bewilderment was understood and her efforts appreciated by all but Col. Mayhew who shouted that she did more harm than good and the zombies would likely make them pay consequences.
Within an hour the undead had poked and dragged at the earth sufficiently to make holes deep enough to bury the two women who attacked them and numerous deceased soldiers.
29
Prisoners at Mission Hill winery refused to eat. Some called it a zombie hunger strike while others said the monsters were just spoiled by always getting the food they wanted whenever they wanted. Cat food, dog food, tuna, steaks and hamburgers rotted in the mid-day sun. Lab rats and mice went down in a gulp and came up with a retch, creating putrid puddles that captives stepped on and tracked around the exercise yard. Brains from cows, pigs, chickens and horses were tossed at them, but they turned up their noses and refused farm fare. Even live goats and sheep did not meet their menu requirements.The zombs did little but shuffle and mumble.
While undead captured children and ate their mothers, members of PETA, Amnesty International and Greenpeace picketed with protest signs: Equal Rights for All, Befriend a Zombie and God Created Zombies Too. Opposing forces affiliated with the NRA, and survivalist groups, smashed pacifists' heads with signs reading Ban the Zomb, Give Pieces a Chance and Twice Dead is Not Enough.
When they heard about the schoolyard travesty soldiers on guard-duty at the winery became more cruel than their default state and experimented with captives.
"They always have some weakness," a busty young soldier of small stature told her beefy comrade at arms. "It might be silver or fire or spit or water ... it's always something obvious. Something everyone overlooks. I've read the books and seen the movies. Believe me, I know." With that she stepped in front of a double-shackled zombie, shook a can of Coke, opened the tab and let it spray in the face of a drop-dead-gorgeous female who might have been able to continue her career in modeling if not for severe eczema and fluid seeping from ear holes.
"Guess that's not the real thing," she said with disappointment as the zombie blinked a few times and continued to shuffle, moving inches at a time as shackles and duct tape restricted her. Next the soldier sprayed the zombie's skirt and silk blouse with WD-40 and threw a match. Clothes and matted blonde hair all tuned to ashes and fell on spiked blue shoes. Scorched and naked, she continued to shuffle.
"That's an improvement," a thin male private declared as he leered at the hairless, naked soap-opera actress who died when her boob-job became infected.
The female private replied, "Yea, I'll bet she's a real turn on. Just the way you like women: naked, no brains and barely alive. Let's try something different." With that the young woman emptied a plastic garbage bag and pulled it over the zombie's head, avoiding the teeth that chomped behind partially melted duct tape. She tightened the bag around the resurrected’s neck with a piece of string. After several minutes it became apparent the charred zombie did not breathe. The bag moved neither in nor out and its wearer continued as before.
"What next?" the torturess asked.
"Just a minute," shouted the muscular male as he stepped through a doorway. He quickly returned with a glass of liquid he threw on the zombie who didn't so much as blink.
"What was that?"
"Piss on her, I say."
"That's disgusting man."
“We have to try everything.”
The soldiers amused themselves by inventing tortures in the guise of looking for a
weakness. They exploded firecrackers in her nostrils and in her ear canals, blowing away chunks of soft skin. They pushed a flare into her anus, watched it burn down and then squirted toilet cleaner into the big hole. After a half-hour of abuse a charred near-skeleton struggled to maintain a quasi shuffle in front of a circle of laughing soldiers. Skin had burned from most of her face and much of her flesh had been blown off by various explosives. A wooden stake jutted from her chest, a cross had burned between her lumpy breasts and cloves of garlic filled many body openings. Still, her jaw snapped open and closed whenever a soldier neared her and she almost removed meat from the unwary.
Orange juice, kerosene, gasoline, beer and every other liquid at hand, including dishwashing detergent, landed on the reborn in an attempt to find what would stop her in her tracks. She shuffled. The busty soldier suggested a grenade in her mouth, but her co-worker replied that was too obvious and not something found around the average house. Instead he separated the wires of a 220 volt cable and led them to damp patches of ground where the zombie walked. The live leads jumped, snapped and sizzled when her feet landed on them and amperage shot up to her eyeballs that caught flame, jetted forward and splattered on a wall like paint balls. As if trying to take flight, her arms flapped at her sides − and then vaporized. Two slender legs turned to mushy pedestals that refused to support her body and she collapsed into an electrified puddle. Her lower jaw skidded across the grass, twitched and then the body lay lifeless on the lawn.
Cautiously soldiers circled the corpse and finally the muscled man turned off a switch then braved a kick at its head. The upper jaw closed and tried to grip his boot.
"The thing ain't dead," he declared and walked off, returning quickly with an axe. He hacked the head as if a cache of gold resided inside. When he chopped through her neck and severed what remained of her small head the jaw quit quivering.
Following a heated discussion about what to do with a headless body the soldiers hauled it up a ladder and threw it over the winery wall. It fell on a placard discarded by a zombie-rights activist and crushed the words “Zombs not Bombs.”
The soldiers planted the head atop a spiked pole they pushed into the ground. Burned face without eyes, teeth or lower jaw faced fellow shuffling zombies as a warning of what might happen.
30
Puddles of urine and vomit slowed Donald as he zigzagged, on hands and knees, between somnolent bodies. His flashlight searched corners and crevices for a way out of the vampire’s vault, but the door through which he had been dragged earlier proved to be the sole point of egress.
Among drunken and blood-drained bodies he could recruit neither accomplice nor assistant. Captives couldn’t mumble complete sentences let alone plan or abet an escape. Most lay in a semi-coma caused by lack of blood, excess alcohol or both. Three knelt at the door taking turns sucking from tubes while others slept as only the drunk can sleep. It would be hours before they woke, wondering where they were and how they got there.
Donald’s exploratory crawl revealed a portable toilet he dared not illuminate and a lamp that had been knocked over and its bulb smashed. He thought about air ducts, searched the ceiling and high in a far corner found what he sought – all 4 by 12 inches of it: suitable for snakes and rats. The vent could accommodate only one of his muscular arms and he could think of no way to employ it in an escape. The floor didn't even have a drain. One heavy, locked door led in and out of the vault.
"Who wants to eat? We’ve got a hot dog special today." The announcement came from outside. The response − moans and grunts − could have been in favor or against. Donald added his slurred "I do" with elongated vowels. The door cracked open and he barged against it with broad shoulders that snapped it half-way open. A tray of hot dogs and condiments sailed from the hands of a vampire and hit walls and ceiling while other vamps backed off in astonishment and fear. Such a show of determined strength from the drunk tank had not been anticipated.
A few kicks opened the door wide enough for Donald to squeeze through. When four vamps on guard duty recognized the combatant who had bruised and bloodied them previously they put their backs against the wall and watched him pass.
Donald raced upstairs, through the front door and arrived at the police station unmolested. The ease of his escape left him incredulous. Physically fighting the enemy had never been part of his job description and now he felt like an action hero who had overcome the insurmountable forces of evil.
Jane had left the station, Jesse explained. He added information about the hostage-taking at the school and said he was headed there as soon as he could find some flashing blue strobes to put atop his car. Donald's request to come along got an affirmative and within a couple of minutes Jesse had two blue bubbles in his hands. They ran outside, Jesse put the lights on his roof, got in and snapped the shifter into drive. Both strobes cracked on the pavement. No magnetic qualities came from Jesse’s ragtop roof so he repositioned them on the hood although they no longer lit up.
Several hundred yards from the school an army sergeant allowed them to park and they located Jane near a compound set up to counsel parents. She brought them up to date with the horror story of the two mothers who fought the enemy and lost and then asked Donald, "What happened to you? I thought you succumbed to the allure of alcohol."
Donald related how he spent time as a captive in the basement of a vampire stronghold and escaped. The drunk part was a rouse. He loathed beer and poured most of it on the floor where it vanished between wood slats. A pint or so found its way into a urinal when he went to the washroom, although some had to be swallowed when they had eyes on him. An apology came for dragging them in on his act, but it had to appear real. As Donald told more about the vampires two words, "Yoor attention," came over speakers that now had microphones attached to record the abductors and rebroadcast it farther afield. Silence followed and Donald asked, "Who is that talking?"
Jane told him the odd voice came from the head zombie, the ringleader.
"Fantastic. Maybe we can learn what this is all about, where they come from, what it's like to be reanimated. What ... " Before Donald finished the speakers came to life again.
"Oour pact broken. Stoopid too doo. Oour friends hurt; yoours dead."
Colonel Mayhew-Shostakovich interrupted by hollering so loudly into his hailer that his voice out-decibelled the amplifier. "Those women were rebels, out of our control. We would not put children at risk. You must understand that."
"We doo. That troo."
A collective sigh interrupted the crowd's uncanny silence. Doogie continued, "In moorning, more talk." Those words ended his non-announcement.
The planet rotated, mountains shuttered the sun, a cast of darkness fell across the valley and with it came a feeling of helplessness. Military leaders huddled and discussed plans of action: tear gas, Emergency Response Team, helicopters, a surprise siege ... all arrived at the same juncture: they put the children at undue risk.
From a perch atop a spruce tree Jesse spent 30 minutes observing. After descending like a lumberjack he told Jane about a dark area between two rows of lights. If he wore black coveralls and blackened his skin he could sneak up to the school and at least have a look to see if the kids were all right.
"That’s what the lights are for,” Jane asserted forcefully. “To prevent us getting close to the school. Not worth it. What if you get caught?"
"I'd say I was a father; another rebel."
"They might not buy it a second time. Then what ..." She cut off her sentence as she spied the light-colored soles of a soldier's shoes as he crawled in shadows between the lights, exactly as they had discussed. Another soldier wearing an audio headset climbed the same tree Jesse had abandoned. He talked into a mike, providing guidance to the soldier on the ground who inched forward.
"This is a disgrace," Jane shouted in despair to those around her. No one with authority listened.
"You're right," Donald interjected. “Zombs can see better in the dark than we think
. They were born, hatched, whatever, in the black: bright light bothers them. It's so obvious they see at night. I'll find Maychew and tell him to stop this madness.”
Jane turned to Jesse and barked an order with uncharacteristic abruptness: "Get back up that tree and stop that guy from giving directions."
Like an obedient puppy Jesse raced to the tree without a thought of how he was going to carry out an order against the ruling military. Such an act might even be treasonous. But it made sense. Quickly and deftly he scrambled upwards through long, straight limbs. A minute later Jane heard some loud, but undecipherable, words come down from the tree along with a broken branch, spruce needles and a headset. She grabbed the earphones and mike and shouted, "Pull back; abort mission." No voice came back through the earphones and she saw a dangling wire that should have led to a battery pack. Jane shouted at Jesse to throw down the battery. Heated words and a flurry of needles and twigs fell.
"He won't give it up," Jesse shouted. “Says he’ll die with it.”
Jane wanted to tell Jesse to “make him die then,” but she could see no advantage to that. Nothing could be gained from two men fighting like monkeys in a treetop over batteries.
Donald reported that Colonel Mayhew had his ears closed to everything from outside. Jane didn’t have time to listen, saying she had a tree to climb to persuade a soldier to relinquish batteries. Donald suggested, “By the time you get up there and throw them down and someone figures out how to connect them and then you order that guy back he will already be at the school."
"You could be right." Her binoculars followed light patches of shoe soles that disappeared into the dark. Reflected light allowed her to see the soldier stretch his fingers to a window ledge and pull himself up to look in. Donald nudged Jane and pointed at two barely visible figures shuffling, in the unmistakeable style of reanimates.
