by Shawn Weaver
No response, then I hear the patter of tiny feet and claws on the tiled floor. From around the bottom edge of the door, a little caramel colored Chihuahua appears. His entire body shakes as his tiny stump of a tail whips back and forth.
A pink leash is clipped to the matching collar he wears, and trails behind as the tiny dog runs out of the apartment and circles me.
Turning, I follow his path as he jumps up on my leg, begging to be picked up.
“Where is everybody?” I ask.
He drops to the floor, sits, and looks at me as if I know the answer.
Going back to the door, I push it open the rest of the way to see a once spotless white marble tiled entryway now spotted with brown tootsie roll sized presents left by the dog, and a partially dried yellow puddle in the corner.
“Been awhile,” I say, looking down.
The dog stands up sharply, then trots back into the apartment. His leash drags behind, cutting through the puddle and leaving a long streak through the entryway. He turns right into the living room and disappears.
I see smoke billowing up through the windows that cross the far wall. The blue curtains are pulled to the side to let the light in.
Moving around the packages left by the dog, I step out of the small entryway and into the living room to see a girl, probably my age by her looks, sleeping on the couch. She's dressed in jeans, orange sneakers and a matching orange T-shirt, under a grey jacket with its hood pulled up tight to her face. Along the edges of the hood I see wisps of long brown hair curling out.
The dog scuttles along the floor, reaches the girl, rises on its hind legs and taps the girl's shoe sticking over the edge of the couch. He sits down, looking at her expectantly.
Dog walker, I think.
Then I see a rust-colored stain down the length of the left arm of her jacket. No rips or tears are visible. But that does not mean she hadn’t been injured before coming up here to do her job.
“Miss?” I say, taking a tentative step forward. Then I think of the kid I killed, or re-killed.
She moves at the sound of my voice. Turning her head slowly towards me, she lifts a hand and brushes away the hair hanging in her face. Sleepily she opens her eyes and looks at me; her eyes flutter, still in that partial dream state. Then she realizes that I am standing there for real.
Jumping backwards into the corner of the couch, she lifts her feet, tucking them beside her. The dog jumps as well, runs towards me, turns left around the couch and makes a beeline for the kitchenette.
“Who are you?” she yells in a frightened voice, pushing her hood back to reveal a tired face. She looks as if she had not slept well the last few weeks.
“Robin. I live down the hall.”
“God, I must have fallen asleep,” the girl says, looking around herself as if she is missing something. “What time is it? If the Yews come home and I’m here. I’ll get fired for sure.”
“Ten, I guess.”
“Crap!” the girl says, stretching. She unwinds herself from the couch and starts to clap her hands, calling, “Georgie, Georgie.”
From the kitchenette the little dog comes running, tail wagging so fast it might take flight.
In one hand she scoops the dog up. Grabbing the leash, she slides the other hand down its length till she reaches the handle. Feeling wetness, she gives a disgusted grimace as she looks at the goo on her hand.
“He already went in the hall,” I say.
“Damn.” She sets the dog on the couch, then walks to the entryway and sees the mess.
Without a word, she moves for the kitchenette to get paper towels. Not once does she ask why I am in the apartment, or look toward the windows and the black smoke flowing behind the glass.
“I sat down for just a minute,” she says as she pulls a few sheets of towels from the roll on the counter, and then briskly walks back across the living room. Bending down into the entryway, she starts to clean up the mess. “Exams have been hell,” she continues, and folds the paper towel around the hard little tootsie rolls.
I stare at her as if she’s crazy. How could she not notice what is happening just outside the window. If she is truly a dog walker, she had to have been outside in the last few hours.
“Miss,” I say, but she cuts me off with, “Jean.”
“Jean,” I correct myself. “Have you been outside?”
She stops folding the paper towel, and looks at me with raised eyebrows. “Yeah, I come here twice a day. Seven and six while the Yews are out of town.”
“Have you looked out the window lately?” I point towards the glass doors of the balcony.
Holding the paper towel by her fingertips, Jean stands and looks towards the windows. I see her face go from slight confusion to why I had asked such a question to a furrowed brow of concern as she sees rolling black smoke.
She drops the paper towel and steps to the balcony door. Brushing aside the curtain, she looks out, standing motionless. A minute passes before she asks, “What happened?”
Before I can answer, she rambles to herself. “How did I sleep through that? Is that a plane?” She points towards the crumbling remains of a nearby building with part of a wing sticking from it.
“Sometime over the weekend,” I answer. “I've had the flu since Friday night, and slept through Saturday. So I guess yesterday.”
Dropping the curtain, Jean turns and looks at me dumbfounded. “It’s Sunday?”
I nod.
“My God, I thought it was Saturday morning. I slept all day. The Yews are gonna kill me if they find out I spent the night in their apartment.”
“The Yews are the least of your problems.”
The look on her face changes as my words register the wrong way. I lift my hands up, showing my innocence towards her.
“What happened to your arm? Did you get bit?” I ask, trying to sound harmless and friendly.
Jean looks down at the rust-colored stain and picks at it. The fabric is hard in spots.
“Cherry Kool-Aid,” she replies, and then looks at me. “What do you mean bit?”
I do not know how to explain what is happening to the world, so I ask, “Have you ever seen a zombie movie?” That seems to trigger her.
Jean pulls her cell phone from her back pocket. Pressing the button on the right side, she slides her finger across the screen to activate it. I figure she is going to call the police. Fine by me. But as she taps the phone icon, her reaction to the line not connecting shows in only frustration.
She slips her phone back into her pocket and rushes around the couch. Grabbing Georgie, she wraps the urine streaked leash around her hand. Giving me a look that says I was crazy, Jean hugs the dog tightly and makes a beeline for the door.
“You don’t want to go out there,” I say as she passes me.
I reach out to stop her, but she shifts her shoulder away and quickens her step. I follow her into the hall. She makes it a few feet down the hallway before noticing the elevator doors closing on the table.
Looking over her shoulder at me, Jean shouts. “What did you do?”
“I...” is all I get out before she runs for the fire exit.
Taking a few steps behind, I say, “Wait!” But I know it is a futile attempt.
The girl is frightened, and I can't blame her. She thinks I’m some kind of creep. Reaching the exit, Jean hits the bar and pushes the heavy door open. The door closes with a solid scraping thunk as she disappears in the dim light of the stairwell.
It is a long trek down to the main floor, and I know the reception she gets there will be even more frightening than I am at the moment. Hopefully she will make it out unscathed. But with what I have already seen, she won't last for long.
As the elevator doors close again, a deep crack crosses the glass table top. In two large slabs, the glass splits, one half falling into the elevator, while the other tumbles off of the moving door. It strikes the floor heavily and splits again.
Ignoring the final apartment across from the Yews, I
walk back to my place. I know the last apartment needs to be checked. If anything is in there, I'm not up to fighting it at the moment. And if it is a tenant, well, they can just stay locked up safe. I don't need another panicky person around me.
Leaving the door open, I cross the room and collapse on the couch. Running my hands through my hair, I feel the grease and sweat of my weekend of sickness, and realize that I must look like hell. No wonder the girl freaked out so quickly.
Across the bottom of the television I see the national advisory repeating for everyone to stay indoors. Avoid all contact with injured people. Above, the camera focuses on the news desk where earlier the weatherman was reporting today’s horrendous events. Now the desk sat empty. By the lack of sound, I think that they must have evacuated the studio without turning off the cameras. Then a short lady dressed in a black skirt and matching jacket, walks briskly to the desk. In her hands she carries a stack of papers, which she sets in front of the anchor's chair, turns and hurries out of frame. The woman is frazzled, her mascara smeared, giving her a kind of raccoon look.
After she steps out of frame, a few voices follow, but I can't tell what's being said.
The sound I heard next is sharp and rumbling. At first I feel it in my feet through the floor. It travels up my back when the couch begins to shake. Jumping up, I think an earthquake is happening. From the balcony, a jet barrels by, its wings passing just a few feet from the railing.
I rush to the balcony, grabbing the door frame for support as I look out. The jet turns out over Lake Michigan. I can’t take my eyes off of the glistening machine as it continues its arc. A quarter mile or so over the lake, the jet turns back towards the shore. In its path I see the towering Ferris wheel and buildings that dominates the Navy Pier.
Stepping to the railing, I look down to see the teaming masses that have gathered in the last half hour. I don't know where they came from, but these people are in the wrong place at the wrong time.
A flash of light erupts from under the wings of the approaching jet. A pillar of white smoke shoots forth, trailing a rocket that smashes into the base of the Ferris wheel and the dense pack of people. Another explosion decimates the Children’s Museum, incinerating people in a forceful flash of heat and power that I feel all the way up to where I stand.
I drop behind the balcony's concrete wall as a wave of pressure and heat strikes the building, shattering windows on the floors below me. Before I rise, I hear another missile hit the boardwalk. Steel twisting, the Ferris wheel starts to tumble.
I look over the edge just in time to see it roll from its decimated base. Support beams twist and snap as it breaks apart, partially falling into the lake while a major portion crashes upon the nearby buildings.
One would figure the people on the pier would run from the blast. But those not knocked off of their feet, or crushed by the falling steel of the Ferris wheel, still move about aimlessly. Some are missing limbs and some burning where they stand.
Then I realize everyone is already dead. Their minds just do not know it yet.
Job done, the jet banks to the left in its approach towards Lake Shore Drive, sunlight glinting off of the canopy. I could have sworn that the pilot looked right at me.
From the living room I hear the TV go to static, as the channel I was watching goes off the air.
Simultaneously from the north and south, I hear blasts echoing with force. Looking up Lake Shore Drive and then down in the direction of the Museum of Science and Industry, I see mushroom clouds rising from the roadway. The bridge closest to me crossing the Chicago River has been decimated, making crossing to the other side impossible.
As fires rage on the boardwalk, I notice that the tide of undead seem to be turning. The few that survived the attack by the F-19 now head en masse towards the city. Then I think of Jean running down the stairs. By now she could be at street level. If she's lucky, she is still alive. But with the number of dead crossing under the highway from the boardwalk, she won't be for long.
I kick myself for letting her leave, and hurry through the apartment. Before I realize what I am doing. I pull the table out of the elevator. The doors start to close and I am left alone in a steel box, weaponless.
I press the glowing button marked with a capital G. In response, the elevator starts to drop towards the parking garage. I think that if the Yews are away on a weekend trip, Jean would have used their spot to park her car. But if she was a college student like she said, she could have walked, seeing that Loyola University is only a few blocks away.
Passing each floor, the elevator drops slowly. As each button lights up, I hope that it does not stop and reveal some horrid monster just waiting to attack when the doors open.
The seconds of decent stretch until the car finally reaches the garage level. I feel it hush to a stop. My knees go weak for a moment with fear of what is out there. Then the doors seem to hesitate in opening.
A ding rings through the box and the doors slide apart, showing the cold dark pavement of the garage. I feel a damp chill cover me as I step out and the door closes.
From the ramp leading up to the road, I hear the echoing sounds of a dying city. Painful moaning and the crackle of fire and gun shots wrap around me.
Bracing myself, I walk towards the hearse and look three stalls down from mine to see a little white Volkswagen Rabbit sitting in the Yews' spot. By the amount of rust covering the vehicle, I think it might fall apart at any moment. I figure this to be Jean's car, and not the Yews'. Anyone who can afford an apartment here doesn’t drive a fifty dollar car.
I see from the end of the hearse that her driver's side door is open, but I don’t see Jean anywhere.
Maybe she ran, I think.
Then I hear the Yews' dog barking frantically from inside her car, making more sound than such a tiny dog should be able to.
Cautiously, I step the three stalls down to the back of the Rabbit. In the rear window I see Georgie jumping on the seat, his tiny head popping up and down as he spots me.
I walk around to the driver’s side, and look in the window of the rear door. Georgie jumps at me, baring his teeth.
“Whoa, boy,” I say, trying the handle of the door. It’s locked.
I reach inside the open driver's side door and pop the locks. No sooner do I open the back door, than Georgie jumps towards me. The leash pulls tight and jerks him back into the seat. I see that his leash is wrapped around the handle of the emergency brake lying between the front seats. Leaning into the car, I stretch across the backseat and reach with my free hand to unwind the leash.
Grabbing the leash, I slip it from the brake and start to pull it back. It stops as a hand and arm, still in the leash's loop, flops from the driver's side seat. With a scream caught in my throat, I stumble out of the car.
Georgie tries to follow, but stops at the edge when the arm jams between the seats. I get to my feet and look around the driver's side door. There, lying without the rest of Jean’s body is her arm from the elbow down. The ragged end clearly shows that her arm had been violently ripped free.
To quiet Georgie from attracting any unwanted attention, I move to the backseat and unclip him, no longer wanting to touch the leash. Scooping him up, I feel his little body quivering, his little heart pounding so hard that I feel it against my own.
Georgie barks sharply as he looks over the roof of the Rabbit. I put my hand over his muzzle to quiet him. He pulls his tiny head free, looks to my right and growls. This gets my attention. Something has to be near. Maybe it's Jean, still alive, though injured. More than likely, it's one of those damned people turned to flesh-eating monsters.
I step into the road between stalls. To my left, two cars down, I see an orange sneaker lying on the black pavement underneath the bumper of another car. Listening for anything out of the ordinary, I cautiously step towards it.
The shoe turns and jerks back behind the tire. Knowing better, I cross the road to the stalls on the other side. From this angle I can safely look ac
ross. There I see Jean’s legs jerking spasmodically on the black tar. I take a couple more steps. Pressing myself against the back of a black Ford Windstar, I see a man leaning over Jean’s prone body. In his large hands he holds her head and repeatedly bashes it against the cold floor.
The rust-colored stain on the sleeve of her missing arm is now covered in her own deep red blood, along with the rest of the jacket and T-shirt.
Jean’s attacker did not see me; his entire focus is on smashing Jean’s skull into the blacktop. Covered in blood, the man does not look injured himself, just insane as the rest of the world is at this moment.
With a wet crunch, Jean’s skull finally cracks open, bursting on the blacktop, spraying blood in a two-foot arc. With both hands, the man reaches into the skull's crack and splits apart her shattered bones, ripping hair and flesh away, decimating her face.
Digging in, he drives his fingers into Jean’s dying brain. Tearing chunks free, he shoves them into his mouth. Reflexively he chews and swallows. I watch a calming effect come over the man’s face as he looks towards the ceiling and closes his eyes. It's as if the pain he had been feeling has been lifted for a moment.
Georgie barks and tries to jump from my arms. Gripping him tightly, I start back-stepping towards the elevator. Opening his eyes, the man catches my movement.
His head snaps around. A mouthful of Jean’s chewed brains pours out of his open maw when he moves in my direction. His fists squeeze what brains they held into a pulpy goo. I catch his eyes, bulging, soulless and filled with broken blood vessels.
I run for the elevator, Georgie yelping in my arms all the way. Unable to stop my momentum, I slam into the metal doors. Looking over my shoulder, I reach down and push the up button repeatedly.
Jean’s attacker staggers around the car, leaving a bloody streak crosses the trunk as he drags a hand, still full of Jean’s brains, across it. Unsure of his balance, he cannot get to an upright posture, his spine clearly damaged.
Then in a loping gallop, he runs towards me. Fear crawls up my spine as the doors slide open and I fall in. Dropping Georgie as I land, the dog tumbles out of my arms and cowers in a corner, barking feverishly.
