by Thomas Baker
The stream of civilians turned into a trickle. There was a pause in the pandemonium. The clouds of dust began to settle. A second group of people emerged out of it, through the gap. They weren't running, they were all just ambling along at a stroll. They didn't even really seem that focused on where they were going. It was like watching all those asshole soldiers who couldn't hold their liquor, stumbling out of the bar at closing time. Except multiply that threefold. Dusty wished he could see them better, everything was still to obscured. It was like looking through a dirty pane of glass.
There was something very off about this new group of civilians, Dusty could tell that much. Except for the moans of people that were hurt, it had become quieter. He noticed he could hear the wind again, the footsteps of the hundreds whisking through the grass, his own ragged breath.
What these civilians did went they reached the scattered dead and wounded made Dusty just about lost his breakfast. He watched the silent figures drop to the ground and start feasting on anyone who was still alive. Tortured screams filled the air as the flesh of the living was devoured. The attackers were like those predators he had thought of earlier. They ripped and tore away at their prey with their teeth and their hands. Except these weren't African lions hunting gazelles. This was a group of people, eating other people.
Am I really seeing this?
As unnerving as it was for Dusty to watch, it was their deathly silence that almost unhinged him. He had seen war, violence. He has seen the dead, both on his side and his enemies. This was much, much worse.
Dusty couldn't stand it, he had to take action, take control. He shot the man closest to him, who was wearing a business suit. His torn yellow and black striped tie dangled around his neck. The man was munching on a boy's leg like it was a KFC drumstick. He knew he hit the man, but he didn't even flinch, he hardly even paused from tearing another chunk off the child's leg. Dusty fired again. This time the man reacted, as far as looking up for a second, a bloody tendon hanging from his mouth. He went right back to work. Dusty noticed then that the man wasn't bleeding from his gunshot wounds.
I don't understand? Is he wearing a vest for some reason?
This time, Dusty aimed at the man's head and fired. The business man dropped to the ground and didn't move. Dusty moved a little closer firing head shots at each of the cannibalistic terrorists, or whatever the hell they were.
He stopped firing when his clip was empty, and took a few steps back to reload. That's when he saw the little boy Mr. Business Man had been munching on began to move. The wound in his leg was no longer bleeding and his skin had faded to the color of ash. He rose to his feet unsteadily, not making a sound. Dusty looked into his eyes. They were dead. No spark of life remained in them. It was like looking into the eyes of a computer generated simulation.
No way this could be happening?
His mind refused to pull up the word zombie. It started towards him, dragging the one damaged leg as it walked. Some of the other people who had just been on the lunch menu also began to stir and rise.
It's time to go. I am not prepared to handle this.
There was a world filling sound of crunching metal and breaking glass from outside the fence. A tractor trailer came plowing through the wreckage of vehicles, running over everyone and everything in its path. The truck continued on, crossing the base, until plowing into one of the barrack buildings, exploding in a fiery ball.
This is unbelievable. There was no warning. It's...it's time to think about survival.
Dusty took off towards the armory. The rest of the men and women on the base were running around like angry ants whose hill had just been kicked over. Troop trucks zoomed by in front of him, full of soldiers. Two choppers whooshed overhead, blades beating the air. Civilians were running all over the area as well, adding to the confusion. Floods of people kept pouring in. Dusty couldn't take a step without bumping into someone. There seemed to be no order, no one in charge at all.
Then the screaming started again, followed by pushing and shoving. Gunfire began to fill the air now. With everything he had seen, Dusty knew that the base was gone. There was no chance of getting control of the situation. It was FUBAR. He really couldn't understand how it had happened so fast. He wrestled with his decision of what to do now. It really came down to what was the most important thing to him. His skin, or his duty? Dusty decided he was out. The shit has hit the fan. It's over. Later, if someone wants to charge me as an AWOL deserter, at least I'll be alive to face the charges.
A jeep raced in, mowing down the crowd indiscriminately. It crashed into the side of the Armory, the driver slumped over the steering wheel, bite marks on his face and arms.
Dusty rushed over to the jeep, zig zagging through the crowd. This was his chance to get away. He jumped in, pushing the dead soldier out the other side. The soldier hit the ground, began to twitch and then rose up. Dusty continuously laid on the horn as he backed up far enough to turn around. Then he floored it. People both alive and dead desperately reached for the jeep as he past. He ignored them all. All of his focus was straight ahead. He looked back in the rear view mirror once, when he was clear of the crowds, seeing the base descend into madness.
Hannah woke at 6:30am to the harsh buzz of her alarm clock. She slapped it with one hand, then stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom.
Oh why did I stay up so late last night? She thought to herself, as she readied the shower. She was beginning to realize that even just a few months into college, it wasn't going to be the breeze that high school was. Even after taking a year break in between to prepare.
Once she was freshened up, dressed and ready to go get some breakfast, she glanced at her phone. 7:3o?! Shit! I better get going or I'll be late for my first class.
Living off campus was lots cheaper, but boy was it a pain in the ass. It took so long to travel back and forth. She was in such a hurry, she ended up leaving her phone on the kitchen table. She didn't realize it until much later.
Hannah was in her own little world as she began her walk to campus. She was thinking of her day's schedule. English class and the quiz she had stayed up most of the night cramming for. After taking that and after speech class, then she was grabbing lunch with Ashley. More classes, then the grueling cheerleading practice she had tonight. The college had a great team, that had gone to Nationals three times in the last five years. That was one of the main reasons she chose this school.
She had been thinking about what a beautiful spring day it was. When she met Ashley for lunch, maybe they could eat out on the patio of the restaurant. The sound of tinkling glass broke her internal monologue. Hannah looked up. A man was in his front yard, swinging a baseball bat at a woman. The man with the bat she had seen before, though she didn't know his name. He lived at the house. He was middle aged, with short black hair and glasses. Right now his glass were hanging askew on his face. He looked frightened as a franticly waved the bat in front of him. There was also a man, dressed in a robe like he just gotten out of bed, hanging half in and half out of the bat man's broken front window. The woman kept coming at the man. Her movements were slow and jerky. It reminded her of watching a girl trying to walk in her mom's high heels. The attacker was also covered in something red. It was on her clothes, a nice floral print dress, her hands and around her mouth. Hannah started walking closer, reaching into her pocket for her phone, planning to call 911. She looked down, not believing that she couldn't find her phone. She was so distracted she didn't register the town sirens were now going off, nor those of the police cars that jetted by. The homeowner was shouting something. She looked back up and saw him unload strike after strike with the baseball bat, leaving a dent in the attacking woman's skull. She watched as the floral print woman barely stumbled backwards, when instead she should have been knocked out cold.
Hannah didn't remember screaming, she just suddenly found herself yelling hysterically. The homeowner jerked his head towards her, raising the bat up to his shoulder. He relaxed a little wh
en they made eye contact, even started putting the bat down and giving her a little smile. That is when the man hanging in the window started twitching, got back down on his feet and ripped into the home owner's shoulder with his teeth. A geyser of blood erupted from the bat man's neck. Red splattered on the white house. Hannah felt that image would haunt her dreams for weeks. The red on the white house.
It, Hannah stopped thinking of the attacker as a person after what she just saw, just kept tearing and chewing, tearing and chewing.. It never stopped eating, even as they both sank down to the ground, embraced like passionate lovers. Once the homeowner was on the ground, floral dress woman joined in the feasting
Everything else was a blur. Hannah pulled her keys from her purse, fumbling with the small can of pepper spray. She held it up in front of her, like someone holding up a cross in a vampire movie. She walked backward as quickly as she could before turning around into a dead sprint. When the flip flops she wore slowed her, she kicked them off, ignoring the harshness of the ground on her bare feet as she raced for her apartment.
Hannah was at her apartment door, fumbling with keys that shook in her hands. Her breath was ragged and she couldn't remember how she got there. Before she could get her keys in the door, it swung open. Hannah screamed.
"Geez, chill out Hannah," Ashley said, standing in the doorway.
Hannah pushed her way in without a word, then slammed the door behind her. Thunk went the dead bolt.
"Ashley, grab the other end of the futon."
"Hannah, what the hell..."
"Ashley, just shut up and do it," Hannah said, her tone harsh.
Ashley looked into Hannah's eyes and complied without another word.
With the futon covering the door, Hannah ran to each window like a mad woman, making sure all were locked. She had been angry when moving in that her apartment was on the third floor. She thanked God now that it was.
Hannah paced around the apartment, mumbling to herself. She was finding it hard to gather any thoughts together. Minutes crawled by and she found she couldn't stop herself. She looked up at Ashley, who stood fidgeting with her sleek, blond ponytail.
"Oh shit, I just realized I dropped my books. I left them on the sidewalk," Hannah said. Then she sank down to the floor, sobbing.
"Alright, I am officially totally freaked out. What in the hell is going on Hannah?" Ashley rushed to her friend's side.
Hannah's sobbing cut off as she bolted up.
"Ashley, what the hell are you even doing here? Shouldn't you be in class?" Hannah said, just coming to the full realization that Ashley was there, in her apartment.
"I could say the same thing about you," Ashley said, defensively.
Hannah gave her a look, Ashley continued.
"Wellll, since you were going to be gone, I decided to take the day off. So I skipped and told Dillon to come over here."
"Oh my God! I give you a key to my place so you can have some privacy from the dorms! Then, while I was going to be in class, you invited your boyfriend over and you guys were going to screw in my apartment?! I trusted you with my spare key, in case you had an emergency or something. Not so you would use it as your personal fuck palace. God I should have known better than to trust you with that responsibility. It's the same as when we were kids, you always..."
A door shaking thud interrupted Hannah's tirade. Both women covered their mouths with their hands. Time seemed to go on forever as they waited for another thump, but it never came.
"Hannah,"Ashley whispered through her fingers. "You never did tell me what is going on. How about you stop the holier than thou shit, and fill me in."
"I don't, I don't think I can talk about what I saw right now. It was...gruesome. Let's go in the bedroom and get out the laptop. Maybe we can find out what's going on."
They both sat on the edge of the bed as Hannah booted up her computer. She went to the local news website. The first image that came on was like something from a movie. She actually had to visit a few more sites before she had to accept it was real, it was the same thing wherever she searched.
On YouTube they watched mobs of people fighting each other and the military. Groups of regular people being gunned down mercilessly. Run over, knocked down, blown up. Switching back to the local news website, the anchor gave a warning that what they were about to show next was even more graphic than anything shown before. Those with kids or weak stomachs should turn it off now. What followed were horrific images that caused Ashley to run to the bathroom and be sick. She returned, looking paler than usually. Hannah could feel the her stomach threatening to do the same. It was like seeing the man with the bat being attacked over and over again. They watched in silence, people being eaten alive, by other people. Young, old, black, white or brown. It didn't seem to matter. Scenes like a pretty, young newscaster being torn apart in a sea of attackers before they turned on the camera person, the world flipped then became static. The newscaster came back on. He apologized for the graphic nature of the videos but they felt the need to stress how dangerous things had become. He said that attacks like this were being reported all over the United States. All Homeland Security measures, and the National Guard, were being deployed. Along the bottom of the screen was a scroll that just repeated over and over again. Don't travel, stay inside, don't answer the door. If you have a medical emergency call 555-873-4951. Hannah turned to Ashley and saw the look of shock and panic that was mirrored on her face.
Ashley let out a horrified whisper. "This can't really be happening."
Hannah didn't want to watch anymore. She closed the screen of the computer. The apartment was still for awhile, broken only by the occasional siren from outside. They both just sat there, stunned.
"Mom!" Hannah suddenly shouted. "Damn, I dropped my purse with my books. My phone was in there."
"No," Ashley said, rising. "I saw it out on the table. You left it behind. You are always in too much of a hurry, leaving things behind."
"That's right. I couldn't find it earlier when-" Hannah ran out and grabbed it. She tried to get through to her Mom, Ashley's Mom, her other friends. She got nothing but busy signals.
"I can't get through. How about you?"
"Nope. I even messaged Dillion on Twitter. Got nothing back from him yet. Twitter is blowing up though. #Zombie. #Outbreak. I thought it was some sort of joke. Or marketing thing."
Hannah opened up the apps on her phone. Ashley was right, people were posting all kinds of crazy stories on Facebook and Twitter with #Zombie or #Outbreak. Was this some kind of biological warfare attack?
"I don't know what to think. Everything is happening so fast. I just hope our Mom's are together, and safe."
"I'm sure they are together," Ashley said, putting an arm around Hannah. "Just like us."
After double and triple checking all the doors and windows, the two stayed the rest of the night in the bedroom. Ashley tried and tried calling her Mom on her cell, but an automated voice kept telling her that service was busy, try again.
The two went back to sitting Hannah's bed, intermittently switching between getting on the laptop or looking at their phones. Long hours past. Becoming too disgusted with what she was seeing, Hannah put the laptop away. Nothing new was really being reported anyway. A lot of the sites and the news stations had let people go home, as the danger became worse and worse.
Ashley's phone battery gave out, so she plugged it into Hannah's charger and placed it on the nightstand next to the bed.
"What’s going to happen now?" Ashley asked. She looked like a little frightened girl. Hannah figured that was probably what she looked too. "What do you think happened to Dillon? He never did get back to me."
"Who's Dillon anyway? I thought you were dating a guy named Matt?"
"I stopped seeing Matt like two months ago. Dillion is Captain of the swim team."
"Has it really been that long since we hung out?"
"Yeah, well, life you know. You got yours and now I got mine," Ashley answered,
sounding sort of hurt to admit it.
"Look, I don't know, but I bet everyone is safe in their homes, just like we are," Hannah reassured her friend. She wish she felt that was really true. She couldn't help but flash back to red splattering on the side of the white house. She worried for her Mom.
According to Hannah's alarm clock, it was about 2:40 am when the power went off. Both were still awake in Hannah's bedroom. They huddled together in the dark, looking like two women in a horror movie, right before the killer attacks.
"This is just like when we were kids and we were constantly having sleep overs together. Well, except for the freaky people eating other people's bodies," Ashley said, trying to lighten the mood.
Hannah chuckled, squeezing Ashley's hand. "You always did know the right thing to say."
It was deathly quiet for the first time since then all began. Hannah could feel herself began to doze off in spite of her terror.
"Do you remember that last time I stayed over at your house?" Ashley said, nudging Hannah as she began to drift off. "Bobby and Chad snuck in through the window."
"Yes Ashley, even though my Mom forbid any boys being in my room. If we had gotten busted it wouldn't have been pretty."
"Yeah, yeah. Your Mom was always such a prude," Ashley said, exasperated. "You made me tell them both to go. What you didn't know was that after you were asleep, I let Chad back in and we had a great make out session in your closet. He was such an amazing kisser."
"So this is a pattern with you? Bring guys over to Hannah's house behind her back?" Hannah chided. "That's it, tomorrow you are giving me back my key."
"Hannah, you can act all pure around everyone else, but I know you better. You broke your mom's rules more than just that once. If it wasn't for me your life wouldn't be nearly as interesting. Also you never would have gotten into cheerleading."
"We were the twin terrors of the block weren't we? Mess with one, mess with both," Hannah let out a huge yawn as she continued to fight off exhaustion.
