by catt dahman
Why was she giving up?
Annie turned and began hitting the creatures in her way, but she found herself next to Lucy Anne and stuck in the corner as well with the nasty creatures, clawing at her. Help was close. Annie shoved them back, but the weight of so many made it difficult. She yelled to Robert that they needed help and fast.
Shonelle, leaving the safety of the other room, swung hard and high and fought her way back to the two women, swinging, yelling she was on her way, and telling them to sit tight and wait.A creature fell on her from the left, and she and the ghoul went sprawling onto the floor. Her face registered surprise.
Robert swung at them, but they all refused to acknowledge him, turning as one and moving to the three women, ignoring every swing Robert made with a kind of hive mentality.
“Come get me,” he yelled at the creatures, “take a bite; here I am….”
Cory and Kevin joined in, but at least ten were moving, another ten fighting the women, and twenty coming from the other side.
Cory took his pistol out and fired, but they saw Lucy Ann’s arm ripped away as
she screamed; the bottle of anti-inflammatory pills rolled across the floor as the zombies bit into her detached arm.
She screamed with pain as her blood pumped out onto the crowd, and they chewed on her.
Robert yelled in unison with Lucy Ann as he saw her suffering.
A creature seemed to be kissing Shonelle, but she was trying to move it away from her as it was eating her lips and nose while she gurgled screams, drowning in her own blood.
Annie was on the ground with several creatures digging at her guts, pulling out ropey strings, and moaning with pleasure while she went into shock and fell unconscious.
Robert pushed the other men through the far doors, and they slammed them closed, sliding to the floor. Robert vomited violently.
Bella and Wheeler finished the three zombies in that area and stared at the rest with horror, wondering what happened.
“Annie?” Dale began, but Robert shook his head.
“We lost Annie, Shonelle, and Lucy Ann,” said Robert as he unashamedly cried into his hands, feeling his grief and frustration come pouring out, “I couldn’t do a damned thing for them.”
DeVon rubbed his back a few times while he wept for the people just lost and for the world that was slipping away.
Dale wiped tears away several times. “We should put them down.”
“We can’t go back into that; those things are riled up,” Cory said. “We’d all be killed.”
Chapter 18
The Cars and the Zoms Are That Way; We Go Left
It was a while before Robert would stand and face the rest of the group; when he did, they were ready to go with the medications packed away into backpacks.
Cory said they were going to move fast, and they did. He led them out of the room and into a hallway. He used his pistol while Dale used the gun they found, and Kevin borrowed Robert’s rifle. Robert was still shaking too hard to get a good shot. As they went along, they had to shoot a few.
They made a left turn and then a right; Cory said the fire escape was a way out.
“I studied the wall maps of the place.”
“There could be more people here…trapped,” DeVon said.
“We don’t have the training or guns to get anyone out, and we have lost too many. We can’t, DeVon,” Kevin said.
Two security guards moaned at the end of the hall; at their feet were a dozen Reds shot in their heads, but the two guards still were infected. Cory and Kevin got the shots. Bella hit the doors at a run, and everyone followed her. “The car and zoms are that way; we go left,” she said. “Come on.”
Running across the parking lot, they skirted and dodged a dozen creatures that weren’t interested in the car and radio but were more concerned with the humans, so the running crew knocked the zombies down with hits of bats and pipes.
“Hey, shhhhh,” said Kevin as he stopped running. Something caught his attention as they ran for the rest of the group. They were at the small hillside and out of the parking lot. “Do you hear something?” He tried to isolate the odd noise from the moaning of the zombies.
“Moaning, but it’s weird….” Bella stopped to listen. It was coming from where they left the man, woman, and injured guy. “Like a droning.”
“Like there’s a hundred, all making that low moaning sound together?” Cory asked. He crept up the hill carefully. Suddenly, he came tumbling back down, eyes wide and unable to get his breath. “Hundreds. Hundreds of them.” Before he could explain, the first half-dozen came rolling and pinwheeling down the slope behind Cory. It was a terrifying sight.
“Go; just go.”
Kevin grabbed Cory’s arm and saw the falling creatures already blocked the way to their friends; they were separated. The only choice was to run east. Cory kept muttering, “Go, Go, Go.” As they ran away, he was glad Kevin was able to keep up because he was so scared he ran full out.
Both men ran, not looking back and not thinking, and in a few minutes, they found an SUV that they jumped into. The first few they searched did not have keys in them.
“Tell me it’s gonna start,” Kevin said.
“It better start. We’ve got a bunch of company.”
Kevin turned the SUV around to look for the rest of their friends and to pick them up, but he couldn’t get close because of the horde that was coming out of the brush and converging on the hospital where they just were. There had to be several hundred now.
In another five minutes, they all would be dead in the parking lot.
“We’ll back track, go around, and find them that way,” Kevin said. He raced the SUV down a street and over a median. The bumping of the vehicle made their teeth rattle.
“They should be right here somewhere.” He couldn’t stay long because the creatures came at the SUV to slap bloody hands at the car glass, but he circled in the vehicle.
“Where are they? Did they just disappear?” Cory asked, “are you sure this is the right place?”
“I’m sure. I’m positive. They have to be here or close by.” He leaned on the horn and got no reaction but moans from the creatures.
Although they circled for an hour looking for their friends, they couldn’t find them and finally were forced to stop looking.
In despair, Kevin drove southeast and didn’t see their friends. A tape was in the dash they listened to, Cinder Montaine’s Greatest Hits. It was kind of cheesy stuff to Cory, but he almost liked the modern versions of some of Vegas’s lounge tunes. “It’s not too bad…kind of catchy.”
“Kind of.” Kevin’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
They didn’t know what to do besides just drive.
Chapter 19
It’s A Zoo. What Could Be Safer?
It was a great shock when they found Hopetown and were taken in and welcomed, they found Jilly Montaine, Cinder Montaine’s daughter.
Kevin always thought it was a sign, but he regretted the whole venture into the hospital. “We listened to your mother’s tape,” he told Jilly, “for about the fourth time; we knew the words and sang along.”
Jilly hugged them. “I’m glad you liked it.”
Kevin’s first friend at Hopetown was another gay man named Alex. They would have years together before Alex was killed on a mission. Cory would train with the US Militia, and during a particularly devastating event, he would prove himself a hero and leader.
Across the city, Wheeler, Dale, DeVon, Bella, and Robert ran along the scrub and weeds, darting into the woods on the hill to get away from the zombies.
They looked for Cory and Kevin and didn’t see them anywhere. Knowing they
couldn’t just wait around, they looked and found an old truck that they used to travel
north, a direction they chose at random.
They drove until the truck was almost out of gasoline, but it proved reliable and able to run down a single or pairs of creatures when needed.
“Yes, they are safe,” someone answered.
“We need a safe place to ride this out; no more bullshit missions,” Robert began. The others nodded thoughtfully. “We need somewhere that has secured walls and that can handle those things, and then we can call base.”
“A zoo.”
“Well, it is like a zoo out here, pretty crazy.”
DeVon stomped her foot. “No, look, a zoo. It has walls.”
Wheeler gave her a little hug. “You are brilliant. Of course, it’s a zoo and very secure.” He waved them to come check it out with him. “What could be safer?”
“A hidden military outpost beneath the earth’s surface with no way for the zombies to get inside,” Robert said and smirked.
“Oh, well, we don’t have that; we have a zoo.” DeVon smiled.
And that was how Dale, Robert, Bella, Wheeler, and DeVon ended up living in the zoo.
Chapter 20
What People Forgot Besides Magic and Innocence Was Balance
“Hey,” said Kim as he waved at Len, “something is up.”
“No shit. I was just trying to find you. I finally had a chance to get things settled and find out more about this place and the people here,” added Len.
On the other side were two other people. Dale said they had come in a few months back, and they didn’t get around the rest, just kept to themselves.
We know the man is named Henry, and the other one is a boy who keeps his face covered, said he was burned.”
“It’s Diamond and Pascal.”
“Carl and Teeg went down there, and so you know at the side gate, two people came in this morning early…a young man and a young woman on horseback. It’s been a rockin’ morning.”
“Hannah?”
“I think so.” Len was struggling to keep up with Kim as the taller man strode
across the zoo, down walkways, and across grassy areas. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” Kim admitted as he walked.
“You wanna get your rifle?”
“I won’t be able to use it; my handgun is enough.”
Len frowned. “That’s strange.”
Kim knew he was supposed to go one way in the zoo but didn’t know what to expect. He paused at one spot and knew it was wrong; he went further into the grassy parts with Len following, and they could hear water rolling over rocks.
When Kim and Len stepped out into the sunlight again, gravel and rocks were along a steep grade down to the water. It reminded them of Hopetown. In fact, it was way too much like home, as if maybe the designer of Hopetown had used this format.
Kimball felt the world slow to a stop around him so that a bird in the sky moved in slow motion, everything was silent, colors were vibrant, and the water glittered over rocks, making the air twinkle with light.
Okay, Zane, I think this is what you were preparing me for, he said to himself.
I’m ready; what is it I’m supposed to do here?
Around Kim, everything was in slow motion, and he could stand there and look at things while nothing else moved. He couldn’t move his body either, but he could look and hear.
On one side on a smaller bluff, were Adam and Hannah. Adam, the young man Kim was hunting for, played a part in Kim’s wife’s being shot. He was the young man who led Hannah astray.
Adam’s head was cut, and a big, fat dot of blood gathered into a drop; in a second, it would fall right onto the man on the ground, the one who fell during the altercation with Adam and Hannah.
The man on the ground was the older black man who lived at the zoo with Robert, Dale, Devon, and Bella; Kim knew the man’s name was Wheeler, a smart, tough, likable man. He was a born leader, and people depended on him.
If the drop fell into Wheeler’s eye, the man would be infected because Adam was a hybrid with no real symptoms, just infected blood and bodily fluids. If Kim shot Adam, the young man would flinch, making the droplet fall elsewhere. He would save Wheeler, have revenge on Adam, and be done with that part of his life. Perfect.
Hannah was wide-eyed and scared after being told to go away by the people who lived at the zoo, and somehow, the man, Dale’s friend, Robert, had gotten the best of her after Wheeler fell to the ground and Robert had a gun pointed at her. He was nervous and scared because Hannah was a threat.
No, he was already squeezing the trigger.
If Kim shot at Robert, he could miss, and the action would make Robert flinch so the shot would go wild; then, Robert would miss hitting Hannah in her chest.
It was at point-blank. Kim could save his stepdaughter’s life. Beth would want him to save Hannah.
Over there to the side was the doctor who started all this with his cavalcade of experiments that wrecked the world like a train collision would wreck a car with his ideas on altering humans to make more efficient killers for wars.
He practically admitted developing the original infection, and it was called Diamond Flux after him. He made protocols and hardly tested them before giving them to people.
Since the outbreak over the past ten years, the man was a part of a slideshow of ruined lives as he tried to perfect his ideas. In his hand, he held a vial and a bunch of notes as he explained to Dale that this might be the answer, but he needed to test it.
He had a new Frankenstein serum; he meant he needed to test the new one on people.
Kim could hear every word he said.
In slow motion, Kim saw that Dr. Diamond and Dale were just beginning to react to Wheeler’s being pushed away and falling and to Robert’s getting ready to shoot Hannah (In Robert’s defense, he was scared and upset with this girl who was traveling with the young man who angrily pushed an old man to the ground for no reason).
With a distraction, if the doctor saw Len and Kim, he would run to the gate and get away with his notes.If Kim shot him, the doctor would die, and the vial and notes would fall and roll down to the water where it would all be ruined by the rocks and water.
The doctor would never harm another living being. And he was the one who made this infection, so he deserved to die.
Right above Dr. Henry Diamond on the rocks stood Pascal.
Pascal was the child who shared a womb with Zane fifteen years before.
But Zane didn’t have a common father with the boy, who was tall and slender and had a face that seemed melted as it were withered on one side.The eye socket was hollowed and empty. His one, dark, glittering eye focused on Kim, promising pain and fear beyond words and unimaginable in depravity.
Cries of pain, horror, and death were Pascal’s joy. The child was strong enough to begin a new plague, to burn people alive, or to do something else equally as cruel with his magic, and he still had a lot left, Kim thought.
The child had slightly pointed teeth, perhaps filed to those points, but Kim had no doubt that the child was also a hybrid and a cannibal and enjoyed every second of ripping away living flesh.
Kim knew the story was that in the womb, Pascal tried to strangle Zane with the umbilical cord, and it seemed a bit of a farce, but now, seeing the child had grown to a teenager, Kim had no reason to disbelieve the story.
Pascal was a product of hate-filled rape; Zane was a child conceived in love. It was too bad that the two acts were hours apart and one resulted in this abomination.
But the strangest thing in the tableaux before Kim was the big man who stood just inside the gate to the zoo, watching intently. Gabe was a familiar man from Hopetown, never seen unless he was with Zane, watching his ward, never speaking.
Gabe had not spoken in ten years; he was around only to protect Zane all those years, making sure they made it safely to the compound of Hopetown.
Zane always said Gabe never spoke in all the years he knew him either but said that Gabe understood things and could hear; he just didn’
t speak.
Gabe watched Kim, his eyes wet with sadness, and Kim thought that he heard Gabe humming.
From this distance and with everyone shouting or talking, Kim couldn’t possibly hear Gabe if he were humming; besides, the man had never spoken, yet here he was, scores of miles from where Kim last saw him, and Kim was positive Gabe was humming.
In fact, Kim knew what Gabe was humming. It was a song Cinder Montaine had sung in a movie about twenty years before.
What else would have gathered everyone here for this moment? Everyone was drawn here for this moment.
Remember, Kim…only one choice. One.
Kim knew the time had come and what Zane meant. He would have one shot, and now it was time to make the choice as to whom he would shoot. Robert, Adam, Diamond, or Pascal?
Would he save his daughter or the old man, test subjects, or check the unknown? It was a hard choice, but it was given to Kimball because this was all about his doing what was right.His gut rolled.
“As I stood, with the weight of the world on my shoulders,
I chose my destiny and cast forth my power.
I stared the horsemen in the eye; horses neighed in sight.
They were grounded as mortal.
Innocence died alongside.
Those with no voice sang in glee.
Those with no sight saw the light.
Those who could not comprehend understood.
Those who could not hear could perceive.
None shall know, as none will remember:
Innocence.”
It was what Gabe was humming. Kim sang the words softly.And he brought his pistol up.
Far away, at Hopetown, Zane hoped Kim made the right choice but wasn’t sure he would; it was a terrible choice to make, and Kim was just a man, like anyone else. No one was a super hero.
Zane did all he could within the limits (actually getting close to over-stepping the rules, but he thought that this one time was all right).
He prepared Kim and sent Gabe to set the stage, but the last thing he did was something Kim didn’t know about and wouldn’t have liked at all.Yet, it was the way things had to be. What people forgot besides magic and innocence was balance.
