Undead War (Dead Guns Press)

by Thompson, John

  ***

  Traveling with no clear destination became a nightmare of empty gas tanks and empty bellies. Andy rarely spoke and never cried anymore. From time to time a whimper seeped out between her thumb and lips.

  Liza sat in the back seat and sang and told stories to Andy. But the little girl did not respond. Her eyes turned glassy and her skin paled.

  The Kaplan family traveled west slowly, making frequent excursions off the highway to scavenge for fuel and food. Liza continued to scan the radio dial for a station that might still be broadcasting. Once in a while she found music but soon realized that the tunes were on a loop. No one manned the station.

  The Emergency Broadcast System remained cautiously optimistic after the cities on the east and west coasts were destroyed. But after a week the news became stale. Reports of refugee shelters ceased. Stories of military successes stopped.

  Instead the voice without a body endlessly repeated that no further updates would occur.

  The government of the United States no longer existed.

  The Kaplan’s found a convenience store on the outskirts of a small town in Ohio. Dick abandoned the turnpikes as the rest stops became overrun with the flesh-eaters. If the bombings helped, the results were not obvious. The number of the monsters clearly grew every day.

  Liza pumped gas as Dick ransacked the store. He returned to the car with two boxes of food, water and toys for Andy. They both scanned the area and saw no monsters lurking nearby. Liza decided to try the relative luxury of a restroom instead of a tree.

  Dick drew his gun and tried the door and found it locked. He returned to the store, found the key and then he carefully pulled open the door, his .38 pointed inside. But no monsters came for them and Dick declared it safe.

  He missed the supply closet.

  Liza took the flashlight and Andy into the bathroom. A moment later Dick heard a scuffle and a heart breaking shriek from Andy. The door flew open and Liza fell out, blood streaming from her neck.

  One of the things followed her carrying Andy who screamed and squirmed away from the snapping jaws. Dick fired at the creature’s head. If he waited, Andy was dead; if he missed Andy was dead.

  The thing’s head exploded.

  Liza slumped to the pavement blood pumping from her neck. Dick grabbed a rag and applied pressure. The blood flow eased to a trickle.

  Andy threw herself into her mother’s arms and Liza smothered the small child to her chest.

  Liza looked to Dick. “Don’t let me change. If you love me, don’t. Please, God, don’t let Andy see me that way.” Dick handled the pistol like a hot coal, moving it from hand to hand. Finally he put the barrel to Liza’s head and Andy squealed “NO! Daddy!”

  Dick pulled the gun back and sat next to Liza. Her body felt hot to the touch and she drifted in and out of consciousness. In her lucid moments she begged Dick to shoot. Andy clung to her mother and begged too. “No, No, No!”

  Hours passed and darkness fell. A brilliant white moon splashed light over the store, the car and the broken family. When Liza made no sound for hours, Dick felt her wrist. Nothing. He sniffed for an exhale of breathe. Nothing.

  Death claimed Liza, his wife and his love. Andy’s mother was dead.

  Andy hung to her mother like paint on a bare wall but Dick finally pulled her from the corpse. Dick knew Liza would reanimate but not when. He also knew he had to fire a bullet into her head very soon.

  He cocked the gun and put it to Liza’s temple. Just as he pressed the trigger Andy lunged at him forcing the shot wide.

  “Andy, please, sweetheart. Mommy’s gone. Let me finish this.”

  He fired again, this time from several feet away, the gun too high for Andy to interfere.

  The clicking sound of an empty gun froze his soul. The rest of the bullets were in the car. He yelled to Andy to stay away from her mother and ran to the car. He found the box of slugs and snapped the chamber open.

  A shriek from Andy made him drop the bullets. He looked out of the car window to see Liza on her feet trying to catch Andy.

  Terrified when her mother first reanimated, Andy now shouted to Dick, “Look, Daddy, Mommy’s OK,” and turned to go to her.

  Dick reached for the only other weapon in their car, the antique sword they brought from home days earlier. He twirled the blade over his head and swung.

  Liza Kaplan’s head flew off in a burst of blood and rolled underneath the car.

  Four-year-old Andy called her father a bastard and collapsed kicking and screaming.

  ***

  In the back seat Andy Kaplan sang, “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” And then she asked her mother, “Are you happy now, Mommy?”

  The metal box on the seat next to Andy shook and a deep snarl seeped through the seals. Inside the box the head of Liza Kaplan bared its teeth and nipped at the iron shell that held it. As long as the box sat next to Andy and she could hear her mother‘s voice she was nearly sane.

  If Dick moved the box out of sight or even out of earshot, Andy shrieked, pulled her hair and rolled on the ground kicking her feet. These - things - took his wife’s life and his daughter’s sanity.

  The few stragglers’ they encountered spread rumors about survivors in the Rocky Mountains. Dick doubted that but his options were gone. Traveling meant almost certain suicide. Large herds of flesh-eaters roamed the highways. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts were radioactive. And if a miracle got them to a safe ocean port, would there be boats? Would there be islands that were populated?

  But right now Dick drove a Hummer with a full tank of gas. Their food supply would last about a week. But the Rockies were a thousand miles away.

  Dick fumbled in his pocket for the revolver. The chamber held three bullets.

  Armored Saint

  John L. Thompson

  Maxwell Jackson knelt beside the overturned dumpster and looked across the trash strewn street. He held up his Sterling SMG 9mm and checked the chamber to make sure he was loaded. He looked again across the street then back behind him from where he had come. He saw no zombies hiding in the shadows. He figured they were waiting out the worst of the New Mexico heat that was always prevalent around this time of year. He wiped away the sweat from his forehead. For eighteen months, since the beginning of the viral outbreak, he had managed to elude the undead beings, moving from one place to another always one step ahead of the damned things. Usually, he would be in hiding at this time of the day but a strong sense to scrounge some nearby business buildings for some booze had bought him here.

  Strip clubs around Albuquerque like the ‘Peppermint Lioness‘, had been known to house a large stock of booze and for some reason, he had a need to find a good stiff drink. It didn’t matter what kind just as long as it was good hard liquor in a sealed bottle. He ran across the street at a half crouch and hid low behind a burned out Ford truck and looked into the entranceway of the former strip club. He scanned around him once and then ran quickly into the dark open maw of the building.

  Once inside, he noted the place was a dark clutter of destruction. Tables and chairs had been overturned and the once plush red carpet was a rotted mess from exposure from the rains and snows from seasons past as a result of the collapsed sections of ceiling. Sheetrock walls and ceilings had been busted through and there were a few bones, which Jackson assumed to be human.

  The front stage where half nude women had performed for the dollar bills from the sex-starved mass of men, had long since collapsed and was covered with glass mirror debris. Nothing left but old ghosts from a long dead era he mused. He slung the Sterling over his shoulder then stuffed in earphones and pressed the play button on the MP3 player he had in his back pocket. The sounds of a lost era began pumping through.

  Disco.

  Now what was the reasons why people had hated Disco he mused? Damn fine shit even if he was just a five-year-old wet nosed kid living in a dilapidated house with no heat and at times, no water. His father had to work two full time
jobs to make ends meet while his mother was off spending some of it on dope and other needless shit. His mind drifted back to those days when being black and poor was commonplace. His brother and he used to listen to the radio every Saturday night listening to the new Disco sounds drifting from the speakers. The sounds of Motown were great but the beats of Disco had always enthralled him. He had Disco now but he wanted some booze to go with it. He had searched through most of Albuquerque’s industrial area liquor stores and found that they had already been picked clean to the walls or the buildings burned down. He stepped further into the ruins that had once housed some of the state’s best class of strippers and searched the bar first and found only broken or empty bottles.

  He moved through the open hall to a doorway and began rummaging through the back room. He found nothing but empty boxes filled with rotted foods of some kind. He tossed the boxes aside and swept them away with the edge of his foot and saw a pack of cigarettes fall from the rotting cardboard. Holy Mother Fucker! He thought. He knelt down and picked up his newfound treasure and made sure it was still sealed in its package. Well no booze but a smoke and some Disco sounded good enough. He placed his newfound treasure within his backpack and had no sooner placed the pack strap over his shoulder, when several zombies appeared in the doorway.

  He cursed, un-slung the Sterling sub gun and fired off a long burst in rapid succession. Three of zombies flew back from headshots, splashing the door jam with brains and gristle. Two fell twitching to the floor and the other one, with half its head blown off, staggered back to its feet. Jackson slammed the metal butt stock against the side of its shattered cranium forcing it to drop like a puppet with its strings cut. He stumbled over the trio of dead zombies and saw the room coming to life with undead beings. He made a mad dash through the small throng of zombies that had quickly materialized seemingly out of nowhere. Slamming against an overturned table, he picked it up and threw it at the large zombie blocking his escape out of the building, forcing the undead being to fall over on its back. He cursed his own stupidity for not following his rules that he had placed on himself: Always look around before entering a building and always clear the building before beginning any scavenging actions. The past is dead and there was no point in dwelling on it.

  He burst through the broken doors and went on a mad run and saw more zombies appearing out of the nearby alleyway and they quickly gave chase. He looked back and saw the small throng erupt from the former strip club and saw women in various stripper garbs running after him. He fired off the last two rounds from the Sterling, hitting one square in the chest but it had little effect. Having no time to reload, Jackson turned and ran.

  Jackson ran cursing his luck and the heavy pack strapped to his back but he knew to shed it would be the last thing he could do. His MP3 player blared a KC and the Sunshine Band song ’Boogie Man’ through his earphones and thought of the irony of that. If he didn’t find a place to hole up or make a stand, he was looking at being dinner within the next few minutes. He held the Sterling at waist level cursing that it was empty. The small throng of zombies chased after him down the street snarling and snapping. He should’ve stayed out of the strip club to begin with. There was no luck for a black man even in the post-apocalyptic world dominated by zombies just as his luck had been threadbare before the viral outbreak.

  The zombie strippers chased after him gathering a few other zombies who must’ve been patrons, employees or others who just happened to be in the area. The zombies were like that. At first you couldn’t see them then, seemingly out of nowhere, they would appear. One of the stripper zombies had sprinted ahead of the tightly packed group and was quickly gaining on him. Her long greasy blonde hair trailed out behind her and she quickly bared her rotting teeth and clawed at the empty air between them. She was topless and her heavy breasts must have been things of beauty at one time but now they were rotted bags of dead flesh that bounced with each running step. He poured it on and managed to widen the distance from her but knew he could not keep the pace forever. He rounded another corner and ran uphill into another part of the industrial area.

  He looked quickly left then right and found a stack of crates piled against a twelve-foot cinder block wall. If he could climb up to the top of the wall he might be able to get away. Making a mad run, he clambered up the stack of loose crates; he had just grabbed the top ledge of the wall when the crates fell out from under him. He managed with every ounce of strength to pull himself up and on top of the wall, being careful not to just jump completely over into the compound on the other side of the wall. One never knew if there were more zombies waiting on the other side. The zombie stripper smashed into the clutter of crates and then the wall. She snarled and clawed at the wall with her long fingers and he noticed the silicone bag used in breast implants, poking through the torn and rotted flesh on her breast. He thought about blowing her head off but it would be a waste of a valuable cartridge. Instead, he reached into his pocket and found a battered one hundred dollar bill. Money was useless these days. The paper currency was only good for one thing: toilet paper. He tossed the single one hundred dollar bill down to her. “That’s at least for the show bitch, be happy with that.”

  Standing on the wall, he noted it was a good twelve feet high and surrounded a compound that had a single two story brick walled building there was an outbuilding with an armored truck sticking half in and half out through the garage door. He walked along the wall top, carefully surveying if there were any zombies down inside and saw none. The large group of zombies had by now gathered at the foot of the wall and were clawing up at him. He saw no reason not to go and investigate the compound and hope for the best. He squatted, took hold of the walls edge and jumped down to the asphalt parking lot below.

  An old armored car vault building. The bright business sign above, said it had belonged to the Wells Fargo Armored/ ATM Division. The building was a two-story brick wall structure with no windows. Parked up against the rear wall of the compound were half dozen red and white-painted armored trucks covered in a thin layer of dust from the elements of time. He saw only a couple of heavy steel plated doorways and a single garage door and for a moment, he thought perhaps somebody might be barricaded inside. He walked around the building, tried the plated doors and they were locked shut. Moving around back though, he saw another garage door that was partially open enough that a person could slide under it. No one would leave a place like this unguarded. He approached it with apprehension then knelt down and removed his backpack. He quickly rummaged through it until he found the box of 9mm shells. He was down to his last twelve rounds and he hoped there were no zombies inside.

  If he didn’t find another gun, preferably a shotgun, he was going to have to resort to some kind of hand-held weapon like an axe or a shovel with sharpened edges. That meant also he was facing close contact fighting with zombies, which he dreaded. He took his MP3 player and saw the screen flashing indicating the batteries were low. He had found an old generator a few days before and had managed to recharge it that way but who knew how long before he could listen to the disco beats again. Prior to that, it had been several months. Mumbling, he wrapped up the earphone cords and stuffed it in the backpack. It was just as well. If he had been paying attention at the strip club, he would have heard the zombies coming. He loaded his last 12 rounds into the 34 round magazine, slapped it into the Sterling then looked under the door, watching to see if there was any movement. He could see the large wheels from a couple of armored trucks parked inside. He took a deep breath then slid under the garage door and quickly gathered his feet under him, holding the Sterling at the ready.

  Nothing but cold silence greeted him.

  “Hello?” His voice echoed in the large garage and he waited for a moment waiting for any kind of human response. Nothing answered back. He slowly slid the safety switch forward on the Sterling. If there was no human response then he had to assume the worst. There would have to be zombies here but there again, with just him calling
out, any zombies in the building would have come running by now. Small beads of sweat formed on his forehead, which he wiped away with the shoulder part of his shirt. The building’s interior was like an oven. The heat was almost intolerable and he had second thoughts about looking around for anything.

  Pausing, he flipped on the mini mag light mounted to the Sterling and the light poked a bright hole into the darkness. Within the large loading garage, were two armored trucks with the rear doors swinging open. Off to his left were several rooms with sliding doors standing open and empty. Cautiously, he went through one of the small rooms and climbed over a counter then searched the various open vaults. The main vault contained a large table and some racks where large stacks of currency and boxed coins were stored. He shrugged his shoulders. There would be no use for any of it these days.

  The smell of old decay caught his attention and he lifted the barrel of the Sterling. There was an enclosed office, off to the right, sealed off with the exception of a single door. There was also a large windowpane and he peered in. There inside was a corpse sitting in a chair facing away from him. He moved around to the door and tested the handle and found it already ajar. With his boot tip he nudged it open and poked the barrel of the sub gun inside.

  The stench made his stomach boil and he struggled to control his gag reflex. There, sitting in the chair, were the rotting remains of a corpse in a uniform. Jackson took his shirttail and covered his mouth and nose. He stepped forward slowly to see if the corpse was actually dead. There had been more than a few times in which a corpse he had thought was dead, had leapt up from its slumber and attacked. In this case though it appeared the corpse was a dead old man with a large hole in the side of his head. Taking the tip of his boot he turned the corpse to face him; a 9mm handgun clattered to the floor. The old guard had probably shot himself at the very onset of the viral outbreak. He picked up the pistol, checked the action, and tucked it in the waistband of his trousers. He continued on with his search and found nothing living, or dead, wandering around or hiding in the darker spaces of the building. He had lucked out so far. He could hole up here for a while until he decided on his next move.