Undead War (Dead Guns Press)

by Thompson, John

  Darkness fell by the time he’d reached the ranger’s hut. The high faded, leaving his tongue dry like sand and his head throbbing. The fent hit with a bang briefly shortly; however, it should have been enough to scratch his itch for the next few days. He had some Percocet in a large white drum he could rely on to get him through the week.

  He checked his snares and pits, found no catches. He’d learned all this shit from watching the Discovery the channel, fashioning makeshift traps from wire then digging pits to place sharpened sticks. He’d caught most of his meals that way. Then he checked his garden. Lucy loved to garden, growing vegetables in the windows and roof of her building. She taught him so much about the soil, about making it lush with life. Her first gift to him had been seeds, and he kept the packets in his bag. His pride grew strong—poppies. He’d thrown a handful of the tiny seeds, and only six or seven grew in the first batch, not yet ready to harvest. He wouldn’t need to go to the city for much longer to feed his habit.

  His hand throbbed, and he entered the small hut—a bedroom and kitchen combined with a hand water pump and septic system. A gas stove still had fuel, which he rationed. He found the first aid gear and cleaned out his hand wound. It stung and swelled red. Puss oozed from the laceration. He bandaged it. Sam couldn’t eat: nauseous from the drugs. He dropped onto the cot, relaxing because of the early warning systems around the hut, so he could relax. Only a few stragglers came out this way, usually following foxes or deer, and they ignored the hut. Most of the time, he just let the undead walk on by. They had a right to eat just like any other creature, as long as it wasn’t his ass.

  In the night, chills woke him. Fever burned him, and his hand ached up his arm. The wound blackened. Sam searched the box for antibiotics and only found a few packs of penicillin from the ‘90s, well beyond the expiration date. He took them anyway in case some potency remainder and downed a few of the narcotic. The high had already faded in his sleep. He should have waited, rationed out the heroin. Sam returned to bed and tore the covers, trying to sleep.

  ***

  The fever burned days later, searing his body and depleting fast his depleted system. His immune system couldn’t handle it. Black streaks spread up along his exposed veins, and his hand reeked. He guessed it was the smell of gangrene. Blood poisoning threw his body into rigors, shaking him nearly out of bed, and he knew the time approached when he’d need to drastically remedy the situation or forfeit his life.

  Time to be brave. He’d said that to Lucy before her first chemo treatment. I’m right here. I know you’re worried I’m going to freak and run, but I promise…I’m right here forever.

  He had survived on the streets by sacrificing his dignity, security, his soul, trading it all for the next hit. Getting the next hit consumed his thoughts, became his sole ambition. Scars littered his arms and legs from infected boils that nearly cost him his limbs. Sam regretted being too weak to seek out more poison before his self-inflicted surgery, but fallen too weak to try.

  Sam had found a machete in the hut, probably used to cut away the undergrowth in the forest. He spilled rubbing alcohol down the blade, cleaned it then sat at the ranger’s desk in front of worthless radio gear. No more artificial signals filled the air. The earth knew peace at least—no more the clatter of thousands of ringing bells. He swallowed a few more pills, pushing his body to the limit, drinking the pills down with a bottle of scotch he’d found in the desk drawer. Blood loss concerned him. He’d have to stop the bleeding fast before he passed out, and his veins would collapse and not clot. He waited for the extra narcotics to work, and euphoria overtook his mind. He could do this shit. He was a real man and felt so sexy. Shame all the women in town would bite his dick off if he tried to get with them. He giggled at that, tied a tourniquet and slammed the machete down on his arm. He hit his flesh with the blunt side, not even breaking the skin. Dumb ass. Shit. His arm stung from the pressure, and he turned the blade then sliced into his flesh. Pain surged up his arm, up his neck and into his chest. He yelled and bit down on a rag, tasting cleaning fluid. He had to chop again. He didn’t want to and started to weep. Shit. Be a man. He sliced one more time, cracking the bone. Black arterial blood oozed onto the desk, and his head spun. He grabbed the bandages from the kit and secured the stump. His severed limb fell from the desk and hit the floor, and he looked at it, stunned that it had belonged to him.

  He bound the stump as best he could, and blood saturated the blood. He struggled to reach the cot, but he fainted on the floor before reaching it.

  ***

  For three days the fever burned him out of the world. Then light flooded his eyes—daylight that burned through the windows of the ranger’s hut where he’d taken residence. The itch dug into his arms and legs like moles, hollowing him out, cracking his bones and scratching at his heart. He reached to scratch his irritated hand and found it missing, then he remembered. In the lost sleep, he’d forgotten and regretted waking up to this constant and gnawing need—ants crawling through his skin, wasps buzzing in his skull. He had created this hell, in seeking his heaven. He’d short circuited his own head. Sam grabbed the drum and swallowed another wee handful of narcotics, but they fell short, a shadow of the euphoria that drove his every thought and action. All his deeds on earth lead to heroin.

  Blood stained his sheets brown in streaks along the cotton. His supply of bandages and meds depleted. All the hospitals would be barren, picked over long ago by bands of survivors; however, he’d not seen a living person since the last days of civilization—at least, human civilization. So this rotted the new dead world, the time of the necropolis. The world had always belonged to the dead. The living just borrowed it.

  The itch consumed his body. Images of dime bags, needles, the color of euphoria—its own rainbow variation of the spectrum made visual—flooded his thoughts, and by his first morning of steady consciousness, he knew he’d have to make another run—to run, escape, flee the gnawing pain on his stump.

  He got to his feet, found his boots, got dressed in his cloth armor, wearing padding under his jeans and flannel then sheathed the machete on his belt. He grabbed his kit, this time taking the flashlight. The loss of the hand would cut his defensive capacity in half, but at least he was left-handed. Sam leaned on the staff, checked out the window to make sure no bodies intruded on his gardens then slipped out of the house. A fever burned his body, and he shook in chills, pushing on, needing his medicine. It felt different then the blood poisoning—ice freezing in his muscles. Many shadowed-alleys still needed to be scoured—so many dark streets and corners where the lost came, gathered, sought their heaven and death. He struggled through the forest, moving to the river and had to stop and rest. His limbs turned to clay. Numbness spread up his extremities, and his stomach ached; and Sam comprehended the new disease suffusing through his living body. It drove him on to find his pain killer to make the transition easier.

  He reached the water pump station and stood on the bank of the river, gazing low onto the city, looking down onto the crushed homes and apartments from the flooding. The sea rose over New Orleans to the south. Bodies stumbled behind him, and he no longer bothered with hiding his access point. The poison in the needle must have been so minor in potency, and it may not have had any effect if he hadn’t weakened his system so with the amateur amputation.

  Sam pushed on through the sewers, lighting his torch and reading the street markers written below each access shaft. In the Treme, he knew of several houses that belonged to dealers. He’d kept away from the area, harvesting his bounty from the streets, fearing the entrapping design of four walls and tight spaces. The houses crawled with bodies, and he’d saved the locations as a last and desperate resort. Junkies always got desperate and did stupid things.

  He crawled up to the sewer grate and balanced his body on the rungs to fetch and employ a crowbar from his bag. He struggled against the heavy disc, growling, biting his dry tongue. He shook with chills, nearly falling off the ladder, and finally the
cover budged. He slid it over and climbed up without checking the street. Several bodies shambled along the road and changed vectors as soon as they spotted him. Skin peeled from their faces and slime dripped out of their orifices. He put his boots on the black top and nearly collapsed from his churning and turning merry-go-round head. Sam could no longer sense his feet or hands, but at least the numbness dulled the pain.

  Mildew grew in the plaster and wood of the single story houses, and the usual gates and bars on the windows had rusted or been pulled off from flooding. Damn it. The stash had probably been washed away or ruined. Still, he’d check. He’d come this far. Though his strength drained, he still outpaced the bodies and made it to the last house on the corner. Sam slipped in through the garage, stepping over tools, rubbish cans and rotting fronds. He braced the crowbar against his body and popped the door off the lock then darted inside. All the furniture had washed up against one wall, and he nearly slipped on a layer of mud and sewage. His eyes watered from the reek of the shit, and but his stomach had frozen from the disease killing his system.

  He had a chance to find what he needed. Dealers in New Orleans had learned after Katrina to hide their inventory on high, and Sam scanned the ceiling. He set his staff against the wall, learning to do things with one hand. Rattling in the garage distracted him, and he barricaded the door, moving a table in front of the portal. Overhead, he spotted a discolored panel in the woodwork of the walls, and he stood on the book of a computer desk, keeping his balance. It came off fast in his hand, and he pulled out a Ziplock bag hidden in the wall, under some pink insulation. His body relaxed and flooded with relief as soon as he saw the bag, knowing he’d found his treasure.

  The bodies pushed against the barricade, moving it quickly with no traction in the floor muck. Sam jumped off the desk, lost his footing and slipped. His head struck the desk leg and throbbed. He looked up, dazed, and two bodies clawed for him. Their finger nails kept growing, and they clawed at the muck around his body with talons. One leaned over, falling but still caught Sam’s ear in its jaws and bit down. Sam yelped and tore away. The jagged mouth tore away skin and cartilage. More teeth snapped at him, and he pushed back on the floor, getting clear of them. Blood drained down his cheek, and his body chilled as if freezing. He kicked away, hitting their heads. His boots raked off their hair and skin, and one zombie grabbed his hand. He yanked it out of its mouth, pushed up on his feet and made it to the bathroom door. Several more bodies entered the house, and they joined their collective moans into mournful choir. He slammed the door shut. The only light glowed through a filthy frosted window, and he leaned against the sink. Slime filled the bathtub—a putrefied stew thick and fatty to the surface. At least he’d have some peace here.

  The lady of the moribund waters rose, and the slime coated her skin, her naked and bubbling flesh. Water bags hung from her body where she had absorbed the moisture in the tub. Like a phantom, she lifted sans sounds and reached for Sam. He backed into the wall and grabbed the machete from his belt then sliced it her neck. Her head dropped into the tub, and her body collapsed.

  Shit. The bag. He must have dropped it in the other room when he was attacked. His remaining fingers had stopped working as his body shut down. The itch instantly infiltrated all through the depths of his still living body, and fury filled his head, exploding behind his eyes. He flailed against the tiles of the bathroom and broke his fingers, hand, but never felt it. Sam calculated how fast he’d need to be to get by the horde growing in the parlor, but he couldn’t deduce a strategy that wouldn’t end without being torn apart and devoured—an end he couldn’t handle. Sam leaned back against the bathroom door, sliding down to the floor and couldn’t stand again.

  As the Helsinki virus spread through his body, his organs—infecting him from the last needle he stuck in his arm—he felt the lights in his brain dimming. His intelligence and sentience flickered out, diminishing his mind. He hoped his amygdala, the pleasure centers of his brain, would shut down early to give him some relief, but the addiction still itched sans mercy. Still, he hoped for relief beyond his body’s death.

  ***

  The reanimated body clawed with its only arm at the bathroom door, breaking the rest of its fingers off and rubbing its broken hand down the portal. Even with most of its brain switched off, melting and decomposing. Only the ancient parts of the reptilian brain remained active, and the neurons of the pleasure centers still fired, filling its dim mind with need, the agony that drove it even beyond the need for warm flesh. Finally, the door broke its lock, and it fell into the parlor. From the floor, the undead picked up a bag but no longer possessed the cognitive ability to use the needles or prepare the powders. It growled then howled and rubbed the bag on its body, seeking relief—an agony that would not assuage until finally its brain rotted through the center and it passed into the earth—when the earth would know peace.

  The Scavenger

  Matthew Wilson

  The truth was; I was simply tired of being hungry.

  I have never been a zombie fan. Sure, a guy expects that after they eat his family, but I was sick of the stress - of sleeping with a gun. I was glad the war ended. But that didn't mean I liked the house then.

  Old man Jenkins was not a nice fellow before the war. Since it had taken his wife and daughter, we all knew he'd gone nuts. Watering flowers in the rain and washing his face in puddles.

  Neighbors said he howled at the moon, but we were too wrapped up in our own survival to bother with his oddities. Then just like that, Mr. Jenkins became the most important factor in my life.

  Or rather his money did. I wasn't proud of stealing, but the war had taken my home and family. When he was sane, Jenkins always bossed my dad about. Made him work himself to an early grave to put food on our table.

  I considered this more compensation, than breaking and entering.

  Years ago, the old man was a force to be reckoned with, bringing about the early demise of any businessman he looked to swindle. Even kids on the playground knew to stay away from his house at Halloween.

  Rumors stated his home was booby trapped, that one kid had been crushed to death by a falling weight. But money talked and Jenkins paid off the police. I didn't believe the guy had that much power.

  But I believed he was a nut, so took dads bag of tools just in case. The last time we used the spanners inside was when we made a cart for the annual downhill race. An accident waiting to happen, but my arm was all healed now.

  I only needed the glass cutter to get through the window.

  The stench of decay was appalling. A guy had to eat, but just like that I felt like throwing my guts up. Like a true hermit, old Jenkins seemed content to sit in his own mess.

  Forty year old newspapers were stacked from floor to ceiling, telling me of wars before the undead apocalypse. Dad said the guy was mean with money, he still had a Christmas tree labelled 1937, completely devoid of brown pine needles and a very depressed looking fairy sat impaled upon it.

  Talk about a dump. But someone like Jenkins didn't make bad investments, it was impossible he would have lost his money. Most likely he put his stocks into the undead war, constructing weapons for either side. Anything to make a profit.

  The first time I nearly died that evening happened as I reached the stair case. The old man’s eyes must have been bad as I saw the length of wire stretched across the base step immediately.

  Jesus. So the stories had some truth.

  I trembled at the idea of what the rope was connected to. I was too cowardly for a floor to floor search and lacking the confidence to believe I could just fall upon the treasure, I was happy enough to steal gold candle sticks, or something fancy.

  The war had made me homeless, yet I lived better than this. Nimble as a monkey, I clambered over the bannister and up the creaking stairs.

  Please be dead, I thought. No one had seen Jenkins in years. Not since that supposed kids death - had the cops told him to lay low? Dumbly, I squinted down in poor st
ar light, hoping to see the chalk outline of a corpse.

  There was nothing but brave beetles scurrying for cover as I lumbered up the creaking stairs toward the first door. Vibrations through the warped floorboards sent something snapping at my feet - a bear trap! Jenkins was old school. He didn't believe in 911. I expected him to burst from a room armed with a shotgun at any minute.

  But the idea of slinking out, cold and starving to die slow in the rain from hunger was a worst scenario than a quick release of buck shot.

  I found Mrs. Jenkins near the master bedroom. Since her murder, her husband’s prints round her neck; she looked far from her best. But she was up and walking at a funny angle, bits of her own fingers clung half masticated between her teeth.

  After the war, soldiers went house to house to make sure sentiment hadn't made prisoners of the dead. This was a new world, and all the dead had to be evicted for immediate cremation. Of course no one came to Jenkins house. I don't think he let his wife run rampant through the house at night through devotion, a desire to keep her close, but rather she was cheaper than buying a bull dog to keep watch.

  A burglar deterrent.

  Hungry, she threw herself at me, open rotted mouth first. She was a large woman which made me think how often Jenkins fed her. Were there other wanna be burglars like me locked away in the cellar for later consumption?

  Mrs. Jenkins obesity worked against her as I threw myself to the floor, but she lacked the power in her mangled arms to stop herself. She tumbled a long time, cracking plaster in the walls as she fell downstairs. When she hit the wire at the bottom, there came a terrible crack as an antique sabre suspended from the ceiling slammed through her head, still quivering, impaling her to the floor.