by R. J. Spears
Every yard was overgrown as grass ran wild when the assault of the lawn mowers ended with the Outbreak. Weeds and vines had their way with the sides of houses with no one to take them out with weed whackers and pruners.
“Something just moved down the alley,” I said directing everyone’s attention to the alley between 5th and 6th Streets.
“Was it a Z?” Brandon asked using the jargon for zombies that some of the younger people had adopted.
“Something moved, but I only caught the briefest of movement,” I said.
“The briefest of movement...what are you -- some kind of English professor?” Brandon asked.
“Why can’t you just say you saw something?” Aaron snickered.
Mike held up a hand for silence as he pulled to the curb and picked up the walkie-talkie, “Greg, we saw something in the alley between 5th and 6th. You see anything?”
“No. There are at least four of them, maybe more, in the street milling about on 6th,” Greg reported. “I’d say stay where you are and move towards them on foot.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Mike said putting down the walkie-talkie. “Okay fellas, it looks like we’re walking from here.” We disembarked quietly and efficiently in the way that the warriors had drilled into us.
“Leave the doors unlocked,” he said. “The keys are in the ignition if anything happens to me.”
He took point, hugging the side of a house, edging toward the front to get a better view down 6th. Brandon was second, Aaron third, and I took up the rear. We stacked up at the corner of the house’s front porch. Mike craned his neck forward for about ten seconds and then turned back to us.
In a low voice he said, “There’s four in the street, but it looks like there are some in a house about halfway down the block. For now, since we don’t know how many are in the house, we go in quiet, but have your side arms ready. If things get tight, go foursquare quiet. If things get real tight, then shoot your way out. Whoever gets to the driver’s seat waits five minutes and no longer.”
Foursquare quiet was a drill that the warriors had worked up in which a clearing or foraging team backed-up to each other in a tight square, back-to-back, then stepped off two paces to take on any undead with our slicing or bludgeoning weapons. We drilled hour-after-hour on this to make sure each person knew what to do. One wrong step and someone could get a bat or sword upside their head. No one wanted that.
Each of us pulled out their weapon of choice. The familiarity of my bat in my hands calmed me some. I still found Brandon ridiculous with his broadsword, and because Aaron worshipped Brandon, he had a sword too, only smaller. Mike must have liked my method because he had a baseball bat, too.
Mike led us toward the street in a running crouch until he got to the back of a beat up Ford pickup. Through the truck’s windows I could see the zombies shuffling aimlessly in the street as if waiting on someone to pick them up for dinner and movie. One was an elderly woman in a badly soiled housecoat and pajamas. There was a tall guy in a tattered suit and a teen aged girl in jeans and a sweatshirt. The girl looked like she had been mauled by a wood chipper, ribbons of flesh hanging off her head and shoulders. The man in the suit moved in a herky-jerky motion with one of his legs missing a large hunk of muscle. The last one looked like he had been a biker and was wearing leather from head to foot. His distinguishing feature was a waist length beard complete with snarled knots of dried blood and gore.
“Let’s draw them down to us,” Mike said in a whisper. “Then we’ll take them out.” He paused and looked around on the ground and finally spotted something. He reached out of view and came up with two soda cans. After taking a quick measure of the wind and distance, he tossed them over the truck and into the street. They clattered on the asphalt and the zombies took immediate notice.
We’re not sure just how smart or dumb they really are. Sometimes a jackhammer could be running next to their heads and they wouldn’t notice, but other times the gentle bump of a shoe on a wooden staircase could bring them running. What we had noticed was that noises out of the ordinary or ones that broke the silence usually caught their attention. We never knew if it was all-out ravenous hunger that brought them or if there was some sense of human curiosity still buried deep down in their zombie brains. Whatever it was, the four in the street were on their way.
We ducked down low and out of view. The shuffling feet came closer and closer. Mike held a finger to his lips, telling us to be quiet as he edged around the front of the truck to take a look. He pulled back and gave us the “wait a minute” sign, then turned his attention back to the zombies. We all waited for the cue. Fear filled my stomach with ice, but Brandon seemed more than ready for battle, a mischievous smile caught on his face.
The footfalls got closer and Mike pulled his bat up to his side and then stood up giving us the all-go signal. If this were a movie, the scene would have been in slow motion giving the audience a scene of “beautiful violence” – orchestrated, yet savage.
Mike reared back with his bat and swung from his heels on the old woman in the house coat. She never saw it coming. His bat connected with a resounding and vicious aluminum ping smashing in the her forehead. An ugly crunching noise followed the impact and the woman went over backwards.
I saw a flash of silver as Brandon’s sword cut through the air with deadly speed, but he aimed a little low catching the teenage girl on the top of the shoulder, the blade digging in deep. The force of the blow knocked her off her feet and down onto the ground pulling the sword from Brandon’s hands. He moved forward, but had to press his foot to the girls arm to yank his sword out. Once freed, he brought the sword down in a ferocious arc and the girls head left her body.
Aaron and I had to wait for our two.
“You get the suit,” Aaron said. “I’ll get the ZZ-Top guy.”
I gave him a look as he half sang his next words, “Women go crazy about dead and bloody zombies.” I got it, but didn’t give him the notice he deserved.
The “Suit” lurched down the street towards Mike but once he saw me, he changed course and sped up, snarling with hunger. Aaron stepped into the street with me, a few feet to my right. He had to wait on ZZ-Top who had trouble navigating for some reason. Maybe it was the beard.
The suit bore down on me, intent on making me a meal. For a moment, I wondered who he had been. Probably minding his own business one day at the office when the world’s worst shit storm swept in and changed everything. My detour of imagination ended and I didn’t care who he was because he didn’t care or, better put, what he was now didn’t care. I was just food and the tastiest thing on the menu at that minute.
I brought my bat up over my head, timing my blow for the right second. His arms extended to their fullest as he reached for me, his fingers black with dirt and dried blood. His face was gray and his eyes lifeless. His jaws opened and closed expectantly for that first bite. Just as his fingers were inches from me, I brought the bat down and my timing was perfect. The bat caved in the top of the zombie’s skull, driving him to the street, where he ceased to move.
Aaron moved in on ZZ Top and instead of going for the immediate headshot like the rest of our group, he swept his sword across the zombie’s knees, slashing his legs out from under him. ZZ Top went down hard but still grasped up at Aaron. Aaron straddled him and then drove his sword down with both hands on the hilt like he was putting a stake in the ground. The blade slid into the zombie’s left eye socket, passing through the back of its skull, and clinked off the asphalt. The thing’s arms went slack.
Aaron pulled his blade free and wiped the blood and brains off it on ZZ Top’s leather pants
“Nice move,” I said, stepping up next to him.
“If they can’t walk, it makes it hard for them to get to you,” he said. “Besides, the head shot is so passé.”
In a well-practiced flourish, he returned the sword to its scabbard, taking great pride in his prowess.
“Way to go, Zorro,” I said.
Home Invasion
“Let’s check out the house,” Mike said walking past us and down the street toward the house that the undead had been moving in and out of earlier. We fell in behind him, moving down the street cautiously, but he stopped when a banging noise got his attention to our left.
Mike put up a hand, motioning for us to stop. He cocked his head to listen, reminding me of a hunting dog. The banging noise returned. It seemed to be coming from the side of a two story house. Mike put up two fingers twice signifying that we should move in two-by-two. Once again, he and Brandon took the lead with Aaron and me in tow.
The banging was irregular. As we approached the house, we heard it again -- a light pounding noise like a polite knock at your door, then it stopped.
We moved down a narrow driveway that led to a garage in the back. When Mike made it to a side door, he tried the doorknob, and found it unlocked. The inside door was ajar, so he used his baseball bat to push fully open it.
My pulse quicken as we moved inside. Out on the street there was always the option of running if things got ugly. Inside you can get boxed in with each corner masking a potential attack. We’d lost more than a couple people in the past when a zombie had lurched out of a dark corner unexpectedly.
Even though it was daylight outside, the house was dark with more shadows than light. The odor of neglect, along with mustiness filled my nostrils. I should have known from the smell that there were zombies inside. I had become too accustomed to their odor since our world was filled with them. Maybe we all had.
Mike cautiously moved onto a small landing with stairs leading up and a set leading into the basement. Basements are the worst -- dark and dank, and sometimes full of those dead things. While it’s not a scientific observation, more often than not, if zombies are caught in a house, they tended to congregate in the basement. Maybe it was closer to the ground where they belonged? Maybe they liked the dark cool places? Who knew?
Mike decided to head up the stairs and into the house leaving the basement for later. Save The best for last. Yay.
As he hit the top of the stairs the pounding returned, and he stopped. He was standing in a narrow hallway that led either into the kitchen towards the back of the house or the living room in front.
Mike held up two fingers and then pointed towards the kitchen, and then held up two fingers again pointing down towards the floor. Aaron and I were to stay in place to protect our escape route. A year ago, I would have laughed my ass off at these silent signals if I had seen them in a movie, but now I knew and trusted the warriors; their training was what kept us alive.
Without speaking, Aaron faced off down the hall toward the front of the house. I watched as Mike and Brandon made their way down the hall towards the kitchen, their steps as light as kitten’s paws. Mike was nearly in the kitchen when the pounding started again, coming between Brandon and me.
There was small door on the left side of hallway, probably a closet or pantry. Without thinking, Brandon opened the door. No one really knew why he did it and even later he couldn’t tell us why he acted so casually.
A form shot out the door and was on Brandon before he could react. Stunned, he fell back as the form slammed into him, knocking him against the wall, his sword falling from his hand, clattering to the floor. Because the door opened out, Mike was blocked from getting to Brandon, so it was my job to come to his rescue.
I was down the hall in two strides and saw a small boy clawing at Brandon’s face, hissing and snarling. Brandon used his arms to keep the boy at bay, but the boy creature had ferocity and gravity on his side as he desperately clutched at Brandon.
I grabbed the collar of the little boy’s shirt and yanked him. The boy’s small body crashed into a wall of canned goods, sending a shower of cans down on him. He shrugged them off and was back on his feet in less than two seconds. As he reached the threshold of the door, I pulled my bat back and thrust it forward in a stabbing motion catching the boy in the chest knocking him backwards onto the floor again. As he struggled to get back up, I saw a festering bite mark on his forearm knowing it was probably what turned him from living to undead.
Instead of repeating my attack, I grabbed the door and slammed it shut just as the boy hit it with all of his weight. The door rocked against my hands, but held. The boy pounded on the door, grunting with each impact.
I felt something move behind me and turned to see Aaron helping Brandon up.
“Are you bit?” he asked Brandon.
“No, no,” Brandon said, his voice shaky. “I don’t think so.”
Mike was there now. “What were you thinking -- opening the door like that?”
Brandon had a bewildered look on his face. “I don’t know. I just heard the noise and decided to open the door.”
“You weren’t thinking. You could have...” Mike started, but then stopped. “You’ve got a scratch on your face,” Mike said.
Brandon shot a gloved hand to his face, wiping at his cheek, and coming away with a small swipe of blood. A new surge a fear shot through us. A bite was always fatal. Scratches could go either way. Up until now we hadn’t lost anyone to a superficial scratch, but the deep gouges were almost always a death sentence. Brandon reached down frantically patting the pockets of his pants.
“Stop,” Mike said knocking Brandon’s hands away and getting in his face. “First breath. Breath. Five deep breaths.”
Brandon couldn’t hold down his panic so Mike shook him firmly but gently. “You’ve got to calm down and breath. Do it.”
Brandon forced himself to shut his eyes and his body calmed as he started taking deep full in/full out breaths.
“Joel, give me your antiseptic,” Mike said. Antiseptic was another standard field necessity. We had no idea if it really killed any of the virus or germs these things carried, but it was standard and mandatory practice to clean a scratch wound as soon as possible. The effect of the antiseptic might be a placebo, but it was better than doing nothing.
“I doubt that kid had anything under his fingernails,” Aaron said. “He’s probably been in that pantry since the Outbreak. Probably got bit and either hid in there or was put in there by a parent.”
As if on cue, we heard footsteps coming from below us.
“Get that antiseptic on,” Mike said. “Joel, come with me. Aaron, stay with Brandon.” Mike headed down the hallway. He passed the top of the stairs, but motioned for me to hang. He stood there, bat at the ready. I mirrored him on the other side of the stairwell.
Whatever was coming up the stairs had an irregular gait, taking forever to get up to us. I doubt if it was impatience speaking inside me, but more the fear. I was certainly wasn’t eager to see another zombie.
Clomp, step, clomp, they went. A hand slapped the wall, probably for balance. They were just about to us.
My hand clutched the bat so tightly; my knuckles were white. I remembered my coach’s admonishments against having an over tight grip. His voice echoed in my head and I relaxed. It had helped me get a few extra hits that season but still hadn’t allowed me to crack the starting line-up. In the world of zombies, I guessed that a loose swing might work for me, too.
A large shaggy head of hair came into view first, matted down in places with globs of dried blood. He was a big guy, probably about 6’ 2”. The father, I thought. His face had long deep gashes and one his eyes was gouged out. He turned the corner and took me in with one remaining eye, the color of nothingness. As he reached for me, Mike brought his bat down with a dull metal ping, and the creature went down in a heap.
Mike and I grabbed a leg each and pulled the body out the side door. When we re-entered the house, we heard a clanking, metal-on-metal, noise from the basement.
We exchanged glances. “Hold up. We’ll head down in a minute,” he said. He walked up the stairs and asked Brandon and Aaron to check the second floor. I was left alone to listen to the clanking below. It somehow made me think of a pirate ship. Ahoy was all that c
ame to my mind.
Mike came back down and asked, “You ready?”
“Ready or not, I guess,” I said, breaking from my imaginary pirate adventure.
It wasn’t something that we hadn’t encountered in different forms already, but this instance was probably the worst. At least for me.
The pattern went like this; a family member was bitten, then died and turned. Hoping against hope, they locked the undead person in a room or tied them to a bed. A parent, most likely, not able to bear the thought of putting the person down tries anything to protect their undead family member. In the end, that decision takes down the entire family.
In one house, it was the father who had been bitten. As he started to get sick he boarded himself in with his entire family -- three kids and his wife. Cleaning that place out meant killing an entire undead family. It also meant nightmares for weeks. Remembering it brought a bone tired weariness through me, making my bones feel old and my muscles weak. Now it was time to do it all again. The hits always keep coming in the zombie apocalypse.
The story became clear for this sad house once we entered the basement.
She looked to be fourteen or fifteen. She was chained to a large support beam. Probably to protect the boy. Maybe he just had to see his big sis’ one more time, maybe to hug her, and that’s how he got bitten. Then they put him in the pantry.
There were any number of scenarios that could have brought about the hellish stage play. Making it worse was the mother’s desiccated body lying in the corner, most of the top of her head gone with dried blood and brain matter spattering the wall above her. There was a small handgun on the floor in front of her. Having her daughter turn into one of those things was bad enough, but to lose her son must have pushed her over the edge. I couldn’t fit together the puzzle pieces about the father, but it didn’t really matter. We had taken him out and now would have to deal with his daughter.
