by GJ Zukow
down I knew what I stepped in. The cooling system had a leak. Green, viscous liquid had pooled under the engine. Checking under the hood was going to be a problem, the hood was crumpled and buckled so I didn’t even bother to look.
I briefly mulled over whether or not to go and at least check out the situation and decided it really wasn’t a good idea.
There was the scent of change and hope in the air. The zombie terror was waning. People who had been cooped up for years had a serious case of cabin fever by now, I’m sure. Now that the lifeless, parasite controlled hosts were showing signs of weakness it was a good time to start thinning out their numbers. Absolutely the gunfire could be the sounds of somebody’s last stand, a do or die situation, having run out of food or water. Be that as it may though, it wouldn’t serve me or those that might be needing rescue for me to go staggering with my bad feet into the ass end of a herd and end up needing to be rescued myself.
I turned the key and the Hummer grudgingly turned over. With a nasty clanking and grinding the engine voiced its displeasure at me. Momentarily I considered turning the key off and searching for another car. There was no guarantee the Hummer would start again, and no guarantee I would find a car I could drive. Batteries died, gas either evaporated or went bad in the tank or you couldn’t find the keys or I couldn’t hotwire it, etc., etc. I could easily spend hours trying to get another ride and not have any luck. The bunker was only a couple of miles away, easily walkable if not for the fucking flesh eaters of bad feet. As long as the H2 was still willing, so was I.
The damn Hummer broke down and finally quit. I let it slowly roll to where I am now, the last of the antifreeze being blown out as steam through the broken radiator. The smoking heap rests just off the road in the parking lot of this little restaurant / gas station / market.
On a good note I broke down within sight of the dirt bike I used to get here the first time. The dirt bike was simply out of gas and I was in the process of siphoning the tank of the H2 when I heard the sounds of the pack.
Dogs.
I heard a pack of them nearby barking and yowling like the wild animals they’ve surely reverted to. All the small dogs were dead so this had to be a pack of some of the bigger and more vicious (since they had survived this long) former pets. They seem to be getting closer. For a while it sounded like they had chased something down and were in a frenzy.
I had almost gotten the gas I needed from the tank of the hummer. As I grimaced and spat out the residue of the gas from my mouth for the twentieth time, a large mongrel of a dog slowly crept towards me.
It kept its distance, for the time being, waiting for the others in the pack to join it and decide what to do about me. Head lowered, fangs barred and growling, it slowly inched towards me, pausing occasionally to let out a rough bark to alert its motley companions.
Within a few short minutes its companions showed up. That's when I decided I had to get to shelter.
The front door to “Dmitri’s”, as a faded blue and white sign proclaimed, was deceptively sturdy. It took repeated bashings with my shoulder and the butt of the gun to bust it open. I didn’t want to completely destroy the door, I wanted to be able to shut out the dogs after I broke in.
Rottweilers, Pit bulls, German Shepherds, Dobermans...unkempt and hungry. It was a huge pack and they were running around the building excitedly. They kept jumping up on the windows and throwing their starving bodies at the door trying to get at me.
The main windows started cracking and the door won’t stay. The AK is out of ammo but the shotty and my .38 are going to remind these bastards and bitches why we were (and still are) their masters.
When I bashed the market door in I busted it up a bit. It still closed but just barely. It surely wouldn't hold up for even one good smash by one of those dogs and I knew it. I hurriedly crammed and kicked stuff into the jam and between the bottom of the door and floor. Hoped to make some ad hoc door stops.
One of the dogs, a huge and natty haired Great Dane charged the door then, testing my makeshift repair. I did a horrible job, with just that one blow the door bulged and almost came open.
The barking and baying was ringing in my ears, so loud I could barely hear myself think.
I did the only other thing I could do in such a short notice. I pushed a nearby shelving unit, full of old and moldy magazines, behind the door to add some weight to help block the door. I’d be lucky if it held more than ten minutes under any amount of determined blows, and it turned out I was right.
I took refuge behind the cash register counter and as predicted, the door gave way. It was momentarily stopped by the shelf behind it but that didn‘t stop the hungry pack for long. As soon as the first dog had partially pushed through, two more of the motley mongrels were busily, excitedly, struggling to force themselves and the first dog through.
I almost felt bad about blowing the first dogs head and shoulders to hell. My first shot got a bite of some of the dogs that were behind that sack of meat, squirming their way in behind it. The barking and howling stopped momentarily, the only thing I heard was the pain filled whines of one of my shotguns victims.
Almost felt bad that is.
The dogs milled about unsure of what to do then. More than likely they had been chasing down and eating undead stragglers for the past year. Can’t really see there being much else to eat. I’m sure they remembered, to their horror, what a boom stick was. I’m sure of this because when everything went to hell with the animal madness, people abandoned and then hunted them mercilessly. Generally anything over a hundred pounds was safe but nobody stopped to try to weigh a damn animal before they shot it. Then with the insanity of the human madness, I’m sure they learned that it was a bad thing to even be near a human.
The veneer of civilization has been completely peeled away, we have all reverted to savages. When once we fed dogs, now we feed on them. I knew if I lived I was going to gut and dress those dead dogs. I’ve learned to like the taste.
The pack was working itself up again then. Getting itself ready to make another go at me. The door was open and the shelf was pushed out of the way. I could see them taking quick glances at me and moving quickly away from the now buckshot peppered door. A Pit bull with one eye missing and drool dripping from its yammering jaws busted out the previously cracked pane window.
That’s when I fired my second shot. More or less just aimed at the open doorway, hoping to either get a lucky shot and knock down another one or scare ‘em away. Either would have worked.
As soon as I fired I felt an enormous pain in my left shoulder. Some god damned walking stiff was gnawing on me. Dead, cold hands and arms gripped me with a vice like quality, knocking the shotgun out of my hands.
I didn’t have time to even think about reconnoitering the store before the group of famished canines attacked. Fucking batshit world. The flesh eating prick of a zed was just tearing a huge gouge in my shoulder. It was an agony to fight off the withered claw like hands while it was eating me alive. I unholstered my .38 as it greedily, repeatedly bit into me. My first shot didn’t kill it. It knocked it back however and I was free of its grasp.
Just barely in time too. The dogs saw us fighting and had breached the door. I let loose another shot at the zed, hitting him in the chest as I ran to the nearest interior door.
The pack zoned in on the zombie as I slammed the door shut behind me. Thankfully this door had a lock on it and was in good shape. It was dark as hell in the room and I hoped I didn’t just lock myself in with another of those lumbering terrors. I could clearly hear the pack satisfying its hunger with the body of the zed that tried to make a quick snack of me.
While the animals were tearing apart their meal I was able to quickly check out the back room by the small flame of my lighter. Old storage and cooler access room. More importantly it was zed free. I stayed quiet and took care of the jagged hole in my shoulder as best I could. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness in here I found it wasn't too bad. Plenty of light spills in from th
e space under the door for me to see. Been a couple of hours now since I heard them run off. Gave me time to get off my throbbing feet and scribble this down. There’s still a whining coming from outside from one of the wounded mutts.
I guess now I’ll go and put the wounded fur-bags out of their misery.
Then finish gassing up the dirt bike to tow the Hummer and my swag back to the safe house.
15
When the "Rat flu" made its debut on the world stage, killing off the vermin by the billions, no mammal was safe. The infinitesimal eggs of the parasite came out in the animals’ urine, feces, sweat, blood and saliva. They were light and resilient, excellent qualities for airborne transmission. Bites and deep scratches from an infected animal injected not only the eggs of the parasite, but the parasites themselves. It took time for the eggs to grow into adults who then multiplied at an exponential rate inside their hosts. The body reacted to the egg infestation as if it was pollen or another irritant, causing slight flu like or mild allergy symptoms. The eggs quickly hatched, becoming young, single celled invaders. The immune system of most mammals, including humans, didn’t react strongly to the new invaders once they hatched and were few in number. But once the number reached a “critical mass” then the body went
