Frontline

by Warren Hately

  When she thought it was safe, Anna hurried across the street to him instead.

  The cop eyed her warily, putting a finger to his lips as he let his firefighter pal take the lead. A blood-spattered paramedic brought up their tail, giving Anna a cool look as she angled around Anna with her drawn Glock.

  “You need to get to cover,” the cop hissed. “We’re headed to St John’s. You can join us.”

  “That hospital’s overrun,” Anna said.

  The cop shook his head and motioned to the walkie-talkie on his belt.

  “Na, I’ve got a buddy there,” he said. “Some people locked down when the place got overrun by them damned zombie things. Most those Furies of yours are out now in the streets … lookin’ for blood.”

  Anna nodded, on-edge and thoughtful at the same time.

  “You’re that reporter, huh?” he asked.

  Anna nodded again.

  “You coming with us?”

  “No.” And she shook her head.

  “OK,” he said without pause, though he gestured further back the way he’d come. “There’s an outdoor store in the mall up there. You need some better gear if you’re reportin’ the apocalypse.”

  Anna couldn’t help glancing down at her tear-stained shirt and dirty skirt. One of the middle buttons of her blouse had come off and there was a tiny splotch of someone’s blood on her shoulder.

  “Get to shelter,” the officer said again. “Dang things are everywhere.”

  The survivors turned at the corner and the cop jogged after them. Anna eyed her own path ahead, then tracked her gaze back to the Gazette building still tantalizingly close. The idea of breakfast made logical sense – but now she was close enough to see the banks of stalled, permanently-abandoned traffic seen in Buddy’s live stream, it also wasn’t far to the corner-lot mall hosting the camping store. Tiny fine particles of ash started falling around her and through the nearby trees as Anna stood frozen in indecision, curiosity warring against self-preservation as the breeze changed again carrying a harsh metallic smell.

  Anna looked at her hands, spotted with micro-fine particles of plastic.

  And everything fell silent for a moment.

  She turned towards the traffic snarl and started to jog.

  CHANGING OUT OF her work clothes seemed pointless given the stomach-churning likelihood nothing would be standing in Springfield much longer. The idea of nuclear annihilation seemed so outlandish and yet so real, it was just another of those things she failed to process properly anyway, focused on the task at hand. Whatever the stakes, Anna still had trouble digesting what she’d seen on O’Dowd report hours before, nor could she really comprehend how the city could choke itself to death in such a mad rush, despite the evidence before her, and the miles-long choke of traffic morbidly captivating and still.

  Movement caught Anna’s eye among the cars parked right along the street up to the last intersection, now overcome by the increasingly ash-covered tableau of hundreds of cars abandoned with their doors and trunks open, garbage and the contents of the vehicles intermingled along with a number of bodies left where they’d been shot in the head and subsequently half-buried by the fine-particle rain.

  Anna hurried for cover behind the pillars of the small shopping center. The ground floor was open to the street, the foyer’s ornamental water feature still gurgling away merrily, but the escalators beckoning to the second level were switched off.

  Keeping low, Anna scuttled over to them, unable to see any other signs of life. Then she advanced up the frozen metal stairs in a crouch, noise to a minimum, the baseball bat clutched across her chest.

  Half of the shopfronts on the mezzanine had metal or plastic security grills rolled down, but the Outdoor World’s glass doors were open wide. The store entrance and the mezzanine balcony were littered with gear dropped during the past night’s looting. Anna paused at the top steps, mouth unconsciously open to improve her hearing, and when all seemed clear, she practically crab-walked across the open shop entrance and flit inside.

  The power was still on, but the baseline feed wasn’t quite right because a couple of the overheads flickered inertly trying to come on. The cavernous store seemed deserted, its hard-as-tack carpet littered with clothes and broken glass from display cabinets, clothing racks tipped over into aisles, while the long glass benches for the knives and compasses and other more valuable survival gear were now smashed and empty. Anna found a fold-out knife amid the broken glass and tucked it into her waistband where she normally stored her phone. Then she moved deeper into the store, drawn to the rear by overhead signs showing hiking boots and trainers.

  It turned out few looters were thinking yet about overland treks. The footwear section was near some of the hardier racks of outdoor clothing items, and with one final glance around to her security, Anna quickly shucked down into her stale underwear as unselfconsciously as she could, disappointed there wasn’t any clean outdoor panties that she could see as she quickly changed.

  She found some olive-colored cargo pants that fit close, then a black singlet and a not-quite-black mosquito-proof shirt. She rolled up a matching set of the same outfit to take with her. Likewise, when she found a pair of lightweight trekking sneakers, Anna dug through the wall of size-ranked shoeboxes in the same design and snagged a second pair. Most of the big rucksacks were gone, but she found a vibrant purple day pack, stuffed her gear inside, and started looking around for anything else she could use.

  Her gaze instead fell on one of the vending machines trekking companies stocked with energy bars, protein snacks, and ready-to-drink powders as if anyone would buy them to eat on the spot rather than the chocolate and candy bars on the machine’s bottom rungs, the cabinet sheltered from the front of the store by one of the big carpet-bound internal support pillars.

  Anna’s eyes fell on the row of dangling Skittles with a stupid grin.

  Why none of the looters helped themselves to a little sugar rush, Anna didn’t know. Retrieving her baseball bat and now feeling much more the part in her pilfered adventure gear, she moved to the machine, then on tiptoes one final time scanned the empty store. Then, fielding a tidy smirk, Anna knelt, repositioned her bat lengthwise, and tried gently ramming it into the cabinet’s glass window.

  The screen shattered like sugar glass, and louder than she’d hoped. There was no time to hesitate, so she started scooping bars and chocolate to fill out her bag, protein bars too, adding one of the packets of Skittles to the top before tightening the straps, zipping up the pack, and standing ready to make her way out of the store.

  And heard a clattering noise instead.

  ANNA STOOD FROZEN longer than was safe, silently cursing herself and then hurrying back behind the pillar. The tinkling of broken glass replaced the clattering, followed by footfalls. When Anna chanced the briefest look around, she almost wished she hadn’t, transfixed once again.

  A disemboweled Amtrak driver stumbled into the store, followed closely by a haggard-looking housewife with no obvious injury except that her skin had a deathly gray pallor. Her jaws snapped to left and right like a dog irritated by horseflies. With each snap, the dead woman seemed to taste the air, or at least that’s how it looked, thrusting Anna into a deeper and deeper state of fear.

  Anna could only whisper at herself to move, dropping low and scampering away from the dead center of the store. The far wall offered cover with a range of tents hanging suspended from the store’s high ceiling, and sheets of different-colored outdoor awnings jutted from the far wall, many of them tangled and awry. Several more support pillars offered cover in that direction too, and Anna darted between them, keeping her noise as low as possible, now even holding her breath as she clutched and reclutched the baseball bat handle and tried not to pee in fright at the idea of having to use it.

  If she’d crouched low before, now Anna positively waddled, proceeding cautiously through the in-store cover and desperately trying not to disturb any of the myriad sheets and tents dangling over her
head. She circumnavigated the store in that fashion, crawling in a squat over fallen clothing racks and carefully through a patch of sun visors, peaked caps, and sunglasses emptied out across the carpet. With her eyes ever-locked on the Furies she’d seen, Anna tracked the dead train driver as he lurched deeper into the store, while the sinister dead housewife snarled low in her throat – like a dog with a scent, in fact, almost Anna’s worst fear – and moved on a vector towards the shattered vending machine.

  Anna couldn’t track both Furies simultaneously. At some point, the dead housewife dropped onto all fours and vanished from sight.

  Anna almost couldn’t breathe, fighting not to choke on her own swollen heartbeat as she inched sideways, moving under the shadow of some gigantic inflatable mascot occupying the front corner of the store and blocking a shattered display window in the name of brand awareness. Tiny sparkling uplights, broken glass and toppled mannequins filled the bottom of the front-of-store area, the most direct exit from the store, but hardly silent with so many obstacles. Anna dropped back behind a mannequin in duck-hunting gear, desperately eyeing the last five yards to the open front doors.

  More noise came from the back of the store, but whatever the commotion, in her heart, Anna knew the female Fury had her scent. If she hadn’t already strapped on the backpack, she might’ve discarded it now, lightening her load – and the temptation to let go of her bladder was just another aspect of the fight-or-flight instincts hammering in the underdark of Anna’s awareness.

  Her blue eyes flicked back to movement back along the path she’d taken, and she was nearly a split-second too late to shuffle further out of sight as the undead housewife appeared, caught as it battled the hanging awnings.

  Terror clutching Anna’s face in a silent scream, and she turned into a low, panicked run for the front exit, throwing her fate to the will of the gods.

  She ran, crouched, nearly silent, all the way down the unmoving escalator to the street, then veered hard right and broke into an open run in the direction of the Gazette building once again.

  RUNNING DOWN THE middle of the street too terrified to know if the Furies were after her, Anna didn’t check for traffic and only saw the police cruiser when its brakes squealed, slewing towards the curb and blocking Anna’s path so that she had to throw her hands out not to fly across its hood.

  A handsome black cop came out his door in a flash, service shotgun in hand, quite the gentleman despite directly checking the path behind her in case Anna had an extremely good reason to hurry. The driver’s door on the far side cranked open to reveal a very tall, but pudgy white cop wearing cliché mirrored shades. He scanned the other way, pistol drawn.

  Anna now dared a look behind, feeling almost faint at seeing the empty street.

  “Hey, you OK?” the first cop asked.

  “Yeah, I’m … sorry.”

  “Gotta watch where you’re running, bae,” he said and winked.

  His partner moved around the front of the car, dispassionately scanning Anna’s hands still on the cruiser’s hood. She stood self-consciously, nervous, almost twitching as she glanced around.

  “Not a good time to be out,” the black cop said.

  The white cop sniffed and said, “Looks clear.”

  His partner only grinned at Anna.

  “You need a ride, gorgeous?”

  Anna looked at him instead, still in threat mode. His grin only broadened.

  Anna’s pulse almost deafened her.

  “You goin’ my way?” he asked.

  His expression broke into a frown as Anna simply stared.

  “Hey, c’mon girl,” the cop said and tried to smile again. “Not everyone got a police escort today.”

  “Where are you headed?” she asked.

  “Getting’ the hell out o’ here.”

  The cop’s partner grunted agreement and walked back around to his open door and stood in it, mirrored shades fixed on her.

  Anna swallowed with difficulty.

  “No, I’m … I’m OK.”

  “Sure?”

  The handsome cop tilted his head at her in case she hadn’t seen his friendly smile yet. Then his dark eyes narrowed, just one big step away from her as he lowered the shotgun to one hand, holding his other out towards her.

  “Get in,” he said. “I’ll look after you, baby.”

  Anna broke then and ran, skirting the front of the cop car as the white cop only watched her continue through the intersection and up the block. His partner thought better of yelling in her wake, obviously frustrated to watch her go too. Anna had nearly reached the luxury showroom before she heard the cops slam their doors shut and drive away burning rubber.

  She slowed then, looking back for confirmation and not understanding why the squealing tires sounded so close. Movement in the corner of one eye sparked alarm.

  Directly across from her, the showroom’s front windows exploded outwards as a cherry red Aston Martin convertible roared out, flying over the stone-and-concrete steps headed straight for her.

  THE SPORTS CAR crunched down hard after it cleared the marble planters, clipping the wrought-iron street furniture and sending a flood of broken glass hurtling into the street like a hurricane. Anna covered her ears and ran in the one motion, baseball bat forgotten, and the convertible tore across the blacktop where she’d stood a split second before, one of the tires blowing and the front panel tearing off with a harsh shearing noise before the runaway vehicle carried across the street and into the brick wall of the squat building directly opposite.

  The convertible hit the far building with a noise like a bomb going off. Anna felt the shock of it through her hiking shoes, tripping forward as the spray of glass clipped her and she continued on into an ungainly tumble, protected by the new longsleeve explorer’s shirt.

  The shirt blocked the worst of the flying glass, but Anna was up and on her feet again the second she could anyway, adrenal system no longer able to keep up as one shock piled upon another and she threw her eyes to the freshly-crashed vehicle even as she looked around for the baseball bat and backed away, confused, terrified, and angry to boot.

  A young guy in an expensive t-shirt and too much neck jewelry disentangled himself from the Aston Martin’s airbags, a massive shit-eating grin across his face as he merely whooped at Anna and ran straight back across the street, up the steps, and returned to the showroom where a bright yellow Corvette Stingray now moved into pole position. Another young nightclub thug occupied the driver’s seat, waving to his pal to get in with an equally thrilled grin. Anna could only watched astounded as the three friends then carefully drove the stolen car out through the shattered glass frontage and down the marble steps between the planter boxes.

  The thieves didn’t even look back at her. Hilarious laughter spilled from the Corvette as it crunched down slowly onto the road surface. One of the young men shut his door a second time, censoring a wisp of conversation, and then the purring vehicle took off in the direction from where Anna had just come.

  The noise of the crash still seemed to echo in the street.

  The sick feeling already souring Anna’s guts only worsened, her fears confirmed by the struggling noises now coming from one of the broken office windows across from her, just down from the bright-red Aston Martin wreck. A filthy, blood-stained figure crawled out one of the windows, dropping heavily onto the street and standing again.

  The Fury was well over six-feet tall, standing bearlike in its tattered corduroy jacket accessorized with the graying tendrils of naked intestines dangling between its stump-like legs. Anna’s eyes widened in shock at its blood-matted beard as the black-eyed monster whipped its head towards her.

  And she recognized Demien Christopher at once.

  TERRIFIED, ANNA TURNED for the Gazette’s entrance almost a hundred yards away, and Demien Christopher plotted an intercept with an ambitiousness he’d never shown in life. A shambolic figure in his ragged jacket, yawning stomach cavity revealing its horrific secrets, as a Fur
y, Demien moved with an awful loping speed that had Anna screaming before she was even halfway to home. She twisted aside in her trajectory to run back past the shopfronts from where the former science reporter had squeezed out like a grisly homebirth, and Anna hoped against hope for some miracle to save her.

  And at first she thought her prayers answered. Douglas O’Dowd miraculously hurried from the other direction towards the Gazette building.

  “Douglas!” Anna screamed over one shoulder and gave a frantic wave.

  O’Dowd continued towards the front steps and Demien’s corpse righted itself, angling in a tight arc to hammer in pursuit of Anna at a pitched run.

  She reached the opposite brick storefronts, then pushed herself off its walls to help change course without slowing across the street once again, even though – as he closed the distance – Demien-the-Fury now easily matched her path. Anna tried wheeling back the other way, a deadly game of tag as she crossed to the forgotten baseball bat, and O’Dowd, a hundred yards off, seemingly ignored her.

  Anna kept cursing under her breath, “Holy shit, holy shit… .”

  A crashing sound sounded close by, followed by someone yelling “Hey!” over and over again. But Anna’s priority was on retrieving the bat, and the second she had it, Anna swung around hoping to see O’Dowd, but instead it was Mason emerging from the sunken café with his Desert Eagle and Leeanne just behind him crashing a trashcan lid against the concrete steps. O’Dowd had reached the Gazette building’s locked front door and only then looked towards them.

  Demien spun about at the noise from the Urban Bakehouse, giving Anna the chance to plot a new course around her reanimated colleague. As she sprinted towards the front of the café and her salvation, she swung her baseball bat as hard as she could. It struck the back of Demien’s head, pitching the Fury off his feet as Anna hurtled past – and right into the path of Mason’s pointed gun.