by Mark Tufo
I grabbed Scarlett by the scruff of the neck. “Isn’t that just the prettiest sight you’ve ever seen?” She vomited down the whole front of me, and somehow, just now, that was perfect.
“Probably should get going.” I turned and stumbled, having to catch myself on the wall. “Maybe a little housecleaning first,” I said as I took a look behind me. I found one of my victims that had bled the least on his lab coat. I’d neatly removed the top portion of his head with a bullet like he’d been driving a high profile vehicle under a low hanging bridge.
“Shit, I couldn’t have done that with a saw.” I gazed at the perfectly vivisected brain. I took my coat off, wiped my face and hair, and then changed into the new coat. It was too big, but it was clean and that was all that mattered right now. I followed the cowards that had ran out the back way. My loins stirred a little as I walked into the darkened corridor. There were a couple of people there that had decided, rudely I might add, not to die in my presence. Then there was a crawler. I must have shot him in the spine. He was dragging his useless lower half through the hall, leaving a blood trail behind him. In the low level light, I could make believe it was slime and he was the world’s largest slug.
“You’re making a mess,” I told him. He turned to look at who had addressed him, his eyes growing large—like comic book large—and then he started to crawl faster.
“Where the fuck do you really think you’re going to get to?” I placed my right foot down on the small of his back and pushed down, pinning him to the ground like a butterfly. He grunted out in pain. “Oh shut up, you can’t feel that.”
“Please,” the man begged.
“If you’re asking me to help, I think we should have some full disclosure. First what’s your name? Yeah forget it, I don’t care. Okay, so D-Rag, get it? Because, well, you’re dragging yourself around. Nothing? You have zero humor, D-Rag. All right, time’s a wasting.”
“You’re slipping, Tim.” I figured that to be Scarlett, but she didn’t look like she was in much better shape than my present footstool. Manny? No way, not his style. Who, then? I actually turned around to see if anyone was there. I did the only thing I could think to do, and that was completely ignore the unknown intruder.
I turned my attention back to things that actually existed. “D-Rag, you need to tell me how to get out of here.” I pressed down harder on his back. His arms gave out and his face collided with the floor in a teeth-cracking way. I stepped completely up onto him, this time he cried out.
“Just tell me what I need to know, and I’ll get off.” There was some awkward silence there until I figured he might not be able to speak with me pressing on him. I gingerly stepped off. “Oh, do pardon me, good sir,” I said in what I thought was a decent English accent. Blood was coming out of his mouth, kind of like I had been forcing his innards out his mouth. “Man, that’s a little graphic even for me.” I shuddered. “Which way is out of here? Hurry up and tell me or I’m going to keep kicking you in the junk until it’s lodged somewhere up in your throat. Not that it really matters. You’ll never be using that thing again, but at least sometimes when you’re alone and contemplating suicide, you can pull it out of your pants and remember all the good times you two had together even if you were always alone.”
His hand, which had been pinned to his side, came loose and a finger pointed the way. It was the only way I could go, as I could hear soldiers entering the cafeteria behind me. I stepped onto his body as I went over.
“Sorry to cripple and cruise, but I gotta go.” When I was out from the little back corridor, I had two options when I got to the door. I decided to follow the fleeing survivors. They were far up ahead, in the longest corridor thus far, there had to be some sort of bridge to another annex or something. Seemed likely I would stumble across an exit eventually.
Chapter 11
“Can someone give me a goddamned answer and tell me what happened here?” Major General Stultz, a tall man with white grizzled hair and a scar that went from the corner of his mouth to just below his left eye, asked. On any other person it would appear to make someone look like they were constantly smiling, but on the general, it had nearly the opposite effect. It was hard not to see that, and think that he had contempt and disdain for all things around him. That wasn’t always the case, but right now, that description fit perfectly. He was walking among the littered dead of the staff, a few were being treated for wounds, most were long past that point.
“Reports are scattered, sir, but the ones who saw anything, say a woman in a lab coat came in and just started shooting,” Captain Hardings, the aide to the major general, responded.
“One of ours?” The general stopped to look at the captain.
“Right now, sir, that’s what we have to assume. There were no security breaches, and it certainly wasn’t a zombie. Why? Why would someone do this?”
Dr. Rosamilia had come in through the door Tim had only moments earlier vacated. “These were some of the greatest minds still left on this planet. Without them, there’s very little chance we can stop this virus.” The doctor was looking at the faces of each of the deceased.
“How bad is it?” the captain asked.
Dr. Rosamilia had a panicked look in her eyes. “Picture that you have a brain tumor and the neurosurgeon has been killed.”
“There are still survivors,” the major general said. “Can they not go with the research data we have?”
“This was almost a surgical strike. That’s Doctor Emerson, the leading virologist, not just on site but on the planet. Over there is Doctor Gregorovich, the preeminent bacteriologist. Over there is Doctor Youngstein. He’s—”
“Yes, I know who the good doctors were,” the general said. “But surely—”
“I don’t mean to cut you off; yes, there are some people left, but if I can go back to the neurosurgeon example, it’s like the surgeon has been killed but the anesthesiologist is still alive. I’m sure he’s seen the procedure done before, but that’s not the person I’d want digging around in my head.”
“We’ll just have to relearn. The people still alive will need to pick up the pieces.” The general was trying to find the silver lining on a plastic bag full of shit.
“That could take decades and maybe not even then. I could read volumes of books on how to build a rocket and still never be able to do it. And to be honest, I don’t think we have decades, not with the way the zombies are adapting and learning. Do we know who did this?”
“Witnesses say a red-headed woman in a lab coat. That’s all we’ve got so far,” the captain said.
The doctor’s face blanched. “Oh, God no.” She appeared as if she were about to bolt.
The captain grabbed her before she could do that. “Do you know something we could use to track this person down doctor?”
“It wasn’t a person, it was a zombie.” The words were caustic as they formed in her throat.
“She had an M-16; surely this wasn’t a zombie.” The captain tried to reason the unreasonable away.
“We had her in captivity. We were studying her. She was such an anomaly.”
“Jesus, Doc, you capture an apex zombie and you don’t think to notify me and have a security team monitoring her twenty-four/seven?” The general pulled his cap off to run his hand through his short hair.
“We … we didn’t know what we had just yet, and she was locked up.”
“How advanced?” the general asked.
“She can speak.”
“Jesus H Christ!” The general walked a couple of steps away before coming back. “I’m going to need an accurate description. We need to track her down and dispose of this threat. And no, Doc, we are not going to attempt to capture her alive. She’s already done enough damage and may have single-handedly nullified this entire project. Goddamn it, one fucking zombie has destroyed us, has destroyed us all.”
Chapter 12
“Stairs. About fucking time.” Unlike everywhere else in this place, I did not need to use my
card. I stepped in, the flashing of a yellow alarm light had a strange strobe effect within the cemented confines, giving it a very claustrophobic feel. Luckily, that wasn’t a malady I suffered from. If I could share head space with two others and not go insane, this was no big deal. I grabbed the handrail and took the stairs two at a time as I bolted down. It wouldn’t be long before they figured out who’d done what, and I needed to be long gone when that happened. I hit the door leading out at a full sprint, nearly toppling over a soldier who was standing there. He was alarmed as he righted himself to see what was going on. I wanted to keep running, but that didn’t seem like the best course of action at the moment.
“Help me! Help me!” I started reaching for him. “There’s been a massacre in there!” I was sobbing. “There’s zombies, and someone went psychotic, started shooting up the room we were in!”
“Hold on, ma’am. You can’t come out here, it’s more dangerous. You need to get to shelter zero. I’ll radio someone to take you there.”
“I can’t go back in there. People are killing each other, zombies are killing people. Look at me? I’m covered in blood!”
“Central, this is Corporal Greenich I have….”
A thick static filled the air and a broadcast overshadowed the corporal’s call. “Be on the look-out for a red-haired woman in a lab coat. She is to be considered armed and dangerous!”
I was moving before the corporal could look over. I didn’t need to hear the warning to know that I needed to act, and fast. He was never going to let me go on my own. His eyes grew wide. I never gave him a chance to defend himself, to bring that weapon up and either shoot me or detain me. I reached down and grabbed his balls, happy to note that the commando was going commando. Not a great choice in the middle of an invasion, but who am I to judge? I gripped those things like I was trying to make lemonade and this was the last lemon on the planet. I can’t say for sure, but I think I may have cracked one of them like an egg. His mouth opened in the classic ‘o’ face but he was about as far from that sensation as one could be and still be alive. His left hand went down to try and pry my vise-like grip away, while with his right, he punched me in the jaw.
He got a fair amount of force behind that strike. Panic will do that to you. I would have faltered if not for Manny taking control of the hand that had seized his junk. I don’t know how my favorite little worm knew what was going on, but he sent more juice down to our fingers and palm. When I’d initially cupped the corporal’s family jewels, they had nestled in my palm like a baby duckling, Manny had compressed our hand down so tightly you would have been hard pressed to slide a quarter between the tips of our fingers and palm. Things were most definitely rupturing down there. The front of the corporal’s pants burst into red, like he’d been shot repeatedly in the crotch with paint balls. He hit me one more time, but I’m not sure he could have squashed a fly. He was done for. He was falling over, and would have done so if Manny would have released his grip. Corporal Greenich now looked like a piece of luggage the way we were carrying him, and the handle was what was left of his manhood.
“You can let go, Manny.”
The corporal fell to the ground, the red spreading out around his groin.
“I’m going to borrow your rifle. You don’t mind, do you?” I grabbed the weapon then rolled him over so I could get the strap over his head. “No time to eat, Manny, stop begging. This is why I never owned a dog.” I had planned on shooting him so that he couldn’t warn others where we’d gone. But he wasn’t going to be telling anything to anybody any time soon, and if he did, it would be in this high chipmunk falsetto, and no one would really be able to understand anyway. Plus, I’d maimed him to the point of being a eunuch and that was seriously funny to me. Fuck him. I was making my run for it. A parking lot and two fences later, the facility was becoming a memory. I heard distant gunfire at one point. All I know is that it was not coming in my general direction. I stayed off the streets though I heard no vehicles. If a search mission had been sent for me, they had yet to discover my location.
I’d gone at least ten miles before I felt somewhat confident enough to stop and look around at my surroundings. We were most assuredly out of the business district and deep into the suburban sprawl. Shitty little houses were planted in uninspiring lines along the street. One looked much like the next.
“This is the American dream? People really crossed oceans to live this shit? How bad was it where they were, that this is somehow ideal?” I was not in a good mood, if I had come across a bag of kittens, I would have played soccer with it. I walked into the nearest house; blood had long ago dried on the front stairs. The picked over skeleton of the previous occupant was still holding a small rifle as they were straddling the threshold to inside and out. Whatever they had been protecting had long ago been eaten. Bones were strewn on the floor. Most looked human, could have been a couple of dogs in there as well.
“Yoo hoo?” I called when I stepped over the body and into the abode. The house had wooden paneling, which gave it the look of outdated desperation. The rug as well hadn’t been updated since the ’80s. It was a mustard green color, with travel paths worn deeply into the fibers. I walked into the kitchen, I don’t know why. Couldn’t imagine there’d be anything in there that I desired to eat unless one of the kids had hid under the kitchen table. Linoleum the color of tobacco-stained teeth gleamed dully in the fading afternoon light. A puke-green colored refrigerator sat off to the side. The red countertops were empty save a New York Yankees toaster.
“Shit, these people were classy all the way around,” I said sarcastically as I pulled out a chair. The red vinyl seat was patched up with duct tape where it had split and curled. I rested my arms and hands on the table. I leaned my head down onto my hands.
“Now what?” I asked, and before Manny could respond with his trademark line, I found myself looking down into my lap. Absent was the pocket and page that had Yorley’s address. I started laughing. I’d never lost the telephone book page, not technically anyway. It was housed in my memory, and since it was recent, I could retrieve it easily enough. As if it were a nickel that had fallen out of my pocket, all I needed to do was bend over and pick it up, it was that close to the surface. Just because I’d had a detour, in no way deterred from the fact that Yorley was still out there and I needed to kill her. The events of the last few days had taxed me beyond words. Yes, I knew Manny could go indefinitely, but I was not confident enough in his abilities to keep us safe. I knew he wasn’t going to agree, but I wanted to go upstairs, find a bed, and get a decent night of sleep.
I ignored the blood trail coming down, knowing it was like a discarded Snickers wrapper; the good stuff was already gone. This was just a reminder that something good had been eaten and that was more depressing than anything. At least it hid that carpeting. A dark hallway at the top of the staircase was lined with pictures. Some had been smashed in a struggle, but there was still a decent pictorial history of the family that lived here represented, hanging up. Fuckers that lived here had to have been in their eighties; they’d had three kids and five dogs, any of which I would have given a left nut, if I still had it, to eat. I made sure to knock each picture off and step on it, just in the off chance that one of the little ingrate kids came back looking for a memory.
“You’re pathetic. You’re just ruining something, just for the mere fact of ruining it,” Scarlett said.
“That’s not entirely true,” I told her though it was. There was part of me that envied a family that had at least for milliseconds at a time been happy in life. Then there was a bigger part that just didn’t give a shit. As outdated as the rest of the house had been, it was nothing in comparison to the bedroom that looked like it had been chiseled from prehistoric times. They were so old school the bed had been made! The top covers had been pulled tightly into the corners and the pillows arranged nicely. A purple shag rug laid the foundation for the single chamber water bed.
“Grampy and granny still getting their fre
ak on! There’s something I’m glad I didn’t have to see. Can you imagine all those wrinkles slapping together? That would be terrifying. I bet if I look in the drawers, there will be chains and whips, and a shit load of leather. I bet granny wore a strap-on and just drilled poor grampy’s ass. Hell, he was probably thrilled when the zombies came, gave his asshole a rest. When you start to take shits as thick around as a deli salami it’s more than likely time to give that kind of lifestyle a rest.”
“Is that what you do? Belittle people that seemingly had it better than poor little Tim and his douchey drinking daddy? Oh, I’m sorry, was I not supposed to know about that? Want to know what else I know?”
“No and you’d better keep your mouth shut.”
“I found a whole drawer of thoughts labeled ‘repressed’; there’s some sick shit in here Tim. Even for you.”
“Stay out of there!” I lunged for her. I was deflected as easily as if I were a pebble thrown at a steel wall. “What’s going on?”
“You see, Tim, I’ve been observing things during my isolation. Watching, learning, practicing. I haven’t quite figured out how to get rid of you. But your days of hitting me are over.”
I started beating my hands against whatever force she had put up that was now repelling me. At first, she would flinch when my fists would come dangerously close to her face, and then when she realized it was fruitless on my part, she grew emboldened. I’d beaten my knuckles bloody by the time I finally stopped.
“Fine, bitch, we’ll play this your way for now. But don’t think for a second that I won’t figure out a way around whatever voodoo shit you have going on right now. And just as a small show that you don’t have as much power as you think, I’m going to give you a little demonstration.” I took off the lab coat and pulled my shirt up over my head. I could see Scarlett watching intently. She did not like the fact that I had complete control of her body.
