by A. J. Sikes
“We’d better see if the other people are still outside,” Eric said, keeping the hose up and at the ready.
Meg agreed and, with her axe in one hand, went to the shutter doors. She climbed up on one door and looked through the window. Outside, the street seemed quiet and deserted, about as unusual and haunting a sight as Meg had ever seen.
“I never thought I’d see what New York looks like without all the people in it.”
Then Meg spotted them, the crowd from before. They shuffled out of their hiding places in alleys and doorways, like a crew of homeless people coming for the dinner bell.
Rex was at the shutters. He only had to stand on tiptoe to see out the window.
“We should help—”
“We should wait to see if any of them are infected first,” Meg said.
A siren whined from the up the street and Meg felt her mood lift instantly. “The engine’s back!”
Eric kept the hose up, but he backed away, across the floor. Meg stepped down and moved to open the shutters. Rex put a hand up and shouted for her to stop.
“I don’t think it’s them,” he said. His voice shook as he continued, “It’s not—It’s not them.”
Meg heard a screech of metal on metal, and the heavy thunk of a vehicle colliding with another, and then another thud. She lifted herself up to look through the window, fearing what she would see. The engine had stopped just before making the turn that would aim its rear at the station so they could back in. They’d swiped two cars parked on the street and had smashed head on into another as they rounded the corner.
“What’re they doing?” Meg wondered aloud. The cab of the engine shook. Blood sprayed out the side window, and then more of it came in a gout. Rex whimpered beside her as Meg watched in horror while their friends were killed. It was over in less than a minute, and Meg, Eric, and Rex stayed silent for longer than that, just staring into the emptiness around them. Meg wanted to find a way out, some way to leave the city, to go somewhere safe. If she’d listened to Tim…
We’d both be dead. We couldn’t have escaped.
Meg looked out the shutter windows again. She tried to move her attention away from the remains of their crew, now emerging from the truck and tumbling to the pavement, kicking and clawing at the air. Then the first of them rose as an infected creature. Meg didn’t want to look, but she had to watch.
She could see their bodies changing as they moved. She recognized faces in the instant before eyes yellowed and blood ran in rivulets down pale white cheeks. Before mouths popped open in a horrific O with rows of sharp needles where teeth had once been.
Meg’s friends died out there on the street, only to be reborn as monsters. The creatures crawled along the street with joints audibly cracking as they moved, like freakish spiders—
“The people!” Eric shouted from behind her. Meg snapped her gaze to the small crowd that had been hiding in the street outside. They had all grouped together and shuffled backward, away from the transforming firefighters. Rex was back to being useless, watching it all unfold through the window and doing nothing to stop it.
Without a second thought, Meg rushed for the dirty lockers they’d been shoving along the floor. She snatched a turnout jacket and sped back to the chief’s office, kicking the trash barrels clear out of the way this time. At the front door, she yelled for the people to come her way. She put her axe against the wall and used the jacket to cover the dead thing hanging through the window. With the jacket as a protective cover, Meg grabbed the body and heaved it over backward.
An older black woman outside ran up and dragged the corpse off to the side.
“Don’t get any blood on you!” Meg shouted, reaching for her axe in the same motion. The woman had a look on her face that said she was ready for whatever was coming. She held up her hands to show she was wearing yellow latex gloves.
“It ain’t much, but it helps.”
Meg gave her a look of relief as together they opened the door fully. The woman waved her gloved hands to usher everyone into the house. The group was mostly women with a few children, but a couple of men were at the back.
Meg hefted her axe as she went outside with the survivors, holding the door open and waving the people forward. They were all colors and ages and shapes. People from everywhere in the city, it seemed. She looked closely and tried to make eye contact with each of them as they came in. Some of them smiled, and Meg did her best to smile back. But she wasn’t looking at them as people yet.
They all look clean. For now.
A shriek tore Meg’s attention from the group for a moment, and she watched as a former friend of hers, now a monster, leaped from atop a car to tackle a man at the back of the line. With a shout, Meg ran forward, past the line of survivors making their way into the house. She lifted her axe as she ran and swung with all her strength, burying the axe head in the monster’s back just as it lowered its mouth to feed on the man it had brought down.
— 12 —
Elmhurst, Queens
The sun was climbing higher by the time Jed and the soldiers connected up with the military’s main element at Newtown High over in Elmhurst. Jed remembered lying in the middle of the track when him and Chips were stoned late at night, and sometimes running laps on it during the day when they did show up for gym class. Now the track and ball fields were a motor pool and command point. They’d come in with Humvees and some old open-bed trucks, and even a Bradley. Tents were going up in between lines of vehicles, and patrols of twos and threes walked the fence line with their weapons up and at the ready.
“Fuck me,” Jed said.
“Yeah, man,” said one of the soldiers next to him. “Shit’s on with a vengeance.”
“All this for some zombies?”
The soldier looked at Jed like he was crazy. “They ain’t zombies, brother. I don’t know who told you that, but— Believe it. Fuckin’ monsters out there. Zombies would be easy as the BRM range, all slow and shit. You’d hit ’em at two hundred meters, no problem. These fuckers, man you got lucky back there. I seen just two of them tear into a whole squad. They took out the SAW gunner first, like they knew he was the big threat. I swear. They ain’t zombies. Zombies don’t think or plan their attack.”
Jed’s eyes went wide at that and he kept quiet for the rest of the ride. Finally, they pulled up beside an idling Humvee and the sergeant by the tailgate told everyone to dismount. The soldiers hopped off and moved out to the ball fields where a platoon was lining up in formation. Jed jumped down with the soldier who’d talked to him. The guy gave him a nod and jogged off to join the formation. Jed figured he should follow, but another NCO, some thin Asian dude, came around the truck and put a hand on Jed’s arm, holding him back.
“You got a name there, Hardcore?”
“Jed. I mean—Welch, Sergeant. My name’s Welch. Private Welch, USMC.”
The guy blinked once, and stared at Jed like he’d spoken a foreign language. He didn’t believe him. Jed could tell. But it was the only play he had right now.
“Marines are out in the field mopping up. What’s with the civvie gear and the piece stuffed in your pants?”
The sergeant was at least an E-6. Jed didn’t know Army rank that well, but he knew authority when he heard it, no matter how many stripes it had on.
“I’m home from Iraq, Sergeant. Just got back. I was hit—”
“Uh-huh. How about you hand over the gun and we talk to First Sergeant about connecting you with your actual.”
Jed had to resist the urge to pull the Glock on the man. He’d be taken out in two seconds if he tried anything. But he wasn’t going to give up his gun. Not that easy.
“I have more in my pack, Sergeant. All from home. I figured they could be useful with the zombies—”
The sergeant busted out laughing but pulled it back in just as fast. He gave Jed a hard stare and jerked his chin up, motioning for Jed to get moving. “Let’s go, Hardcore Jed Welch. You and your sack full of guns. First Sergea
nt’s tent is that way.”
Jed turned and walked toward the tent across the ball field. He could feel the NCO behind him, and heard the man’s battle rattle shift as he lifted his weapon up to carry it at the ready.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
If it went the way he knew it would, Jed was about to lose his Glock and all his ammo, plus any chance he had of getting away alive. They’d put him back with some fucking Marine unit and he’d be back in the suck like he’d never left. What the fuck was he gonna do?
The tent flap up ahead flicked aside and a man stepped out wearing a clean ACU. Jed looked at the other soldiers he could see and realized they all had brand new gear on. The more he thought about it, the more Jed knew that none of these dudes had seen combat. None of ’em, except for maybe the NCO behind him. He had an M4. But all the other guys he’d seen were carrying M16s.
They got up to the First Sergeant and the NCO behind Jed told him to stop. Without thinking, Jed felt his arms moving so his hands snapped up at the small of his back. His legs straightened about shoulder-width apart and he stared straight ahead, holding his chin level.
“First Sergeant Oguein,” the NCO said from behind him. “This man here claims to be a Marine, just home from Iraq. Says he was hit, but I don’t—”
“What’s your name, son?” the First Sergeant asked Jed, looking him right in the eye. The man had black eyes, and a thin mustache. He stood a little shorter than Jed and was heavier around the middle.
“Private Welch, First Sergeant,” Jed said. “I was with—”
“You’re with the 401st Civil Affairs now, Private Welch. Sergeant Boon will take you to the Quartermaster for your uniform and then to the armory for a weapon. You can keep your sidearm. Sergeant Boon, make sure he gets holster for it. We don’t need any accidental discharge injuries.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
Jed felt a hand on his shoulder, prodding him to move. He relaxed his posture and fell into step beside the NCO as they left the First Sergeant’s presence.
“That was good, man. Real good,” Sergeant Boon said.
Jed didn’t want to say anything, but he knew he should. So he grunted the universal term that every Marine knows and says more than a hundred times a day.
“’Rah, Sergeant.”
“Yeah,” Sergeant Boon said. “Real good.”
Jed could tell the man didn’t like him and didn’t trust him. But who the fuck cared? He wasn’t going back to the suck. He could probably count on getting through this shit okay.
Sergeant Boon led him to a tent on the other side of the ball fields. Trucks and Humvees kept circling around the track and pulling into a formation like they were getting ready to convoy into the neighborhoods.
Inside the Quartermaster’s tent, Sergeant Boon hung off to the side while Jed got his new uniform. The Quartermaster was a short white dude with red peach fuzz on his top lip and more pimples than Jed had ever seen on anyone’s face before. Guy looked like fucking Freddy Krueger. He passed over a pile of clothing and lifted a pair of boots up from a box. The zit-faced guy looked at Jed like he was just some green recruit off the block.
“You a 10 or 10-wide?” he asked, holding out the uniform.
“Yeah,” Jed said, accepting the camouflage pants and shirt. “10-wide.”
“Yeah?” the dude asked, pushing the boots at Jed. “Your recruiter tell you to say that?”
Jed almost shot back at the dude about how fucked up his face was, but then he noticed the two stripes on the guy’s chest tab.
“Yes, Corporal. I mean, no, Corporal,” he said, moving into parade rest again with one arm behind his back and the other tucked against his side holding the uniform. He stood sharp, but not as sharp as when he was talking to the First Sergeant.
“Get dressed, Hardcore Jed Welch,” Sergeant Boon said. “You got one minute.”
Jed mumbled Rah this time, and nodded without looking at Sergeant Boon or Corporal McZits. He dropped his pack and stripped out of his clothes in a hurry, making sure to keep his left side exposed and lifting his arm so he could show off his battle scar to Sergeant Boon.
If the guy saw it, he either wasn’t impressed or decided Jed was okay after all and just didn’t want to say anything. Jed could almost feel the hatred coming off both of them as he carefully lifted his Glock out of his waistband and laid it on top of his backpack on the ground. Then he kicked off his work boots, dropped his pants, and slipped into the ACU.
Sergeant Boon coughed once, but didn’t say anything while Jed finished putting on his clothes. Corporal McZits dropped a full ILBE beside Jed’s backpack and went back to getting uniforms and boots stacked up on a set of shelves at the back of the tent. When Jed finished tying on his boots, he picked up the harness and slid into it, clicking the belt clasps and checking the straps to make sure they fit tight enough. Then he came to attention. Sergeant Boon chuckled, but gave him a nod that said he felt better about Jed now.
“Let’s go, Welch. Armory time. Bring your personal arms room with you,” he said, aiming a finger at the backpack by Jed’s feet.
Jed bent down and retrieved his Glock. He slung the pack over one shoulder and carried the pistol at his side with his fingers wrapped around the trigger guard.
At the armory tent, Sergeant Boon had Jed sign for an M16A2 and turn in his pack with the other guns. He got a holster and a box of 9mm ammo for the Glock, plus six more boxes for the M16.
“You can load up on the truck, Welch,” Sergeant Boon said. “We move out in 15.”
“Sergeant?” Jed asked, feeling less sure than he did before.
“Truck, Welch. The one outside, behind this tent. We have two platoons of National Guard here. They just got home last month. You can share war stories and compare scars.”
Jed didn’t miss the way Sergeant Boon’s mouth went from a frown to a shit-eating grin as he said the last few words. He nodded at Sergeant Boon and waited for the guy to give him the signal to leave. All he got was a wrinkled-up sneer.
Outside the armory tent, Jed followed a line of soldiers marching to a truck that had just begun rumbling as the driver turned over the engine. A gust of diesel exhaust hit Jed’s mouth and he coughed, nearly gagging on the stink. He fucking hated military trucks, and the planes. They had to be designed by some motherfucker who got off making dudes sick before they even got in the damn things.
The line of soldiers in front of Jed came to a stop behind the truck. Jed fell in with them, at ease, looking at the line of uniforms like a bunch of trees all standing ready to get chopped down. Jed looked at his own uniform and remembered the money he had stuffed in his pants pocket.
“Fu—”
“Shut it down, Private,” the man next to him said. He was a black guy, and younger than Jed by maybe a few years. He had corporal stripes on his uniform, though, and he looked hard. Jed knew some rough dudes growing up, but this guy looked like a piece of steel got shoved up his ass and all it did was make him want more.
An NCO came up from around the truck and called them to attention. An LT showed up on the heels of the NCO. The officer gave his name, but Jed wasn’t listening. He couldn’t pay attention to anything the dude said because the shrieks and screams out in the neighborhoods started up right as the LT opened his mouth. Jed caught something about 57th Avenue, and Queens Boulevard.
Then it was everybody jumping through his own asshole, climbing into the truck. Someone yelled about having weapons up and out at the ready. Jed stuck his M16 over the side of the truck and scanned the area around them. All he could see were more trucks and soldiers running all over the fucking place. He heard screams and shouts echoing around the ball fields. Jed could swear he heard a Ma Deuce busting out rounds from the other side of the fields.
The truck moved and lurched, making Jed sway. He’d knelt on the bench with one knee and kept the other foot on the truck bed behind him for support. The corporal was to Jed’s left and gave him a look. Jed ignored it and went back to l
ooking out for the enemy. Whoever or whatever was out there, he had a real weapon now. It was shaking in his hands, and he tried to hide it so the other dudes wouldn’t see. He closed his eyes for a second and thought about Iraq, and the only patrol he’d ever done. His eyes snapped open and he knew he’d make it out of this okay. He held the rifle like it was the only thing keeping him alive, because that’s exactly what it was.
He’d make it out okay. He’d get back, even if some of these other dudes didn’t, and even if he had to take one or two of them out, like Chips’ brothers and their uncle. That’s what Jed would do to save his own skin, and that’s what he would always do.
Jed was gonna make it.
— 13 —
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Meg wrenched the axe out of the monster’s back and turned just in time to swing at another one. She didn’t recognize who it had been before, so it hurt a little less when the axe head sank into the man’s chest. Meg searched the street for more of the monsters, but she didn’t see any. She heard them, though, and the screams they caused as they tore through storefronts and apartments nearby.
Eric was shouting at her to come back. Meg spared one last look at the dying city around her before she joined the line of survivors going into the house. She wiped at the blood and gore that coated her jacket front and went to brush her face shield when her hand stopped in midair.
What if I’m infected?
“Eric!” she screamed at him as the last of the survivors, the only man left in the group, made it to the door. But Eric was already back inside somewhere, out of earshot. The male survivor was at the door, holding it open for Meg. The broken window in the door looked like an angry mouth full of jagged teeth ready to rip her skin to shreds.
“Are you coming?” the man asked her. He had dirt on his face, covering one side of his forehead and one cheek.