Genesis Virus

by Pinto, Daniel

  After a few quick jerks, his dislocated right shoulder snaps back into place, He lays face down screaming. The tapping on the door becomes louder and drowns out his pain.

  David unlatches his gun magazine. Empty. “Fuck me.” Consequently, he jettisons it into his backpack and takes out two things he tossed in the bag while on the hill overlooking the city.

  Another arm blares through, clawing clockwise on the door. The sound of bones breaking gets noisier. After one full rotation, David wraps his nose and mouth with a strip of his shirt, douses his clothing in Bleach, trying to overpower his human stink. Hands are trembling so bad, he can’t unscrew the Windex bottle. The skinny arm in the door turns two more cycles, David takes in a big breath, puts the flashlight between his neck and shoulder. Painstakingly funnels squirrel blood into the almost empty Windex bottle, and lastly shakes it up and down like a martini for the bloodthirsty.

  “Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about you.”

  The Bleach is seeping through his clothes and burning his eyes. He removes his socks and fills them with three cans each, then ties them onto his belt.

  David steps on the wall with one leg, grabs the zombie arms and unscrews them through the doorway as if they were action figure appendages and stacks them in his backpack. It makes him think of Phillip and him in the Jumper forest.

  Duck-tapes the flashlight to his wrist, then sprays the squirrel blood into prying eyes through the door openings, then his mouth. Snaps the pole off the broom and the mop into two pieces, turns the doorknob and backs up as far as he can.

  The giant zombie, the bane of his existence stands in the doorway too small for him to enter. David holds the broomstick at his waist as if he’s pole vaulting and runs into the ineradicable zombie, the stick rotates through its groin and comes out of its rectum. The zombie’s head breaks the window on the push back.

  David perforates the trundling zombie in the face, yet it keeps moving, so David jumps and wraps his legs around the zombie’s back. And as he pulls his knife from the giant zombie’s throat, the handle breaks off, the zombie launches David with insatiable rage into the flimsy ceiling. David’s heart rate spikes. On the fall down, David spits squirrel blood into the zombie’s chest; the zombie backhands David through the rest of the janitor’s door.

  David wakes up, grabs the handle attached to a chuck of the door, and slaps the smaller zombies in the mouth, forgetting about the real threat.

  All the amenable zombies instantly dogpile the giant zombie, digesting him in a feeding frenzy, starting with his chest and becoming true cannibals by eating their own kind.

  David rips the spine of a zombie from behind and swings it into a mouth of a stray zombie.

  David tugs out the broom from the garbage and stabs the back of the heads of each zombie, cherry-picking the larger ones first. He sprays the big zombie again and again with the squirrel blood, while locking eyes with him, maybe a little too long. Guts are spewing out on the floor. David sprays its face yet again and the last zombie effortlessly scoops the T-zone of the big zombie’s face into its mouth, savoring it as David slams the pole down the middle of its head, it retains the shape integrity of its face, but minus a center. The melee of bodies escalates to the windowsill.

  David sits in a wheelchair next to his handy work.

  Down the hall. David’s catching his breath, a slackened reaction, allows what he sees to jump on his chest and beat its head into his expression. It’s a black skeleton child, a tar baby against David’s skin. David grabs both its wrists, taking umbrage, and lets him hang in front, snapping like a turtle. After a beat of gloating, David splits the body in half.

  David patrols, ready for what’s next around the corner. It can’t be good. Milky eyes in nystagmus as frenzy as bumblebee wings and a clattering of awkward sized preteen teeth is David’s North Star on what to kill next. The zombie kids are incarnate anatomy dummies subsuming deplorable comportment. He maneuvers backwards, ripping off curtains and blinds from the gallery of windows. Gangs of zombie kids adroitly and apishly run and jump off the walls with baboon acuity and ferocity. Bulldozing the human debris recently created. A skeleton crew of sorts cleaning up the mess.

  The clicking jaws multiples and multiples. David beats on the window with the two sticks, matching the sound of their mouths, antagonizing them even more.

  David reeves the broom through an eye socket, the wincing kid holds on as David pins a row of dead little rascals into the wall, tiny legs run and rise with the stick like his earlier against the giant zombie. David turns and flings the callow zombie holding on, across the hall into the overhead lights. Skeletal kids shriek in the light. Chrysalis of skin long discarded like the caterpillar to become something faster. David swings a sock hardened by aluminum into tiny human rib cages. He backpedals and swings, showering bones on both sides of the hallway.

  Snap-crackle-pop.

  Soft drink cans erupt in the sock; a zombie bites and tears it from David’s hand. No weapons left. He’s spontaneously aswirl with four demented matryoshka dolls, each one cuddling one of his limbs; he turns his head and jumps into the immediate wall. “Ahh.” An outburst of broken bones follows.

  Ineluctable lust for attention, the vying zombie kids snarl and jump into David’s face, he punches them into the windows. Displayed across the ground, the glass is like breadcrumbs leading to David. He has the two pieces of the mop in his hands again and drums downwards into the soft spots on the diminutive skulls. Blood is in dollops on the slick floor.

  The screaming and clicking subsides. He rubs his shoulder, grimacing. David’s hands are leaking blood; he lets the sticks go and takes in the carnage with a waving arm of light. “Nothing can ever be easy.” He finally has the time to realize he’s destroyed countless zombie families, from pre-birth onwards. It puts his stomach in knots.

  10

  Lacking subtlety, the woman, the wife, the one who had to use the restroom, at last tramps out of the forest on Ava’s left and says to her, “give me all your belongings,” she has a small handgun in her hand. The Prophet spits out his food, stands up. “Don’t do this.”

  Ava stands, tightens her blanket back around her like armor and faces the woman. “Put that gun back up your ass or cooter…Shoot me, because you can’t have our shit.” The woman walks over to Ava and puts the gun to her temple. “That can be arranged.” The wife steps back and twirls the gun to signify, hurry it up. An imprint of the gun’s barrel is still in Ava’s face.

  The centerpiece is a roaring campfire with several logs as seats surrounding it; the circle of trust is broken. Job looks at the weapons by Youngblood’s feet and says. “Hand them over Injun.”

  Youngblood is about to kick the weapons to Job, but Lou stands in front of him and says. “You’ll have to take them for us.” Lou tells the woman. “Shoot me. Miss and I’ll blow all your fucking heads off.”

  Job has a blank look and adjusts his false teeth. “Shoot him sweetie.” The gun rattles in her fingers. “Shut up.” She furiously scratches her hair. Job stamps his foot, stretches his arm forward, open and closes his hand. “Give me the damn gun and sit your ass down. Now bitch.”

  The wife wipes her perspiring brows. “Shut up.” She moves the gun to Job.

  The Prophet says. “Don’t.”

  Job says. “You better get that out of my face before I leave you out here with all these things that’ll rape your brains out. I was smart enough to hide a gun, just in case. You can’t survive without me.” Job looks out the corner of his eye, Youngblood’s squatting down halfway. Job points at Youngblood and says to his wife. “Look. You’re about to get shot, Einstein.”

  The wife points the gun at Youngblood. “Get the fuck up. Go. Leave your stuff.”

  Job drops his arm and looks up like an annoyed teenager. “Just give me the gun, you can never do nothing right.” She hesitates for a second, causing Job to say. “NOW.” Startling her to point the gun up at Lou and Youngblood, both an arm length from their weap
ons.

  The Prophet says. “Don’t. These are good people, lets leave.”

  Ava’s revving in place. “It’s too late for that.” She’s made her bed, it’s time to put her asleep.”

  The Prophet says over everyone. “Everyone be quiet.”

  Job slaps the Prophet’s hand out of his face. “Shoot the big one first, then the kid.”

  The Prophet puts his hands up and puts one leg over his log and remains still. “Give me the gun and I’ll keep them from chasing after you, even your husband. I’ll stay behind.”

  Job looks at the Prophet. “Shoot him too.”

  It’s a Mexican standoff with one shooter; she frantically points the gun at each person like a game of duck, duck, goose. She says. “Stay back. All of you...I’m in control.” Job runs at her. “Give me the gun, cunt.” The wife shoots at Job, clipping him in the shoulder. He stops his fall with one hand on the log and a shin in the mud. He claws at her feet as she backtracks. “Stupid bitch.”

  A migraine pounds Delilah into consciousness, her body feels like the gravity is squashing her like a car crusher in the pitch black tent. She kicks the walls of the tent in woozy irritation, causing her sutures to expand and warp. “AHHHH.”

  “Who’s that?” The gunwoman’s shoulder jumps and she spirals towards the yelp and as she whiplashes her head back to her first hostage. Ava tackles her to the ground. Both the women rapidly get to one knee and balance each other from falling.

  All the women’s arms stretch up and down, entwined like a pretzel as they struggle to win the only gun at play. Lou and Youngblood look at Job holding his arm and then back at the women. Youngblood silently grips the handle to his axe chopped into the log.

  Ava head-butts the petrified lady then holds both of the woman’s arms in the air with one hand while she gets her knife from behind in her belt loop. Ava releases the woman, elbows her with her left arm and with her right aims for the woman’s throat, but cuts her cheek. “Ahhhh.”

  The wife screams and falls backwards firing one shot. Job rolls over the log and his fingers extend for his wife’s gun like spider legs. Ava’s blanket flies and floats behind her like a cape; she embraces her chest, lands on her knees, and finally slants to the ground. Shot.

  Lou kicks the fire and pot of beans into Job’s face. “My eyes.”

  Lou shoots his shotgun directly in front on him, slightly downwards, blasting Job in the chest and uprooting gravel into his face. Shotgun pellets ram Job several feet across the grass and whistle away into the night air.

  It sounds like Job’s breathing through a snorkel. Job’s gurgling noises turn into one long monotone moan. It makes Youngblood’s arm hair stand on end.

  Lou has one shot left in the barrel, there’s a dust cloud of debris between him and the attackers. He’s does not know if Job is alive or dead and so waits from him to stick his head up like in a game of whack-a-mole.

  The Prophet comes running towards Lou from his blindside. Youngblood throws his newly sharpened hatchet between his friend and his enemy, halting the Prophet and alerting Lou to his whereabouts. Lou reactively right hooks the Prophet in the mouth with the butt-end of his shotgun.

  Youngblood’s axe drives into the wife’s one eye; the other eye rapidly blinks like a humming bird’s wings as her head sways in the cloudy air. The wife’s head and the hatchet wedged in her skull, plummets into the campfire, wood flakes shoot up and swing in the grayish sky, the campfire becomes a dying candle, sucking in the light.

  Lou’s mesmerized; his eyes affixed to the glowing head, as it turns darker all around him. He can no longer see the head, but can still smell the burnt hair.

  The Prophet screams on all fours. “NO.” Lou shots his shotgun. A sphere of white light highlights the Prophet’s back running away. CLICK.

  Ava sleeps on the ground next to Job’s wife. Youngblood pulls her by the shoulders away from the fire. She grabs him by the wrist; he jumps back as she takes in air like a drowning woman. “That twofaced bitch shot me…” She anchors onto Youngblood’s forearm and picks herself up. “I saw my life flash before my eyes and I didn’t like it.” She scrunches her face in agony as she takes off her bulletproof vest, with the steaming lead still lodged in it, hot as iron. “I’m ok, just got the wind knocked out of me.” Youngblood’s regaining the color in his face. “I don’t know if God tried to kill you or save you.” Ava squeezes his shoulder to stand up straight. “Both.”

  Lou shines a flashlight attached to his shotgun on Ava lifting her shirt with her head down looking at the bruise on her ribs. He says. “That sneaky bastard couldn’t have gotten far.”

  Lou looks at Youngblood. “Stay here and make sure he doesn’t flank you. I got this. The Chief never came back.” Youngblood tosses him the rifle in his hand and then pries the small gun from the woman’s death grip, one finger at a time. Ava then drags the woman from the fire; the woods illuminate again as if a light switch is flicked on.

  Youngblood says as he hands Ava her assault rifle. “You’re welcome, we’re a team.”

  The next minute, Ava and Youngblood hear gunshots and screams; she clutches her rifle and walks backwards into the shadows. “Be careful, Youngblood, there could more mad fucks toying with us.”

  Lou shoots in the dark in the direction of the sound. His blast creates a beam of light around him with every shot like an angelic painting. What sounds like giggles or mad cries echoes in the night, camouflages the Prophet even more in the steady blackness.

  Ava’s uneasy stomach churns against her tender ribs. Youngblood aims his Winchester rifle upward, digs into the ground with his back and heels, the log is protecting his head and the dead woman his body. He kicks dirt over the fire and disappears. This is the last time I break bread with strangers. Will my uncle be proud that I killed a woman without hesitation? No one had to die over stuff.

  11

  David has run the gamut of the perdition of this hospital.

  The skewed metal cane locking the door is starting to bend, the rattling becomes louder and louder, holding the aberrations at bay. Only light source in the cluttered hospital floor is the large window at the other end of the room. Rumblings of footsteps reverberate in the dark room. Mini-barriers of office equipment assembled around David stymie his vision.

  Seconds sprint by as he espials for an exit, turning in a circle yet anchored to the floor. David kicks over filing cabinets, places one foot on the parapet and is mid-climb when the metal cane bounces and skates on the floor. There’s a silence then the bellicose dead run through the door as if they’re ones being chased.

  David abandons his climb for the ceiling and books it straight ahead as soon as the cane hits the ground. A zombie on his right climbs through the compost and is a dark silhouette outlined in the window up ahead.

  David drops the grenade, Coop’s gift, and spurts for the zombie with laser focus, the knee-jerk reaction of the zombie is to respond in kind, it looks as if David is chasing after his shadow like Peter Pan. Brethren of zombies from behind are crawling and trying to run over the chaff, drawn to the sound of David’s beating heart like nocturnal bats.

  David collides with the willowy zombie so hard that it makes a tongue-less scream and its arms blast off like rockets on impact. He hugs the dead with one arm, propping its head to his lower back as if it’s unconscious and needs rescuing. Runs a few more strides, squeezes the zombie’s hips, drives his left shoulder downward, and dives into the window. A tower of inferno blows out of the building, cooking the sky.

  David flies through light in darkness.

  Both David and his shield, free-fall three stories achieving terminal velocity, the van on the street breaks their plunge. The hundred minute war is over. David rolls down the crushed windshield as burning bodies break apart on the sidewalk. All free-falling bodies have the same constant acceleration. Daredevil zombies are walking through the window; other vehicles save most of their bodies, what is left, pursue David in prone positions.

 
He drags his leg to the middle of the road, holding a tire iron. “Coop I’m outside, on the corner of Main Street,” he hops forward to see, “…and on, I’m fucked Street.” His mind is still in the dreamworld.

  The walkie says in a static voice. “Head North, I’m a little busy.” A gunshot then silence.

  At least I’m not afraid of heights anymore. He shifts his backpack to his stomach, pops a pill and limps away from the burning hospital.

  12

  David and Cooper come upon the Chief laying in the dirt with his head propped up by some deadwood, his hands are resting over his stomach.

  David says. “He looks like he’s in a coffin.”

  The Chief opens one eye. “I heard that.”

  Cooper says. “You all must’ve had a party last night.”

  The Chief says. “I remember taking a walk.” He stands and looks around. “And sitting against this log, then I heard David’s annoying voice.” The Chief stretches his arms and yawns. “I bet the others did the same. Boring is needed.” He digs in his pocket and hands David a totem pole carving with the heads of an eagle, a lion, and a snake. “Take it…a gift for returning my friend.”

  David looks at the wooden animals. “Thanks. Which one am I?”

  Coop surveys the surrounding ground, specifically the tracks leading the way.

  David says. “Human?”

  “Human-ish.”

  David offers the Chief his hand and the three of them walk side-by-side into the trees.

  David raises his voice, “it’s David and friends,” as he steps through the perennial greenery. Lou has his back towards him and lifts a limp backhand in the air.

  Ava’s standing with her hand on Delilah’s tent; Youngblood’s not far from sight cleaning his axe in the sunlight.