Dr. Michael Bujnowski was one of the remaining. He watched as these freaks of nature killed dozens of people, people with families, loved ones, children. But more importantly to him, he watched as his dream was killed, and quickly realized there was nowhere for him to go. His life was over. These… These “things” weren’t going to stop, and it was entirely his fault. He wasn’t scared of his monstrous creations when they got to him, wasn’t scared of death, he wanted it.
Chapter 3
“General Shellenberger, we’re hearing that there are zombies attacking just outside of Philadelphia, sir.”
“What’s your name son?” he replied without lifting his head from his desk.
“Private Daniels, sir.”
“You’re fired, Daniels. Get the hell out of my office.”
“But sir I—“
“Do I look like I have time for these games? Is it April Fools in November or national prank-the-general day? The North Koreans are threatening an attack any day if we don’t meet their cockamamie demands. There are U.S. soldiers that are being held hostage by some Afghani nitwits that won’t return them unless we pay them a billion dollars! And to top it off the Secretary of Defense is threatening to demote me unless I promote his dumbass son, the kid who shot his own foot during a training exercise, to a high ranking officer position and I just can’t do that or I’ll be the laughing stock of the U.S. Army.” His voice began rising, his face was reddening in anger, as Daniels’ face whitened with fear. “So excuse me, if I react a little harshly, when some wimpy private, who’s probably here in a desk job because he’s not strong enough for a tour, comes in here with this BULLSHIT, just to waste my time! Get out! I never want—“
“General Shellenberger,” interrupts Lieutenant General Burkhart, Shellenberger’s second in command, “we’re hearing that there are zombies attacking just outside of Philadelphia, sir.”
General Shellenberger was one of the best damn military minds that this nation had ever seen. He made his way to the top of command by fighting successfully in three wars, and planning and executing strategies for two more. He was a war guru, some would say. However, his vast military experience only extended to wars and conflicts with living people. He had a gruff voice and always slurred his words together even when sober. He also had a massive scar down the right side of his face, from a Vietcong blade in ’68.
“Well, what are we doing right now in response?”
“We have the dead body of a killed zombie, sir, w—“
“Aren’t they already dead? If they’re zombies?” General Shellenberger interrupted.
“Well… Yes, sir, they are. Then we have the body of a… re-killed zombie, sir. We have our top scientists examining the body and they’ve already begun to work on an antidote that could be used on a mass area.”
“Alright, that’s good news, Burkhart. Let me know when it’s ready.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Have we sent any troops to try and stop them?”
“We did, sir, not much success. They killed many of our soldiers, but turned even more into zombies. Apparently, the only thing that stops them is shots to the head; they can take body hits and keep going.”
“Well, then we better aim at their heads,” Shellenberger mumbled quietly.
“Where should we aim, sir?”
“Outside Philadelphia, where the zombies are.”
“No, sir, I didn’t mean where should we aim, I meant where should we aim?”
“…. OUTSIDE PHILADELPHIA!”
“No sir, umm let me rephrase…. I mean where on the uh, the ‘bodies’” Burkhart said using finger quotes, “wait are they still considered bodies?”
“I think they are still considered bodies, sir.” Interrupted Private Daniels.
“Shut the hell up, Private!” Shellenberger screamed.
“Right, so where on the ‘bodies’” again using finger quotes, “of the zombies should we aim our guns at while we are outside Philadelphia, attacking the zombies.”
“… At their heads! Isn’t that obvious?”
“Right, sir. Sorry, sir.”
“Where are the…” General Shellenberger paused, still puzzled about the whole situation, still in disbelief, “the uhh… the zombies? Have they reached Philadelphia?”
“We don’t know, sir.”
“Well, why not?”
“We don’t know, sir.”
“I know you don’t know you fool, I’m asking why don’t we know?”
“No, I mean… we don’t know why we don’t know, sir. We haven’t been able to contact anyone in Philadelphia, all communication lines into the city are down.”
“Maybe the zombies cut off the lines!” Private Daniels butted in from the corner of the room.
“Daniels why in god’s name are you still in my office?” General Shellenberger yelled as Private Daniels scampered out of the room. The two elite military minds were silent for a few minutes. They didn’t want to risk sending too many soldiers to be slaughtered, or worse, turned into zombies extremely well trained in combat. They couldn’t just bomb U.S. soil, way too many innocent casualties even if they were to get clearance. They thought about sending tanks, but their closest ones wouldn’t arrive in time to stop them from getting to Philadelphia, which isn’t a very tank-friendly zone. Finally, General Shellenberger came to a decision on a course of action.
“We’ll send troops to guard the outside of Philadelphia and keep them from getting in; give them plenty of ammunition, mounted turrets, etc. Then I want air support up and running, not to bomb, but to shoot from above. Tell the scientists to hurry their asses up on that antidote, we need it and we need it fast. As soon as it’s ready, you have clearance to send it out towards Philadelphia and a 100-mile radius around the city, can’t leave any straggler zombies to chance. And finally, I know this isn’t ideal, but we need to inform the public, large scale, to confirm what they’ve probably already been hearing. They need to be prepared and able to defend an attack, and make sure they know to aim high.”
That was the broadcast that Tommy and Bobby Nagel heard, a little after 2:00 a.m. and it ran continuously on every channel, for days on end. Luckily for them, they were awake at 2:00 a.m. and were able to stock up on ammunition and food late at night before the riots, the looting, and the overall public craziness got too out of hand.
The General’s plan didn’t work, the zombies broke through the wall of U.S. soldiers, and they attacked the city of Philadelphia. Within a few days, the city was in ruins, and the zombie army had grown exponentially. Any non-zombies were either in hiding, or dead. Their radius of the attack spread quickly, covering most of New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, along with some of Delaware and Maryland. This range included Tommy and Bobby Nagel’s home, luckily their home was the Fortress.
Because of the rapid growth in the radius of the zombie attack, General Shellenberger gave approval to prematurely send out the antidote by spraying the entire infected area with it. The cure was not perfected and only mildly slowed down the zombies’ attack on the U.S. As if that failure wasn’t bad enough, a certain chemical in the spray had an extreme side effect. It drastically slowed the movements of the humans who were affected by it, nearly crippling them. They were sitting ducks for the zombies who were not affected by this side effect. Luckily for the Nagel’s, they were outside of the antidote spray range.
Chapter 4
Saturday the twenty-first, the day the unthinkable occurred, Tommy Nagel made his way home from his college in his beat up, grey, 2001 Jeep Wrangler for Thanksgiving break. He felt lucky, as most schools still had class until the following Wednesday. But he was given a full week to spend entirely with his family. Well, most of his family, as his Aunt and Uncle who raised him were down in South Carolina on another vacation. Tommy and Bobby hoped that they would be home for Thanksgiving.
The Nagel parents loved their two boys very much, until they died in a car accident when Tommy was 4. Their Aunt and Uncle, Barbara and
Tony Nagel were happy to take them in. But they hadn’t really thought through the commitment they had made. They spent a lot of time out of town. And when they were home, they weren’t home, as they were frequently out on the town without their new sons. These sorts of actions used to bother Tommy and Bobby, but they had become used to fending for themselves. And they did it rather well.
Nevertheless, Tommy was excited to return home and be with his big brother Bobby. The two were inseparable. They thought alike, they acted alike, they had similar taste in just about everything, and they are asked regularly by new acquaintances if they were twins. The only thing that separated Tommy and Bobby Nagel were four years of age. Nothing sounded more appealing to Tommy then just hanging around with his brother and having a few beers.
The only downside Tommy saw from being away from school was the absence of his girlfriend, Melanie Kendall. The first night Tommy met Melanie, he wasn’t in the best state of mind, and drunkenly rambled to his friend, “Dude, I’m going to marry that girl one day,” for about ten minutes. One year and a formed relationship later, Tommy could say that nothing has changed since that first night. He was crazy about her, in love with her, and envisioned his future with her. When classes let out for Thanksgiving break, she decided to visit her brother in Pittsburgh for a few days before heading to her home in the middle of Pennsylvania. The main thought on Tommy’s ride home was when he would be able to see her next.
“So she’s definitely the one, huh?” Bobby asked as the two sat at the local bar. The place was nice on the inside, except for the bathrooms. It was moderately crowded, but the two found a spot at the bar without much foot traffic.
“She’s the one, no doubts about it.”
“That’s a bold thing to say for a twenty-year-old.”
“I didn’t hear that,” said Frank, the owner and bartender who used to coach them in baseball.
“Of course you didn’t, Frank! How’s Eric doing?” Tommy said.
“Doing great, in his junior year at PRU.”
“Ah” Tommy sighed, “I wish I was young again.”
“Hilarious, you boys stay out of trouble tonight, or it’ll be my ass for serving you.”
“We won’t let you down, Frank.”
Tommy and Bobby spent their entire Saturday night catching up. Tommy shared some of his college stories from this semester, and Bobby reminisced about his college days with a few stories of his own. The bar went from noisy to silent in a matter of seconds. The brothers looked around to see everybody glued to the television screens, a replay of a college football game was supposed to be on, but instead a breaking news story aired on every television. Bridgette Walker, the same “Nightly News” award-winning anchor who has told every major news story since Reagan commanded “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” was speaking. But even for someone who has seen it all, she reported the news trembling and stumbling through her words.
“… So please take whatever steps you find to be… necessary. Again if you are just joining us, we have just received word that zombies, I repeat, zombies are attacking eastern Pennsylvania in the Philadelphia region, reportedly heading towards the city. If you are anywhere near that region you should stay inside and board up your windows for safety. We are being told that they are attacking anyone they see and victims are either… are either being killed or turned… into one of them. Government officials have made it clear that they do not want to bring about panic, and they want it to be known that they are taking every step possible to contain this outbreak and prevent them from entering Philadelphia. If you do have an encounter with one of them, we are being told to ‘aim for their heads’ whether it be with a gun, knife, blunt object, or any weapon you may be using. But again, take whatever actions you need to make sure you and your family are safe if you are in that region. Again if you are just joining us…”
Tommy and Bobby remained silent for a few minutes, shocked at what they just heard. It was impossible to fathom, as all Tommy thought of was the fact that he wasn’t in a video game. It was an absurd thought, and it puzzled him. Finally, after roughly five minutes, Bobby began to grasp the situation and the how critical their next set of actions were.
“We need supplies.” He finally burst out.
Tommy remained silent and stunned.
“We need supplies. We need food, enough food to last us a while. And… and drinks… obviously. And, and wait there was one more thing… We need… Guns! Yeah, we need guns, weapons, in case they make it here. Come on let’s go! We have to go!”
“Go… Where?” Tommy finally muttered.
“A sporting goods store! And a grocery store! And… Oh, we need batteries and flashlights and wood for boards and-“
“We can’t go outside.”
“We have to.”
“There are zombies, Bobby. Zombies.”
“They’re outside Philadelphia, they aren’t making it here on foot tonight.”
“How do we know they can’t drive?”
“Either way! If by some miracle they can drive it will still take them an hour and a half to get here-“
“An hour, I doubt they abide by road regulations.”
“Are you being funny?”
“Sorry, you’re right, not a good time.”
“We can make it there and back in twenty minutes but we have to go now!”
“Alright… let’s do it. I’m driving.”
“No I’m driving, Tommy, my car is faster.”
“But I’m a much better driver than you, fact.”
“Fine… Take my car though.”
The duo stopped home first, ran upstairs and grabbed their uncle’s pistols, just in case, and made their way to the sporting goods store. They were in awe of the lack of people out doing the same thing they were doing. They chalked it up to fear or the fact that most people were asleep at this time of night. And Tommy knew that if it wasn’t for Bobby, he would probably be inside too. But Bobby Nagel is always right.
“It’s locked,” said Tommy.
“Well let’s break-in,” said Bobby, asserting his elder brother superiority.
“Really?”
“Yeah really! Why the hell wouldn’t we?”
“Well… I don’t know, shouldn’t we like… Try to distance ourselves from them by acting civilized or something? Yeah no, you’re right let’s just break in.”
Bobby immediately smashed the glass door with the butt of his pistol, as if he was waiting for his brother’s approval. They broke their way into the sporting goods store, and headed towards the hunting section. They passed aisle after aisle of filled with all sorts of equipment in the dark store. Tommy had never actually hunted before as he saw it wrong to kill a defenseless animal. But these animals certainly weren’t defenseless so he saw no problem with putting one between their eyes. Tommy suddenly realized that his friend from home had joined the Air Force about a year and a half ago. He thought about the possibility of one of his oldest childhood friends flying over a hoard of flesh-eating zombies and dropping bombs on them, it seemed crazy, this daydream, but then he realized how realistic it really is. Which, in turn, made him think about the prospect of himself going against one of these zombies, and then a horde of them appeared in his mind, and tried to shut that thought out of his head. He told himself he was ready, but then he thought about all the people all over the world who tell themselves they would act or help someone in a time of crisis, or they would know what to do in a panic, and he thought of how many of those people probably froze up when it actually happened. He was not going to be one of those people, he despised those people.
They walked out of the store with two shotguns, two pistols, and three rifles… each. Not to mention all the ammunition they could fit in the bags under the counter, it is hunting season after all.
They were officially stocked up on weapons, for now, and made their way towards the grocery store. When they arrived, they realized where all the people were that they didn’t see before. Tommy Nagel
never understood why people participated in things like riots or looting, but it was survival time. So they covered their stack of guns with an old New York Yankees blanket in the trunk and, with their pistols in their waistbands, they went into the building that was currently being ripped apart by people.
What they saw in there they couldn’t have imagined in their wildest dreams. People were going crazy. They saw small children fighting over Gatorade. They saw an old man pointing a gun at a young woman for stealing something out of his cart. They heard screams, broken glass, the occasional isle being knocked over, and the even more occasional gunshot. They saw an employee hiding under his register, curled up in a ball. They saw a piece of raw chicken being used as a weapon. They saw two middle-aged women fighting over a few cans of tuna.
Tuna. It took Tommy a few seconds to remember the abstract love of tuna that Melanie had. Tuna was Melanie Kendall’s favorite food. And that was the first time since he had heard of the outbreak that Tommy Nagel thought of his girlfriend. A lead weight dropped in his stomach as he worried about her. Then he remembered how far Pittsburgh is from Philadelphia, and felt a momentary relief. Until he thought of the possibility that she may have changed her plans and went right home towards the outbreak, her house is a lot closer to Philadelphia than Pittsburgh is. As they walked through the store, he tried calling her, texting her, anything, but it was like he was trying to call someone as the ball dropped on midnight in the middle of Time’s Square, it wasn’t going to happen. He later learned that many phone companies’ cell towers had been knocked down by both zombies and believe it or not, rioters, thanks a lot rioters.
But Tommy had to focus, he was too far to have any impact on Melanie’s safety. He had to worry about himself and his brother. They grabbed a cart, and began loading essentials in. Non-perishable food like tuna, pasta, nuts, dried fruits, beans, rice, peanut butter, canned meats and veggies, granola bars, a bunch of drinks, multivitamins. Where they ran into some trouble, however, was getting batteries. There weren’t many left, and one guy was taking all of them and putting them in his cart. Bobby reached out to grab some for himself, and the man pulled a knife out and pointed it at him. Bobby grabbed the wrist where he held the knife, and kicked him square in the crotch. The knife made a loud ping as it hit the white tile floor. For good measure, Bobby proceeded to right hook the man in the jaw, sending him to the ground unconscious, and then took a majority of his batteries, and his knife.
The Fortress Page 2