The Clock Runs Down: Half Past the Apocalypse

by Joe Kelly

  Paramedics are called to the scene after Billy Bob has had a heart attack and then finally dies. The first thing he does is take a bite out of a paramedic leaning over him. And maybe takes a bite out of a few others before the paramedics get him strapped down and in the ambulance. Other ambulances show up to take the other victims to the hospital.

  Then there’s wrecks, cops and paramedics are on site. A few people die, but for the people who didn’t see them die. They just look ill and warped, but have to be alive since they are moving in the wreckage, and they get bit trying to help and a few more infected are on the way to the hospital. Except in one case, a cop drives himself, and stops for coffee, or because he started feeling bad then he dies and starts attacking the nearest group of people. And now more people are bitten.

  Soon the whole damn system is overwhelmed, the hospitals are over run. The undead spill out of the hospitals chewing on everyone they can catch. No one wants to shoot infected family members or friends at first, and they get bitten. The remaining cops, paramedics maybe even some doctors and nurses head out of town. Because they know what they are facing at last and knowing they can’t stop it and not wanting to die they leave and soon the whole thing spirals out of control.

  Just one in a crowd, how many could it bite before someone shoots it. Two, three, five, More? And if those five each bite five more people.” He paused to let that sink in then added “Geometric progression of numbers everywhere.” Jared said, not thrilled with the idea, but it was the only thing that made sense.

  “Stories like that were all over the hospital,” Sharon added, “I didn’t believe them, most of us didn’t believe them. Now I guess they were true.” She paused for a moment. “one of the guys at the hospital said the same thing Jared, he did the math and said by today there could be fifty thousand of those things in Just NYC, close to twenty five thousand of them in Nashville but that was just thinking about people being bitten, what about the people who died of heart attacks, car wrecks, accidents in general.”

  “so if just three hundred died the first day and bit five people, that’s fifteen hundred of them with in 24 hours, then the cycle repeats the next day and that’s what seven thousand five hundred then thirty seven thousand five hundred of them by the third day…” Mark said softly he was having trouble accepting it.

  “One hundred eighty seven thousand five hundred of them by the fourth” Steve finished for him

  “Jesus” Chris whispered looking pale. “no wonder Nashville went under so fast.”

  The rest of the group looked stunned as they considered it. “But, all we have to do is die, that’s it” Ronny said his sense of humor for once totally absent.

  “That’s it, or at least what it looks like. I mean there wasn’t a bite mark on those guys.” Jared said, turning to look at Rob and Chris who had looked over the corpses. Chris shook his head, his eyes looked haunted.

  “Not one sign of a bite, and the way their buddies lit out of there, they weren’t expecting it either. And they would if those two had been bitten. And the sniper Ori shot was coming back to life, or whatever, when we went and checked, no bites on him either the same with the one you took down Jared.”

  “Well ain't this just some real happy shit” Warren said finally breaking his silence.

  “Well, it’s a shit filled happy meal that’s a fact” Jared said, standing and brushing away Mary’s hand as she tried to tend the wounds on his cheek.

  “This changes everything.” Chris said softly.

  “Bullshit Chris, it changes nothing. It started like this we just didn’t know it till now. So we go with not getting bit and worry about the rest when someone kicks over.” Jared looked from one to another. “Or we just give up right here and eat a bullet,” he didn’t wait for an answer he just turned and headed for his truck.

  They reached the Sand pits an hour before sunset. After clearing the buildings, They made camp and settled in and spent maybe an hour talking over an MRE Dinner before setting up a watch schedule and retiring for the night. By dawn they were loaded up and on their way again.

  Their luck cratered around noon the next day, when they encountered a massive wreck on the bridge they had to cross. The small convoy stopped just before rolling onto the bridge. Ten or so undead staggered around the wreckage, drawn to the sound of the motors.

  “That’s the first undead we’ve seen in this area” Jill said, Jared only nodded as he turned the truck around in the yard of a farm house. “Head on back the way we came folks, looks like we have to go thru Livingston” Jared said.” Ronny out front no more than a mile ahead.”

  An hour later as they passed thru another town nestled between two high hills and a river, Jared pointed to a nursing home, the grounds were filled with undead that wandered around aimlessly, till the noise of the convoy attracted them. There had never really been a chance that whatever this was hadn’t spread this far out.

  Jared wished that Jill talked more he really didn’t need time to dwell on the situation. Not yet at any rate. But here he was, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going on. He couldn’t point to any one thing that set off that internal alarm. But there it was ringing its happy ass off.

  He glanced at Jill for a second taking in her profile, she wasn’t the same woman from the gym. Not after what she had gone through. She was harder, almost distant but she was what she had to be to survive in the world of today. He would have to watch her and the others, he didn’t want them cracking up. Not after they had made it this far. But how much farther would they have to go before this nightmare ended. He asked himself, and he had no answer.

  He reached over and turned on the CD player, he really didn’t need to spend any more time in his own head. Music filled the cab and in a moment he found himself singing along losing himself in the music.

  They rolled into Livingston, to Ac/Dc’s “sink the pink. As good as any other song, as an Apocalypse theme, Jared thought tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. Livingston, was thankfully lacking in road blocking wreckage and barricades. Here and there he saw a few zombies, but nothing approaching the numbers in and around Nashville. He wondered idly, how Cookeville might have fared. He had no real desire to drive over to the college town and see how many college students were enrolled in Zombie U.

  As they approached the center of town the radio crackled to life. “You might want to check out the elementary school as you pass, there’s a shit pot of those things clawing at the front door” Ronny said, he was a mile ahead of them scouting out the roads and this was the first time he had called back to them since leaving the sand pits. “Roger that, ” Jared replied.

  “There it is,” Jill said a couple of minutes later pointing at the school. Not that she needed to point only a blind man could have missed it and the crowd of zombies around the building. He slowed studying the single story brick building with lots of windows set up high in the wall. The sign by the road declared it to be an elementary school.

  “Oh shit” Jared muttered, thinking of the hell who ever inside was going through. And there had to be people inside for those things to be so interested in the school they hadn’t noticed the trucks yet. “Well that that explains why we saw so few when we first rolled in” Jared said eyeing the mob at the school.

  “Hey man what’s up?” Ori asked over the radio from where he was bringing up the rear.

  “Some ones in the school” Jared replied watching as Mark and Steve tapped their brakes up ahead and slowed so they didn’t get to far ahead of Jared or the trailer with all their supplies.

  “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, hold off for a few and lets get a few miles up the road Jared.” Ronny called back. Jared nodded to himself If they were going to do anything they needed a place to stop and make a plan.

  As luck would have it, some of the zombies closer to the road had finally noticed the sound of the motor’s and were starting towards the trucks. “All right, let’s go” Jared said acce
lerating away.

  Twenty minutes later they were parked in a graveled lot off the road and hidden behind thick trees. State Highway trucks and equipment were parked haphazardly around the area. Jared had the idea that the workers had just parked where ever in the haste to get to their own vehicles and home as the world ended.

  “You want to rescue them don’t you” Ronny asked as he climbed from his idling truck looking around for any sign of the undead.

  “We can't leave a bunch of kids in there to starve or worse if those things get inside,” Jared replied. From his tone of voice, his friends knew he wasn’t going to budge on this.

  Not that Ronny didn’t feel exactly the same about it, leaving kids, possibly kids he thought. It could be the Swedish sunbathing team in there. Now that would be awesome. He kept the totally inappropriate smile off his face as he leaned on the hood of his truck meeting Jared’s Green eyes.

  “Not saying I want to Jared and we don’t know that who ever is in there are kids. But how exactly do you propose to get to them. There’s maybe three or four hundred of those things outside. And we aint Special Forces guys with air support and arty on call.” Ronny pointed out. Jill climbed up on the roof of the Jared’s truck and sat down, crossbow in hand, keeping on eye out for any undead that might appear.

  “And if we do get in there, and there’s more than two or three how are we going to get them all in the trucks.” Ronny continued. Jared looked around for moment thinking. Ronny had a point, a damn good point. If they died trying to get to the survivors in the school, it was over. If they busted in and found out there wasn’t enough room to get the survivors out it was over. And if they just left the survivors behind? Well frankly Jared wouldn’t be able to face himself in the mirror for the rest of his life.

  Oh sure he knew he couldn’t save everyone. But if he didn’t try, especially for kids, Well that was just damn wrong. Holding on to values when everything was safe and normal was nothing, the real test was now when there was nothing else left.

  “I saw a school bus in a drive way two miles back “ Jill interjected. Jared’s mind raced at that, considering options and discarding them one by one till finally he settled on something that might work.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Ronny glanced at Mary as they drove back into town, followed by Mark and Chris. As they drew even with the schoolyard, they all began to honk their horns. Mary cranked the window down and fired shots into the crowd. Zombies began to turn and head for the trucks, intent on ripping apart the people inside them.

  Ronny pulled away slowly, followed by his friends and grinned as they were followed. A sizable knot of the dead remained in front of the school clawing at the windows and doors. Jared and the others will just have to take care of them till we get back he thought as he led the zombies on a slow speed pursuit that not even OJ could have rivaled. He keyed his radio “we are rapidly crawling away now. Give us ten minutes then go in”

  “Roger that, Good luck” Jared responded

  Jared watched from the passenger seat of Steve’s truck as they rounded the curve and could finally see the School. “Not too bad” he muttered as he saw only sixty or so of the undead. Ronny had pulled a lot of them away, with his decoy ride.

  “Your definition of not bad and mine are totally different.” Steve said as he looked over the parking lot that was filled with undead. Jared shrugged then looked back to see the school bus was right on their butts. Bridget had volunteered to drive it, since she had at one point been a school bus driver. This was more experience than the others had. Though Ori had argued it couldn’t be any harder than driving a Duece and half.

  “Well let’s clear the road” Jared said and braced himself as Steve sped up and bumped over the curb and into the parking lot of the school. He winced as the large truck rolled over Zombies. Trying to ignore the crunch and dry snapping noise of breaking bones. Ori stayed behind the Bus, covering the rear as Bridget stopped on the road waiting till Jared and Steve had cleared a way to the door.

  They pulled up under the rain cover that sheltered students from the rain as they left the building to board the buses, there were still ten Zombies standing between the truck and the front doors of the school. As one they turned and staggered for the truck. Jared and Steve donned ear protection and then Jared began to fire into the crowd, dropping the last of the zombies in the doorway.

  With the immediate area around the door cleared, they made another pass thru the lot, Steve running over everything he could reach that moved. As they swung around and headed for the doors again, Bridget, driving the bus, pulled into the parking lot and followed the truck at a distance.

  The remaining zombies closest to the entrance stumbled thru the hedges at the edge of the parking area and stumbled under the rain Cover. The zombies left in the parking lot were to far away to pose a danger for now. They seemed to have a hard time navigating between the parked cars. “drop me at the doors, I’ll finish off the last ones on foot then you pull up near the street entrance on this side and keep that area clear.” Jared said, Steve nodded not happy about this part of the plan.

  As they passed under the Rain cover Steve slowed allowing Jared to leap out. Praying this wasn’t a mistake Steve sped away leaving his best friend alone and on the ground.

  The smell was incredible; the closest zombie struggled over the bodies on the ground, reaching for Jared. Her slack face twisted with a deep hunger as her mouth pistoned open, half her teeth were broken off at the gums. For some reason, he thought she must have been a teacher. He slammed the butt of his rifle into her mouth breaking the last of her teeth, the force of the blow sent her flying back to land on her undead ass before he put a bullet into her head.

  He shifted to the right and shot down a zombie in Sports shorts and a high school football team t-shirt. The former coach fell heavily. Another zombie tripped over a corpse and fell to the ground. She was, or had been a heavy set woman, who had been gnawed on pretty well, her iron gray hair stood up wildly from her head, and the flower pinned to the label of the old fashioned paisley dress she wore was splattered with blood.

  “Mrs. Hartwell” he muttered. Granted half her face was gone, what was left had gravel embedded in it. But she reminded him of his fourth grade teacher, the evil Harpy who had kept all the kids in waking terror of attending school. He shot her down easily, then shot her again just in case.

  He had to step carefully over the bodies that littered the ground. A zombie lunged out from between two cars in the Handicapped parking spaces, he fired twice sending it sprawling on the pavement.

  “Well at least there’s no clowns” he muttered as he shot down a buck toothed twelve year old zombie, the former nerds now unneeded glasses dangled from its oversized ears. The WWJD t-shirt the boy wore was covered in blood. “rest in peace Kid” Jared said, shaking away the black mood that threatened to overwhelm him as the small frail body fell over. And I’m worried about the others falling apart he thought.

  Then suddenly he was at the school doors and began pounding. “Watch your ass.” Steve said over the radio. “There’s a group of shamblers on the road coming your way. And some of the ones we ran over aren’t dead yet, just deadish.” Jared beat on the door again harder this time then turned and placed his back against the door.

  Steve was doing a good job of taking out the ones that remained in the parking lot, which would buy Jared some time. But all the gunfire would draw every walking corpse in town sure as hell. Might as well just fill a hot tub with BBq sauce and take a tranq before climbing in.

  Four feet from him a zombie dragged itself forward, its spine broken from being run over, its jaw dislocated but still snapping as it tried to reach him. He fired a shot and its head exploded. He rammed the butt of his rifle against the door and shouted for them to open up if they wanted to escape.

  He shot two more crawlers who were dragging themselves over the crushed and mangled bodies in their way. The ten zombies on the road were now staggering into the parking l
ot. Steve came to a stop and began to shoot out his window. Ori who had pulled in behind the bus and was blocking that entrance was firing now too, as several zombies rounded the far end of the school building drawn by the gunfire.

  Fire flared in Jared’s ankle, white-hot fear shot thru him as he looked down and saw a Zombie was worrying at his ankle. Teeth buried in his boot. He shot it, then shot it again. Panic subsided as he realized it hadn’t managed to bite thru the boot. “Oh thank god” He muttered. If I had been wearing those crappy zip up the side boots, Id be well on my way to zombiehood.

  How in the hell had he missed seeing one that close. I won’t make that mistake again he swore to himself as he began looking more closely to make sure there wasn’t another crawler before he turned back to the doors.

  “damn it open the freaking doors” Jared bellowed. He saw more zombies coming from the yards across the street. God knows why they hadn’t been here already but really it didn’t matter. They were heading this way now. The bus finally pulled up rolling over and crushing the last Crawling zombie he could see.