Zombie Apocalypse

by Cassiday, Bryan

  “The bastards,” said Reno, coming up behind Halverson.

  Halverson shouldered his way through the two heavy black metal side-by-side swinging doors that had rubber edges where they met in the doorway. At eye level each door had a judas window made of wire-reinforced glass.

  Standing in the warehouse Halverson swept the immediate vicinity with his eyes.

  He didn’t see any ghouls. He didn’t see any food either. He heard the swinging doors creak behind him as Reno entered the warehouse.

  “Not a food warehouse,” said Reno.

  Rows of stoves, refrigerators, and other kitchen appliances stood in front of them.

  “Close but no cigar,” said Halverson. “Stuff for the kitchen, but not food for it.”

  “Wanna take a quick look around to make sure?”

  Halverson checked his wristwatch. “We don’t have time. We better head out.”

  They barged through the swinging doors and brought up on the loading dock.

  Broken Neck was standing there waiting for them.

  Chapter 34

  Halverson cursed. He was sick of these ghouls.

  Broken Neck gaped its jaws. Sallow saliva streamed out the corner of its mouth as its head continued to lie askew on its shoulder. Its withered skeletal hands clawed the air as it trudged toward Halverson.

  Halverson saw red. He was a trained killer. And in a life-or-death situation his reflexes took over. He wasn’t going to use his gun, because he knew the gunshot would alert and attract the other walking dead in the area. There were hundreds of other ways to kill and he knew all of them.

  Setting his feet he girded his loins.

  Broken Neck shambled toward him. With Broken Neck in his sights, Halverson launched a violent tae kwon do kick to the creature’s neck, pulverizing its larynx with his heel and creating devastating cricoid damage. Halverson could feel his foot crashing through the creature’s throat and all but decapitating the creature.

  Broken Neck brought up short, rocked by the crushing blow to its throat.

  Yet the creature did not fall.

  It was not dead, its brain intact. It continued on its lurching death march toward Halverson.

  Halverson should have known better. For an instant, in his moment of reflexive retaliation, he had forgotten he was dealing not with a human but with a ghoul.

  Halverson snapped his hunting knife out of his waistband and moved in for the kill. He strode up to Broken Neck, jammed his knife through the bottom of the creature’s shattered jaw, through its green leathery tongue, through its sere palate, and deep into its brain, slamming its yawning mouth shut with the impact of the knife’s hilt on the base of its jaw.

  Broken Neck’s knees buckled as it fell.

  Halverson yanked his knife out of Broken Neck’s head on the creature’s way down. He wiped the oozing grey brains off the blade onto his trouser leg.

  Broken Neck collapsed in a heap on the cement floor of the loading dock. The creature’s body spasmed a few times before it lay motionless.

  “Where’d you learn that?” asked Reno.

  “What?” said Halverson.

  “That kick. You looked like a professional. Isn’t that martial arts?”

  “I took a few courses in college,” lied Halverson self-deprecatorily with a shrug. He couldn’t very well tell Reno the truth—that he had learned the move at the CIA’s Camp Peary.

  “You’re a man of many parts.”

  “We better head back to the Zodiac.”

  Halverson turned to head for the exit. He felt Reno grab his arm from behind.

  Halverson halted and pivoted around to face him.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t head back,” said Reno.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Bascomb’s an SOB. I’m thinking maybe we’d be better off if we parted company with him. Right now’s as good a time as any to split.”

  “It’s not safe here with the ghouls all around. The whole mainland’s infested with them.”

  “Still . . . Bascomb, in the end, may be more dangerous to us than the ghouls.”

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Reno looked puzzled. “What?”

  “We can’t leave Victoria, Parnell, and Brittany behind.”

  “Why not? We might be better off on our own.”

  Halverson didn’t like the idea of leaving Victoria. He was becoming attached to her, whether he liked it or not. He had watched her lose her daughter to the plague, and she had watched him lose his brother in the same manner. They had been through a lot together through this time of crisis. He could not bring himself to cut and run from her.

  She could probably fend for herself, he decided, as could Parnell and Brittany. But that wasn’t the point. He felt in a way responsible for them. After all, it was his idea to land them on Alcatraz. If something dire should befall them there, the blame would rest on his shoulders.

  “We can’t leave the others behind,” he said.

  “If you don’t look out for yourself, nobody else will.”

  “We’re safer on the island than on the mainland.”

  The other shoe dropped for Reno. His eyes lighted up. “Oh, I get it.”

  Halverson wasn’t following Reno’s train of thought. He shook his head and looked blank.

  “You can’t fool me,” Reno went on. “It’s the money. You don’t want to leave the money behind. I forgot all about the swag for a second. I’m glad you’re on the ball.” He headed for the exit. “Let’s get back to the boat.”

  Reno could think whatever he wanted, decided Halverson. Halverson wasn’t going to disabuse him. Observing Reno’s reaction, Halverson felt relieved he and none of the others in their group had spilled the beans about the cash to Bascomb. Bascomb’s awareness of the presence of the money would only serve to add another combustible element to their already smoldering relationship with him.

  Halverson and Reno emerged from the loading dock.

  Halverson checked out the alley to see if the coast was clear. He pricked up his ears. He thought he heard a scraping sound at the end of the cul-de-sac.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked.

  “I didn’t hear anything. All I know is I feel hinky.”

  “That looks like a fish-and-chips restaurant at the end of the alley.”

  “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? Let’s get something to eat.”

  Reno turned and angled toward the greasy spoon.

  “The foods gonna be spoiled,” said Halverson. “Like everywhere else.”

  “Only the food in the freezers. Anyway, we need to take back supplies to the boat. They must have food in the café.”

  A breeze gusted down the alley, throwing pages from an old newspaper tumbling through the air.

  Halverson glanced at his wristwatch. “We need to head back.”

  “This’ll only take a few minutes. What are a few minutes more or less?”

  At that moment, a short female figure with a round Hispanic face shuffled out of the narrow door to the fish-and-chips café. She had her brown hair tied back in a tight bun.

  Reno pulled to a halt at the sight of her, his senses on the qui vive.

  “Is she OK?” asked Halverson, who was standing farther away from the figure than was Reno and could not discern the condition of her face.

  At that moment a scream from inside the café rent the air.

  A hysterical middle-aged woman clad in a pin-striped pantsuit spun out of the doorway, blood jetting from her shoulder where her left arm used to be. She stumbled and fell on the street, screaming for help.

  A twentysomething male pushing six feet appeared in the café doorway. Three days’ growth of stubble adorned his face. Wearing a grey hoodie with its torn white pockets hanging inside out, he stood on the doorstep, blood rilling from his open mouth. The woman’s left arm hung from his hand and streamed blood onto the buckled sidewalk.

  As soon as the wounded middle-aged woman hit the ground, the sh
ort Hispanic female figure fell on her and commenced tearing the woman’s throat out with its green teeth.

  Reno shouldered his AK-47, aimed it, and fired two rounds into the ghoul. The Hispanic ghoul continued feeding on the woman’s shredded and bleeding throat.

  “You need to hit the head,” said Halverson.

  “I was trying to,” said Reno. “I’ve never fired one of these things before.”

  Halverson leveled his AK-47 at the creature and blew out the back of its head with two brief bursts.

  As if on cue, a knot of creatures piled out of the café into the alley.

  “Shit,” said Reno, on the verge of running to help the wounded woman. “We can’t help her now.”

  He retreated to where Halverson was standing.

  More creatures continued to plow out of the café, sniffing the air as if they could sense the proximity of living human flesh.

  Halverson and Reno turned to split.

  Halverson’s heart stopped at the sight in front of him.

  Chapter 35

  Attracted by the reports of the gunshots, a gaggle of moth-eaten creatures was drifting with their signature herky-jerky movements toward the mouth of the alley.

  They were going to box Halverson and Reno in the alley. By design or not, Halverson did not know. He doubted they had the intellectual capacity to plan such a maneuver. In any case, it did not matter. What mattered was the creatures were going to hem Halverson and Reno in if the two of them did not break free from the dead end in short order.

  Halverson and Reno sprang into action.

  They pegged toward the alley’s mouth as the ghouls closed in on it from the thoroughfare that intersected it.

  Halverson and Reno opened fire, trying to prevent the walking dead from reaching the alley’s entrance before them.

  They had no choice.

  If they didn’t reach the entrance before the ghouls, the ghouls would trap them in the cul-de-sac and tear them apart limb from limb.

  It was crucial not to think of all the things that could go wrong, Halverson knew. You had to concentrate on the one thing—getting out of the cul-de-sac before it closed up. You had to have tunnel vision. All that existed for him at that moment was that spot of daylight at the end of the alley. Nothing else existed. He must focus on that one thing to accomplish his escape. Or he would wind up dead meat for the flesh-eating walking dead.

  Heart pounding, gasping for air, he churned his legs, thrusting them in a hell-for-leather sprint for daylight. He must succeed, he told himself. He must reach freedom. You can do this! he told himself.

  Grinding his teeth he blasted the ghouls with his AK-47 till its magazine clicked empty. And still the ghouls came, shambling to cut him off at the intersection, even as several of them dropped in their tracks from his shots to their heads.

  Of the two of them, Halverson was the first to reach the intersection, while Reno wasn’t far behind, his AK-47 empty, as was Halverson’s.

  The vanguard of the ghouls was just reaching the alley entrance as Halverson charged up. A clutch of the creatures lumbered toward him, blocking his way out. All jerking arms and legs, they scrabbled toward him in their ratty clothes.

  The reek of the creatures at such close range was overpowering. Gagging, Halverson barreled into them, wielding his AK-47 like a club as he gripped its muzzle. Fueled by adrenaline, he swung with all his might at the creatures’ heads.

  He bashed in two decomposed, grimacing heads in quick succession, pulverizing the brains. The two mortally wounded creatures slumped on the asphalt, their hands twitching in extremis.

  Halverson had to hack a gap through the creatures’ frontline ranks to break through the wall of walking dead to freedom. Reinforcements of hundreds of ghouls were approaching and, as soon as they arrived, would plug up any gaps in the front line.

  Without further ado, Halverson swung his AK-47 and dashed in the brains of a five ten male creature weighing over three hundred pounds. Halverson flinched as he heard the muffled sound of the creature’s skull cracking open and saw gouts of brain matter squeezing out of the mutilated head like epoxy. Gobs of brains splattered on Halverson’s mouth. He spat them away in disgust and wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand.

  He thought he was going to throw up, but he didn’t have time for it. He had to make his break. It was now or never. The zombie reinforcements would be on him and Reno soon. Then all would be lost.

  As the overweight creature fell with its head stove in and its brains bubbling out, Halverson saw daylight. This was the path to freedom.

  He trampled over the ghoul’s massive belly and called back to Reno, “Over here!”

  Halverson plowed into the empty thoroughfare.

  Reno barged after him, jabbing his AK-47’s muzzle at a twentyish roly-poly redheaded female creature that was reaching for him. He poked the redhead in the forehead to keep the creature at bay. The muzzle slid down the creature’s brow, into its eye, and gouged the eye out.

  “Jesus!” said Reno, watching the white-filmed eye pop out onto the pavement.

  Halverson made short work of assessing the situation. Mobs of the walking dead were closing in on his right. His left, on the other hand, looked free of ghouls. The problem was, the way back to the Zodiac lay to his right.

  Too many of the staggering walking dead were jammed together blocking the direct route to the boat. He and Reno would never be able to cut a swath through their serried, writhing numbers.

  He had no time to waste.

  He bolted to his left, Reno in tow.

  “The boat’s the other way,” said Reno.

  “We’ll have to take the scenic route,” said Halverson.

  “Not funny.”

  They barreled down the road, hung a right at the first intersection, then took another right and doubled back toward the boat.

  Reno had difficulty keeping up with Halverson, who was in better shape.

  “Where’s the fire?” said Reno, gasping for breath, dropping behind Halverson.

  “Our time’s up,” said Halverson. “We have to get back to the boat before Bascomb leaves without us.”

  “He wouldn’t dare do that.” Reno paused a beat. “Would he?”

  “In a New York minute.”

  “I don’t know if I can keep up this pace much longer,” said Reno between groans as he ran. “This is what comes from having a desk job.”

  “We should be there soon.”

  “I hope you know where you’re going,” said Reno, lagging farther behind. “I sure don’t.”

  “Just stay with me.”

  “I don’t get much exercise in my job. I don’t see how you can be in such good condition for a fellow journalist.”

  Halverson could not blow his reporter’s cover and reveal to Reno that he was in reality a spy working for the black ops National Clandestine Service.

  Instead, Halverson egged Reno on. “My granny can run faster than you.”

  Slackening his gait a bit, Halverson glanced behind him in time to catch sight of Reno flashing a middle finger at him. Halverson put on speed.

  “I wish your granny was here instead of me!” hollered Reno.

  Halverson rounded the bend and came to a halt, breathing hard, lungs burning.

  From his coign of vantage he could make out the walking dead swarming toward the quay where the Zodiac was moored.

  “The boat’s leaving!” he cried to Reno.

  Not true, but Halverson’s words had the desired effect of lighting a fire under Reno’s feet.

  Chapter 36

  Halverson could see Bascomb and the rest of his men frantically loading supplies onto the boat as the ghouls lumbered toward them.

  At length, tongue hanging out, panting, Reno jogged up to Halverson and took a gander at the scene unfolding before them.

  “You bastard,” gasped Reno. “The boat’s still there.”

  “You were moving too slow,” explained Halverson.

  Halverson pre
pared to make a dash for the boat.

  Reno latched onto Halverson’s arm and crouched over. “I need to catch my breath.”

  Halverson waved at Bascomb, trying to signal him to wait for them. Halverson didn’t want to call out and alert the walking dead. He could not tell if Bascomb saw his gesticulating. If Bascomb had seen him, he gave no acknowledgment.

  “We can make it if we move fast,” Halverson told Reno.

  Hunkered down, Reno squinted up toward Halverson. “Do you want me to have a heart attack?”

  While he was looking down at Reno, Halverson picked up on a narrow yellow plastic wand a couple inches long lying on the asphalt near his feet. At the end of the wand’s shank was a circle. Halverson recognized the wand as a toy like one he had owned as a kid that he used to blow bubbles with.

  As a child, blowing bubbles, he would sit back and watch with amazement as the soapy, iridescent spheres floated up from his puckered lips, borne by the wind. Or he would wave the plastic wand through the air, producing a multitude of bubbles that floated and burst around him.

  He thought of his childhood, where his life lay before him with infinite possibilities. It seemed like anything could happen back then and he looked forward to the idyllic future.

  And now . . .

  Now all he had before him was a plague-infected planet overrun with the walking dead. What the hell had happened? he wondered.

  And time was running out.

  “I don’t like our chances if that boat leaves without us,” he said.

  “You talked me into it.”

  They shot down the street toward the dock where Bascomb and his men were finishing loading supplies onto the Zodiac that bobbed in the ocean.

  Standing in the boat, directing his men where to put the boxes onboard, Bascomb cocked his head as he caught sight of Halverson and Reno scrambling toward him.

  Bascomb raked his eyes over Halverson and Reno.

  “Where are your supplies?” Bascomb demanded.

  “Supplies?” exclaimed Reno in outrage as he gasped for breath. “We’re lucky to be alive and all you can think about is supplies!”