by Bible, Jake
“Anyone have ammo at all?” Reaper asks.
“Just what’s left in my rifle,” John says. “Which won’t be so useful in close quarters.”
“We won’t need ammunition to get down there,” Cassie says. “Sisters? Ready?”
“Ready,” they say in unison.
“Ready,” I add, just wanting to be part of the gang. The looks I get tell me I’m not going to learn the secret handshake anytime soon. “Sorry.”
“Stay close to me,” Elsbeth says, “you’re my family.”
I nod, knowing what she means.
“One, two, three!” Stuart says as he kicks the poles out of the way.
The door bursts open and Zs come streaming out at us. It’s all blades and butts, slashing and bashing. Uh, by butts I mean butts of the rifles. I didn’t mean actual butts. Although being able to assttack someone would be pretty cool.
Cassie and the sisters take lead, followed by Stuart, John and Reaper. Elsbeth is next with me and Melissa right behind. I’m really there for moral support since we don’t have any Zs behind us. The professionals are doing all the actual work. I jam a pole up against the door to keep it propped open, giving us some light.
We make it down the first flight of stairs before a scream and a string of curses fill the stairwell.
“Dehlia’s been bit!” someone shouts. “Motherfucker!”
Shit, one of the sisters caught some Z teeth.
But we don’t slow; they just keep pushing through. Only fourteen more floors to go.
Which wouldn’t be so bad if the Zs were only in the stairwell. They aren’t.
“Fuck!” I yell as a stairway door opens and a dozen Zs try to push through at the same time.
I have a couple options here: keep running and let the Zs get through or take out some Zs while they’re wedged in like Black Friday shoppers at a Wal-Mart.
If I leave them then they’ll just be at our backs in a few minutes, making things worse. If I go after them now, then I have a very likely chance of dying. I roll my shoulder, letting the excruciating pain remind me that I’m dead anyway, I’m just the only one that knows it.
“Got ‘em!” I shout as I turn and head toward the snarling Zs.
They are pretty stuck, but I can start to see skin and flesh tearing under their rotted clothes. They’ll slip-slide their way through in no time. I don’t hesitate and go at them, Stumpageddon raised with Mr. Spikey ready to pierce some skulls.
“Long Pork!” Elsbeth shouts from below as she and Melissa realize I’m no longer behind them.
Can’t really stop and think of how pissed she is going to be at me, just have to kill, kill, kill. Faster pussycat!
Mr. Spikey drives right through one Z’s head, sending shattered, and kinda mushy, skull and brains out the back. The smell is quite lovely; a nice cross between the ass end of a dead syphilitic possum and, well, shit. Yeah, I couldn’t think of anything more creative than shit. It smelled like syphilitic possum and shit.
“Long Pork!”
“Sorry!” I yell as I punch a Z in the face then get all stabby on two other Zs.
The bodies that can get loose from the crowd slump to the ground while others just hang there, jostled and shoved by their still hungry brethren. And sistren. Is sistren a word?
The numbers are down to five and that’s when the dam breaks. Here come the Zs! They lunge at me, moving faster than I anticipate because of the sudden momentum. I have two on me and I stumble backwards, my one hand reaching for the railing. I catch it, but don’t get Stumpageddon up in time and I’m suddenly face to stanky face with a Z. Its jaws snap shut and I am close enough to see cracks form in its teeth. It chomps down again and bits of rotten enamel spray onto my cheek. Jesus these things have strong jaws.
“Get down,” Elsbeth hisses next to me.
You know, I’d really like to, but physics are not on my side. I have a Z in my face and its work buddy pushing up against it, pinning me to the railing. Stumpageddon is wedged between the Z and me and my other arm is just trying to hang onto the rail so I don’t fall and get covered by Zs.
Oh, wait, my hand.
I let go and the weight of the Zs takes me down to the concrete landing. I watch as Elsbeth decapitates one, coating me in Z blood, and then kills the other, yet again coating me in more Z blood. Joy.
“Get up,” she says and grabs me by my bad shoulder as I try to pull myself up buy the railing.
“AAAAAA! FUCK!” I scream as she wrenches my shoulder.
“Are you hurt, Jace?” Melissa asks, helping me to my feet. “Did one of those Zs bite you?”
“No,” I say. Which is the truth. One of those Zs didn’t. But...
I can see the suspicion in their eyes and neither of them tries to hide the look they give each other.
“I swear on my family’s souls that neither of those Zs bit me,” I say, “cross my heart and hope to die.”
“That’s not something to hope for,” Elsbeth says, getting right in my face. “So don’t say that.”
“Aye aye, captain,” I say. “Can we go now?”
“Come on,” Melissa says and led us down the stairs.
The rest of the group is about three floors ahead of us and we have to jump and hop over Z corpses every step of the way. It’s a bit of the apocalypse two-step because not all of the Zs are stilled. Some of them have had their legs and arms chopped off, making them immobile, but still dangerous with the chompers.
I kick in a couple Z faces, careful not to lose my footing in the gunk slick stairs, and stay close to Elsbeth and Melissa. They are busy themselves finishing off the Zs that have taken a licking, but keep on ticking. We’re almost one floor above the rest of the team when another scream fills the air.
Then the rage yells hit and the entire stairwell is filled with the sounds of women shouting and bones crunching. I can hear Stuart yelling for them to get control of themselves, but as I look over the railing, all I see are women going all Viking berserk on some Zs.
We race to the next landing and stand there stunned; well, Melissa and I are stunned, but Elsbeth is grinning from ear to ear. So, being Elsbeth, she jumps in. Can’t blame her since it looks like so much fun...if you are a rage monster from hell.
A Z arm is ripped right out of the shoulder by Steph and she slams it into the thing’s head, again and again. That’s a favorite move of mine; beating a Z to death with its own arm. Priceless!
Cassie has a Z by the throat and I can see its skin sloughing off around her hand, but she doesn’t care. She also doesn’t care about the snapping jaws as she brings the fucker’s face right up against hers so they are almost touching, nose to nose. Then SNAP and the thing’s neck cracks in half. The weight of its body pulls the neck flesh apart and all Cassie has left in her hand is part of a spine and the head. Which is still snapping at her. She blows it a kiss then throws the head against the wall. It explodes like a ripe melon.
Next to her, pretty much shoulder to shoulder, is Brittany. And that woman is crazy! She grabs a Z by the head then jumps up against the wall, almost walking across it, coming down hard on the other side. The Z’s head is twisted completely around and then all I see is her fist come exploding out of the thing’s belly with part of its spine! She yanks back and the Z folds in on itself, but before it can fully fall, she grabs the head and rips it off then crushes it against the wall. Holy fuck!
Audrey is right behind and she actually tackles a Z around the waist, but instead of falling all the way down she uses her momentum to flip herself over it, landing on her feet with the Z wrapped in her arms upside down. The thing is thrashing against her, its jaws trying to bite her calves, but she could give a shit as she drops onto her ass. Fucking piledriver! The Z turns into a crumpled mess of bone and blech.
Elsbeth is in on the action, but she’s more a blades girl. She spins and takes off the head of a Z with one blade then splits it in half with the other. Then she does it again. And again. Slice, pop, split. Slice, pop, split
. Like flicking the heads off dandelions. But with more gore. A lot more gore.
Down below us is Dehlia, screaming at the top of her lungs and killing and crushing every Z in sight. She could give a shit about the Zs that get through and snatch a nibble here and there. She knows she’s done and is all about making a sacrifice count.
I need to pay attention to that.
Stuart, John and Reaper come up behind the women and act as clean up, while Melissa keeps me back, her eyes searching mine constantly, waiting for me to crack and spill the truth. That’s one thing about surviving a zombie apocalypse, you sniff out bullshit fast. It’s what keeps you alive in the first crucial months. You can’t get suckered in by lies or you end up robbed, raped, murdered, and, well, eaten. So Melissa keeps watching me, hoping the attention will make me crack.
What she doesn’t know is all I’m doing is focusing on the pain. I’m using it as fuel to drive me to my end goal of seeing my family one last time. It finally hits me that my true worth is as a sacrifice. I can’t stay with them all, not for long, it’s too dangerous and I could turn at anytime and get all snacky on my friends. Or, God forbid, my wife and kids. So all I want to do is see them and know they are going to be safe. Then I’ll use my last moments on this planet as best I can: end this nightmare right.
I don’t know how I’ll end it, but now, finally, I know I have to end it.
Knowing is half the battle, right?
Then the screams below us turn to sheer pain and I glance over the railing to see Dehlia get wedged into a corner. A Z is at her throat, and she’s able to keep it away, but it’s the one chomping at her belly that’s the problem. Her t-shirt is torn and bloody as the Z’s mouth goes to work. For a second she looks up at us, fear on her face, then it’s nothing but determination.
She shoves away from the corner, her knee ramming the Z at her belly, and she wraps her arms around one then two Zs, as she rushes towards the railing. A third and fourth Z are caught up in her embrace and then she’s gone, over the railing, falling, falling, falling, thud.
The cries from the sisters are almost ear splitting and I have to turn my head away at the anguished violence that erupts. I know the things are monsters, but I’ve never seen more anger and hatred directed at anything in my life. The stairwell is filled with rotten flesh confetti as hands tear, feet crush, blades slice, and everything that isn’t breathing is ripped apart.
It’s all the rest of us can do to keep our footing; there isn’t a single stable place to step. Everything, and I include the walls, ceiling, and railings, is coated in Z gore. It drips from light fixtures, from doorknobs, from old, useless video cameras- everything. It’s like this the rest of the way down.
Then we’re there, at the third floor landing.
The sisters are panting, close to exhaustion as the adrenaline that has been fueling them threatens to slip away. A couple of them slap each other in the face to keep fired up, to stay focused, but I can see others start to slack a little. Not Elsbeth, though. No, she takes the lead from Cassie and opens the door, her blade sliding right through the skull of a Z as if she knew it was there.
Another gets the Elsbeth treatment then another. The women crowd in close behind her then fan out as they get into the hallway beyond. Wide windows at the end of the hall illuminate them and all I can see past Stuart and the rest are silhouettes of death and the shadows of blood and gore splattering against the walls. In a different time, it would be considered grotesque, but for me, right now, it’s true beauty.
Don’t tell Stella.
“East windows!” Melissa yells. “Turn left!”
The women get to the end of the hall and turn left, having dispatched the rest of the Zs that blocked our way. But that’s the last we see of them. The entire wall of windows ahead of us explodes inward, showering us with fire and glass.
“WELL, SHIT MY BRITCHES and call me Mary,” Critter snarls. “Them’s sons of bitches. Move yer ass, Red, we gots some whirlybirds to take down!”
The haul truck passes Walnut St and pushes forward towards the BB&T building. But high above is a Blackhawk, hovering just where Critter needs the truck to stop. Its guns go hot and a thousand rounds a second pour into the third, fourth and fifth floors. The windows are vaporized and sparks and fire flash as the bullets hit the metal frames of the windows and the building itself.
Critter sights then fires his rifle. But misses completely. He sights again just as the Blackhawk’s guns whir to a stop. Once more, he fires, but it ricochets off one of the skids. Yet the shot wasn’t completely in vain; it did alert the helicopter to their presence.
The Blackhawk starts to turn, the guns whirling back to life.
“Well, shit,” Critter mumbles then turns to everyone. “Free rations and drink for a year to anyone that can bring that piece of crap down!”
“Fire!” Lourdes shouts.
It’s hard to tell what is louder: the helicopter or the sound of dozens of rifle bolts being pulled back. The Blackhawk’s guns start to fire, but it takes it a second to dial in on its target. That’s one second too long.
The windshield of the helicopter shatters as round after round is fired into it. The Blackhawk starts to fly back and forth and then its main rotors cut into the BB&T building, sending the helicopter spinning to the ground. It explodes on impact. As do the rockets attached to its skids.
The heat buffets the haul truck and Red shouts from the cab as the glass in front of him splinters into his face. Despite the “safety” element of the glass, it’s still deadly to exposed eyeballs.
“Fuck!” Red screams and the truck veers off to the right, slamming into what had been a vibrant café, but is now a graveyard of Zs still wearing pretentious vests and fedoras.
Red is screaming and clawing at the glass chunks embedded in his eyes, when Charlie bursts into the cab.
“I got ya, I got ya,” Charlie says and pulls Red from the seat.
“Give him to me,” Dr. McCormick says, following Charlie, and lays Red out on the platform next to the cab.
She starts to order Charlie to fetch her kit from the truck bed, but the teenager has turned back around and is jumping into the driver’s seat. He doesn’t bother to wipe away the glass, and gets some shards in his ass for his haste, but he doesn’t care as he stares at the instruments before him.
“How hard can it be?” he asks, then depresses the clutch, pushes the truck into gear, and hits the gas.
The monster vehicle lurches and stutters forward as Charlie gets the hang of the clutch to gas ratio then it starts speeding up. Charlie shifts and gives it more gas. They are only feet from the BB&T building when the second Blackhawk comes from around the other side. Charlie sees it and narrows his eyes.
“Fuck you,” he snarls.
MY ONE ARM COVERS MY head as I bury my face into the nasty carpet. My ears are ringing and I can barely make out someone shouting at me. I have to say that the zombie apocalypse is hell on the hearing. If I’m lucky, I’ll die before I go deaf. Oh, wait, I forgot...
“Holy shit,” Melissa says. She’s probably shouting, but it sounds like a whisper to me.
As I get to my feet all I see is empty space. Where there once were walls there’s just shredded drywall and scorched metal studs. Everything has been obliterated by the helicopter. You see belt guns in the movies and laugh as they tear up cars and other shit, but it’s no laughing matter when you’re staring the aftermath in the face. It’s all fucking gone.
“Straight ahead,” Melissa says. “Go! The truck is outside those windows!”
We stumble-run our way through the debris, headed straight for the windows. We can see another Blackhawk, but it’s not facing us. Which means it’s facing the truck. A truck with my family in it.
“No!” I shout and run forward, grabbing a pistol off Stuart’s belt. “NO!”
I start firing, but the magazine is empty, of course. So what do I do? I toss the fucking pistol at the helicopter!
It bounces right
off.
So I pick up a hunk of metal.
CHARLIE SEES THE PISTOL bounce ineffectively off the side of the helicopter and he frowns.
“Are you kidding me?” he says, then sees his dad standing at the edge of the third floor as he chucks a hunk of metal right into the chopper’s windshield.
It does zero damage, but distracts the pilot enough that he begins to turn back towards the building. Charlie, without even thinking about what he’s doing, keeps driving forward while struggling to pull the Desert Eagle from his waistband. He yanks on it and yanks on it, but it’s caught on his belt.
“Ah, fuck!” he shouts as he takes his other hand off the wheel.
The truck begins to ease off course and takes out a lamppost. Then a crosswalk sign, then a streetlight pole. People in back are screaming and Charlie can hear voices shouting at him as they hurry towards the cab, but he doesn’t care because he finally gets the Desert Eagle free.
And fires. And fires. And fires.
The rotor engines begin to whine, the pitch building until Charlie has to drop the massive pistol and cover his ears. Smoke trails up from the main rotor and the Blackhawk starts to shudder. Then a loud clang fills the street and the rotors freeze up, stopping almost instantly. The rest of the helicopter begins to turn then the entire thing basically rips itself apart. The body falls towards the ground as the rotor splits and separates, spinning through the air. Right at the truck.
The pain doesn’t register at first, but quickly, as the body of the Blackhawk is engulfed in flame, Charlie notices something isn’t right.
“Charlie?” Stella asks from the door of the cab. “CHARLIE!”
“Mom?” Charlie says, looking at his chest. And the large sliver of metal that sticks out from it. “Mommy?”
I CAN’T MOVE.
My hand grips the burning metal of the building’s window frame, but I don’t care. My focus isn’t on the flaming helicopters that litter the street, or the equally flaming Zs that are shuffling around, setting fire to everything combustible that they run into. No, all I can see is my son a story below me as the truck rolls up under us. I see him for just a few seconds before someone stops the truck and he’s lost from sight.