by Perrin Briar
“Shut it up!” Taylor said.
Oaks pressed his hand under the creature’s chin and eased it off Steve’s blade.
“Hold it down!” Steve said.
“Don’t let it scratch you!” Susan said.
The creature glared up at them. One of its eyes was missing, its skin harsh and red, half its hair singed away from the side of its face.
“What happened to it?” Susan said.
“Fire,” Steve said. “He was burned by fire.”
“Looks pretty bad,” Susan said.
“Worst I’ve seen,” Steve said. “By all rights he should be dead.”
“Don’t count your chickens,” Oaks said. “I think he is dead.”
“What do you mean, he’s dead?” Taylor said. “Look at him. He’s still flailing around.”
“That he might be,” Oaks said, pressing his fingers to the infected’s throat. “But he doesn’t have a pulse.”
The others were silent, watching this thing on the floor, drool dribbling out the corner of its mouth.
“Are you sure?” Taylor said.
“I might have been out of the field for a while, but I can still find a pulse,” Oaks said.
“What are we up against here?” Steve said, turning to Susan, Phil and Richard. “What kind of virus can do this?”
“We don’t know,” Susan said. “Phil ran some tests and found this virus kills its host. But it appears to take some time.”
“About eight hours,” Phil said. “That’s based on the speed of the virus as it travels through the body, on the information we have.”
“Are you sure?” Richard said.
“Positive,” Phil said. “I have a minor in mathematics, and I can tell you it’d take around that long.”
“Eight hours from a regular human being to one of these things?” Taylor said. “How?”
“The virus infects the host’s cells and shuts them down,” Phil said. “Oh my God!”
He slapped a hand over his mouth.
“I just realized what these things are!” he said. “These things are freakin’ zombies! I didn’t realize it before, but it’s what they are!”
“Zombies?” Taylor said. “Don’t be stupid. They’re not zombies.”
“Then they’re damn close!” Phil said. “Look at them. Normal humans till they get infected, then they turn into these undead monsters!”
He shared a wide-eyed glare with the others.
Zombies? Susan thought. Was it possible? The virus reanimated dead cells and they’d seen them supping on people they’d slain.
“What are you going to do with him?” Richard said, pointing to the figure on the floor, who growled and hissed.
“Put him out of his misery,” Steve said.
“But we’ll have a cure in a few hours,” Susan said. “Maybe we should keep him till then, and use him as a guinea pig to make sure the cure works.”
“I wouldn’t feel safe with this thing at our backs,” Taylor said. “What if it got the jump on us?”
“It won’t,” Susan said. “We have rooms we can lock him inside. We usually use them for chimpanzees. He won’t have a lot of space to move around, but I doubt that’s a problem for him right now.”
Steve nodded.
“Do it,” he said. “Pad the room before putting him inside. We don’t want him making any unnecessary noise and attracting more like him.”
Susan looked at the figure on the floor. They were up against a dark, dangerous shadow form of themselves. She could only pray their humanity and ingenuity were a match for them.
Z-MINUS: 4 hours 23 minutes
Infected wandered up and down the road, lost. Susan couldn’t stop watching them. They just stood there, shuffling their feet. They lacked direction, in need of help, but Susan could sense in her bones that the kind of help they needed wasn’t the type she could give them. There was something wrong with these people. It was in the way they walked, the way they moved. Unnatural.
An infected bumped into a car. It’s lights flashed and the horn honked. The infected wasted no time in tearing into the vehicle, pulling the parts off and scratching the paintwork. More of the creatures approached, growling and striking with clawed hands.
The alarm eventually stopped, but only after the infected had torn the engine to pieces. And the creatures still kept tearing at it. Soon they were inside and tearing at the upholstery. Their lack of apparent vigilance was just a façade. Once something caught their eye, they were fixated on it, giving it their whole undivided attention.
“They’re really not human any longer, are they?” Richard said.
“No,” Susan said. “I don’t think they are.”
“We can’t stop them,” Richard said. “Not if they knew we were in here. They’re going to get in here and kill us, no matter what we try and do.”
“We don’t need to stop them,” Susan said. “Only slow them down enough for Archie to do his business. If we can do that, we win.”
But could they survive that long? If the undead tore at the research center the same way they had the car…
“They don’t know we’re here,” Susan said. “We’re safe.”
“Yes, but for how long?” Richard said.
Z-MINUS: 4 hours 3 minutes
The events and discoveries of the past hour had thrown them all for a loop, none of them quite capable of dealing with what they’d seen. Zombies. That was what they were up against. The living dead. Something from a Sam Raimi movie. But there it was, and here they were. In the eyes of the beast with nowhere to escape.
Steve and Oaks stood at the window, looking out with binoculars. Susan could tell by their silence and the way they kept returning to look at the same spot outside that something had gotten their attention.
“What are you looking at?” Susan said.
“There’s someone out there,” Steve said.
“Care to be more specific?” Susan said.
“I think he’s human,” Oaks said, peering through the binoculars. “Uninfected, I mean. Look. He’s flashing a light in Morse code now.”
“What’s he saying?” Susan said.
Steve focused on the flashing light at the edge of the park, emitted from between two large trees. There was a pause as he received the whole message. A smile bent his features.
“It’s Jericho,” Steve said.
“Jericho?” Susan said. “Who’s that?”
“My friend with the weapons,” Steve said. “The bastard actually made it here!”
“There’s some profanity involved in the message, sir,” Oaks said, eying Susan uncertainly.
Susan smiled. Oaks was young and unsure of himself.
“I forgive you,” Susan said. “Whatever you have to say.”
Oaks gulped, then nodded.
“He’s saying to let him the eff in or he’s going to eff-ing throw these eff-ing weapons away right now,” he said, cheeks burning red.
Steve grinned.
“I wasn’t entirely sure if he was going to come,” he said, “until I told him there would be plenty to shoot at.”
“Great,” Susan said. “But how are we going to get him in here with all those things out there?”
“We’ll need to distract them,” Steve said. “It doesn’t need to be much. They’re dumb creatures.”
“Any ideas?” Susan said. “Preferably it’ll be something that doesn’t require us to have to go out there to meet them and put us in harm’s way.”
“They’re attracted to noise,” Oaks said, “so maybe there’s something we can do with that.”
The idea of going outside and making a ton of noise in an effort to attract the monsters didn’t exactly excite Susan. But what if it didn’t have to be a person?
“I’ve got an idea,” Susan said. “Wait here.”
Susan took off at a run up a flight of stairs. Detritus lay discarded and tossed about the corridor like the clogged veins of an obese giant. She came to a large room with a dozen sma
ll beds down either side of it. It had been the children’s ward, but now it was empty.
Susan pulled up the lid of a large box and came out with a remote control 4x4. She snatched up the iPod and speakers too, and carried them down the stairs.
“Here,” Susan said, rejoining the soldiers. “This is how we’ll get your friend Jericho in here.”
“Jericho might not be the tallest guy,” Steve said. “But even he couldn’t fit in there.”
“We’ll strap the iPod to the top and send the car outside,” Susan said. “Then we’ll drive it away from us. When the distance is good, we can turn the iPod on. The music will play, and the infected will follow it.”
A slow smile bent Steve’s features into a grin. He clapped his hand against his metal replacement.
“Sounds good to me,” he said. “Let’s give it a try. We can even turn the music off and bring the car back to use again later.”
Thud.
Susan almost screamed. There was a light tapping on the window on the first floor. Pink hands pressed against the glass, smearing blood across its surface.
“They’re getting closer,” Oaks said.
“More will come and they’ll beat and pummel and pry at the windows and doors until they get in,” Steve said. “We’d better hurry if we’re going to do this.”
They sent details of the plan back to Jericho, who was still hiding amongst the trees. He flashed a reply back. Oaks snorted.
“What?” Susan said.
“He says he doesn’t much like the idea of putting his life in the hands of a cheap Japanese toy,” Oaks said.
“Best not to tell him it’s a cheap Chinese knockoff,” Steve said.
They decided not to pry open the board covering the windows on the first floor in case the infected heard them and investigated what it was. Instead, they wrapped the RC in ropes and lowered it to the ground from a second floor window, the iPod and speakers poking up from the top like a crown. It touched down, the little car’s wheels spinning and kicking up dirt as it took off.
It handled the rough bumpy ground with ease. The iPod wobbled to and fro on its roof. Its little electric engine made a whirring sound. Many of the nearby undead turned to face the sound, but their movements were slow. The RC was fast and easily outpaced them. Uncertain in the darkness, the infected chased the noise as far as they could before giving up once it moved out of earshot.
“All right,” Steve said. “That’s far enough.”
Oaks was at the RC’s controls. He stopped the little car. Susan pressed the On button on the iPod remote. Nothing happened. She pressed it again.
“Did you press it?” Oaks said.
“Yeah,” Susan said. “It’s not working.”
“Let me try,” Taylor said.
She took the remote and pressed the On button, but again there was no reaction.
“It’s not working,” Taylor said.
“Bring the RC closer,” Steve said. “Maybe it’s out of range.”
Oaks brought the car closer. Taylor hit the button again and again. Finally, the music started. Highway to Hell. The infected groaned and turned in the direction of the music, drawn to it like moths to a flame.
The RC bolted forward, the infected giving chase. They stumbled after it. Oaks moved through the building to maintain visual contact with the remote control car. A growing number of undead approached it.
“Turn up the volume,” Steve said.
Taylor did, and the little RC stopped and turned, as if surveying its surroundings. The undead groaned and grunted as they approached the toy. An undead stumbled and fell, in line to crush the little car beneath him. The little car put on a spurt of speed and zipped underneath a truck.
The infected dived for the car, growling, howling and scraping at the earth and car’s underside with their clawed hands.
Behind them, Jericho stepped from the fringe of trees and ran toward the entrance, crossing the carpark with wide strides. He slowed down quickly. He was bulky with bags and cases on his shoulders. He banged into the cars as he maneuvered between them. An undead, hearing the noise, turned and growled at him.
The RC was surrounded by the undead. They pulled and pried at the car, its protection, and reached underneath it for the music that still blared from the speakers. Susan hit the Off switch and the music stopped, but the undead did not stop attacking, going berserk.
A swipe from one of the undead flipped the remote control car onto its side. Another infected seized it, and began pulling it to pieces. More infected fell upon it, tearing one another’s flesh more than the little toy. It was only a lump of plastic, but Susan still felt sad.
Taylor opened the door and let Jericho in. Behind him, not close, but on his heels, was the undead that’d seen Jericho. He howled, pushing at the cars that blocked his way. He growled and fell forward, crawling over the car’s hood. He hit the ground on the other side and snarled at the soldiers inside the building.
The soldiers shut the door and began to barricade it again.
“He’ll attract more of them,” Richard said.
“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Steve said.
Jericho dumped his bags on the floor, took a seat, and panted like he’d run a marathon.
“You owe me a 1978 jeep, my friend,” Jericho said between breaths. “It attracts them like whores to twenty dollar bills. I had to dump it outside town.”
Jericho was skinny, with no front teeth. He wore torn dirty brown overalls. The greasy hair on his head looked like it hadn’t been washed in years.
“Do you have any idea how far you have to zigzag to get here?” Jericho said.
“No,” Steve said. “But I’m glad you do. You need the exercise.”
“Too fucking far, that’s how far,” Jericho said.
Jericho and Steve hugged. It was a short, masculine gesture.
“Here,” Jericho said.
Oaks opened the bags and pulled out the weapons. There were handguns, machine guns, rifles, everything needed to mount an effective defense.
“Christ All Mighty,” Taylor said. “You robbed every weapon store on the way here?”
“Where did you get them all?” Oaks said.
“From a Sears catalogue,” Jericho said. “But a small piece of my personal armory. I would have brought the sentry guns, only they’re a bit unwieldy.”
“And perfect for our situation,” Taylor said. “You could have just left a couple of rifles instead.”
“Maybe,” Jericho said, picking up one of the guns. “But I like the feel of the metal in my hands. There’s nothing quite so comforting as holding a weapon as opposed to putting your fate in the hands of a robot.”
“Funny, you should mention that,” Steve said.
“Now I’m here, can someone please explain to me what the fuck I’m doing here?” Jericho said.
“You had to come through the city,” Susan said. “You should know why you’re here.”
Jericho looked at Susan. He ran his squinting eyes over her like she was a prize cow.
“I can tell you why I shouldn’t be here, why we should all be a thousand clicks away,” Jericho said. “I saw things on the way here. The kind of things you don’t discuss in polite company. People attacking people, people eating things I ain’t never seen nobody eat. Now, I’ve got a pretty strong stomach, but even I started to heave. But those things, those undead things-“
“No one’s saying they’re undead,” Richard said.
“I am,” Jericho said. “They’re walking dead. There’s no question about it. I put a dozen bullets into one, and it didn’t even stop him. He just kept on coming.”
His eyes were distant with the memory of it. But in awe, not fear.
“How did you stop him?” Steve said.
“A double tap,” Jericho said. “There’s nothing a double tap can’t stop.”
Z-MINUS: 3 hours 50 minutes
Susan paced up and down the corridor, her phone pressed to her ear. She was
calling Rosario, but there was no answer. The phone rang and rang, and with each passing minute, Susan’s imagination turned darker.
Rosario should certainly have been out of the city by now, out in the wilderness. Hell, she could have been halfway to New York by now if she’d put her foot down. Why wouldn’t she call Susan? She would. Unless there was something wrong…
Susan paused, took a deep breath, and collected herself. Panic didn’t help. There was nothing she could do if something was wrong anyway. She needed to stay calm, keep her head clear.
Bang!
Susan screamed, shocked at the noise in the silence of the night. The lone undead that had followed Jericho struck the windows and doors. Only now, he wasn’t alone.
More of his brethren had gathered around him. Shadows cajoled and pressed against the front entrance. Was this it? Was the siege about to begin?
The doors creaked, pressing inwards, spilling moonlight across the floor. The furniture screeched back, the press of human bodies on the other side too heavy.
“I’ll take Taylor and push the furniture back into place,” Oaks said.
“I’ll go with you,” Phil said.
“No,” Steve said. “They’ll feel the resistance and know someone is in here.”
“They already know we’re here, don’t they?” Oaks said.
Steve shook his head.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “They’re curious, that’s all.”
Jericho raised a rifle.
“I got a cure for their curiosity,” he said.
“We can’t fire guns,” Steve said.
“What are you talking about?” Jericho said. “They’re going to get in. We’ll blow them away.”
“We can’t use weapons,” Susan said.
“Like hell we can’t!” Jericho said.
“The sound attracts them,” Susan said. “Unless you’ve got something that can stop the sound, it will do more harm than good.”