Z-Minus Box Set 2

by Perrin Briar

  Jericho sneered. He wasn’t the type to reduce the noise of his weapons.

  “What do you suggest we do instead?” Jericho said. “Ask them politely to leave the premises?”

  “We’ll use the guns when we have no hope of holding them back any longer,” Steve said. “Until then, we stick with knives and bats and anything else that doesn’t produce noise.”

  “This is horseshit,” Jericho said. “You called me to bring weapons. I did. I thought we’d at least get to use them!”

  “We will,” Steve said. “When all else fails.”

  But Jericho shook his head and sucked air in through his wonky teeth. Guns were clearly never a final solution for him. Susan could imagine him now, sitting on the porch at home, on a farm that hadn’t grown anything for years, shotgun across his lap, lolling back and forth in a rickety old rocking chair, fanning himself with his floppy hat, watching the dirt road that ended at his front garden. It was a stereotype, but those archetypes existed for a reason.

  Jericho was also a former soldier, and respected the chain of command, even if he didn’t agree with the decision that’d been made. But that had been a long time ago. Could they trust him if he’d been away from the military for so long? Was he a loose cannon? Had they exposed themselves to their enemy for someone who would prove to be just as dangerous? Looking at him now, Susan wasn’t sure what she believed.

  The soldiers and scientists relocated to the second floor. They were fast at their work, piling tables and chairs up in the stairwells. There were two sets of stairs on either side of the elevator. They had plugged each of them with furniture. It wouldn’t stop the flood of undead, but it would help slow them down. That was all they were doing, really. Slowing the flood.

  Steve set guards at each stairwell. It was premature, as the undead hadn’t even breached the main entrance on the first floor yet, but it was good practice, good to get into the habit of ensuring someone was always on watch.

  There was a loud screech, and the barricade on the first floor rocked back an inch. The groans of the undead grew in volume, like adjusting the volume control on a hi-fi. Taylor crossed herself. The droning and groaning was endless, meditative, one voice taking over from another, joining together and disparaging and growing again. It was something akin to the low resonating chants yogis listened to to calm their minds.

  Susan found herself closing her eyes and listening to the growing volume, the resonating sounds lulling her into a calm state of mind, relaxed, rocking back and forth on her heels. A low groan escaped her own throat. She was taken with the mournful groans of the undead. She could sense it, surrounded by it, felt their pain and agony.

  And then she began to lean forward…

  A hand gripped her shoulder. Her eyes started open, like waking from a deep sleep. She turned to find Richard looking at her with a look of concern.

  “Are you all right?” he said.

  “Yes,” Susan said. “Yes, I’m fine.”

  The front door’s hinges snapped, and the furniture screeched across the floor. The infected stumbled through the gaps like water from a burst dam, filling the first floor, bumping into the water fountain and knocking the granite statues over.

  The scientists and soldiers watched from the second floor. The undead seemed incapable of looking up, unless their heads were already twisted at the neck, but even then, they lacked the intelligence to figure out a way up to the second floor. They would end up getting there eventually, Susan supposed, by accident or trial and error, rather than by any real attempt on the part of conscious intelligence.

  In the meantime, they stood directly below the second floor’s balcony that jutted out like an overbite. Blood dribbled from the undead’s lips. Those that could see the survivors reached up for them. The others copied them, not really knowing what they were doing, simply joining in because the others were doing it. The groping hands grew like a forest in a nightmare. Their groans were loud and monotonous to the ear, deafening, like encroaching depression.

  “‘Save the world’,” Jericho said, making a fart sound with his lips. “And who’s going to save us? Humans have never saved the world, never even really attempted to. We only always tried to save ourselves, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do here.”

  “What would you prefer we do?” Susan said. “Just let them overrun us?”

  “Why not?” Jericho said. “They’re going to anyway.”

  He hawked and spat over the side, striking a blonde woman on the cheek. The undead fought over the snot and mucous.

  “I’m a superstar,” Jericho said with a grin. “Someone should sell my body fluids on eBay. There’s nothing wrong with trying to survive, to protect ourselves. It’s what every species does. But the world doesn’t need saving. Except from us.

  “Self-awareness might well be evolution’s biggest mistake. To be aware of yourself, and others, is a curse more than a blessing. And yet here we stand, defending a building against mutated versions of ourselves, waiting, hoping for a cure to come and save us.”

  Jericho shook his head in derision, curling his lips.

  “Have you even thought about what the ‘cure’ might do to them?” he said. “Someone suffering from cancer, having gone through all the surgeries and treatments, even when completely cured of it, rarely gets full function back. There are always scars. What kind of scars do you think these people will be left with? I’ve known guys who come home from war. They’re never the same again. And these are people who were trained to face it. They still get PTSD.

  “Who are we to say that these things aren’t what we’re supposed to be? What we were always meant to be? Returning the universe to a place without consciousness. Pure, perfect. We were never meant to be killers. We don’t have claws or sharp teeth or great speed to hunt down our prey. We have only our brains, and that may turn out to be the biggest and most dangerous weapon of all. Especially to ourselves.”

  Having heard enough, Susan turned and headed away. She sidled up to Steve.

  “You nicknamed him ‘Starky’,” she said. “Now I know why.”

  Steve smiled.

  “He’s a character, all right,” he said.

  “Worse than that,” Susan said. “I think he might be right.”

  Z-MINUS: 3 hours 34 minutes

  “One of them is coming up the stairs,” Taylor said.

  “Already?” Steve said.

  They’d planned on it taking several hours before they would stumble across the stairwells.

  “Some went downstairs, into the basement,” Taylor said. “But one’s coming up now.”

  “So much for hoping they couldn’t climb stairs,” Susan said.

  It was their ambling, shuffling movement that suggested their inability to climb stairs. Turned out they were wrong on that front.

  Richard wrung his hair with his hands.

  “What’re we going to do?” he said. “If one comes, they could make a noise and more of them will come – like they did at the entrance.”

  “We could make noises, draw his attention away from us,” Susan said.

  “Any noise we make will draw more into the center,” Taylor said.

  Jericho unsheathed his hunting knife.

  “I can take care of it,” he said. “Make it so he’ll never make another sound again.”

  The idea horrified Susan. They were going to kill him?

  “Wait,” Susan said. “We shouldn’t kill any of these things if we don’t need to. We could still cure them.”

  “The more we try to save the more dangerous it’ll be for us,” Steve said. “Take this one undead out of the equation and we could prevent many others like him from coming at us.”

  “It’s the lesser of two evils,” Phil said.

  Perhaps. But Susan still didn’t like it.

  “All right, do it,” Richard said. “Quietly.”

  “So quiet not even I will be able to hear it,” Jericho said.

  He walked to the stairwell.
Inside, somewhere amongst the forest of table legs and twisted armchairs was a demon risen from the dead. Jericho angled himself to peer through the gaps in the tables and chairs. He caught sight of the undead man.

  “He’s an ugly bastard, isn’t he?” Jericho said. “Reminds me of you, Steve.”

  “Hey,” Steve said, feigning offence. “Be careful in there.”

  “I haven’t had anyone say that to me for quite a while,” Jericho said. “It leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Don’t worry. I’m expendable.”

  He put the knife blade between his teeth and began to clamber under the furniture.

  “Come here you,” Jericho said. “You’ve got a date with destiny.”

  The zombie grunted, having thudded into the furniture. The noise attracted the attention of the undead on the first floor.

  “Oaks, keep an eye on the undead below,” Steve said.

  Oaks peered over the railing.

  “They’re approaching the entrance to the stairs,” he said.

  The enclosed space magnified the zombies’ endless sonorous sounds.

  “Yaaa!” Jericho bellowed.

  The undead groaned. There was a scuffle, followed by silence.

  “Starky?” Steve said. “Are you all right? Starky?”

  “Yeah,” Jericho said. “Stubborn bastard didn’t know he was dead. He put up a bit of a fight.”

  “You need to get out of there,” Steve said. “More of them are coming toward you.”

  “I know,” Jericho said. “I hear them.”

  But he made no effort to move away from them.

  “You should get out of their way, don’t you think?” Steve said.

  “Thought I might plan a little welcoming committee,” Jericho said.

  “Get out of there,” Steve said. “They’ll tear you to pieces.”

  “Not before I tear them to pieces first,” Jericho said.

  The undead groans rose in volume, making the furniture vibrate. Susan took her hand off the cold metal of a tabletop.

  “Starky,” Steve said.

  “It’s no good,” Taylor said. “He’s made his decision. You know what he’s like. Besides, I don’t think he’s really fighting them, do you?”

  Susan processed Taylor’s meaning. They understood what Jericho was doing. He was fighting the memories he had in his past, that part of himself he’d locked away from society, and was now able to release.

  “Yaaa!” Jericho shouted.

  There was a gargle, followed by the thud of something hitting the floor. One after the other, like heavy rain.

  Jericho laughed like a maniac.

  “Come on, then!” he shouted. “Come on!”

  But the undead were getting loud, closer.

  “Get back here now!” Steve said.

  “They ain’t nothin’!” Jericho said. “Nothin’ but a pile of shufflin’ bones!”

  Jericho had backed up to the furniture, his shirt visible, splattered with blood. Steve leaned over and seized Jericho by the collar. He bodily lifted him up and over the furniture.

  “What’re you doing?” Jericho said, kicking at the monsters in the dark stairwell. “I’m doing a job here!”

  Steve dumped him on the floor and hopped down after him.

  “You’re going to get us all killed,” he said. “That’s what you’re doing.”

  “I thinned out their numbers,” Jericho said.

  “You attracted more of the damn things with all your screaming and shouting!” Steve said. “Look!”

  Steve dragged Jericho to the railing. He pointed at the massing undead that came from the hospital and flooded into the foyer below. The space was shoulder to shoulder with the undead.

  The realization dawned on Jericho then. He ran his hands over his hair and clothes, smoothing them back down.

  “I was carving them up nice like a Christmas turkey,” he said.

  “You killed us all!” Taylor said, reaching over to grab Jericho by the lapels.

  Steve blocked her.

  “We still have a few floors left to retreat to,” he said. “We’re not done yet.”

  The furniture on the second floor stairwell screeched as it was pushed further into the corridor. Grasping hands reached and pulled at the empty doorframe.

  “Get back!” Steve said. “How many of them are coming up the stairs?”

  Susan leaned over the balcony. The majority of the undead were still walking into the walls and fighting with the fountain.

  “Only a few,” Susan said. “Maybe… Fifty?”

  A sharp intake of breath from over Susan’s shoulder. Richard. He was terrified. He stepped backward, waving his hands, eyes wide.

  “There’s only a dozen of us!” he said. “We’ll never make it!”

  “We should be able to handle it,” Steve said. “Everyone form up. Give each other plenty of room.”

  The soldiers spread out, fanning into a semi-circle before the stairs. The furniture screeched back farther into the corridor, pushed back by an invisible monster. The groans grew louder and more aggressive, echoing up the stairwell.

  The soldiers shared an expression. It wasn’t the fear Susan felt, but something else. Expectation? Trepidation? A mixture of the two. There was a little confidence there too.

  The undead fell through the furniture, tripping and hitting the floor hard. The soldiers were on them immediately, slicing off heads with strong smooth movements of their shiny metal appendages, and kicking aside their heads with heavy boots, and stamping their necks beneath their heels.

  Susan stood, frozen and motionless, a snapped chair leg in her hands. She stepped forward to deal with an undead, only for Taylor to get there first. She second guessed herself, holding back and not knowing what she was doing. An amateur substitute on a professional team.

  The soldiers fought tooth and nail, but the undead still pushed them back, forcing them into the adjoining room.

  “Get inside!” Steve said.

  Susan, Richard and Phil entered first, followed by the soldiers. The room was festooned with weaponry. It was shiny and new, like something from a James Bond research chamber. All kinds of futuristic weapons lay on tabletops and in specially-made holsters.

  The undead growled, hissing at the soldiers, and spilled through the door. There was only one entrance and exit. The soldiers stood their ground, leaping back as fast as they could.

  One undead fell down, within striking distance of Taylor’s prosthetic leg. It bit her. Taylor screamed in pain. She skewered the undead’s skull on the end of her lance-like blade, spat on it, and then reached down and pulled a wire from her prosthetic limb.

  “Damn it,” she said. “Why did I have to have the sensory input installed today?”

  Susan was pinned behind the soldiers, not knowing what to do with herself. She should have helped them fight, but she didn’t know how. She would have only gotten in the way.

  The undead pressed forward. The soldiers were slowing, tired from their exertions. Susan backed up against a large intimidating machine. It was tall, almost touching the roof. It had a front shield to protect the trigger man inside. A futuristic turret.

  Susan had an idea.

  She ran around to the back of the machine. She pulled the protective sheet off and pressed a series of buttons.

  “Susan?” Richard said. “What are you doing?”

  Susan hit a big red button. The machine began to whir. The soldiers turned to look at it. The undead paused, curiosity painting their faces. Pistons hissed, drawing Susan up to her new full height. It was a mech suit. It was plugged into the mains. She couldn’t move from her position, but perhaps she didn’t need to.

  “Everybody get down!” Susan shouted.

  The soldiers hesitated – after all, they were face to face with the undead, and lowering their guard meant death.

  “You heard the lady,” Steve said. “Down!”

  “But the zombies-” Jericho said.

  It was all he could d
o to hit the floor before a ray exploded in a burst of red light from the mech suit’s chest. It struck the closest undead, searing a hole into his skull like a hot knife through butter, and burst out the back in the same heartbeat. The laser struck the zombie behind him, piercing him through the chest, setting his clothes on fire. The stink of scorching flesh filled their nostrils.

  Susan pulled the death ray around, left to right, slicing through the undead, dismembering arms and legs as easily as tearing them off a fly. The laser was stopped only by the thick drywall, but it nonetheless left a burned black scar.

  The lights overhead flickered, and the red laser flickered along with them, finally cutting off. A shape like a butterfly’s wings was burned into Susan’s vision.

  Pieces of paper that’d been taped to the wall were still aflame, and gave some light to the room. The undead lay unmoving or jittering on the floor. A couple of undead bodies were fully aflame, the flesh cooking. It smelled delicious. Susan was hungry. But not that hungry.

  “I’ve got to get me one of those,” Jericho said.

  “Good luck,” Richard said. “Even the military doesn’t have anything like this yet.”

  An undead crawled along the floor toward the crouching soldier, its entrails dragging behind it. Taylor put her metal leg to its head and pressed down. It slid through with ease.

  Phil reached up to help Susan down from the mech suit. Her hands were still clenched tight around the controls, and would have kept firing if there was any juice left. Phil eased her fingers off the controls.

  “It’s okay,” Phil said. “You can let go now.”

  But the images of the undead, their faces lit up with red, were burned into Susan’s eyes every bit as much as the laser line. She felt sick to her stomach.

  “Why’d the lights go out?” Jericho said.

  “The laser,” Richard said. “It must have taken up all the power from the grid. With no one at the controls at the power station I suppose there’s no way to reliably maintain it.”

  The lights flickered back on, revealing the bloodstained undead in all their horror under a harsh florescent light.