by M. D. Massey
“Now, let's get a little closer.” As he said it, the “waterfall” seemed to magnify, so the Earth was about the size of a marble among an untold number of similar marbles. She watched him move his fingers over a very faint ghost keypad, manipulating the waterfall. “Ah, there we go. Now, do you notice anything unusual about your planet?”
She looked at the multitude of worlds, distracted by the beauty and wonder of it all. Some looked very much like Earth, verdant and cloud-filled. Others were desert worlds. Some appeared to be gas worlds, shown with slightly larger marbles. Looking up, the planets seemed to stretch to infinity. But most of the orbs had a bright light around them; an artificial background glow which seemed to make them pop out from the waterfall itself.
“The Earth doesn't have that white glow behind it. Many of the others do.”
“Most excellent! Yes. Yes. That cosmic glow represents many wonderful things. The underpinning science would take me a human lifetime to explain with mathematics—and perhaps some philosophy.”
“Oh dear. I don't have that much time left in my life.”
“Au contraire, my Martinette. You are just now reaching an age where you can appreciate what I'm about to tell you. A younger person doesn't have the maturity to reach this place unassisted. That maturity is what makes you so special.”
“Is that a polite way of saying I'm an old and worn-out woman? That's what I feel like when I come here.”
“No! Not at all. I wish I had more time with you, but demands have been placed on both of us. Your attention is needed out on the bridge. I have a whole universe to manage.” He pointed to the waterfall as if that explained everything.
Seeming satisfied, he touched his floating keypad and swiped the waterfall away and replaced it with an overhead view of herself lying on the bridge, surrounded by a stunned Liam and a distraught Victoria as she "spoke in tongues" with foul language. An officer in black moved a bit closer as his men yelled at him. Panning out, the scene showed the police on one side of the bridge, armed but not shooting, and the infected attacking mercilessly toward the survivors of the train on the other end.
“You have much to do. The first baby step you must take is to carry a tool with you out into the world. That aid will help you get off this bridge. Your next steps must be to establish a connection with the two most important people in your life. I'm impressed how fast you developed the link with Liam—the green car on the bridge was his memory, probably from one of his books, if I had to guess. And the last cosmic leap you will take is establishing the light behind your planet on the waterfall I showed you.”
“I want to believe I'm important to whatever,” she looked around her, “this incredible place is, but you can see what's going to happen just as I can. There's no way, short of a miracle, I'm going to survive the day.”
Al smiled. “My dearest Martinette, have I got a surprise for you. I'm not only going to get you across that bridge, but I'm going to change the course of your entire life in the process.”
“You're talking in riddles. What exactly is the tool you're going to give me?”
“It's something, my gregarious friend, for which you are well-suited,” he said in a friendly voice. “A message.”
He whispered something in her ear. Then he whispered it again. “Your planet's future depends on your ability to recall this information.” He gave her a tooth-filled smile and winked exactly as she would have done.
No pressure.
* * *
2
Grandma started to cough.
He and Victoria screamed in unison. “She's alive!”
“We’re so glad! We—” Liam said through his tears before Grandma cut him off with a wave of her hand.
Grandma tried to speak, so they sat her up and leaned in close.
“Call out for Beth Ramos,” she instructed.
“Beth Ramos? Who’s?” he started to ask, but didn’t finish the question. He would have done anything she asked of him just then.
“Beth Ramos!” Liam shouted. “I’m looking for Beth Ramos!”
She whispered again, “Louder.”
“Where's Beth Ramos! We need her over here!” He yelled as loud as he was able into the din of the chaos. He faced the group from the train, assuming Beth was one of the women she'd been talking to back on the flatcar.
The lead officer of the police blocking the bridge, who looked to be about forty, well-tanned and muscular, walked the remaining distance to where Grandma was lying. Another officer from the vanguard ran up to be by his side, asking, “What are you doing, Sarge? You can't mingle with them. You might get sick.”
Liam spun around to face them. Victoria angled that way as well.
“She's calling out for Beth Ramos.” Sarge said to his officer.
“You're kidding me,” the second officer said with surprise.
The leader went down on one knee beside Grandma. “Why do you want Beth Ramos?”
He leaned closer to hear her weak voice over the volume of gunfire in the battle nearby.
“I don't know what this means, sir, but I was told to ask for Beth Ramos, and then give a message to the person who answered the call. I guess that's you?”
The officer nodded.
“Well, the message I'm supposed to give you makes no sense to me, but maybe it will to you. 'Darcy and Jokie Bunny want you to save these people'.”
“WHAT? How—” he choked up. “What's going on here?”
Liam, bewilderment on his face, looked from Grandma to the confused sergeant and then to the other officer, who put his hand on the sergeant’s shoulder.
“Beth was Phil's wife. Darcy was his daughter. Jokie Bunny—I don't know.”
“Jokie—” The sergeant struggled to control his voice while a lone tear hugged the side of his nose. “Jokie Bunny was Darcy's lovey, a stuffed toy rabbit. No one could possibly know about that rabbit. Darcy slept with it every night. We figured she couldn't live without it and made her keep it in her bed because we didn't want it to get lost. But we did let her take it out one time. She went with Darcy when my wife took her to stay overnight at a friend's house. It was going to be the first time we let her sleep away from home.”
A deep breath as the sounds of battle continued to ride high.
“My girls never made it.” He fought the tears, but without much success.
The other officer jumped in. “Phil's wife and daughter were in a terrible traffic accident this past winter. We all went to the funeral in support. Is that how you knew their names?”
“I was told by,” she took a deep breath, “what I believe was an angel.”
Phil lifted his tear-stained face and stared at Grandma for several long moments. Perhaps deciding if she was crazy.
“No one could have known about Jokie Bunny. No one. I believe you, ma'am.”
“Billy, bring up the men. We're going to fight at the front of this group. Let's help them across. To hell with orders. Those sick things won’t be stopped by a little water. We can't let these people die while we watch and do nothing.”
“You got it, Sarge.”
Billy ran back to his mates to round them up.
Phil used his radio to instruct those on the far shore. He called out certain leaders, requested certain weapons, and finished with “—and enact our plan Badrovik as soon as we're all across. Out.”
Phil stood up, brushed the tears from his eyes and said, “Get your grandma across the bridge. I'd like to talk to her when we're all safe on the other side. If my wife and daughter—however it's possible—want me to let you guys across, by God, you're going to own this bridge.”
Billy's group arrived, ready for the evacuation effort. As they reached Phil, he yelled, “OK, guys, let's spray those sickos with a lead shower—Go! Go! Go!”
They all took off into the crowd of people clumped on the dangerous side of the bridge. Cheers went up with the survivors when they realized what was happening. The zombies had made it into the front edge of the t
rain passengers. The burn line between the living and dead hovered at the bridge's edge.
He and Victoria lifted Grandma to her feet one more time. “Glad to see you are OK,” he said.
“Me, too,” Victoria added without hesitation.
“That makes three,” Grandma said, barely loud enough to be heard over the battle.
With the deck clear, they walked toward the safe side of the span.
The Arnold Police funneled the survivors back, putting themselves nearest the fighting to fend off the blood-slick attackers as they continued to swarm toward the officers and remaining armed men from the train.
When the fresh officers made it to the tip of the spear, they began retreating as a unit back across the bridge, expending ammo at a horrible rate. They were experts at the head shot—the only shot that seemed to down the infection instantly. Of course, any good student of zombie literature knows that. These guys didn't disappoint. Only a precious few officers got snatched during the murderous onslaught. Some accidentally fell through the railway ties, or off the side, to the water below. Zombies often followed them down.
He and Victoria got Grandma to the safe side, then stood behind a police car to watch the approaching storm. The organized police line fell back in good order, ensuring nearly all of the train survivors made it. As each rank of officers crossed to the near side, they fanned out to cover their brothers and sisters still out on the span. It was a rare thing of beauty in the chaotic escape.
The last of the men filed onto the near shore, but now the bridge itself was crammed solid with plague victims. Some slipped off the sides as their numbers swelled. The constricting crush of infected funneling onto the narrow railway bridge insured bullets couldn’t miss. He again thought of the Greeks at Thermopylae, wondering if he accidentally paid too much attention in Social Studies class. The horde advancing on them were not flesh-and-blood Persians, however, and the infected continued to swarm, undeterred at any losses, willing to climb over piles of their peers collecting on the near end of the bridge. An endless procession of zombies arrived on the far side and there wasn't enough ammo here to kill them all.
“I have to help,” he said as if realizing his fate.
Victoria grabbed his arm, and he was prepared to argue with her, but she merely said, “Wait up.”
She needed a moment to pull out her gun and get it ready. He used the time to grab his box of shells. “We’ll keep this with us.”
He looked at Grandma as she stood leaning against the car. For a moment he wondered if leaving her was the right thing to do, but if the zombies made it across because he stood by and did nothing, there would barely be time to say goodbye to each other. Better to play it safe and make sure that didn’t come to pass.
“We’ll be right over here,” he shouted to Grandma.
The couple got right up to the edge of the upper part of the river bank, a little to the right of the main force of the police.
“We’re kind of far, but we’ll hit them in the side of the head. That will give us the best chance of downing them.”
“I trust you, Liam. Let’s give them hell.”
The range was about thirty or forty feet, he guessed. Not close enough to guarantee a hit with each shot, but it was the best he could do without interfering with the bigger and more effective guns closer to the bridge.
Together, he and Victoria aimed and fired at the swelling mass creeping along the railway decking toward the untainted southern shore. It was an incredible kill box, and the dead fell in waves, but the overhead trusses of the bridge served as brackets that kept many of the zombies from tumbling over the sides. As more bodies fell, the rest of the zombies climbed the steel girders to get over their friends.
And they kept coming.
Liam rattled off nine shots and dipped into the box to reload. He focused completely on shoving them into the little metal magazine as fast as possible. When finished, he held his hand flat in mid-air to ensure it wasn’t shaking. His insides were wobbly with fear, but it wasn’t affecting his exterior.
“Be scared later,” he said to himself.
Victoria finished her shots and began her reload, too.
“I got one, I think,” she said.
“Yeah, hard to tell with all the bullets flying,” he admitted. His main concern was contributing however he could. If they put enough lead on the bridge, he was certain they’d kill something. So many of his books reinforced the idea that even one less zombie could make the difference.
While he was on his third trip to the ammo box, the large crane came to life and moved the giant wrecking ball first backward a considerable distance, and then forward, then backward again. It reminded him of Jones preparing to hand off Grandma. It appeared to be the final piece of Officer Phil's plan. The crane had huge black letters with the name of the construction company: Badrovik.
The wrecking ball slammed into the side of the bridge, directly over the concrete support pier jutting up from the muddy water below, knocking many of the zombies over the side while ripping up a good portion of the decking and rails.
“Run!” Liam shouted.
Pieces of the bridge shattered from the impact and flew all over the place. Many of the police had to run, too.
From behind a police car, he watched as the second hit sheared off the rest of the top deck and left a gaping hole where scores of the mindless horde tumbled in. The final few blows hit the pier on the near shore, and the middle of the bridge sagged into the water. The monsters could walk onto the span, but it was now a crude ramp guiding them down into the water. It was ugly, but it worked.
“Let’s go back,” he said as he tapped Victoria’s arm.
A few zombies remained on the shortened near piece of the bridge but were quickly eliminated by the guys returning to the middle.
The remaining zombies on the far shore were visibly agitated at being denied the most direct route to their victims. Liam silently gave them all the finger as he returned to the river bank. Victoria copied him. That small act of mutual defiance made him feel much better. Tons better than when he did the same thing to that sports car driver back on Grandma's street.
Some of the zombies that tumbled down into the mud tried to climb the bank right below Liam and Victoria. Each of them managed to down a mud-covered man, but Liam had to dispatch the final woman because Victoria had to go reload. The young woman scampered up the steep riverbank and looked almost normal because the blood and gore was momentarily washed clean. His final thought was that she looked familiar—he’d seen her chasing the train somewhere along the way.
Or she reminded him of Victoria.
Whatever her origin, he lined up a shot and put one into her face. The zombie fell over backward and slid into the murky water.
“Last one is gone,” he said when Victoria got back on the line.
“Thank God,” she replied as she keyed the safety and then holstered her weapon.
He picked up the ammo and headed over to Grandma. She greeted them with a weak smile as they approached.
Zombies kept coming over the broken bridge for a bit, and some fell off the end and got swept downstream or sank to the bottom. Eventually, they seemed to know the battle had ended and that food was now far away, and they stopped trying to cross. Perhaps they sensed easier pickings at the power plant.
Dust and debris floated everywhere, and the remains of the bridge jutted out of the rushing water below. The current danced through the wreckage and made a metallic howl through the hollow girders wrapped around the pier. It almost drowned out the sounds of moaning—and screams—coming from the far side of the river.
He took the opportunity to speak to his two lady friends in a normal voice.
“I say we take a five-minute break before we try to move on to my house.”
“That sounds heavenly,” Grandma said. “I need to sit down again. Maybe a little longer than five minutes, I’m afraid.” She motioned away from the police car.
After a sho
rt walk, they placed her on the ground up against the trunk of a large sycamore tree, then each took a seat flanking her. She held her rosary tightly to her chest, much as she had when he first saw her in bed several days ago.
Phil came up to join them.
Liam stood right back up. “Officer Phil, this is Mrs. Martinette Peters, my great-grandmother.”
“Oh Liam, my mother was 'Mrs. Peters.' Please call me Marty,” she said to Phil with returning good humor.
“Do you mind if I sit down and talk to your great-grandma alone for a few minutes?”
“Grandma, you OK with that?”
She gave him a silent thumbs-up sign.
Victoria got up to join him, and they walked off.
Liam looked back in the direction they'd come for a few minutes. Small groups of living people ran down the far bank and tried to swim across the river, sometimes trailed by zombies. Many swimmers made it into the arms of the waiting police rescuers, but some were unlucky and got snatched from below. Shooters on the police side picked off the zombies as best they could.
“I can’t watch this,” Victoria said with sadness.
“Me, either,” he admitted. “And just to be clear, I'm never going to St. Louis again.”
“Deal,” she said as they walked away.
* * *
3
He strolled side by side with Victoria further down the railroad tracks, out of the immediate vicinity of all the police still around the bridge. It gave them some time to talk in peace. As they walked in the open, they each noticed the other with their hands on their guns.
“I guess we're veteran survivors now,” she said. “We’re tending our weapons like our lives depend on them, huh?”
Liam knew she was right, although he still didn't feel like a survivor. More like a lottery winner after seeing all the people who didn't make it. Where did that huge crowd at the Arch end up? He couldn't even imagine.
“So, what's next, partner?” She had a broad smile as she said it.
He gave her an exaggerated inspection from her feet up to her head. “Nope. You aren't the same girl I found lying on the grass. You've gotten over your guilt and have gone out of your way repeatedly to save me, Grandma, and who knows how many others. I think you've made up for any shortcomings you may have imagined for yourself when this whole plague-thing started.”