Surviving Beyond the Zombie Apocalypse

by Jeffrey Littorno

  “Damn! That really stings,” the colonel said, obviously enjoying himself. “It’s probably gonna leave a mark, Turner. I bet you weren’t aiming for my shoulder, right? You had been aiming to hit me dead on in the middle of the chest.” He looked around, trying to get a location on me. “Are you aiming at me right now? Ready to get off another try? I bet you’re shitting bricks about now. I mean, you had all the time in the world and you screwed up. Now, I know where you are and I’m coming to get you.” His casual tone of voice served to make his threats even more frightening. He was right. I had no way of beating him. My mind urged me to run, to use any means possible of getting out of the area. However, at that point in time, my limbs refused to listen to my mind. I think somewhere inside me was the idea that trying to escape would be futile. I would be shot down before I had gone a half block. Besides, even if I made it off this street, where would I go? I could not simply abandon Kat and the others to the whims of this psychopath.

  Granger hopped off the side of the dumpster where his gun had fallen. I moved around to the other end of the car to get a better look at him. The colonel was rummaging around on the ground and some garbage in search of his rifle.

  At once, he raised himself to stand up straight. “Good news, Turner! I have recovered my weapon, and now I’m coming to kill you.” The friendliness in his voice almost made me smile, but the inclination was quickly replaced by a growing sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.

  I moved away from the car and a few yards down the street. I didn’t want to be in the same spot Granger had seen me. However, I could no longer see him and was only able to guess as to his plan of attack. I did not have to wait long.

  “Turner, you know I like you, right?” He chuckled as if he had said something clever. “I do. Hell, I admire guys like you who can just sit back and watch and make comments about the actions taken by others, judging whether the actions were effective or not.” He stopped speaking, leaving only a long space of silence.

  When he spoke again, the colonel’s voice had lost its pleasantness. The words came out slowly, clearly, and coldly. “Fuck that, Turner. It’s time for you to grow a pair, take some action for yourself.” He sighed heavily, and the casual tone returned. “I tell you what; let’s make this more of a fair fight. You’ve got a weapon, and I’ve got a weapon, but we both know I’d cut you in half before your finger even twitched on the trigger. Sure, I could do that, but it would be boring, no challenge. So let’s make it interesting. How about this? I’ll toss my weapon aside, and you come out to face me. Let’s see if you can manage to hit me with at least one decent shot before I get to my weapon and defend myself.”

  The man was truly insane. His proposal meant his own suicide. Even as bad as I was with the gun, he would have no chance. I crouched there, considering his wild proposal for a moment, before he interrupted. “Well, what do you say? Sounds like fun, right?”

  As crazy as it seemed, his idea might really be my only chance. Otherwise, he would simply wait until he decided the time and rush in and slaughter me.

  “What do I say? I say you have a pretty twisted idea of fun,” I said, trying to sound as casual as Granger. I stood and walked out from where I had been hidden.

  “Turner! Thanks for coming out,” he greeted me like we had met at a high school reunion. In the next instant, the colonel lifted the gun and held me in its sights.

  My brain screamed. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  I had simply walked out in the open to be cut down by this maniac in fatigues. Now I stood here with no chance but to wait and die. So that is what I did. I tried to keep my eyes open, because I figured I would rather see what was coming. However, my ideas kept twitching more and more until I closed them. Still, I waited for the explosion of the gun and for the bullets to rip me to shreds. I finally forced my eyes open wide. Colonel Granger had lowered his gun and was looking at me with amusement.

  “Damn, Turner, I never saw anyone as calm as you. I’ve been around a lot of guys who say they’re ready to die and all of that nonsense, but when it comes down to it, they’re the first ones to run and hide. But not you. You just stood there waiting for it to happen. That takes some balls.”

  “So now what?” I asked.

  The colonel looked confused by my question. “Now, you’re going to come out into the street. I’m going to toss my weapon about fifteen feet away, and then we’ll see what happens.”

  I laughed a little in disbelief. “You mean, you’re still serious about that?”

  “Serious as a heart attack, Turner. It’s the best way to settle this matter.”

  “Like two gunfighters in the Old West, right?” I commented.

  “Yes, something like that,” the colonel answered.

  “How about this for another option? We go back to the terminal, we protect the people there, we don’t discuss what happened today, and we go our separate ways once we can,” I finished and waited for his reply.

  I don’t know what sort of response I expected, but I know it did not involve loud laughter. Granger let out a huge bellow of laughter that rumbled down the street. The sound stopped as abruptly as it began, and the colonel said, “That sounds like just about the most friggin’ civilized thing I’ve ever heard! Very logical and intellectual.” He smiled without real happiness. “I wish that it presented a viable option. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for me. I’m being honest here. Think about what you’re proposing. Do you really believe either one of us would be able to let things go like nothing happened?” He paused for a moment and shook his head. “Turner, I don’t know you all that well, but I know you well enough to realize you couldn’t hold something like this inside, keep it secret. It would eat away at you until the truth got out. What about me?” Granger paused as if expecting an answer. Getting none, he shrugged and continued. “And me, since I know that you couldn’t keep this secret, I would eventually have to sneak into your place some night and kill you. No hard feelings, just the way of things.”

  Surprisingly, the colonel’s logic made sense to me, and I wondered for a brief moment if that meant I was as psychotic as he was.

  “Anyway, I’m thinkin’ there’s no sense in putting this off. So I’m going to toss my weapon as far as I can down the street,” he announced slowly. “After that you’ve got the time it takes me to retrieve said weapon to take some action.”

  “Okay, let’s do this,” I answered.

  Granger nodded his shiny bald head toward me as kind of a gesture of respect and heaved the rifle down the street. It spun end over end and landed in a pile of boxes and other trash about fifteen yards away. He looked briefly toward me, flashed a grin, and dashed toward the gun.

  It took me a couple of seconds to realize that this was actually happening and to react. I brought the pistol up and began firing.

  The colonel moved quickly and smoothly. His movement only faltered briefly as he was apparently hit by one of the bullets.

  I kept pulling the trigger of the pistol even after a hollow-sounding click was the only response.

  Colonel Granger reached the mound in which the gun had landed and hurried to find his weapon. He turned away for a moment. When he turned back around, he was holding the rifle triumphantly in one hand above his head.

  “Well, this looks like a pickle, to be sure. To tell you the truth, I am more than a little disappointed. These stupid dead things really don’t make for much of a challenge. But you? Well, I had hoped that you would provide at least a brief distraction, maybe even cause me to break a sweat. But here we are. I have my weapon back and you’re out of ammunition after unloading on me. Let’s see here, you managed to hit me one time.” He looked down and pointed to a widening spot of red on his upper thigh.

  “Time to finish up here, so I can dress this wound.” He brought his weapon into position as a movement distracted him. He turned and looked down at the ground.

  Standing fifteen or twenty yards away, I was at first unable to see what Granger
saw.

  “Miller, it’s time for you to die. That’s an order, son,” the colonel said mockingly before opening fire into the crawling, bloody body that had grabbed ahold of his ankle.

  The corpse shuddered as the bullets ripped it apart.

  I heard, or imagined I heard, Granger’s laughter as the weapon fired again and again.

  In a minute, the colonel stopped shooting and, with the silence, his composure returned.

  He turned back to face me and asked calmly, “Where were we? Oh, yes, I was just about to kill you.”

  As strange as it may sound, I remained calm about the whole thing. Maybe it was because I had been in a similar situation only moments before. Or maybe it was because I had grown tired of being afraid. Not that it really matters, but at that moment I became as calm and collected as the colonel.

  “I suppose there are worse ways to go out,” I commented. “I mean, I sure the fuck don’t want to be one of those things. I hope you will do me the favor of putting a round in my head, so that doesn’t happen.”

  Granger grinned. “I’d be delighted.”

  He raised his rifle slowly to take aim. Unlike the last time the rifle had been pointed at me, I had no trouble keeping my eyes open. I stared intently at the little black hole at the end of the barrel, waiting for the flames to shoot out and my life to end.

  Images of Kat and Christina and Taylor flashed in front of me. A crush of disappointment and failure pressed down on my shoulders at the thought of how I had not managed to protect them. I only hoped that they would find someone more capable than me. If that was not possible, I wished for the next best thing. That was for them to find a quick exit from this world.

  I stared for what seemed like minutes but must have been only seconds.

  Suddenly, instead of seeing the weapon unload its rounds on me, I saw it swatted to the ground. The large shell of a soldier had moved from somewhere and caught both Granger and me by surprise.

  “Cease fire,” the shell said as it grabbed the colonel’s arm. “Cease fire.” I recognized the shell as the soldier I had seen shot in the throat.

  I had not really been aware of Granger’s incessant giggling until it stopped abruptly. The shell ended the sound by sinking its teeth into the top of the colonel’s shiny bald head. Granger slowly collapsed to the pavement, and the flesh stretched at the top of the head, leaving the shell with a mouth full of blood and some sort of gray jelly.

  Suddenly, other uniformed shells gathered around the still body of the colonel. A moment later, they swarmed all over him.

  I dropped the empty pistol on the ground and moved back against the row of cars. I crept slowly out of the area and to the back of the terminal. The few shells I saw on my way were shuffling toward the sounds of Colonel Granger being devoured.

  In a matter of minutes, I was inside the truck. It started right up.

  I drove back the way I had come. The truck bounced over the corpses of the soldiers in the street.

  I slowed and looked over at the place where Granger had been swarmed by the shells. The spot was now empty. Had they completely eaten him? Something about the question made me smile briefly before returning back to the business of getting this poison to the terminal.

  Fortunately, the streets were relatively clear, and I pulled up in front of the Tiburon Ferry Terminal in only a few minutes. I shut off the engine and sat there, thinking about all the dead soldiers, Colonel Granger, and me.

  How could it be that I was still alive? Those were all soldiers trained to survive, trained to fight against any threat. When it really came down to it, I had no right to still be alive. There was nothing special about me. No matter how I tried, I was unable to get beyond the question. Perhaps, it was a question as old as mankind. Why me? I imagined a caveman out hunting with his tribe, or whatever one calls a group of cavemen. A rock slide crushes all of his companions, leaving a single Neanderthal asking “Why me?”

  That question had spawned the religions of the world, after all. They were all about the need to find some rhyme or reason to the randomness of the universe. Why me?

  Glen’s smiling face came to mind, and I wondered how the young minister would answer the question. I imagined he would say, “Well, it’s all part of God’s plan for each of us. We only have to accept that and stop asking stupid questions.”

  I smiled at the thought and said, “I guess, that’s as good an answer as anything else.”

  I must have looked as though I had completely gone over the edge, sitting there behind the wheel of the truck smiling like an idiot. That’s probably why the soldier seemed so hesitant about knocking on the window next to my head.

  “Are you okay, Sir?” asked a soldier who looked young enough to be a high school student.

  I looked over at him and considered the question. Was I okay? Not long ago, I would have automatically replied that I was positively okay. Now, I could not be so sure. However, the young soldier appeared impatient for an answer, so I said, “I’m still breathing.”

  Another soldier moved up behind the questioner. “What are you waiting for, McGee? If that’s the truck we’re waiting for, let’s get it unloaded.” This soldier looked about as young as the first one, but he carried himself with an arrogance that signaled he had some sort of rank.

  “Yes, Captain. Just questioning the driver, Sir.”

  Both of the soldiers looked at my smiling face with something like disgust.

  The captain stepped up to the window and motioned for me to roll it down. I smiled some more and wondered if he was old enough to remember when you had to actually turn a handle to lower a car window.

  I pushed the little lever on the door, and the window slid down.

  “Sir, is this the payload the general is waiting for?” the captain asked loudly.

  I nodded.

  “Outstanding, Sir! We will begin unloading it as soon as Colonel Granger and his troops return.” The captain stood at attention as if awaiting my response.

  “They won’t be returning,” I stated flatly.

  The captain heard my words but did not want to accept them. “Okay, give us a location so that the general can send support,” he stammered.

  I watched as the young captain did his best to maintain his composure. “I’m sorry, but they don’t have a location. They’re just gone.”

  He looked like nothing as much as the air being let out of a balloon. My reply seemed to have caused him to shrink considerably.

  “You should take me to General Thompson,” I offered. “Tell the soldiers to unload the truck.”

  The young captain recovered his military presence a bit now that he had some sense of direction. “Yes, let’s go to the general,” he repeated and then turned toward the other soldier. “Monroe, get Baker and Santana to help you unload the truck to the rear storage area.”

  “Sir, yes Sir!” the soldier responded enthusiastically.

  I could not rid myself of the idea that they looked like a couple of kids playing army.

  Chapter 15

  The general looked rather surprised to see me as the young captain led me to a table in what had been the terminal’s dining area.

  “Captain Parker, Turner, to what do I owe this visit?” He tried his best to conceal his discomfort and perhaps also a touch of dread.

  “Sir, this man drove a truck and…” The young captain found it difficult to continue.

  “General, I got the truck back with the poison. However, I am, well, I am the only one who made it back.” I looked to him for some response, but none came immediately.

  Finally, Thompson asked quietly, almost too quietly for me to hear, “All of my men?” He looked directly into my eyes. “Granger?”

  I held his stare even as my brain was running over the best option for answers. “Yes, all of them.” I pictured the zombies pouring out of the buildings to surround us. “It seemed almost like the things were waiting for us. Your men fought the best they could to the very end. Granger went down
trying to save them.”

  General Thompson was looking down at the ground, nodding his head. When he looked up at me again, I thought there was a slight expression of doubt as to my story. “We heard the fire, of course. I simply thought that streets were being cleared. Thank you, Turner. You have done more than you realize. I can only hope that this poison works half as effectively as you say it does. We will test it as soon as possible. In the meantime, I expect you’d like to get back to your family.”

  I nodded and turned to leave.

  “Oh, Turner, a ship will be taking you and the others to a secure island off the coast of Southern California at 0600 tomorrow.”

  The general’s words nearly knocked the breath out of me. We were actually going somewhere that would be safe, somewhere that we could relax, where Christina could be a little girl, Taylor could be a teenager, and perhaps a place where Kat and I could truly be in love. I didn’t quite know how to respond to him, so I gave Thompson an awkward wave as I left the room.

  Back in the terminal, a buzz was running through the crowd. I spotted Kat and went quickly to her.

  “I was so worried about you!” she said, lunging into my arms and kissing me wildly. “We heard a bunch of gunshots,” she managed to say between kisses.

  It may have been due to the tension of the situation around us or a simple matter of biology, but, at that moment, I wanted nothing more than to be out of our clothes and exploring each other.

  Kat must have sensed the growing intensity of my kisses among other things as she moved her face back to look at me.

  “As much as I hate to do this, we better slow down,” she regarded me with a seductive smile. “You’re getting me all hot and bothered.”

  I pulled her close again and whispered in her ear. “Hot and bothered sounds good to me.” I nibbled on her ear, and Kat giggled.

  “So did you get the poison?” she asked, completely ruining the mood.