District: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse

by Shawn Chesser

  Wilson keyed the Talk button. “There’s a washout here. The road’s rutted as hell, too. Ray’s blue pickup is here.”

  “And?” Daymon asked.

  “The place looks deserted. I’m not liking what I’m seeing,” Wilson conceded. “It reminds me of the Bates house.”

  Sitting in his Chevy, Daymon looked at Oliver for help and received only a glassy-eyed stare in return. After a half-beat of that he said, “Kathy Bates?”

  “Norman,” Lev called over the open channel. “You know … as in the Norman Bates from the movie Psycho?”

  Daymon consulted his rearview and saw Jamie in the passenger seat of the F-650. She was laughing and next to her Lev was pretending to bang his head on the steering wheel. So he keyed the Talk button. Held it down for a long couple of seconds contemplating what he wanted to say. Finally, he just spoke his mind. “Sorry, dick,” he said. “I wasn’t big on horror when I was a kid. Still ain’t. Hell, every second goes by nowadays makes me feel as if I’m starring in my own horror flick.”

  Lev came on and started to apologize only to be cut short when Wilson announced that he and Taryn were going to drive across the washout.

  Softly cursing Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers under his breath, Daymon gazed uphill and watched as the Raptor started to roll forward. He saw it dip down into the wash, lurch drunkenly back and forth a few times, then rocket up the other side as if the substantial crossing was little more than a parking lot speedbump.

  “Nicely done,” Daymon said. “You just going to run right up and knock on the door, Red?”

  Wilson came back on. “We sure aren’t going to pull up front and honk,” he shot back. “That’d just draw out any rotters that are nearby.”

  Making a visual tour of his mirrors for said rotters, Daymon thought: As if that growling V8 hasn’t already.

  ***

  In the Raptor, Taryn jockeyed the rig around the gravel parking pad and parked it diagonal to the porch, leaving the tailgate facing the front of the old house. In response to the confused look settling on Wilson’s face, she set the emergency brake and said, “In case we have to leave in a hurry.”

  “Good call.” Wilson handed her the Motorola and unholstered his Beretta. After confirming the chamber held a live round, he shouldered open his door.

  “Be careful,” Taryn said, placing a hand on his thigh. “Check for traps.”

  “Copy that.” He gave her a peck on the cheek that morphed into a passionate kiss.

  Looking him in the eyes, Taryn repeated herself, but slower this time. “Be … careful, Wilson.”

  “Checking for traps,” he answered as he stepped onto the muddy drive and shut the door behind him. Hearing the locks thunk, he wrapped around behind the idling truck and skidded to a halt in front of the short stack of steps.

  Blood. Not just a drop or two, either. It looked as if something or someone had gotten cut real deep and started to bleed out here. He’d seen it before. Only that instance, a gusher caused by a horrific Z bite, which had led to Phillip’s death and subsequent turn. And much like that pool of drying blood up in the clearing by the compound, this mess at his feet was pretty substantial.

  He stood rooted, head down. Saw his reflection staring back at him. Behind his reflection, high clouds scudded across the sky.

  No need to be quiet now, he concluded.

  He sidestepped the pooled blood and scaled the steps, thumbing back the hammer on his pistol. From his vantage on the front porch he noticed that the blinds were closed and there was no light spilling from within. Wincing as it screeched loudly, he pulled the screen door open. No need for a burglar alarm with this thing, he thought, raising a hand to pound on the sturdy oak door. After delivering a pair of sharp raps which nobody answered, he doubled down and pounded with his fist.

  Hearing what he thought to be a soft shuffling from behind the door, he took a step back.

  From her seat in the Raptor, Taryn had watched Wilson scale the steps and approach the door. She had started when the screen door emitted that cringeworthy sound. Then she had cringed as her man delivered the first flurry of knocks. The rest, however, because it had happened so quickly, had been but a blur to her. One moment Wilson was banging on the door. In the next the door was swinging inward and he was being dragged inside, the barrel of some kind of rifle pressed hard against his neck.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Taryn chanted, fumbling simultaneously to draw her Beretta and depress the Talk button on the Motorola. But before she could accomplish either critical task there was a gaping muzzle of some kind of assault rifle tapping gently on the passenger side glass. And peering over the black rifle was a face she vaguely recognized.

  Woodruff

  Ignoring the spiders and cobwebs and bird droppings, Iris pressed her shoulder against the weathered wood four-by-four beam and craned to see around the big brass bell. Once she determined the looters weren’t circling back, that they hadn’t seen her and were trying some ruse to get her out into the open, she increased the volume on the long range CB radio and clicked the Transmit button two times.

  After a long stretch of uneasy silence, a woman said, “Speak.”

  “They’re gone,” Iris said. “I’m in the steeple now.”

  “Are they really gone … or just moved on?” the voice asked.

  “Gone,” Iris whispered. “They drove off in the same vehicles they came here in. I went to Main and tracked them nearly to the end of our town. After they made the junction I’m fairly certain they continued south.”

  “Were any of them injured?”

  “No," Iris answered, sadness in her tone. “All six of them made it out of the parochial house. They fought with a couple of the Purged then went straight to their vehicles. I checked their vehicles out while they were dealing with the husks … nothing. No supplies at all. But they do have a dog.”

  “A dog?” the voice asked, sounding very interested. “A big breed?”

  “No. It was an Australian Shepherd. Male, I think. Multi-colored eyes. Pretty coat,” Iris said, her salivary glands acting up again. “Wherever these looters call home, it’s got to be nice. They’re all pretty clean. Their trucks appear to be running well. Looks to me like they’re eating well, too. One of them is borderline obese.”

  “Perfect,” said the voice. “Keep watching. They’ll be back.”

  Chapter 35

  Naval Station Norfolk, Norfolk, Virginia

  Situated at the southern tip of the peninsula known as Sewell’s Point and near the mouth of the open ocean saltwater port of Hampton Roads, Naval Station Norfolk, once home to north of seventy warships and more than one hundred aircraft, was now deathly quiet and seemingly deserted, its miles of wharfs, piers, and dock space completely overrun by jiangshi.

  From the roomy confines of the guided missile cruiser Lanzhou’s high-tech bridge, Rear Admiral of the People’s Liberation Army Navy, Chan Qi, watched his PLA Special Forces team returning from their final recon mission of the day. Bundled up against the late October chill, four of the five-man team huddled low in the rigid inflatable boat, their upper bodies bouncing in unison with each new swell the tiny craft blasted through. The soldier manning the tiller, Captain Kai Zhen, was the only exception. Like any good leader he remained upright, determined to not let any obstacle, whether man-made or whipped up by nature, get the better of him. Receiving a face full of white chop sent airborne by the boat’s buffeting bow, Zhen simply shook his head, remained ramrod straight, and steered the RIB for the looming destroyer’s angular gray fantail.

  Once the returning team disappeared from view below the starboard gunwale, Qi turned and addressed the sailor standing silently off his right shoulder.

  “Corporal Meng,” he barked in Mandarin. “See to it that the team goes directly to the briefing room and begins their after-action report. I want the drone footage downloaded to a tablet and brought to me here at once.”

  The corporal saluted smartly, but remained rooted.

>   Grimacing, the flag officer returned Meng’s salute and made a shooing motion to his least favorite subordinate. Sadly, Vice Admiral Li Chen, whom Admiral Qi had been grooming to one day take over for him—when the time came of course, and only if the powerful in the party were agreeable to the recommendation—had been victim of a surprise jiangshi attack just days after the idiot scientists let their deadly virus escape their supposedly impenetrable underground facility. In fact, the spread of the unnamed virus via the jiangshi it created was so fast and severe that Qi was amazed he’d been able to muster enough sailors and soldiers necessary to make this bold mission possible. Reaching the United States mainland had seemed like a dream three weeks prior. And though the outbreak had made the Chinese Navy’s plans to outnumber the U.S. in combat surface ships and become a true “blue water” navy by 2020 unreachable, that plan was moot now, because a number of skirmishes, mainly initiated by U.S. and Chinese hunter-killer submarines acting autonomously, had sent the bulk of both countries’ navies to the ocean floor while stand-off surface-to-surface cruise missile attacks had rendered a sizeable number of the remaining fleets’ ships nothing but scorched shells drifting bodies of water worldwide. Acting on final use-them-or-lose-them orders issued by the heads of both dying nations the moment it had become evident long range communications were compromised to the point that they could no longer be relied upon, both nations had cut their subs loose to do what they did best: run silent and deep while awaiting new orders.

  Just knowing that those ghostly quiet American submarines were still out there gave Qi pause, especially during these rare moments of silence on his usually bustling bridge. Feeling a cold chill trace his spine, Qi studied the choppy water off the bow, at times double-taking at shadows he was certain represented a raised enemy periscope.

  “Corporal Meng, where is my tablet?” he bellowed, startling his entire bridge crew.

  Regrettably, Admiral Qi reflected, the Chunming, a next generation Lanzhou guided missile destroyer he had been slated to command, sat in dry-dock at Changxiandao Jiangnan Naval Yard with only her keel laid and a handful of propulsion system components fully installed. In addition to Chunming, three aircraft carriers and dozens of other warships in various states of build rusted away ashore or in dry-dock, their completion an impossibility due to the far-reaching effects of a man-made virus.

  The speed at which the world’s once mighty nations had fallen took everyone by surprise. That the ruling class initiated this face-saving plan after seeding the virus on the U.S. mainland was truly baffling to Qi. But orders were orders. And his orders were to plant evidence of the virus’ creation. Evidence, electronic and physical, that pointed directly to the U.S. government as the true culprit behind the worldwide spread of the aptly named Omega virus. And to make the allegations stick, boots on the ground were necessary. Which was what dozens of PLA Special Forces recon teams deployed from various ports all up and down the West Coast were currently up to.

  Qi wondered who would be left to write the history books. Who did the leaders ensconced deep in their bunkers need to impress? And most importantly: Why? The billion walking dead back home didn’t care who made them what they were. The peasants and city folk left to fight for survival in the face of such long odds didn’t care, either. God? If there was one, He or She or It didn’t seem to care.

  So what was the real reasoning behind this new program of westward expansion? To colonize the wide open spaces in the center of the country? To enslave America’s survivors and put them to work growing food for his people here, on their own soil, where the weather was temperate and the growing season long?

  Ultimately, Qi decided, three hundred million bodies—most of them infected—would be less of a mountain to summit than the billion jiangshi currently ravaging the motherland.

  Still mulling over what his mission would mean in the grand scheme of things, he cast his gaze along the nearby seawall. Standing three deep and wavering like wheat before the harvest, the monsters pressing the chest-high safety barrier were emitting a noise similar to the mental image they had initially evoked. Most were Caucasian, their round eyes lifeless black orbs. Some brown- and black-skinned corpses milled in among the encroaching throng. Unlike the undead crowd that had seen the remnants of Qi’s South Fleet off under a snow-laden sky so many weeks and hard-won nautical miles ago, scanning the faces of the hissing assemblage here failed to produce one similar to his own. Not an Asian man, woman, or child among them that he could see. Which was a good thing. Because in his experience, it was always easier to kill someone, or in this instance, something that looked vastly different than one’s self.

  Looking off the Lanzhou’s starboard-side, Qi marveled at the number of seemingly still seaworthy vessels caught in port during the outbreak. There were oilers, supply ships, and, probably bound for a scrapyard somewhere, a trio of older frigates whose class he couldn’t immediately place. Around the bend north of his flotilla were the piers used to berth both aircraft carriers in port for resupply turnarounds and those loitering temporarily before steaming to Newport News shipyards for refitting or repairs. From the looks of the pair of massive superstructures breaking up the skyline, two of the United State Navy’s aircraft carriers were still berthed at Piers 12 and 14 when the virus was let loose.

  Looming over the piers to his right, a dozen other ghost ships languished. Straining against taut mooring lines, the Arleigh-Burke-class destroyer and handful of tender ships and tugs all appeared to be trying to escape the watchful phalanx of jiangshi that had been accumulating near their bows since dawn.

  Approaching footsteps drew Qi’s attention back to the bridge and task at hand. Expecting to see Corporal Meng thrusting the P88—a Chinese copy of Apple’s iPad—in his face, he instead encountered Captain Zhen, all six-foot-two of him soaking wet and still wearing his watch cap and comms gear.

  “Zhen,” the admiral said, his tone softer than it had been with Meng and the bridge crew. “You wish to brief me in person?”

  With a none-too-happy look parked on his wind-burned angular face, Zhen grunted an affirmative. “Captain’s quarters? Or the officer’s canteen?” he asked, the frown dissolving.

  “My quarters,” replied Qi, observing the captain’s reddened face suddenly light up. “I will have the tablet delivered to me there. And while we wait”—he smiled wide, showing off a mouthful of perfectly straight teeth—“we shall have some warm baijiu.”

  Now there was a twinkle in Zhen’s eyes to go along with the slow-to-form smile.

  “After you,” Zhen said, happy with his decision to dismiss the chattering corporal and take matters into his own hands.

  ***

  Admiral Qi’s quarters was a two-hundred-square-foot rectangle jam-packed with a single bed, faux-wood-laminated combination table/desk, two narrow chairs with red and gold padding and, tucked underneath the starboard-facing porthole, a microwave and miniature refrigerator.

  In all reality, Zhen thought as he took it all in, Qi’s berth was about the same size as the efficiencies the working class back home lived in. Blocks of high-rises full of similar living spaces dominated the cities where the pollution-spewing factories were located.

  “Sit,” Qi insisted.

  Zhen removed his black watch cap and did as he was told.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Zhen ruffled his close-cropped graying hair which was the only indicator that he was nearer to forty than thirty as his unlined face and chiseled physique would suggest.

  Qi removed two shot glasses from a desk drawer. After placing one on the table before Zhen and the other in front of his empty chair, he put the opaque bottle he was holding into the microwave and pressed the button marked Warm. While the tiny oven hummed away, he squeezed by the table and opened the narrow door leading out to the corridor beyond. Without uttering a word, he received the P88 tablet from Corporal Meng and closed the door in his face.

  Qi deposited the tablet in the center of the table.
He took the bottle of grain liquor from the microwave, sat down across from Zhen and, with a flourish learned from years of rubbing shoulders with China’s elite, poured a finger’s worth of the spirits into each shot glass.

  “Ganbei,” he said, raising his glass.

  “Ganbei,” Zhen repeated, touching his glass to Qi’s. Fully expecting to have to stifle a grimace, Zhen tilted his head back and downed the warm liquor. Instead, taken aback at how smooth the admiral’s offering was, he nodded and complimented Qi on his selection.

  “Three thousand U.S. dollars before—”

  “The jiangshi arose,” Zhen finished. He produced a cigar from his uniform pocket and placed it before Qi. “Cuban. It was a gift from a cadre I trained before all of this. It’s yours now.”

  Qi took the cigar. Then, without so much as offering an insincere thank you or giving the cigar a cursory glance, he set it aside and said curtly, “The pier and beyond. Tell me your findings.”

  Shaking his head, Zhen said, “Sadly, Admiral Qi, we cannot go inland here.”

  “The Americans came ashore in Normandy under withering fire. Why can’t we make landfall here, Captain?”

  Zhen picked up the tablet. He swiped and tapped then spun it around to face Qi, a grainy full color video already playing on it. The hundreds of dead framed in the shot were small because the footage was taken by a remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle. “Jiangshi are everywhere,” the Special Forces captain pointed out. “And there are more of them in the city than you see here in the shipyards. We are lucky here. The stink of death hits like a fist as you get ashore where it has become trapped by the warehouses and office buildings.”

  “As it did in Beijing,” Qi said indifferently. “What about the nearby interstates?”

  Lips pursed, Zhen shook his head. “Barely passable. Unmoving vehicles and monsters everywhere. You will see in a moment.”

  “Decadent pigs,” Qi said, slapping the tabletop. “Rumor had it that even the young children had automobiles.”