by Mike Staton
Being cold was both a good and bad thing. He hadn’t progressed to the point of not feeling the illness ravaging his body, so he wasn’t about to turn in the next five minutes. While the thought warmed him, and shredded some of the cotton filling his ears, it didn’t do much to actually warm him.
He pushed himself to stand, despite the darkness that was near absolute in the room, and stumbled to the window. He ached from head to toe.
Another indicator he was infected. If he didn’t have a bite in his shoulder, he might have attributed the body aches to some sort of flu.
Fever, coughing, sneezing, body aches: all very common symptoms of your garden variety H1N1. It was no small wonder the zombie plague had spread virtually unnoticed until the mass outbreaks of corpses standing back up.
The ruddy thing practically screamed ‘you just have the flu, drink some hot tea.’ Percival scrubbed his eyes and bumped into the wall. He took a moment to feel for the pull cord of the blackout curtain covering the window. Half a second later he’d raised the shade enough to let a thin trail of light into the room. Just enough light for the room to bounce back into sharp detail for him.
The door to the hallway was closed. Kat was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t tell how long he’d been out for, but if it’d been long enough that night had fully fallen, he couldn’t blame her for crashing in another dorm room.
That was smart. If he’d turned in his sleep and she’d been nestled… the thought got chased away with a flood of hot tears as Sarah’s face crept back to the forefront of his mind. Memories of all the times she’d curled at his side accompanied those images and the hot knife of loss twisted hot lightning bolts of pain through his side.
He sank down to the ground, let out two stifled sobs, heedless of whether or not he could be heard. He’d lost everyone.
He couldn’t tell how long he sat there and sobbed, but when the tears dried, he finally noticed the sheaf of paper partially covered by the shed blanket. He reached down and picked it up.
Percival wiped his eyes as he moved closer to the window and read the note, left by Kat, in the meager and fading light.
She’d not abandoned him to nap somewhere else, simply to finish a mission tasked to her by the acting head of the Watchmen.
She’d be back by dawn.
He spent longer than he’d have liked to find a writing utensil, a pencil by chance, and scrawled a quick response for her. He gathered his equipment, puzzled to his missing shirt, and slid from the dorm room.
He closed one eye and clicked on his flashlight in the dark hallway. He navigated to another dorm room and swiped a shirt. He said a quiet apology to whoever he’d just stolen from and pulled his jacket on over the lime green shirt.
He ignored the aches of his body and coughed into his hand before pulling on his helmet and descending. He hit the ground floor of the dorm, listened to the occasional thump of a meaty, rotting fist against the metal door and bee lined for the opposite entrance.
He didn’t hear any feeding moans, which meant that the zombies outside had forgotten about the fleshy popsicle within the concrete domicile. Percival moved to the metal door, paused and listened once more.
He was a dead-man-walking and could help finish Kat’s mission. It’d help his mental state, anyway. Sitting in an empty gun nest would do the opposite. Finding other survivors, friends, in Prosperity Wells would be the best thing for him.
Percival opened his eyes and shoved the door open. He slipped through the narrow gap and ducked into the rain. The soft patter on his helmet created a percussion rhythm that his steps matched. He’d been in a hurry earlier in the day, and regretted it now. With a population of four hundred souls, it would have been near impossible for Proxies’s surviving lackeys to kill everyone.
Even if they were capable of controlling a horde of zombies.
Percival kicked himself for not realizing it and taking his time to search Prosperity Wells proper before heading directly for Brown College campus. His thoughts had been muddled and frantic at the sight of the smoke. They were focused and he’d been blind to the possibility of other survivors.
Dissimilar to how he felt now, with cotton fogging his mind. He knew what he wanted to do, but everything came to him in a slight haze and at half speed.
He moved through the campus. He paused at places of combat, places where he found a cluster of dead bodies. He felt grateful, and a little guilty, that he failed to recognize individuals beyond that they were people he knew. He paused by Brodcust Hall, the home of the physics department, and touched a series of bullet holes. No bodies nearby, just the passing evidence of the horrific violence to visit the place he’d come to call home.
Percival squeezed his eyes closed and took several deep breaths in rapid succession. He forced the torrent of grief and anger that surged up back down into the back of his mind.
“Ain’t your fault, Percival.”
Percival spun at the words. His fatigue, exhaustion, and grief melted away for a moment in a flood of adrenaline. The voice was Karl.
He’d not seen Karl die. Apparently the old man was far tougher than Percival’d given him credit for.
“Best move away from here… They’re coming.” Karl’s voice drifted from just beyond the corner of Brodcust Hall.
“Who is?” Percival’s brow furrowed as he moved toward the corner, chasing the voice. “Where’re you?”
He rounded the corner, expecting to come face-to-face with the old journalism teacher, but found himself facing a cluster of five corpses instead.
* * *
Kat yanked the door hard. She moved quick and low. She brought her pistol up. Her finger froze on the trigger. “What the hell, Kim?”
Kim lowered his black and grey crowbar. He was a middle-aged man, short cropped black hair, olive complexion with a nose that’d seen at least one break before the dead started walking. He stood taller than Kat, with a nondescript build. Wearing a dark hoodie and tan cargo pants, he’d blend in just about anywhere.
A lit flashlight hung from his hip and backpack straps were clearly evident drifting over his shoulders. He lowered the crowbar immediately.
“We thought the rest of the town was dead and gone.” The voice came from behind Kim, distinctly feminine.
“Not everyone. And ‘we’?” Kat flipped the safety back onto her pistol and pushed it back into its holster. “Susanne, is that you?”
A small dark girl stepped out of the shadows. She wore a dark red, faux leather jacket, jeans, and a backpack as well. Her frizzy, dark brown hair was pulled into a tight ponytail. Her teenage features were narrow and angular. The apocalypse had turned a full-bodied girl into a high-cheek boned African princess with a long, sloping nose. “How many Watchmen are left?”
“Ten. Unless the other scouts have fallen.” Kat flicked her tongue over her lips and pulled the paintball mask off. “It’s damned good to see you.”
“You too,” Kim said. “You can help us tote some food back to the Community Center.”
“Sure. But town’s not safe anymore.” Kat slung her mask onto her belt. “Barricades’re down and…”
“Our friends have turned and the horde is still around.” Susanne shook her head and slunk back into the shadows cast by Kim’s flashlight. “We know. Did you get whoever you were shooting at a few hours ago?”
Kat nodded. “A handful of dead heads. Was rescuing Percival.”
Kim froze in his turn to follow Susanne into the backroom of the coffee shop. “We thought they were all dead. Are they okay?”
“Pretty…” Kat stopped herself. Sharing about Percival’s solitude and his infection wouldn’t help. She weakly finished: “He’s alive.”
Susanne glanced at Kat. The look the girl gave her said that she called Kat’s BS, but wasn’t going to speak it.
“That’s good. Just him?” Kim moved into the backroom.
“Yeah. Just him.”
It was no secret that the coffee shop had been converted to canned fo
od storage. Its lines of metal wire shelving that once housed a dozen different types of coffee bean, and half a dozen types of pre-ground coffee, now bore cans of ravioli and string beans and sealed packages of pasta. The sort of things that could sit for years and never spoil.
Kim fell silent, his hand resting on a can of SpaghettiOs.
“Remember to grab stuff we don’t have to cook.” Susanne looked back to Kat. “Where’s he at? Ain’t there some procedure for not going anywhere alone?”
Kat turned away. Susanne was someone who’d been interested in joining the Watchmen since they’d secured the campus and started clearing the town. Kat had thought it a good idea. She’d been a year younger than Susanne when she’d been shipped off to a military ‘reform’ school. The Watchmen reminded her of that community and she’d felt the desire to mentor the girl.
Karl had shot the idea down. He’d established an age requirement of 16 to sign up to actively protect the community they were building.
“He’s resting in the dorms. We’re short too many people to double up right now. Some procedures needed to be abandoned.” Kat stuffed a couple of cans into her pockets. She didn’t have a pack like the others.
Her mission hadn’t been intended to be an extended excursion.
“What happened to the others?” Kim asked.
Kat shook her head. “Dunno. Might still be out there for all I know. How many townsfolk are holed up in the Community Center?”
“25. One infected and under watch. Three with injuries, but nothing life threatening.” Susanne turned, zipped her backpack closed, and threw it onto her shoulders.
Kat’s mouth dropped open. No wonder they needed to scavenge food. 25 mouths to feed would go through provisions pretty quick and the Community Center hadn’t been stocked for a siege.
“Think we all rolled over?” Susanne asked.
“Not at all. Just assumed the worst.”
“Can’t blame you, really.” Kim zipped his backpack closed. “Apocalypse and all. We assumed the worst too.”
The last statement earned him a glare from Susanne.
Kat nodded. “Can y’all move?”
“The only guy who can’t walk on his own has enough of us to stretcher him out,” Kim answered.
“If he don’t option out, that is.”
That meant the infected person couldn’t walk. The bright side was that it meant when he turned it’d be easier to put down.
“If you can, we should relocate you to the Glover Farmstead. It’s secure and… can handle everyone until we reclaim our home.”
“You paused on ‘and…’” Susanne killed Kim’s flashlight for him and moved through the darkened coffee shop to the door.
“Might be a little cramped in the confines of the barn.”
“That the only catch?” Kim asked at the same time that Susanne asked. “How do you know it’s secure?”
“Only catch. And it’s temporary.” Kat looked to Susanne as she pulled her paintball mask back on. “It’s a Watchmen outpost. We cleared it when we first started patrols.”
“Well… Let’s go get Percival and see if anyone else is willing to leave.” Susanne opened the door into the drizzle soaked night.
Chapter 4
Karl lifted a hand, the same attached to his butchered arm, and uttered a guttural moan. He also stank of rot and filth. But his eyes seemed bright and full of life, despite his jerking movements reminiscent of the walking corpses near him. The other zombies also ignored him, treating him as one of their own.
Percival lost precious seconds as they moved toward him. His mind didn’t want to grasp what he was seeing. He blinked. Karl cocked his head back and uttered the loud, otherworldly feeding moan.
It snapped Percival out of his stupor and he sprang into action. His sledgehammer swept through the cold rain, cutting a vicious arc and connected solidly with the foremost zombie’s neck. Bones crunched under the impact of the steel head of the hammer. Percival followed the swing through, driving the mostly lifeless zombie down to the ground.
Ignoring the protests of his injured body, Percival swept the hammer back up and smashed the forehead of the next zombie open. It took a single stumbling step as brain matter sloshed out of the gaping hole and down its ruined face. It fell, stiff limbed, to the ground in front of him.
Percival took a step backward, away from the small herd as Karl cocked his head back and let loose another feeding moan.
“Stop that!” Percival shouted as he brought the sledgehammer up and let gravity drive it into the brain of another zombie as it made a stumbling rush toward him. He was lucky these walking corpses had deteriorated to the point of not moving very quickly. Recently turned zombies capable of swift movement would have rapidly put him into the grave he’d only barely skirted.
Karl took a staggering step toward him and he quickly, by comparison, dodged around him.
He moved with the momentum he’d gained from the quick escape from Karl and swept his sledgehammer in an upward arc that shattered the remaining zombie’s chin. Percival faded away from a grasping hand and smashed his sledgehammer into the offending shoulder. The zombie tilted with the impact, teetered for a moment, then toppled to the concrete.
Percival hefted his weapon and brought it down hard enough he felt the head bite into the concrete through the decayed skull. He twisted his gore spattered weapon out of the destroyed head and spun toward Karl, and found only a ravenous zombie in his friend’s place.
A zombie that lashed out at him with its one good arm, the other dangled out of a sleeve, nearly severed a handful of inches down from the shoulder. Percival ducked the ghoul’s open handed grasp and slammed the shaft of his sledgehammer up under its chin. The blow knocked the corpse to the ground.
Gasping for breath, Percival planted one foot atop the downed ghoul’s chest and dashed its brains across the wet cement with a swing that was reminiscent of a sloppy golf swing. Percival dropped the sledgehammer to the ground and doubled over. He gasped for breath as a headache pulsed, mean and throbbing, at his temple. He squeezed his eyes closed and fought, and failed, to keep from falling into a coughing fit.
He cleared his helmet just in time to avoid filling it with vomit.
Being sick sucked. Even more than he’d anticipated. Fighting with the flu, both literally and figuratively, had nearly gotten him killed. He couldn’t keep the physical activity up for long.
A few, long moments of shivering in the rain passed before he wiped his mouth and pulled his helmet back on. He took a few deep breaths, gingerly touched his injured shoulder, and scooped up his sledgehammer with his good arm.
Being injured sucked. He dropped the heavy head onto the still gnashing zombie head and stilled it. He moved on with a slight limp. Kat’s note said she’d be heading west into the ‘dining district’ of Prosperity Wells. He’d chosen to head out north. The fighting seemed to have been lesser in this direction, so far, and that told him that there was a greater chance of finding someone.
He moved on from his fight scene, feeling fresh aches and pains in his body. It begged him to stop and rest, but he pressed on. He knew he could find someone else alive.
There had to be more than just him and Kat. She’d even implied it. He thought.
“Or maybe she’d said it outright,” he muttered to himself as he breached the northern gate of campus proper and started into Prosperity Wells. He added not going back and getting the Humvee to his growing list of regrets. In his state of staggering, and stumbling movement, he wouldn’t even be mad if someone shot him for a zombie.
Even though he’d yet to see a corpse using a tool and he toted his sledgehammer propped on his shoulder and ready to use at a moment’s notice.
After what seemed a lifetime long walk, he found himself among the short, brick office buildings. It was where a number of Prosperity Wells’s blossoming businesses were located. That was prior to the dead rising. Since the reclamation of Prosperity Wells, this area had grown into a space fo
r people to call home and not feel as though they were crowding atop one another.
Even in the apocalypse with everyone coming together for the betterment of everyone, the American ideal of having one’s own space prevailed.
He moved down the center of the cobblestone street, a relic of the town’s former main street, scanning both sides. Glass doors had been replaced with something more practical, or boarded up, and didn’t provide him with anything to see. The tops of the brick buildings remained empty. The windows remained dark.
Maybe it’d been a stupid idea to come searching without Kat. Maybe she was the only one left. Her and a handful of Watchmen hidden out in the countryside somewhere.
Still he persisted. Each exhausted step brought him further into the abandoned town. Each brought a new lesson of exhaustion. He, before long, ended up standing before the Community Center.
He wiped a sheen of water from his helmet’s visor. He hadn’t breached any of the buildings yet. Survivors could be hiding out inside the buildings and he’d not seen a bullet hole or corpse for two blocks now.
He pressed down on the handle and shouldered his way into the first darkened hallway. He took out his flashlight and clicked it on. The Community Center was as good a place as any to start searching indoors, and it got him out of the blasted, cold rain.
He wound his way through the dark, empty corridor and around the first corner.
A masculine voice uttered a soft noise of surprise and Percival found himself suddenly blinded by a bright spot flashlight directed at his face.
“Gah!” He stumbled a step and shot his hand up to break the light.
“Who goes there! Stop! I’ve got a gun on you!” the man at the end of the hall shouted. The sound of others approaching with footsteps coming echoed down the hall.
“I’m friendly. I swear. I’m one of you.” Percival dropped the sledgehammer and raised his hands. “It’s Percival.”
There was a soft murmur of spoken words at the end of the hall. The first voice answered him: “Lose the helmet. Slowly.”