by David Aslin
E pointed at the man in the cell who once again was starting to crawl; now with even less progress regarding his efforts than before E had thrown him into the cell, sending him smashing into the hardened toilet. “It’s remarkable, don’t you think Doctor, that after all this poor retch has been through, he still has one thing on his demented mind, that is to sink his teeth into us.” E spoke in a quiet voice.
“Yes, pathetic and grotesque, but really quite remarkable!” Doctor Tate replied.
“A few moments ago, back there.” E turned his head back towards Ian and the others of their group. “You said shoot him in the head. Why? I wonder, would you say, shoot him in the head. It seemed to suggest that you knew that was the only way to put him, to put it down permanently.”
Doctor Tate squirmed a bit before answering. “Well, it, just seemed logical, as I noted all of the blunt force trauma that this poor man had gone through and yet was still able to…”
Without another word spoken and without hesitation E, in one deft move grabbed the Doctor and threw him into the cell with the crawling corpse of a man. E then took hold of the barred door and slammed it shut. The door automatically locked upon closure.
“You’re either one of them, or, you at the very least knew what was going on here, you son-of-a-bitch.” E exclaimed as he turned his back on the cell and its contents. He then walked briskly back to the group.
“You can’t do this! YOU CAN’T LEAVE ME IN HERE WITH THIS FLESH EATING… ZOMBIE!” GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE! I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THIS! FOR GOD SAKE … SOMEONE … HELP … GET ME OUT OF THIS … FUCKING PLACE! … OH … GOD … NO! AHHHH”
The next sounds that came from the cell were screams louder and more intense than anything Ian had ever heard before. But they were short lived.
E thought to himself, Seems even broken zom’s can move faster than one would think, that is, if properly motivated. He then silently smirked, Like throwing a bone-head to a caged animal.
Ian thought about asking E about the Doctor, and what his reasons were for what had just occurred, but he decided to remain silent about it; he surmised that E must have had a good reason to have done something so harsh. Regardless, to question him after it was too late to make any difference in this upside down reality would be pointless.
Ian took the lead. They all made their way across the cell block floor and out the gate by the guard station. “Okay, we’re gonna to find those guns as fast as we can. If everyone in this place except us has been infected, we haven’t seen anything, yet.” Ian said trying to sound confidently all together.
“Wait. Who exactly are you guys, Special Forces, or something like that? And what gives you the right, what makes you in charge anyway?” Asked, Jamal Robinson.
Upon hearing his questions, E walked directly to Jamal and got well within Jamal’s comfort zone. E stood silently for a few very uncomfortable seconds, then he pointed his handgun directly at Jamal’s forehead.
“We’re here because we are. Understand this, I don’t give a shite whether you follow along with us, or go about your day elsewhere. Should you decide to tag along, let me make myself perfectly clear, if I let you tag along, I’ll blow your sad arse away without hesitation if you ever question either myself or my partner here.” E motioned towards Ian with a nod of his head. “Ever again. Got that? Ever!”
Jamal just shook his head as he slowly walked away murmuring, “Damn. G-Man be power trip’n.” Jamal looked directly at Ian as he walked on past. “Your man’s got a serious lack of people skills.” Ian replied, “He must like you, or you’d be dead.”
As the group proceeded up the hallway in the direction of the corridor that supposedly housed the gun lock-up; they all suddenly were startled by the loudest thunder clap that they’d heard yet. Once again the lights began to flicker, over and over they flashed on and off, until this time the lights went completely out. Seconds later they all heard the buzzing and moaning of the backup generators that managed again to power-up the emergency lights. The lights came on and shone throughout the hallway with a faint red light. Better than darkness, but much lower light than anyone except E, would find comfortable under any circumstance; let alone the grave situation they were in.
CHAPTER 19
WMZD’S
“Okay, just beyond this corridor and through that doorway over there,” E pointed ahead as he continued, “Should be what we need. WMZD’s.” Ian looked questioningly at E. “Weapons of Mass Zombie Destruction.” Ian smirked as he rolled his eyes. E continued, “That gun lock-up, when we find it, grab a weapon or two and as many loaded magazines, as much matching ammo as you can stuff into your clothes as possible. And make sure you immediately load your guns and know how to set and release the safety. If, no, when you need to shoot your weapon, make damn sure you know it’s going to fire.”
Ian walked up to E, “Once we’ve got more firepower that will change the math.” E curiously looked at Ian, “You know, the bullet to zom ratio. You know we don’t mathematically stand a chance as it stands right now. We don’t have anywhere near enough bullets to match how many potential zom’s are stalking this place.”
E smiled as he replied, “Very good Ian. That’s called tactical thinking, and that’s been on my mind for some time. But, like you said, if or when we get to that gun supply that will swing the odds in our favor. Especially if these guys will be worth a shite.”
E motioned for the group to huddle around him. “Okay, this hallway appears calm enough right now. But keep your eyes open and use your ears. You may very well hear them before spotting any. Moaners most of ‘em. But, they all have their differences just like when they were more, human.”
Emilio raised his hand. E nodded for him to go ahead and speak, “I was wondering. I mean, I’m just asking. These, these people is, are they dead? I mean like some kind of killer zombies ‘er like that!”
Ian glanced at E who nodded for him to go ahead and answer Emilio’s question, “Dead is dead. Alive is alive. These people are suffering a terrible disease that as far as we know isn’t, or hasn’t mutated to become an air-borne infectious threat. Not yet, anyway. The disease they have has driven them completely insane and they are, they demonstrate the characteristics of anthropophagea.” Jamal interrupted, Anthropo-what?”
Ian continued, “It means, these infected people are cannibals. They crave flesh and will stop at nothing within their power to…”
E blurted out, “Just like you’ve already seen, they’ll gobble you up if you give them the chance. My advice is, zom or not, if you even suspect that someone you see has been infected, you shoot it. And I mean IT, people. You can’t be effective if you think of them as human beings. And by being effective I mean all of us doing all that we can to help each other get out of this hell hole alive. Understand. All three men nodded their heads in agreement to E’s words.
“Okay then, lets go get us some big guns.” E spoke while taking the lead, heading down the hallway towards the doorway beyond.
Jamal walked past Emilio and got close to both E and Ian. “I do have one last question.” E replied, “What’s that?”
“Why is it we staying on the lower deck. Why we not going up the stairs to the upper deck cells to check on, if’n there might be others like us that are okay.”
E looked at Ian as he spoke, “I’m going to let the zom expert here answer your question.”
Ian cleared his throat, he was buying time to try and think of a good reason. A plausible explanation to why they weren’t heading upstairs to any of the cell blocks.
“Well, you see, zom’s are, they’re what we call, primal. They are driven by the basic need to feed. Some of them probably have a little of their past memories, depending on how long they’ve been sick. And they know, you see, that the majority of the potential food source, people, hang out and operate on the lower levels. Where the guard shacks and hospital, cafeteria, you know, where all that stuff is.” Ian cleared his throat once again as he glared at E f
or putting him on the spot like that. E chuckled under his breath as Jamal replied, “Yeah that makes sense. Say, why you call ‘em zom’s anyhow? That short for zombies? You said, dead was dead!”
Ian this time with much more confidence immediately replied, “Well, that’s true, dead is dead, so that means they’re really not zombies. Not in the way Hollywood portrays them anyway. But, they do, otherwise, you know, other than being walking dead, they do exemplify many of the otherwise classic symptoms if you will, of so called zombies. So I, well we have nicknamed them, zom’s. You know, ‘cause they’re for the most part, that is, they behave just like you’d expect zombies to act.”
Jamal smiled, “Yeah, I like that, they definitely be like zombies. If they quack like a duck but bite like a zombie, then they be a zom motherfucker for sure. Zom’s works for me!” Emilio nodded his head in agreement that it seemed like a suitable term to describe the wretched, zombie-like afflicted.
E spoke up with a commanding voice, “Okay, enough chit-chat. Question and answer time is over. Let’s get us as many weapons as we can carry, then see if we can find any other survivors. We’ll waste every damn zom that gets in our way, then get the hell out of this god forsaken place.” The group all nodded their approval of E’s semblance of a plan.
Ian walked next to E, “Hey, I’ve got to use the can.”
E frowned as he nodded while replying, “Okay. All right, sure. There’s a head back just across the hall from the guard station.” Ian already knew that there was. When they first passed by it he took notice because at that time he almost was ready to use it, but not quite, not just then.
“Yeah, I know. Give me just a couple minutes. I won’t be long.” Ian looked over towards the other two men as he spoke up, “Anyone else need to relieve themselves?” Both men shook their heads indicating, no.
“All right then, I’ll be right back.” Ian turned and began walking double time towards the men’s room. Once at the doorway to the men’s room, Ian held his pistol firm in his right hand then began slowly pushing the door open with his left hand.
What Ian intentionally didn’t tell anyone was he didn’t need to urinate. What he needed to relieve was much more urgent. All of the tension had started working on his occasionally reoccurring irritable bowel syndrome and he needed to heed natures call … and fast.
Ian cautiously crossed the threshold into the men’s room. He began panning his eyes all around the room. He immediately saw what instantly put a pit in his stomach. There was a man in a guard’s uniform laying on the early nineteen century terrazzo fashioned bathroom floor. The man’s head was face down in a, chest high to the floor old-style urinal; one of three in the room. The water was stuck running… it was stuck on continuous flushing and the man’s head was nearly submerged; the entire room was slowly flooding. Upon closer observation from around ten feet away from the victim, Ian surmised the man, as likely as not a zom at one time, had somehow taken a nasty fall; probably during which he struck his head on the thick porcelain urinal and fell down unconscious. Regardless of what circumstance caused his down-fall, the man appeared to be very dead. If nothing else had created his initial demise, apparently to Ian, at the very least the diseased soul had drown from landing face down in the overflowing urinal, getting an eternal swirly.
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E and his two companions continued their cautious trek up the long hallway towards a door that had a large engraved metal sign posted on it that stated boldly, NONAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL STRICTLY PROHIBITED BEYOND THIS POINT: TRESPASSERS ARE SUBJECT TO DETERENCE BY NECESSARY RESTRAINT. INCLUDING THE POSSIBLE USE OF LETHAL FORCE.
“It’s a good bet the guns we’re looking for are just beyond that no doubt locked door.” E said as he glanced first at Emilio, then at Jamal.
As the two men nodded in agreement with E, that beyond the doorway ahead was likely where the gun lock-up would be found; another doorway to the left and slightly behind them, the one marked central commissary, the two-way hinged swinging doorway began slowly opening.
E was the first of them to hear the, growing more familiar by the hour, sounds of the walking, stalking dead-like prison inhabitants. E knew even before hearing them that they were coming. He could smell their stench a cell block away.
All at once the door flung open wide… revealing a group of moaning, groaning, black slime-oozing, puke spewing ghouls; all of which tried crossing the threshold of the doorway at the same time; resulting in them getting momentarily stuck against one another. Stuck, until one of the ghouls arms was ripped completely off from its shoulder socket whereby allowing just enough wiggle-room that after a few seconds of consorted mass shoving by the horrific horde, to move forward, forcefully resuming their cannibalistic quest for, fresh meat.
Those who just days ago were the guardians of the prison shambled spastically with arms outstretched, their filthy hands grasping desperately at their coveted meals, as they closed in on E and his companions. Like a school of flesh eating piranha, their teeth chattered as their eyes revealed clearly that there was nothing left of their former humanity. They had been relegated to be driven purely by the primal need to feed on the living, on the non-infected.
E took note of their behavior; he soon realized that they preferred to feed on the non-diseased over the cannibalization of each other. He surmised they could sense, likely smell the difference between healthy and rotting flesh
Just then, several more infected staff members male and female entered the room from behind them. The ambulatory dead seemed to be climbing out of the woodwork as they began hording into the large hallway that connected all of the cell blocks; referred to by the prison staff as Main Street.
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Ian pulled his jumpsuit and under-shorts down then eased himself onto the toilet just in time, his irritable bowls could wait no longer. Just as he began feeling the relief of the beginnings of his intestinal evacuation, he heard what sounded like something gurgling, moaning, and sliding itself on the floor just beyond his bathroom stall. “Oh shit! You’ve got to be kidding.” Ian said in near panic. He was yet to be fully disposed of what was now far beyond his ability to merely, switch off. Just then one filthy, bloody outstretched arm followed by another were grabbing towards his feet from under the typically elevated bathroom stalls locked door. “FUCK ME! HOLY SHIT! Ah, Christ, what the hell…?” Ian nearly screamed as he frantically attempted to kick at the grabbing hands, and now head and upper torso that had made it into the stall and were rapidly closing on him. “GODDAMN IT, OH, CHRIST JESUS!” Ian was half praying as he yelled what were intended more as a cry for divine intervention than intended as profanities. The arms dragging their head and upper torso were now nearly on Ian. He reached for his handgun. He pulled it from his jumpsuit pocket so fast that it slipped from his grasp. He fumbled the gun back and forth between his hands like a juggler having a seizure; Ian was able to take control of the weapon just after it landed in his lap. His crawling would-be living dead-like assailant was choking and puking up bloody water as he closed in on Ian’s crotch, teeth and jaws chattering, and snapping like a snapping turtle.
All three men heard a gun go off back in the direction that they’d left Ian. But, there was nothing they could do about it one way or the other; the diseased were closing in on them from the front and back. Jamal struck a boxers pose and the first ghoulish male that came upon him was met by his stiff left jab, then a right cross that would have impressed any top rank amateur boxer. Jamal’s rapid fire on the mark punches dropped the anthropophagous attacker straight to its knees. But it was readily apparent that the ghoul was down but not out. When it fell to its knees all three men heard the distinct sound of bones breaking. One more piece of information E quickly noted. The diseased among many other nasty side effects, or at least regarding the more advanced infected, their bones were decaying from their disease too, rotting away like the rest of their bodies; their bones appeared to be much more brittle, more easily breakable than that of a pers
on of average health.
Emilio having seen Jamal’s at least initial success defending himself, removed his belt sporting a heavy metal buckle, he began swinging his belt and buckle around in a formidable fashion, but the infected were not in the least bit intimidated they kept lumbering towards them mouths drooling a black viscous ooze, like Pavlovian dogs from hell, at feeding time.
E leveled his gun at the ghoul Jamal had dropt to his knees, but then holstered his weapon. “What the hell are you doing?” Jamal screamed out. Emilio hadn’t seen E holster his pistol, his eyes were fixed on the rotting teeth gnashers; Emilio continued to furiously swing his belt, occasionally striking with little results the rapidly closing carnivores.
Knowing their situation was dire, E sprang into action. Like a football place kicker he took a few draw steps back then proceeded to kick Jamal’s knee-dropped anthropophagian in the head with such power that it cleanly removed head from shoulders in a perfect decapitation. The head flew directly into the head of another of the diseased on-slaughters knocking her off of her feet. Then without hesitation E jumped into the air and split-kicked two of them at the same time. They simultaneously hit the wall. In what was almost a blur to Jamal and Emilio, E then moved on them grabbing their jaw-snapping heads in his two powerful hands; he smashed their skulls together with such force that it crushed both their skulls nearly flat. Blood spewed in every direction and covered E’s face and the front of his jumpsuit. E turned from the two zom’s with the crushed skulls, then one after another he jump kicked and punched his way through the dozen remaining retched human flesh feasters that were attacking them from both front and behind. Once E knocked one after another of the ghouls to the ground, he’d boot-stomp their heads, smashing their skulls into bloody pools of mashed brain tissue and fragmented bones.