by Jack Wallen
Susan shook her head.
“I didn’t think so. Now, instead of going all cavalry and quite possibly making the final mistake of your life, walk beside me and tell me where we need to go.” I tried to force my voice to be more calming and assuring. I was starting to think that being a parental figure might be more difficult than battling moaners.
Without so much as a roll of her eyes, Susan stepped to the side so I could open the door. I had one final word of warning. “Keep your eyes on the lookout for weapons. Anything. Baseball bats, shovels, guns, knives―”
“Policeman!” Susan shouted as she pointed to what looked like a cluster-fuck of a car accident. And lo and behold, there was a police officer, minus his face, amidst the crowd of dead rubberneckers.
“Good eye, Susan. Wait here.” I looked around, and when my eyes confirmed there were no moaners nearby, I sprinted straight for the late officer. Surely German police carried guns. I rifled through Officer Stamm’s, at least that’s what his nametag said, uniform and came across one regulation German police-type firearm. It was clean, heavy, and fully loaded. Also on the officer was a can of pepper spray, a Taser, and a walkie-talkie. I took all of it and turned back to Susan, who was completely unaware of the moaner creeping up behind her.
“Susan!” I instantly shot my hand up and pointed. With lightning-fast reflexes, Susan turned, dropped, and rolled out of the way. It was during the roll phase of her escape that, without thinking, I lifted the gun and pulled the trigger. I wasn’t remotely surprised that my aim was way off and the moaner continued on its quest to have at Susan. I aimed the gun a second time and pulled off another shot. Again, I was off the mark. Shooting a firearm was as foreign as the target I was trying to take down, so getting a good shot would require practice I didn’t have the luxury of taking.
Susan screamed as she backed herself behind me. Now the moaner was walking straight for me. Once more I lifted the pistol, held my breath, and pulled the trigger. This time I got a shock. My aim was dead-on! The moaner found himself the owner of a third eye in his forehead, and the gray-skinned bag of pus dropped with a sloppy thud.
Susan and I stood motionless and soundless for a long time. Neither of us had any idea how to tell if the damned things were really, and completely, dead, and neither of us wanted to get close enough to learn.
We took a collective deep breath, and finally Susan pointed the way to her father. We started walking.
“Question…if you were able to find me with your phone, did you bother to try to call the States?” Susan was sounding so much like an adult it was eerie.
I was stunned and had no answer.
“You’re kidding, right? You haven’t bothered to try?”
“Yes. I did. The moment I was blasted awake by your father’s device I tried to call my boss.”
“Did he answer?”
“No. Nothing. Wait…You have a phone, too. Did you bother to call anyone?”
“Who was I supposed to call? My whole family is here…and all but one of them is dead!”
Was I really that stupid? I actually hadn’t even bothered to try to call anyone since I had tried earlier. In fact, amid the surrounding chaos, I had somehow forgotten that my phone actually made phone calls. The simplest things, the simplest things.
I pulled out my trusty companion and touched the screen to open the phone application. I had service…and plenty of it. I figured I might as well try the boss again. He had sent me on this assignment, he might as well be the one to get my ass out of this mess.
I opened his contact listing and hit his office number. It rang. And rang, and rang, and rang.
“Nothing.” My voice didn’t reveal the disappointment in my chest. “That’s okay, he has another number.” And of course, the other number rang on and on as well. I went through my list of trusty contacts and not a single person stateside answered their phones. This was not looking the slightest bit promising.
I looked at Susan; her eyes were starting to well up again. “I’ll try later. Maybe it’s just lunchtime, and everyone is away from their desks.” Of course, that was total bullshit, but there was no reason to scare her. The last thing I needed was an overly emotional young girl on my hands. It was best keep her ignorant of just how bad the situation really was.
“We should get moving.”
Chapter 7: Dangerous travels
The ash was still falling, covering the landscape with the gray pallor of death. Random sounds could be heard from every direction, bringing to mind a feeling of well-earned paranoia. The march to Susan’s father was slow going, like slogging through a warm, dry snow.
“So what exactly does your father do?” I thought maybe some idle chit-chat would ease the tension a bit.
“He’s a molecular physicist focusing on renewable energy sources. He’s won every possible award in his field and has been published in every possible publication.”
I was surprised that this man’s young daughter could rattle off a PR-ready bio as easily as she could the lyrics to her favorite song. It was almost as if the response had been programmed from birth, like she was daddy’s little adorable sound bite.
“And that’s all he does.” Susan added as she kicked an empty soda can with the power and accuracy of a professional soccer player.
Finally we got to the truth, an emotional core underlying what, on the surface, would appear to be the American dream. Husband, Daddy, Scientist ready to save the world…but does Daddy’s profession preclude him from giving his own child what she needs the most? A father. And did Daddy overlooking his sweet, innocent child during this apocalypse lead to her ultimate demise? Negligence of epic proportions.
“Take a right at the next intersection.” Susan’s voice yanked me from my inner monologue. “From there it’s a half-mile or so, and then a left turn.”
We turned the corner and found ourselves looking at a scene I might never be able to forget. Lying at the feet of a moaner was a woman whose head had been cracked open and hollowed out. Blood covered and veiled the woman’s face; it was splattered on the ground surrounding her head and neck, making it look like her brain had simply exploded. What was probably the same moaner that had defiled and skull-juiced the mother was standing at the scene of the crime, holding an infant in his hands. The baby was screaming as the moaner brought its tiny head to his mouth and bit down. The fragile skull caved in, and the moaner devoured the brain matter.
Rage and hate poured out of me as, without hesitation, I pulled the gun out and fired. Unlike my last attempt at shooting, this go around my aim was spot-on the first time as the moaner went down with the same third eye in his head as the previous victim. But I wasn’t done. No. I insisted on draining a few more shots into the sick fuck’s head. The bullets from the pistol continued desecrating the moaner’s face until there was no face left to target. The echoes from the gunfire slowly dissipated into a silence that was only broken by my heavy breathing.
I couldn’t pull my eyes from the train wreck at my feet. I was overcome with the desperate need to scream out in anger, hatred, and loss, and a desire to drop to my knees and weep. But before I could even manage a single inhalation, I heard Susan screech as I was knocked to the ground by another monster. This second beast was a female, and she went directly for my head. Between her moans and her cold fingers wrapped around my skull, it took every bit of concentration I had to get the barrel of the gun up and pointing at her temple. But before I could get off the first shot the bitch started to bite down on my arm. Her mouth opened wide, but before she could chomp down, she pulled away as if she had thought twice about it.
I was finally able to wrestle the moaner’s head back from my arm and get point-blank aim at the whore’s forehead. The moaner gave my head another pound, which sent sparks flying about my vision and made me lose my aim.
Susan let out a hair-raising shriek that caused the beast to release her grip on my head and dive for the young girl. Susan dodged it with cat-like grace as I hoisted th
e pistol back up, took aim, and fired. This time, the bullet tore through the neck of the monster. The moaner didn’t go down, though, nor did any blood gush out.
Susan ducked behind me, and the moaner turned to face us again. I couldn’t believe how quickly the thing made its next move. In the space between two heartbeats, the moaner had moved from where she was to where I was. We were nose to nose. The foul stench of the thing’s breath burned the hair in my nostrils. She was sniffing me. She snorted in lungful after lungful of the air that occupied the space around me. The moaner didn’t, however, make any attempt to snack on my cerebral matter. The thing just stood there… sniffing.
I was beginning to think the moaner’s only working senses were sound and smell. The eyes looked useless, as if they had been coated with a few too many layers of wood glue. The milky orbs looked as if I could peel them, layer by layer, like a rotten onion. And when I reached the core of that foul, rotten onion, I might have very well found the essence of the moaner’s bad breath. The last time I had a smell so foul assault my olfactory nerves involved a vomitous drinking party between myself and a few of Chicago’s finest homeless men. That putrescence was a mixture of fetid meat, wine-induced vomit, urine, and body odor. And here was that smell’s rival, huffing and puffing in my face―but nothing more. It was like I wasn’t even there. The moaner just stared blankly in my direction. It wasn’t until Susan’s voice broke the void of silence that the beast made a lunge around me to get to Susan. The whole scene seemed to freeze. I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around what was happening. This thing, inches from my face, seemed to not even take notice of me. Yet Susan made the slightest of moves and the beast went ballistic.
Susan’s screeching voice demanded I retreat from my personal void. The moaner had her pinned to the ground, and her gnashing teeth were snapping for her flesh. I grabbed a two-foot piece of rebar from a collection of construction debris and heaved for a home run. The rebar connected with the moaner’s skull which instantly gave in to the strength of the steel. Rancid gore splashed out onto the sidewalk, a horrid tribute to Jackson Pollack.
Susan kicked up hard, and the moaner fell back, its head splitting the rest of the way open to allow the remainder of the sweet meats to spill onto the ground. Susan remained down, breathing hard, with Oreo-sized eyes staring up to the heavens.
“Batter up?” I smiled as I held out my hand. Susan took it, letting me pull her up. The shock registering on her face let me in on the secret that she wasn’t currently capable of taking this all in with the same humor I used to keep myself sane.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to―”
A tidal wave of pain took my attention as it washed through my head. It was quick and brutal. Brilliant flashes of light blinded me, and a loud, high-pitched whine took over my hearing. Susan was speaking, but I couldn’t hear her words.
As quickly as the feeling came, it made its exit out of the building of my skull.
“Jacob, what’s wrong?” I finally heard Susan’s concerned voice. “Are you okay?”
“My head,” was all I could manage to get out.
“Did you get hit by something?”
“No, I don’t know. I’m not sure what happened.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Susan had her hands on my arms in an attempt to comfort me.
“I’m―I think it’s passing.”
“What was that?”
“Headache, I guess.”
“I’ve never seen a headache drop someone to their knees like that.”
“It’s over. I’m fine.”
I didn’t want to tell Susan what I was really feeling. It was like my head had been pumped full of air until I could hear the joints in my skull creaking together. I hadn’t felt pain like that―ever. And the sound was as if someone had sneaked hearing aids into my ears and turned them up full-pitch. It was deafening.
Susan didn’t need to know how excruciating the pain was and how frightened I was that something was really wrong. All she needed to know was that, for the moment, I was fine.
“Shall we?” I gestured forward.
“Do we have a choice?” Susan smirked.
“I suppose we could return to the hotel.” I out-smirked her.
Unfortunately all of the shrieking that spilled out of Susan’s mouth did nothing to keep an entire block of moaners from finding us.
“J-Jacob…”
“Wha―”
“We’re surrounded.”
“Shit! Run, Susan!”
From out of nowhere, what seemed like a gang of moaners began to surround us. I had no idea how agile some of those fuckers were, but I decided we had to take a chance. I grabbed Susan by the arm and pulled her straight toward the circle of undead. Luckily, momentum was on our side, and we managed to plow through them without so much as a single one of them laying a hand on us.
We slipped into a building and pulled the door shut behind us. There was no way of knowing if the things had enough intelligence to know where we had gone, or even if they knew how to open doors. I hoped like hell the early Romero movies were right, and the damned things were as stupid as a bag of hammers.
“What do we do now, Jacob?” Susan asked breathlessly.
“We wait.” I answered in kind.
“We have to get to my dad!”
“Susan, if you want to make it to your dad alive, you have to be quiet and wait.”
“But if we ran past them once.” She insisted.
“Susan, just trust me. Please.”
I would never understand the disconnection between young adults and logic. They could stare into the eyes of truth and reality and still be completely clueless.
I cracked open the door and peeked out. Our circle of friends was gone, probably ambled off in search of fresher, more immediate meat. I motioned for Susan to wait inside so I could check to make sure everything was as clear as it seemed.
I walked out about ten yards and, with no apparent signs of danger, I turned to fetch my ward―who was standing right behind me, waiting for me to stumble over her, sending us both crashing to the ground.
Susan let out the tiniest of giggles. I had to admit it was humorous, and just what we needed to lighten a mood that was deadly serious. Susan grabbed me by the arms and spun me around to face the direction we needed to go.
I had been given my marching orders. I took them. We proceeded.
“So, do you think your father will have any idea what’s going on here?” I figured the best thing for Susan was to keep her mind focused forward on the positive idea that her father would be waiting at our destination. Of course, the thought had more than once occurred to me that he was no longer to be counted among the lucky few to be alive. As I glanced around the immediate vicinity, I instantly questioned my choice of words. ‘Lucky.’ Under the circumstances, was it really ‘lucky’ to be alive? Wouldn’t it have been luckier to have expired before being subjected to the falling ash sky and the cranium-diver diners? This was Mad Max meets Dawn of the Dead. The post-apocalypse had finally arrived in Hi-Def surround, and I was one of the few lucky enough to enjoy its pleasures. Yay, fucking me.
“My dad is brilliant. If anyone knows what’s going on, it’ll be him.” Susan was absolute in her faith in her father. And why shouldn’t she be? Weren’t children her age supposed to place their faith completely in their parents? Were parents not, on some level, gods to their children?
“What about your mom? Is she here as well?” I might as well keep her thinking along the same positive lines.
“My mother died giving birth to me.”
So much for that idea.
“My father never remarried. So no stepmother, if that’s your next question.” Surprisingly, there was no sadness in Susan’s voice.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean―”
“Oh, it’s okay. I never knew my mother, so it’s not like I have a point of reference. The only family I’ve ever known has been my father and my older sister.” Susan said matter-of
-factly.
A huge lump o’ guilt formed in my throat. “Yeah, about that―”
“Don’t bother saying you’re sorry. First off, you didn’t know it was my sister. Second, I hated her. We weren’t close. It was like I never even knew her, or at least never wanted to know her.”
Susan explained how her sister―she never spoke her name, oddly enough―used her dad and his fame for her own benefit. The only joy her sister received from her dad was in the form of gifts, notoriety, and power. According to Susan, all her sister ever wanted was to be famous, and she hated her for that.
If there was one thing in life I had never truly understood, it was the relationship between two women. I could grasp political relationships, subject and verb agreement, differential equations, bureaucracy, philosophy, you name it, but the ever-fluctuating bond between women? No way.
Beyond family, what I really wanted to ask Susan was how she was managing to cope with all of the death surrounding her. She was a little girl after all, incapable of truly processing everything around her. All she was trying to do was reach her father, but that march to her father meant trekking through a city whose sky had filled with falling ash, whose streets were crawling with monsters looking to crack open our skulls and dine on our gray matter, and her only hope was a father who may or may not have some idea what was going on, why all of the dead people were not remaining… well, dead.
“My dad once told me I would be the most brilliant woman on the planet. He said I had the gift. I never really understood what he meant. He did place a great deal of importance on my education. I went to the best schools, had the best tutors. He spared no expense.”
Was I really listening to a girl who probably only recently had her first period, or was I listening to a Rhodes Scholar? There was just something odd about Susan’s tone of voice. It didn’t seem real or genuine.
“At first it really annoyed me. I mean, sure, I liked the attention, and some of my tutors were really cute. But eventually I was known as a brainiac, an outcast, and for a while I actually resented it. Can you believe that?”