by A. R. Wise
Men in white hazmat suits were scattered around the area and they rushed around as if in alarm. I got scared and was about to go back into the hallway when one of them waved me over. He stood in the middle of 23rd Avenue and stared at me. I was reluctant to go to him.
He waved me over again and casually let his right hand drift to the gun on his belt. I jogged over to avoid suspicion but tried to keep my head down or turned to the side so he couldn't see my face through the plastic shield.
"Didn't you get the message?" he asked me.
I shook my head.
"We're leaving," he said to me when I was closer.
"Okay." I coughed to mask my voice.
"There's a breach on the MLK and 23rd containment. We're going to move up to 15th and let Alpha come back here to clean up."
"Sure," I said as I looked at my feet.
"Where's your com?" He tapped his finger against the right side of his mask.
"Um, I think it's back in there."
"What?"
"There." I pointed at the office hallway.
"You lost it?"
I nodded.
"God damn it, Williams. Does Thomas have his?"
I nodded.
"Then why were you two still in there?"
I shrugged and started to walk away.
"Don't make me write you up again, Williams. Go get Thomas and let's get out of here." He turned away to yell at someone else and I quickly left.
I ran back into the hall and scurried to the closet where the bodies were hidden. I found a beige earpiece, about the size of an almond, inside the dead man's right ear. I put it on, then slipped the mask back on and headed for the rear entrance.
Someone was giving orders through the earpiece.
"…moving up to 15th Avenue to begin Beta clearing there. Alpha unit is moving back to deal with the containment breach. All Beta units are to report immediately to Cemetery 23 for transport."
The message stopped and then repeated a short time later after a succession of shrill chirps. I went out to the alley with the intention of turning right and running from the commotion to wait for it to be over, but someone saw me come out.
"Come on," shouted a man through a megaphone to my left. I looked to Venture Street where a tall guy in a white suit and no helmet waved at me and shouted again. "Come on, let's go!" I recognized the voice. It was the same one that had piped into my earpiece moments ago.
I waved to him, hoping he would turn his attention away and give me time to escape. He stared at me and then pointed at his wrist as if there was a watch there. I begrudgingly walked to him.
"Where's Thomas?" the man asked. He had a thick mustache that hung over half his mouth and grey pupils that sat centered on me in his wide eyes. His skin was pock marked and his hair was salt and peppered, not a single hair was left between the darkest black and the brightest white. It was as if each follicle was required to make a decision upon which extreme to take before a hair would pop out.
"He went out the front." I pointed to my left, toward 23rd Avenue.
The stoic man put two fingers up in a backward peace sign in front of my face. "Twos, Williams. We always stay in twos."
I tried to look away from him. We were too close to each other for him not to see my face through the mask and I did everything I could to avoid eye contact.
"Look at me," he said. I glanced his way and then to the side. "Damn it boy, I gave you an order." He grabbed the side of my head and forced me to look directly at him. His expression changed from anger to confusion as he saw my face behind the plastic shield. "Who in the…"
I pressed a gun to his stomach and stepped closer. "Stay quiet." He tensed and I grabbed onto his right hand to keep him from reaching for the gun at his side. "I'm not going to hurt you. Stay quiet and we'll both walk away from this."
"I swear, little man, that won't to be the way this ends." He grinded his teeth as if chewing on the words.
Behind him, up Venture Street between the Arkland Park and 23rd Avenue, several flat bed trucks were pulled up. Men in white hazmat suits were filing into the backs and sat along the sides. They waited for transport up to 15th Avenue.
"Where're my boys?" he asked. "What did you do to Thomas and Williams?"
"Shut up," I said as I tried to come up with a plan.
The men in the back of the trucks had started to pay attention to us. I surmised this man with my gun in his belly was their Captain and that they were waiting for him to give the order to move out.
"If you killed my men, I promise you'll die by my hands. You hear me, you little shit? I'll gut you like a fish."
"Give me your earpiece."
"What?"
I pushed the gun into his stomach with the intention of startling him, but his rock hard abdomen wouldn't budge. He growled at the pressure.
"Give me the earpiece or I'll shoot you and then start shooting the guys in that truck." I knew that he could communicate with the other members of this group through that earpiece. I also knew that it didn't always transmit what was being said; otherwise he wouldn't need the bullhorn he carried in his left hand. Still though, I needed to make sure he wasn't able to alert anyone by turning the earpiece on.
He grimaced and fished the unit out of his ear. His thumb passed over a button on the side before he dropped it into my palm. I heard the noise of a microphone scratching against something in my earpiece and realized that he'd turned the unit on before handing it to me. I quickly clicked the button again and smiled at him as I put the unit into the pocket of my suit.
"I've got an earpiece too, Gramps," I said. "Don't try anything stupid like that again. Here's how this is going to work. You're going to turn around and tell them to head out. Tell them we're staying back to meet with Alpha."
"No," he said between clenched teeth.
"Stop being a pain in the ass. I don't want to kill you."
"I said no because I can't. You took my microphone away, dumbass."
"You're holding a fucking megaphone, Grandpa. Maybe you could use that." This guy was getting on my nerves. He smirked and started to turn around to do as I asked. "Remember, if you do something stupid then I'll shoot you and as many of them as I can."
He used the megaphone to command the rest of his crew. "Ya'll are going to head up to 15th and start working on that block for now. Alpha's coming back here, with lots of guns and guys that shoot really well and would love to kill some mother fuckers," I pressed the pistol into his back to get him back on task, "and they're going to clean out the breach. Williams and I are staying here to meet up with Alpha and help them out."
The men in the flatbeds looked back and forth amongst themselves as if debating the odd command. I was terrified that the order he'd given broke protocol or was coded somehow to alert the others to trouble. I didn't want to kill anyone else and my finger trembled as the thick glove forced the trigger to depress slightly. I was a centimeter away from killing a second man today.
"Go on," he said. "Get a move on." He moved forward and I was forced to move with him. He waved his arms at the drivers who watched from their side mirrors. "Go, go, go."
The trucks rumbled and black smoke billowed behind them as the engines revved. We watched as they pulled away and headed down Venture toward 15th Avenue. The Captain turned and set his hands at his waist with a disapproving, mocking smirk that twisted his mustache into a slant.
"What now, genius? You've got a horde of zombies coming at you from that way." He used his megaphone to point down 23rd Avenue. Then he jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the trucks that drove away from us. "And fifty guys with guns coming from that way."
"I need to get to 13th Avenue."
That surprised him. His face and gestures revealed every emotion without him saying a single word. It was as if he'd studied to be a silent movie actor.
"Why in the world would you be headed there?"
"My Mom lives on 13th. I'm going to get her, and you're coming with me."
He stroked his mustache as he contemplated what I'd said. "You're not one of the cops, are you?" He said it as if he already knew I wasn't.
"No. Why? What do you mean?"
"Nothing. I thought you were someone else. So you're just a survivor? Where've you been hiding at?"
"Doesn't matter," I said and motioned for him to walk with me over to the area where the workers had been stacking the black containers. "Throw your gun over there." I pointed behind us
"What?" he asked. He couldn't understand what I was saying through the mask unless I looked directly at him.
I pulled the mask off and said, "Throw your gun over there. Wait, better idea, you just stay still." I took his gun and tossed it behind us. Then I pointed at the forklifts. "Come on, we're taking one of those. You're driving."
"I'm not going anywhere." He stood defiantly still.
"God damn it. Stop being a pain in my ass."
"Only reason I sent the men off was to keep them safe. I don't give a flying fuck if you shoot me. All I want to hear from you is what happened to Williams. What did you do to him?"
"Come with me and I'll…"
"Where's Williams." He spoke with such authority that I nearly felt compelled to tell him. Some people are born to be leaders, and this guy was born to be a drill sergeant that convinces his squad to murder him in a bathroom standoff.
I stammered over a few started explanations before lying, "He's alive. Tied up with the other one, Thomas. If you come with me, I'll tell you where they're at and you can send someone out to get them."
"No thanks," he said. "I'll stay here and wait for Alpha. Then we'll search for them before we come find you."
"You won't be able to find them. They'll die if you don't come with me."
"I'm pretty sure we'll find them quick enough."
"No, I took them by gunpoint to a different area. They're nowhere near here. Now you can come with me, and save their lives, or you could continue to be a piece of shit and force me to shoot you. Which is it going to be?"
He stood silent as he debated his options.
"For fuck's sake, just come on," I said. "I'm trying real hard not to put a bullet in you right now. Okay? Could you please just help me out here? Stop being an asshole."
"All right," he said and started to walk with sudden determination. "I'll come along, but if you're lying about my boys then there won't be enough bullets in that gun to stop me from choking the life out of you."
CHAPTER FOUR - THE GOOD GUY
"Name's Reagan," said the Captain as we walked over to the nearest forklift. He stuck his hand out to shake mine but I just tapped the gun against my forehead in salute. I was carrying my helmet in my left hand and didn't want to set it down to shake his hand. I also didn't trust him not to Judo flip me through the air and break my back on his knee or something of the sort. He was older, but somehow I knew he could kill me in a second if he caught me off guard.
"Mine's Billy," I said. "Are you named after the president?"
He stopped and looked at me with his head cocked to the side like a confused dog. "Reagan's my last name. And how young do you think I am? Do you really think I was named after a President from the eighties?"
I shook my head and felt foolish for my silly question. "No. I didn't think about it before I said it."
"I knew you were stupid, but I didn't think you were flat out retarded."
"Shut up."
He climbed into the seat on one of the forklifts. "Only room for one. You'll have to ride on the side or up front."
I went to the other side and passed by one of the closed, black crates that had been pulled off the conveyer belt. Curiosity guided me down the line to one of the boxes that hadn't been closed yet to see what was inside.
"Are we going?" asked Reagan. "Why are you wandering off? Let's go. Don't look in those."
"Hold on," I said. "I just want to see what you guys were up to."
He groaned and set both arms over the steering wheel as he waited. It was obvious that he didn't want me to look in the crate.
I cautiously peered into the first one that was still open. Human corpses were piled on top of each other inside. Fine white powder was spread over them and their skin bubbled beneath it. Red sores oozed as the acidic powder ate at the flesh. I gagged, dropped my mask, and pressed my hand over my mouth as vomit stirred in my gut.
Puke burst into my mouth. It was a hideous mix of sport drinks and beef jerky and tasted exactly as bad as you'd imagine. There wasn't anything I could do to stop the flow as it poured out over the grass.
"Lord have mercy," said Reagan.
I pointed the gun at him as I wretched. My vomit filled the mask I'd dropped, ensuring I'd never wear it again.
"What…" My heaves killed my question.
"I told you not to look."
"What did you do?" I looked at him and then back to the rows of black containers that filled the majority of the park. There were three bodies inside this one, and there were thousands of crates piled on top of each other. The rows stretched out before me in the grimmest graveyard display I could imagine.
Reagan stayed quiet and looked away.
"What did you do here?"
He turned to look at me and I glimpsed sorrow in his expression. This horrified him too, but he was complicit in it. It looked like he was about to say something, to offer an apology perhaps, or to explain how something like this had been allowed to happen.
Then a new voice entered the fray.
A zombie screeched at us from the alley. The noise from the trucks had drawn a few of them to us from the breach back on 23rd and Martin Luther King Boulevard.
"Hurry up and get on," said Reagan as he started the forklift.
I fumbled with the pistol and tried to grab on to the side of the forklift, but it was hard to find a good foothold and still aim at the zombies. I had to get onto the front, on one of the forks.
Three zombies, two men and one woman, charged out of the alley and ran toward us. The forklift started to move, but it was agonizingly slow. It was barely worth staying on at all, but we'd already started moving.
"Step on it," I said as I tried to aim at our pursuers. The jostling ride made it impossible to shoot straight.
"It's a forklift," said Reagan, "not a dragster."
I looked up the road and knew that if we continued to head this way we would end up meeting his team again. "Turn right here." I pointed right, down 21st Avenue.
He took a hard turn and I nearly toppled off the forklift as it leaned. My weight caused the off-balance ride to tilt onto two wheels. I jumped over to the other fork and the lift fell back down on all four wheels.
I saw the creatures turn the corner in pursuit. "They're catching up."
"Then shoot the mother fuckers."
I tried to steady my aim, but I didn't have a good vantage point. The creatures were on the other side so I had to hop back over to the right fork.
"Stop hopping back and forth, dickhead," he said and leaned to his right to see past me. I ignored him and tried to aim around the side of our ride.
The gun bounced as every tiny pebble in the road seemed to cause the forklift to jiggle. Destroying their brains was the only way to kill one of these monsters, but headshots were out of the question as I jostled around. I aimed for the stomach of the closest one.
The pistol clicked.
The gun was out of bullets. I cursed and threw it at the creature. I had a second pistol in my pocket, on the inside of the hazmat suit. It was impossible to reach without taking the suit off.
"Stop throwing our fucking guns away," said Reagan. A thick vein in the center of his forehead pulsed as he screamed at me. "Was that our last gun?"
"No."
"Then shoot these guys."
"I can't."
The first zombie's hand gripped the back of the forklift as it ran faster than we drove. Its face was puffy and there was a milky color that washed over his pupils. His stomach was bloated, but I d
idn't know if he had just been obese or if this was part of the decaying process. His mouth sat agape and slightly to the left, as if its jaw was broken. Pale, greenish fluid seeped over his bottom teeth and stretched out in long ropes like a hungry dog with its head out a car window.
Reagan picked up the megaphone he had stored between his legs and used his teeth to switch it to alarm mode. An obnoxious, very loud wail came from it before he tossed it out of the lift. I watched it smash against the road and tumble over to the sidewalk where a chunk of white plastic cracked away from its side. One of our followers, the female zombie, took an interest in it and broke away from the chase.
I bit down on the sleeve of my suit and wiggled my right arm inside. The right sleeve of my hazmat suit dangled at my side as I searched for the gun in my pocket. Then I slid my arm, and the gun, back up the sleeve. The pistol's barrel fit snuggly in the index finger of the glove and I pointed it at the zombie.
This time I wasn't out of bullets.
The glove's finger exploded in black dust as the blast tore it apart and sent the bullet through our assailant's face. The creature fell and tumbled over itself in a backward roll. The second time its head hit the pavement I saw a grisly burst of black blood and green fluid splash as his skull split. Its ghastly smell was potent enough to reach me even as we raced away.
"The other one," said Reagan. He pointed over his shoulder, to his right. "Don't just stare at him. Go shoot the mother fucker."
I had to step onto the other fork to get a better view of the final zombie that chased us. This one was taller and thinner than the first, but its stomach was similarly distended. It was clear that something was wrong with their bodies and that the rotting process was causing them to bloat that way.
It was probably ten feet behind us and I did my best to line up the sight on the pistol with his head. The zombie's path wavered from right to left several times and I had to hop back and forth between the forks over and over, much to Reagan's dismay. Finally, I lined up what I thought was a perfect shot. The creature's head was right in my sight. I fired, fully prepared to see his face explode from my steady aim.