Halfway back - Bruno, Steve and Fiona's adventure against zombies that may not be zombies and the secret behind them

by Marios Amontaristos

  “It's dark already. Do you have any flashlights here?” Fiona asked.

  “No, but it will be better if we don't have anything to draw attention on us. We don't know how many zombies we will meet and we'd better get them by surprise instead of them catching us, right?” Steve said, taking matters in his hands this time. “All right, for the weapons now. We'd better take a few pistols and as many bullets as possible.”

  “I can take a bigger weapon. I trust it more for big crowds, even if it's not very flexible,” Bruno said.

  “And, in case that you didn't notice, dear Fiona, Bruno here is a very well-built boy.”

  “If you were too, maybe your tongue wouldn't reach your bellybutton every time you walk with a bit more than your own weight,” Fiona hit back and Bruno behind her was punching the air saying “in your face!” silently, so that she wouldn't see him. She did though and she rolled her eyes. Steve tried to say something but nothing satisfactory enough could come out and he just stayed there, with his mouth half-open.

  And so, they went to change their equipment and Bruno got the two automatic weapons and two pistols, while Steve loaded himself with four pistols. And many bullets. Even Fiona, who only got a big kitchen knife, took a little bag with bullets with her.

  “Isn't it very convenient that you happened to live next door to a person with so many weapons?” she said as they were heading towards the door.

  “Yes, it is very convenient and that's why it's us who have the weapons and the ideas and we are on a mission to stop the zombies instead of keeping company to our neighbor and his friends. Now shut up and let's go.” Steve was straight to the point and Fiona didn't answer.

  First of all, they checked Mr Simonnot's apartment and, as it was expected, they heard noises by the gang that had once again fully recovered and its members were hungry. They left them and exited the building. The street lights were on, which was very fortunate considering that the parisian sky was cloudy and, even if there was a full moon (there wasn't), they would have serious problems with the lighting. They started walking towards Clichy square, the place where they had met earlier that morning. After about 15 minutes of silent walking, they arrived at a spot where the police was blocking the way to any citizen who wanted to move further. This looked like a great chance for the authorities to hear a word about facing efficiently the undying instead of bombing them until there are no bombs left while the reanimated enemies will grow in numbers.

  “Excusez moi, monsieur?” Bruno said to the police officer who was blocking their passage with his car.

  “Oui,” he answered.

  “Ummm... Fiona, you tell him.”

  And Fiona told him in French that they were Biology students and they had some ideas about how to make some progress against the millions of ex-dead bodies and that everyone's help would be invaluable. The officer called his superior officer on the radio and he arrived after about five minutes. Fiona told him the same story, but he couldn't take her seriously. Though, as he was informed about the terrible situation near the center of the city, with the zombies swarming and taking control, he accepted to hear their ideas. And so, she told him about the theory of the skull as the center of the regeneration and the brain being reset after every resurrection and, since he could speak a bit of English, he managed to contribute with an idea.

  “Perhaps we can srow ze 'eads in le Seine,” he said. “Zis way, when zey are alive again, zey will drown.”

  Bruno and Steve looked at each other in excitement. “That's fucking, I mean... I mean... That's brilliant!” Steve shouted.

  “But the heads will float in the water. What if they go out of the water and regenerate on the river banks?” asked Fiona, who was less prone to expressions of premature enthusiasm under the current circumstances.

  “We can put zem in plastic bags wit some stones. Zey will stay down. But we have no time. Come wit me.”

  They got in a police car. The commander took the wheel and, as they were heading towards the center, he sent a message to the radio with instructions to everyone, including citizens, to cut off the heads of every dead body and gather them in big plastic garbage bags and throw them in the river with some dirt or stones inside.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Time to take the city back?

  “Tell them not to scatter. They need to stay together, otherwise the zombies are too strong when they are many against one. Some of them must kill and some must chop off the heads and put them in bags. And there must be some cars to take the bags and throw them in the river within 3 hours from the time they were killed.” Steve couldn't stop giving directions. He had many ideas. There was some hope again but everything had to be done very quickly.

  They arrived near the Hôtel de Ville (the City Hall), where many zombies had advanced and some of them had attacked and eaten some tourists who were too stunned to resist or run away or maybe they thought that it was a strange tourist attraction and they didn't understand how wrong they were until it was too late. The square and the surrounding buildings were undamaged, but there was a lot of blood and many bodies all over the place.

  The officer gave an ax to Fiona and told her “Zis will 'elp you cut dose 'eads easier.” They got out and immediately a group of about 20 zombies approached them clumsily. Bruno and Steve gunned them down quickly, before they were too close. Fiona went straight to the bodies and started chopping with stunning flexibility and steadiness. Also, she was in a hurry, because the 20 bodies would only increase as the slaughter would go on.

  “You must really like this, right?” Bruno asked her.

  “Yes, you open frogs in class, you shoot people like you do when you play games and suddenly I'm judged here? Don't waste my time, go and keep killing,” Fiona said and went back to work.

  “We can't leave you alone here! Keep cutting!”

  The officer kept sending messages on the radio, instructing everyone to do the same, but the superiors weren't paying attention. He ran to a nearby police car and told them what they had to do. Steve and Bruno were covering Fiona, who had already cut off eight heads and was struggling with the weight of the ax, trying to achieve more accurate and effective hits. Occasionally, some lonely ones would appear, only to get shot and get Fiona grunting because of the extra work.

  “Don't shoot like a maniac. We will need those bullets. Go always for the head,” Bruno scolded Steve, who seemed a bit more likely to waste ammo in spectacular killings.

  “I want to be sure they're dead. One mistake is all they need,” Steve answered while scanning the area. The humidity, combined with the low light and the lack of some lamps because they had been broken, meant that they had to be extra careful, because a zombie might appear when it was too late for them to react.

  “They are not that dangerous. Their limbs are fully grown, but they are weak. They are newborn, like their brains. They can't run and they stumble. Just shoot them calmly, take your time to aim. The only problem is... (chop) that they are too many!” Fiona said while taking the 14th head.

  The police officer came with a garbage bag. “You can put ze 'eads in 'ere. I 'ave called ze fire department and zey are sending us a truck.” He then offered to finish Fiona's work, which came easier for him as he was quite stronger and less tired. Soon enough, 12 heads were in the bag and there was no space left. 11 more heads were lying down and they had to be taken soon.

  “I will go to bring more bags,” the officer said.

  “From where?” Steve asked.

  “I will go in Hôtel de Ville.”

  “We will come with you. We shouldn't split, no matter what,” Steve answered. “But first we must do something with the rest of the heads.

  “Leave zem 'ere. We will return soon.”

  So they headed to the main entrance of the City Hall, sticking together and shooting the occasional zombie every now and then. The car was left in front of the nearby metro station and they only had to walk about 100 meters. The door, as it was expected, was open. They ente
red carefully. There was no light on. The officer asked if there was someone there. “A freaking flashlight would be useful now, wouldn't it?” Fiona whispered, mostly to fill Steve with guilt.

  “Allo?” A female voice came from upstairs.

  “Can you please turn on the lights?” asked the officer. They did turn the lights on. At the end of the stairway, there were four people, three women and a man, apparently employees of the City Hall. They explained that they went to work this morning and they remained stuck in there, as they were too afraid to get out.

  “I don't think that they would come in here. They are looking for food and they will eat any kind of meat. I believe that they attack humans when they don't find anything else to eat,” Bruno said in broken French.

  The officer turned to Bruno with his eyes wide open. “Sank you very much! Now you say it! We must tell everyone to use meat to distract them!” He turned to the employees and spoke to them in French. “We need all the plastic bags you have.”

  “And some axes,” Steve said.

  “Because every City Hall with the slightest self respect has at least four axes, right?” Fiona answered.

  A young woman said that in a room that they use for storage, she saw an ax. Steve looked at Fiona and told her “in your face” without speaking. And then he offered to go with the woman and take it.

  After walking silently in the long corridor, they turned left and she unlocked a big door. Inside there was a mess of various kinds of objects, thrown in there and forgotten. The City Hall was like a beautiful mansion where everything is in place, shiny and with no trace of dust and that room looked like the little and big things that would ruin this harmony were thrown hastily in there.

  The woman, Nicole, showed the ax to Steve, whose eyes were stuck at a dozen of swords that were stacked in their cases on a wide wooden chest. He managed to ask her if it was okay to take the swords too and that they would be very useful.

  “What are those things, man?” Bruno asked with a watery mouth as he saw Steve walking proudly, hugging tenderly the twelve swords, as if he was presenting to the people his newborn son.

  “We're gonna have a party tonight!” Steve said cheerfully. “Each of us must take one of these babies and let's go slice'em up like bacon!”

  “I will take two. I think that it's safer than using the guns. Besides, we will save bullets for later,” Bruno said, while taking a sword out of the case and scanning it.

  “But have in mind that the swords can be ruined easily. They can open some nice holes, but in order to take the heads, we will need the axes. So, we must work as a team here,” Steve's words were steady and their gravity kept everyone listening carefully.

  So, Steve went on to create a strategy in order for everyone to be safe and productive, if one can use this word for an operation of which the head count in France was about to top by far the previous record of the end of the 18th century when the French revolution (and everything after that) took place.

  Steve put himself, Bruno and the police officer in the front line, with two swords for each and with their guns as well, to use the way they thought best. Behind them would be two women and the male employee, with the bags and one sword each and the two last ones would be Fiona and Nicole, but the guy, Jerome, didn't feel comfortable with the sword and he preferred to join Fiona in the decapitations while Nicole happened to be an amateur fencer and as such she would be extremely useful with two swords in her hands and if she had said so earlier, maybe she would be put in the front line.

  They exited the City Hall in the formation that Steve gave them. Nobody asked how Steve became the boss but in that moment he was the only one who took the initiative and seemed to know what he was doing. Besides, he was very excited and it would be a pity to take this away from him.

  They reached the car and, while the officer was sending a message to the other cars with instructions similar to the ones Steve had given to the team, the rest were slashing some undead who were trying to have dinner. Fiona and Jerome, quickly proceeded to remove the heads (Jerome wasn't very comfortable, but he got used to it after the third head and after throwing up).

  Nicole's ability was admirable but, to be fair, she was trained to fight with armed opponents and now she only had to pierce through some moving potato sacks. With teeth, yes, but when fighting against two or three of them, she had no problem to aim for the heart or the throat and pierce them quickly.

  Bruno and Steve were more clumsy on their use of the swords, but still pretty efficient. As the zombies were actually hurt like normal people, there was no problem in the whole stabbing and slicing procedure.

  Just before the officer finished his message, a fire truck arrived. It ran over a few zombies and arrived near the police car. Steve told Bruno and Nicole to help them get down safely. Now the team had four more members and stronger equipment. But still, they were heavily outnumbered.

  After the introductions, a fireman sent a message to the other trucks via the radio and the now 12-member team began moving towards the river. They already had three bags full of heads and they needed to get rid of them in order to fill some more.

  The Seine wasn't further than 200 meters away, but as the square was infested with clumsy barely alive bodies, there was some work that had to be done before reaching the bridge from where they would dispose of he bags. And so, they walked and sliced and hacked and pierced and beheaded and filled more bags. By the time they reached the bridge, they had five full bags, a total of about seventy heads.

  “Are we sure that they won't return?” a fireman asked, after they had dropped the last bag in the water.

  “We fairly believe that, if they start growing again, they will drown and they will stay like this forever or until we find what is the thing that makes them return,” Steve answered in English, causing a blank stare by the fireman, who couldn't expect that he would need to speak English some day and he never bothered to learn, since in France people usually speak French.

  While the police officer was making a translation, Fiona approached Steve and Bruno and made the one million euros question. “By the way, what do you think caused this?”

  “That's something I've been wondering for a long time now, but since I have no clue whatsoever, I haven't tried to ask.” Steve answered.

  “Probably there's some mutation or something, but what kind of mutation affects the dead as well as the living?” Bruno said, not actually contributing to the progress of the conversation.

  After they had caught their breath for a minute (while killing the occasional zombie that would appear and try to socialize with them), they had to keep moving back towards the cars. And they did it by keeping the same formation and slashing and piercing and putting in good use the swords and the axes.

  “Hey, Steve. Do you know why they had swords in the City Hall?” Bruno asked.

  “I don't know. It's a very old building. Probably they were in there for many years now.”

  “Yeah, that's what I thought too. I mean, if they want to get rid of annoying visitors today, they use cannons, right?” Bruno joked. Exaggerated forced laughs followed by both Steve and Bruno. The others were indifferent.

  They kept moving and they managed to fill two more bags with heads. The zombie traffic was not that heavy on their way back. “I will ask on ze radio what's going on,” said the police officer, whose name nobody cared to ask as long as 'Mr officer' was working for them.

  They covered for him as he talked for a bit. Steve could hear a voice that sounded like it was coming from someone in grave panic, but he couldn't understand the words. When the short conversation ended, the officer sat on the passenger's seat and put his left hand on the forehead, his right hand on his right thigh and leaned his head a bit forward. The silence made Bruno turn and check why the officer was silent. “Hey, what's wrong?” he asked.

  “Ze museum,” the officer said. He sounded like he had given up.

  “The mus... Oh, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!” Bruno had und
erstood.

  “Oh, why didn't we think of this? It's right next to the university!” Fiona said.

  “What museum? What's wrong?” Steve asked. He was getting angry at himself for not being informed about that museum, everyone knew about.

  “The museum of paleontology,” Fiona answered. “You are supposed to be a biologist. Moron.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jurassic what?

  “OK, so what kinds of dinosaurs are there in the museum? The really big ones? The T-Rex?” Steve asked in awe.

  “Well, more or less, all the big names of the era are there. All of them dangerous in different ways. And right now they are hungry. The will destroy the trees in the area! Some of these trees are over 500 years old!” Fiona missed the point while trying to fit all those thoughts in her head. So, it was expected for her last words to be met with rolled eyes by the others.

  “What can we do? Some scientists tell us to leave zem alone so dat zey can examine zem. But zey will destroy Paris if zey get out of dere,” the officer said.

  “They could be shot with various doses of elephant tranquilizer to keep them from moving much, I guess. But could they be contained after they wake up?” Fiona asked.

  “No need. You cut their head while they're sleeping and you put it in a big tank of water, to keep it from developing again,” Steve said calmly.

  “We have real and alive dinosaurs and you dare suggest to kill them? How can you think like this? This is a scientific chance that nobody had ever, you stupid bag of meat!” Fiona shouted.

  “Well, I'm also excited, but I feel the need to keep myself alive first,” Steve answered. “We must put them to sleep, in any case. Mr officer, who is up there right now?”

  After a small radio conversation, the officer didn't become more optimistic than earlier. “Zey don't send any 'elicopters because zey need zem for ze zombies. Zey say dat ze dinosaurs can feed on the plants and ze animals from ze zoo and zey are not a priority for now.”