Run: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller

by Rich Restucci

  Martinez’s radio blared to life.

  “Martinez, any sign?” Captain Meara’s voice.

  “Negative sir, nothing but the two dead bangers so far. We’ve canvassed all the outbuildings, but it would take a week with 20 guys to search everywhere, and even then there’s gotta be a million places we’d miss.”

  “Agreed. Report back to command. Command out.”

  “Gotta get Wizneski and Barnes, and whoever is with them to come too,” Martinez told Martingale, the civilian that was to assist him.

  “Why are we still taking orders from your Captain?” demanded Martingale. “Don’t you think we should have a civilian in charge, like a mayor or governor until we get rescued? I mean really, the police work for the people.”

  Martinez hadn’t liked this guy from the moment they met. He was a spindly little shit with no conception of the hierarchy of command. Someone who believed that democracy was imperative in crisis situations. Martinez lowered his chin and responded with venom, “I take orders because if I stop taking orders then there will be anarchy. Anarchy or dissention will get us all killed. I intend to live, and if you want to live, you will do what you are fucking told. If you fail to comply, or instigate some type of coup or revolution, I will kill you myself. You are alive because of my Captain. He ordered me to pull you from that overturned car at the risk of us all. It would have been much easier to leave your sorry ass behind. Don’t doubt or question him again.”

  Martinez kept his glare locked on Martingale as he lifted his radio mic, “Wiz, did you copy?”

  “Roger that, RTB. Dock will be left unguarded though,” SWAT specialist Wizneski answered.

  “Me and Massengill will meet you there.”

  “Who?”

  “Massengill, the civvie I got stuck with.”

  Wizneski snickered through the radio. “Roger that Pabs, check you soon.”

  “It’s Martingale,” Martingale said, “my name is Martingale.”

  “Not anymore, Massengill.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Cause you’re a fucking douche.”

  Martingale swallowed hard, but was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.

  3

  Smoke from the burning city stung Billy’s eyes as he pulled his boat up to a wharf on the east side of San Francisco. He tied the boat to a pylon and climbed up a ladder on to a concrete pier. He was arguing with himself over whether the instrument used to affix the boat to the pylon was a rope or a line, when he was spotted by a small group of the dead. They immediately directed their shuffling towards him. Billy had two automatic pistols, one in each hand, but he decided to experiment with something. One of the creatures had a long screwdriver sticking out of its neck. Billy folded his arms across his chest and waited for the small crowd to reach him.

  He was counting their numbers when they stopped short of him by about three feet. “…Six, seven, eight, nine.” The ones in the front of the group leaned forward as if to sniff him. “In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, What’s up, doc?” he asked. A look of confusion came over two of them, but the others merely looked vacant.

  Billy tucked the guns into his pants and pointed at the screwdriver in the dead man’s neck. “Do you mind?” He grabbed the tool and yanked it out of the creature just as the assembly of dead started to wander off in different directions. The tool made a sucking sound as it came out, and it was black with semi-coagulated blood.

  He put his arm across the thing’s shoulders as it began walking away. He walked with it. “You know, it doesn’t really bother me that I can walk around when everybody else is running for their lives, that’s a perk. But I must admit, I’m a wee bit perturbed that none of you will even consider a nibble. It makes me feel… I don’t know… a little bland?”

  The dead thing tried to shrug him off. “Now that’s just rude,” Billy said. “Fine, take it back then.” Billy sighed and drove the screwdriver into the creature’s ear. It dropped like a rock, taking the screwdriver with it. He considered fetching the weapon, but decided against it.

  He stormed away shaking his head and muttering to himself. Creatures would come to him moaning, with arms reaching, only to wander off when they got close. Billy was heading in the direction of an old Ford pickup when he heard the tell-tale sound of car engines coming fast. He ducked in between two shipping containers as a small vehicle skidded to a stop about fifty feet from him. A man jumped out of the car and ran to the passenger side.

  “Carol, hurry! They’re right behind us!”

  The man helped an injured woman out of the car and the two were in the process of running for the end of the wharf when another car screeched to a halt immediately behind theirs.

  Three men got out of the second car, all wearing the same gang colors.

  “Hey! Where you two goin’?” one of them yelled. He fired a shot into the air. The man and woman stopped running. The other two men destroyed three approaching zombies with various firearms.

  “Git em quick, we gonna have company in a minute!”

  “Please, just let us go,” the man pleaded, “we haven’t done anything to you, and we just want to escape the city!”

  “Let you go? Now why would you wanna leave our fine city there white-boy? And you’d be takin’ that fine-ass bitch outa town? Nuh-uh. She be stayin’. But you? You can go.”

  With that, the driver of the second car shot the man in the stomach. The man doubled over and fell down. “NOOO!” screamed his companion. She fell to her knees beside the man, who was convulsing in agony.

  The three gang members stood around the crying woman and dying man, laughing. Moans could be heard from a short distance away.

  “Les’ go boys, grab the bitch and les’ fly,” said the driver.

  One of the men yanked up the screaming woman by the hair. The second one punched her in the stomach. They were dragging her to the car when one of them saw that she had a bandage on her arm. “What’s this, huh?” The man tore away the bandage.

  “Fuck, Holmes, she been bit.”

  “Dammit!” yelled the driver. He pointed his weapon at her and said regretfully, “You was fine, too.” He shot her in the face and shook his head sighing.

  The dead were just starting to show up when the three men started walking back to their car.

  Billy stepped out from his hiding spot with both pistols aimed at the bangers.

  “Howdy partners!” he yelled, and emptied both magazines into the men. All three danced a quick jig and dropped to the ground clutching various parts of their bodies. As Billy approached them, he could see that one was dead with a head wound, and another unconscious and bleeding out. The last one was trying to crawl to the car. As he heard Billy come up on him, the man turned and weakly raised his weapon. Billy kicked it away before it was any higher than his knees.

  “You’re in a bad way there, killer. You got two, no wait, three holes in you. Does it hurt?”

  “Fuck you bitch! Jus’ kill me and take what you want!”

  “Kill you? What was it you said to that poor guy?” Billy thumbed toward the man who had been shot by the gangers. The man was getting up. “What was it? Nuh-uh.” Billy rounded up two hand guns and a shotgun from the gangers and put them in the car. Then he sat on the hood of the vehicle and watched as the dead approached. He began to whistle.

  “Are you fuckin’ crazy, they’ll tear us to pieces!” All semblance of bravado, Ebonics, and street talk was gone. The man actually sounded quite educated, although panicked. “Get me up and I’ll tell you where there’s a shit-ton of goodies! Guns, food, and women! Please man, please don’t let them get me!” He coughed and blood flecked his lips. “Please…” he said weakly, and started repeating it over and over. The dead were almost on him.

  “Nuh-uh,” Billy said, and got in the car.

  “PLEASE!” Billy heard the man scream feebly one last time before he backed the car up. The dead reached the fallen man, and then the screaming started in earnest. As Billy backed up, he
could see a semicircle of dead kneeling over the struggling man, tearing pieces of him away, and stuffing them in greedy mouths, or leaning in and biting him. One of them was the man who had been shot on the pier.

  Billy drove away whistling.

  4

  “You know, it’s a bitch that it took the end of life as we know it for me to finally get what’s mine,” a tall, lanky, black man said as he sat with his feet up on a desk. He was cleaning his fingernails with a huge hunting knife. Another man, huge, also with dark skin stood off to the left, arms folded.

  “Initially, I thought that if I got out of the hood, went to school, and made something of myself, I could actually live the life that I always wanted. So I did. I escaped the confines of a terrible upbringing, bullets flying, crack whores on the corner, and whatnot. I got out of Compton, went to SFU, got a useless poli-sci degree, and what was my reward? Nobody would hire me. Not a damn job to be had. I wanted to teach! I wanted to enlighten the youth of our splendid society on how to progress in their lives.” His words echoed through the warehouse.

  The man took his feet off of the desk, stood, and began to pace. “But no. No. A tenured position at a prominent university? For me? An educated and passionate man from Compton? De-fucking-nied.” At this point, the man started waving his hands as he spoke, palms upturned, fingers spread. “Got to the point where the Deans wouldn’t even consider my applications anymore, wouldn’t even speak with me!” The man was enraged now. “And you!” He pointed a skinny finger across the desk. “You represent those Deans! Another reason for the downfall of society!” Spittle was flying from his mouth as he screamed admonishments and reprimands, repeatedly stabbing his index finger across the desk. “YOU’RE TO BLAME!” Obviously angered, the man sat on the desk and crossed his ankles. He closed his eyes, and seemed to will himself to calm down.

  “But I digress. There’s really only two types of people left in this city; your kind and our kind.”

  The man stood and approached three trussed, hanging figures. Their hands were wired together above their heads, the wires stretching to a long pipe on the ceiling eight feet above. Blood trickled from the bonds as the wires cut into soft flesh. Their feet were also bound, but were six inches off the ground. The wires on their feet were attached to three cinder blocks each. Movement was impossible.

  “My name used to be Malik Phillips,” the man told his captives pointing the huge blade at them, “but you will call me Doc Murda.” There was clapping and cat calls from behind the tied men. A large group of people occupied the rest of the warehouse.

  One of the hanging men, a soldier, snorted derisively when he heard the name. The other two, a National Guardsman, and a man in an SFPD uniform, looked at the soldier like he was insane.

  “Doc Murda huh?” the soldier asked, “What made you pick that name?”

  Doc Murda looked disgusted. Shaking his head, he said, “Spontaneity,” and thrust the hunting knife into the soldier’s midsection, the flat of the blade horizontal. The soldier gritted his teeth, but didn’t scream. Shouts of encouragement and jeers toward the captives resounded throughout the warehouse.

  “Now Colonel, this is exactly what I was referring to before. I will have respect.” He stepped away from the soldier, and leaned back on the desk, once again crossing his ankles. Doc Murda left the knife impaled in the colonel’s belly, huge drops of blood falling to the floor.

  “Respect?” the colonel asked through clenched teeth. “Respect is earned, you sick fuck, and it isn’t earned through murder and chaos.” He coughed, blood dripping freely from his mouth. “These people don’t respect you, you idiot. They’re afraid. Big difference.”

  Doc Murda straightened up and stepped deliberately toward the Colonel. He put his hand on the knife and looked the other man in the eye. “Good enough,” he said, and viciously jerked the blade to the left. This time the Colonel did scream. Ropy coils of intestine bulged through the horizontal opening in the soldier’s belly, spilling out and onto his groin and legs. Blood poured from the wound and splashed the floor in a viscous torrent. Doc Murda pulled a small automatic pistol from his belt and shot the soldier in the forehead. The small crowd became incensed, screaming and hollering, some actually started dancing.

  “Pee Wee, if you would be kind enough to remove that?” The huge man moved forward and without a word cut down the soldier. He dragged the dead man away, not bothering to remove the cinderblocks. The blocks banged together as Pee Wee moved off.

  Doc Murda raised his hands to quell the racket in the warehouse. As the noise died down, he walked to the National Guardsman, making a point to show the terrified man the big bloody blade.

  “Now, I’m going to ask you some questions…”

  5

  Billy had to ditch the car. The streets were packed with the undead, and the noise of the car engine was attracting them in droves. Billy was in no danger from the creatures as far as he could tell, but they still approached him before pausing in apparent confusion and then wandering away. The things would mill about aimlessly until they spotted something interesting, then, all in the area would be on the move toward whatever it was that they had seen.

  Billy figured out that if he didn’t move too fast, or talk, he could walk among the creatures unmolested. If he walked too quickly, or spoke to himself (as was his habit), they would get in his way. Then he would stop, and they would stumble off, uninterested. Everybody else, it seemed, was on the menu.

  The crowds got thinner as he neared his destination. He was trying to get to the Morningside Psychiatric Hospital. Not a nice place, but he needed some drugs. He had popped his last Clozapine more than a day ago. The drug had a strange effect on him. Normally, a person on Clozapine would slow down and be dizzy and incoherent, drooling or standing in one place for long periods of time. Zombies, Billy used to call them, and snickered when he thought about it. This particular drug was the chemical equivalent of a temporary lobotomy.

  Billy, however, got very amped when he took his meds. He found it gave him a singular clarity he couldn’t attain when not medicated. He talked a lot, was happy, and could figure things out quicker. It also made resisting his homicidal urges a snap. Billy could fight off the desire to kill someone for the fun of it. He still killed when he needed to, but the drug helped him weed out the ones who didn’t need killing.

  He was looking at his feet as he walked, contemplating his strategy on getting his meds, when there was an odd sound in front of him. He looked up and there was a zombie pushing an overflowing shopping trolley. The creature was filthy, and had a fifteen inch matted beard with bits of stuff in it. It was wearing an old military-style boonies hat. It was the beard that Billy remembered.

  “Hey, Lester,” Billy said and waved.

  “Hey, Bill,” the thing replied in a raspy voice.

  “Not dead yet then?” Billy asked.

  “Day ain’t over.”

  Both continued on about their business, in opposite directions.

  Billy reached Morningside about an hour after seeing Lester. A pickup truck had smashed into the main gate, obliterating the small guardhouse. The door to the truck was open, and there was no one around, living or dead. He walked past the accident and got to the front doors of the hospital. The glass was smashed and there were bloody hand prints all over. It was dark inside.

  A huge blood smear was splashed across the black and white checkered floor. Something had been dragged further into the darkness.

  Billy stood there a moment contemplating, the pistols from the dead gang bangers in each hand, and a shotgun strapped to his back.

  “Heavens to Mergatroid,” he said aloud, “Well, I guess I better--” He was cut off by a loud caterwauling scream from inside the dark halls. He took a few steps back and peered into the darkness, the pistols raised. There was a slapping sound, obviously bare feet running on linoleum, and suddenly a figure solidified in the blackness. Another inhuman scream emanated from the thing, and it sprinted toward Billy, r
eaching with the need of the damned. It pushed the broken doors wide without slowing, heedless of the broken glass under its bare feet, screaming as it closed the distance. Billy fired once with each gun, hitting the figure in the left shoulder and missing with the other bullet. The thing, a young man in bloody pajama bottoms, slowed down and clutched at his wound with his right hand, Billy momentarily forgotten. He raised his head to the sky and screamed again, then snapped his head down and looked at Billy with blood-red eyes. The man hissed, bared his teeth, and charged. Billy shot the man three more times, and he fell, dropping on his back a few feet short of his goal. Billy backed up another three quick steps. The wounded man tried to get up, but remained up on his back, coughing blood and making claws with his hands.

  Billy took a tentative step toward the gasping man. The man saw him and bared his teeth again, trying to snarl, but only making a gurgling noise. He flipped over on his stomach and tried to pull himself toward Billy. He managed a very short distance before his head fell to the ground. He laid there, bloody eyes fixed on Billy, but otherwise unmoving.

  Billy raised his eyebrows. “Huh.”

  He walked past the man and stopped in front of the doors to the black halls of the hospital. “Alrighty then,” he said and started forward when he heard a noise behind him.

  The man was pushing himself to his feet. Billy raised his pistols. The bullet-riddled man stood and looked around. He saw Billy and moaned, raising his arms and shuffling forward with that same undead gait Billy had seen hundreds of times that day. The creature stopped about three feet shy of Billy, then turned, lowered its arms, and shambled off.