by Garon Whited
The periodicals section was poorly lit, but it had neat arrangements of various newspapers. The area out by the front desk also had a few papers not yet catalogued. I gathered it all together, stole a tall stool, and took everything outside. The stool went in the bed of Bronze’s truck while I laid out the papers on the roof of the cab, like a desk. I had to turn sideways and lean on the headache rack, but it worked pretty well.
Ever read a post-apocalyptic zombie novel? You know how it goes. There’s an outbreak of zombification. People pooh-pooh the idea. It spreads. People react vigorously. It keeps spreading. There’s panic. Martial law is declared. Society and social institutions fail. And the downward spiral continues.
Of course, the papers only told the story to a point. Once the editor runs for his hunting cabin, or the power goes out, or the delivery systems break down, the paper stops.
I’ve seen zombies in other worlds. Magically-animated corpses, at any rate. Given the low magical environment, I doubt any zombies around here are the undead sort, but then, I’m a vampire. What do I know? There could be a curséd pyramid (which is worse than a merely cursed pyramid) some enterprising would-be Howard Carter opened. The papers didn’t say. It did make me wonder about the bands of rag-tag survivors I glimpsed in my mirror. Were those zombie squads, roaming around looking for brains? The guerrillas, at least, were probably human survivors. But what kind of zombies am I dealing with? The papers drew conclusions about some sort of new flu shot being the cause, but were they right? Are these things dangerous enough—to me—to be a deal-breaker for this world?
Well, there was only one thing to do. Okay, maybe two or three things I could do, but the one I chose was to build a zombie trap.
There are several considerations in any zombie apocalypse. How fast are these zombies? How numerous? How smart? Are they contagious by bite, by claws, or is everyone infected and going to get up again shortly after dying? Can you kill them normally, or only with a headshot, or do you cut them to pieces and the pieces keep moving?
I hadn’t seen any zombies up close and personal, but perhaps that wasn’t so unusual. After all, how noticeable was I? I was, essentially, one guy, fairly unobtrusive, wandering around in the hinterlands. Maybe I simply haven’t come across one. Maybe we did, but we blasted straight past it before it could finish sitting up, raising its arms, and groaning theatrically at us. We might not have noticed. It all comes down to what kind of zombies we’re talking about.
Now, though, we’re going to attract some. Not to Elbe, of course, but to Eatonville. I figured the larger town might have more zombies in the vicinity, but I certainly didn’t want to draw any toward my current lair. So we searched the town, especially the car dealerships. One of them had a multiplex searchlight—the thing they park out front so it sends waving beams of light into the night sky to advertise a sale. If it worked on potential customers, it ought to work on zombies.
Personally, I found it either ironic or amusing or both. The dealership was “Sunshine Motors.”
Finding a working generator was even easier. Sheltered inside a hardware store, the three I found were in perfect working order. I loaded one into the truck bed and Bronze towed the lights. We stopped to fill the generator’s tank, Bronze’s tank, and some spare gas cans before we set up on the fifty-yard line of the Eatonville High School football field.
Bronze backed into a residential garage across the street from the field. I hid in the house to avoid the sunset. While I sweated and waited for my transformation to finish, I realized continuing to hide in the house was probably a good idea for the whole zombie-hunting scheme. We could lurk in the nearby woods, sure, but what if the zombies came from that direction? At least they could walk around a house without knowing we were there.
After dark, I went out, started up the generator and the lights, and retreated to the house to wait.
About three in the morning I went out to top up the generator’s fuel tank.
One of the problems with my plan—well, not a problem, exactly—was the time it might take. Sure, the lights were visible for miles, but how many zombies were in range to see them? How many were in forests and couldn’t even see the sky? Of those who could see the lights, would they come straight here at a dead run? Would they shuffle slowly? Would they fall down a lot or step over obstacles? Bronze and I could wait for days and never see one, or one could show up any second.
Bronze suggested she could keep an eye on things. She’s a truck. Zombies aren’t too interested in trucks. In the meantime, I could go back to the library.
The temptation to sit and read was overpowering. I gave in to it.
Eatonville, Day Eleven
Bronze alerted me to the presence of zombies in the early morning. I’d already had my transformation to daytime in the library’s bathroom and cleaned up after myself. I was sitting under a skylight, reading my way through the Steel Empires book series—I find vampires with swords strangely entertaining—when she informed me of trouble.
I put the current book aside and headed for the school, taking care to be sneaky. If zombies were starting to show up, they might be coming from any direction. I didn’t want to find out how a zombie bite mixed with vampire blood. Could it kill me during the day? Would I wind up a shambling, mindless creature while the sun was up? Would I know to get under cover for sunset? Or would my nighttime metabolism burn out the zombification? How would it work?
Testing it by being bitten did not seem the best course.
I crept up on the football field until I had a line of sight on the searchlights and the generator. Sure enough, zombies were milling around it. I guessed the count to be around fifteen.
There were a few… oddities?… about them. At least, to me. I visualize zombies as rotting corpses shuffling about until they detect a human, then they shamble toward the human in an attempt to grab him and eat him. They might groan loudly, alerting other zombies in the area about food, so everyone closes in on the panicking human. It’s the generally-accepted stuff.
These weren’t rotting. It looked, for the most part, like a group of ragged, post-apocalyptic survivors. Some were wounded, most were gaunt, but they weren’t rotting, walking dead. Some of them were sitting by the generator. One had his head resting on part of it, as though listening to it operate. Most were looking at the still-moving searchlights. A few reached out to touch them and got their hands batted away by the mechanism. They didn’t seem to mind, but kept reaching out to be slapped away again.
Those were the unexceptional ones. The exception was bigger.
Much bigger.
Towering over the rest at eight feet tall, it put me in mind of an ogre. It was too wide and thick for a Knight of Shadow. The head looked jammed down into the neck. I wondered if it could turn its head. The shoulders were at least a yard across and everything else about it was equally thick. The arms alone had to weigh more than most of its companions. It stared vacantly at the moving lights like all the rest.
Moments later, one of the smaller ones—one of the average-sized ones—swung around like a hound catching a scent. It looked right at me and shrieked like a banshee warning of an upcoming death, possibly mine. I felt it in my head like knife stabbing up through the base of my skull and into my brain. Even Firebrand winced. How must it feel to humans? Firebrand and I are more psychically sensitive than a typical human, but we’re also psychically tougher, too. Maybe I’ll find a human and ask him.
The rest of the zombies responded as though poked with a branding iron. They turned toward me like a dozen puppets on the same string and started in my direction. Four of them sprinted, clearly the zombie equivalent of track stars. Those four were much faster than the ones simply running, and the big, hulking brute brought up the rear.
I checked behind me. Nope. Nobody. I could have simply run for it, but after being psychically stabbed, I was in no mood to be nice. I slapped my faceshield down, drew swords, and turned four fast-movers into fourteen not-movers, all slightly on fi
re. I shot a wordless question at Firebrand.
Hey, I burn things, it replied. What do you expect?
You could have gone to the effort to cauterize them!
The zombies sprayed blood, oddly enough, which annoyed me considerably. I might find out if zombie blood was contagious to vampires whether I wanted to or not. At night, it would crawl into my armor and through the fibers at the joints. At the moment, it was still outside. Come nightfall, however, and I might wind up with zombie blood soaking into my skin.
Well, here’s hoping vampires are immune to it.
The severed limbs, although they tended to twitch rather more than was proper, did not actually move on their own. I also took note of the fact the zombies did not require a brain-shot to drop. They did require some fairly serious damage to kill, and they didn’t seem to mind the pain of being cut, but they did go down.
I was uncomfortably reminded of some fanatical pleasure-junkie addicts.
The second set, the more average runners, were almost on me by then. I sprinted away from them for a bit to let them spread themselves out some more. They didn’t all run at exactly the same speed and they didn’t stick together. I’ve had some experience dealing with mobs. When they started to spread out, I stopped and killed a few.
That’s the trick. Kill one, step back, kill another, step back, kill a third, run away a bit, kill the new one in the lead…
It was going perfectly with over half my mob in a dismembered trail. Then the one with the inhuman scream decided to do it again. And, again, I had the feeling of a knife being jammed up into my head. It did nothing pleasant to my concentration or my coordination. The scream itself was loud, yes, but there was a definite psychic component to it. It was the psychic equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. Normal humans, unaccustomed to it, probably found it intolerable. It bothered the hell out of me, too, but it pissed me off and made me want to kill the cause.
If the source of the screaming had been anywhere in the pack, I would have charged. Instead, it was near the back, sticking close to the big, hulking zombie.
I didn’t like it. First, zombies. Second, psychic zombies. And now, third, behavior smacking of intelligence. The shrieking thing alerts everyone. The fast zombies charge to occupy or overwhelm the opponent. The slower ones chase after to reinforce them. The screamer then discombobulates the target further. And the hulking monster finally arrives to crush any remaining resistance.
I am uncomfortable with this, and not just because of the psychic wailing. I am moderately convinced to not stay here long-term.
Teeth clenched, brain flexed, eyes watering, I turned and sprinted. The fastest of the zombies were already down. The rest, I hoped, would chase me. They didn’t. Instead, they regrouped around the hulking brute and the screamer, the bastards.
Far too intelligent for my taste. At least the shrieking dropped off with distance. A moment later, when I broke line-of-sight, it stopped trying.
I, on the other hand, did not stop trying. I circled around through the neighborhood, avoiding the zombie pack, and kept an eye on them. They didn’t go back to the lights. During the day, it’s not as attractive, perhaps, or they were more interested in me.
How smart were they? I chucked a metal trash can into the street and ducked for cover. Sure enough, they came to investigate.
They presented me with a serious temptation. They milled around, looking for the source of the noise. The remaining “normal” zombies spread out a bit, leaving me a clear path to the hulk and the banshee.
I’ve got a plan, I told Firebrand.
No problem, Firebrand replied. I’ll do my best to get you out of trouble.
Smartass. Feeling frisky?
Let’s fry something!
I switched hands, putting Firebrand in my left and my saber in my right. I peeked around the corner of a house, hyperventilated, gauged my moment, and charged.
The banshee-zombie started screaming as soon as it saw me, but by then I was already at full speed and on target. The hulking zombie-monster started to turn, so my thrust with Firebrand entered it at approximately the right kidney, angled up into the left lung and out through the chest. I buried Firebrand to the hilt before ducking under the swing of a massive, tree-trunk arm. It might not run too quickly, but it had fast hands.
My course carried me past it and right on past the shrieking one. Of course, I passed the big one on my left and the shrieker on my right. I left Firebrand behind in the big one. The smaller one I merely semi-decapitated. I took the upper portion of its head off, just under the eyes. I was going for the neck, but I was sprinting and it was a moving target. Close enough.
The noise, psychic and otherwise, cut off.
I heard a sizzling sound behind me and kept running. I slowed barely enough to decapitate the zombie moving to block me before Firebrand went off.
The heat flash-boiled the fluids inside the big zombie. This created steam, lots of steam, more steam than the physical body could contain. And Firebrand poured even more heat into it, exciting the molecules even more, raising the temperature and therefore the pressure, all in an instant.
The explosion wasn’t much, as explosions go. On the other hand, it was impressive as explosions goo. Fried zombie bits rained down all over the street. A cloud of steam and smoke blew outward before starting to condense on everything. Firebrand clanged to the pavement while the lower half of the zombie stood there for a moment. It toppled slowly to the ground with a hefty, wet thud.
Finishing off the rest of the zombies was merely a matter of not being surrounded. No problem. I turned them into pieces and cast a cleaning spell on myself. If I’m going to be exposed to zombie blood, let it be a night.
I refueled the generator for the searchlights, popped back to the library, and brought a stack of books to Bronze. She wanted to know if everything was all right.
“Mostly. Giant zombie ogre, sprinters, some normal zombies, and one psychic zombie.”
The two of you may regard this as all right, but I’m not pleased. Those screaming things put me on edge.
“On edge? Seriously?”
Laugh if you want, but they irritate me.
“I’m not fond of them, either. I’m going to take what’s left of them apart and hope we get some fresh ones tonight. I want to see inside while they’re still working.”
They think, Boss, if that helps any.
“They do?”
Not much, not well, but I can sort of hear them thinking. It’s weird. They’re all thinking the same thing, sort of.
“How so?”
I haven’t seen anything like it. They all have the same thought. It’s like they’re one mind, even though they aren’t.
“I’ll get a few together and we’ll look into them. With a knife.”
Suits me, but I want something to shut up the loud one.
“Me, too. Although…”
What?
“If the loud one was loud enough, it might attract the attention of others. We might have several more closing in on us right now.”
Excellent! Will they have another big one? Can I blow it up again?
“I’m not sure if they will. I don’t know if this is a typical group. Even if they do, I plan to wait for nightfall. I’m pretty sure we can deal with a big one then without blowing it to smithereens.”
Awww.
“I want to examine them, remember?”
And if the screaming one summons more?
“Then we can blow up the extras,” I agreed, sighing. Kids with new toys, Firebrand with a new way to kill something.
Any chance we can go hunting for more? it pressed.
“I’m trying to satisfy my curiosity, not cleanse the world of giant zombies,” I replied, testily. “However, if I want to study some, you’re right about me needing a plan for keeping the loud one from yelling for help.”
With this thought in mind, I ignored the books for a while, sitting quietly in the bed of Bronze’s truck and spellcasting.
I know several mental defense spells—I have most of them practically built-in to my brain—but they’re mostly geared toward preventing mind-reading. Under normal circumstances, they’re also useful against possession. Sadly, both the Orb and my altar ego tend to bypass all those. Since they are me, in various ways, the spells don’t interfere. The spells are designed to work on other things without interfering with me.
In this case, I needed something to block a direct, overwhelming assault. The psychic shriek wasn’t an attempt to read my mind. It wasn’t even an attempt to link to it, really. It was a straightforward attack. This called for something to act as… a shield? Sound-proofing? A shield of some sort, certainly, as a defense. A variation on it, perhaps, as a containment spell…
I recalled the nerve-wracking psychic impulses from the shrieker and considered how best to deal with them.
Was there a football helmet to be had around this school?
Sunset came and went. I endured. The bathroom of the abandoned house had no running water, so the mess from my cleaning spell crawled down the drain on its own.
I sat in the driver’s seat, spells all prepared, while I finished the series. Well, I finished Steel Time, the fourth in the series. The library didn’t have the fifth, Steel Shadows, which annoyed me considerably.
After nightfall, the searchlights stood out much more prominently. A light fog started, making the beams stand out like search—uh, like searchlights in a light fog? Better than usual, anyway. Our patience was rewarded when Firebrand detected something.
Boss. Company.
I slid out of the seat and edged up to the garage door, peering through the dirty window. A squad of zombies shuffled around the field. There was one huge zombie and several regular-sized ones. That’s all there was to see… to mortal eyes.
Perhaps the term “zombie” is a bit misleading. These things were alive. Technically. Their bodies functioned in some biological fashion, anyway. They had vital energy, living energy, and a surprising amount of it.