Desolation

by Mark Campbell

  Jerri struggled to keep up in the rear, cradling the baby against her. Her leg muscles throbbed and her lungs burned as she started to lag behind.

  Andrew turned the corner and ran down another alley situated between two sealed dormitories. Both were on fire. The tent encampment in the alley had been torn to shreds by the earlier barrage of arrows. Haggard tenuous reanimated corpses staggered out from behind the tattered tents, swiping at Andrew with their boney hands.

  Andrew shoved the infected back, shooting only when he had too. Most of the frail bodies were flung aside and went down easily enough .

  Jones and Martinez stayed close together, terrified. They popped off shot after shot and ended up going through their limited supply of ammunition in no time at all. They dropped their depleted weapons and drew their batons, caving in the skulls of any infected who encroached upon them.

  Jerri shoved her way through the clawing infected and kicked their dusty skeletal frames aside. A reanimated woman emerged from behind one of the tents and clawed at baby Jacob, moaning, tearing through the shawl that covered the child.

  Jerri drew her knife and stabbed the woman in the eye. The dead woman gave a feral cry and stumbled back. Jerri flicked the gore off of her blade and continued running after the group, breathing frantically. She was slipping further behind. Andrew turned another corner and saw the medical barrack ahead. Unfortunately, the alleyway was thick with shamblers and it would be impossible to pass though unscathed.

  The only choice was to cut through one of the neighboring dormitories and skip the alleyway altogether. The shamblers in the alley took notice of Andrew and started to trudge towards him, arms outstretched, making hungry guttural moans. Two FEMA officers wearing riot gear were at the head of the pack, tainted arrows protruding from their thick tactical vests.

  Andrew stepped back and searched for an exit. Dorm 16 was on his left and Dorm 17 was on his right; both were standard dormitories so both had skylights.

  Martinez and Jones ran up behind him, huffing and puffing. “We’re going to have to take one of dorms, go through one of the skylights, and jump down in front of medical,” Andrew quickly explained. “The alley isn’t going to cut it.”

  Martinez and Jones nodded.

  Andrew turned towards the two men and concern washed over his face.

  “Jones,” Andrew said, looking around frantically. “Where is Jerri?! Goddammit! You were supposed to watch her back!” Jones started to say something but was interrupted when Jerri bounded from around the corner.

  She was struggling to catch her breath and held the baby against her chest.

  “See? She’s fine!” Jones said.

  “No thanks to you, asshole,” Jerri said. She kicked sand on Jones’ boots and walked towards Andrew, hands trembling.

  “You okay?” Andrew asked as he stared at her trembling hands. Jerri nodded and stared down the alley at the approaching infected.

  The encroaching shambling herd trampled through tents and clotheslines as they made their way down the alley. “Medical is on the other side. We need to snake through one of the dorms,” Andrew said. He ran towards Dorm 17 and pressed his ear against the sally port door, listening carefully. “The dormitories are still under emergency lockdown, but my pass can override the lock. Now it’s just a matter of picking the right curtain…”

  Jones stared at the approaching horde and panicked. He ran towards Dorm 16 and started to bash the sally port’s keypad with his baton, making it spark.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?! We don’t have time for that! They’re coming!” Jones shouted as he bashed the keypad. “Careful! You don’t want to open the wrong door!” Andrew shouted.

  Martinez stood in the center of the alley, terrified. “One dormitory is as good as another! Stop fucking around!” Jones yelled. He bashed the keypad one last time and the controls shortcircuited.

  “The skylights! The fucking skylights! We have to make sure that–”

  “Attention, emergency lockdown of Dormitory 16 deactivated,” the sally port speaker interrupted Andrew.

  Dorm 16’s door slid open.

  “Ha!” Jones shouted as he waved his baton over his head. “Looks like you’re not the only one with special access!”

  A cavalcade of cold boney hands emerged out of Dorm 16’s open sally port and pulled Jones inside.

  Jones let out a bloodcurdling cry as the infected residents of Dorm 16 tore him apart and sunk their teeth in his flesh.

  “Fuck! Fuck!” Martinez shouted, backing away from the scene. Infected staggered out of Dorm 16, stepping towards Andrew’s group. “I tried warning that fucking idiot! The skylights are not arrowproof!” Andrew shouted. His hand was forced as the infected approached from every direction. He quickly punched in his code and Dorm 17’s sally port opened.

  “Attention, manual lockdown of Dormitory 17 deactivated.” “Manual lockdown? That’s odd,” Andrew muttered at the computer’s response. “This dorm was locked down by the occupants before the emergency lockdown took effect…”

  “I don’t think we have the luxury of waiting to make sure it’s safe, Andrew,” Jerri said. “We’re a little low on options!”

  Jerri held Jacob and ran inside the dorm followed by Martinez. Andrew stepped in afterwards and sealed the sally port shut behind him, unaware of what horrors awaited him inside.

  23

  Dorm 17’s hallway was far from welcoming. Most of the lights were off and the skylights had been covered by plywood. The air smelled like rot. Dried blood streaked the sides of the wall. Thick puddles of crimson caked the carpet. Along the length of the corridor were many candles, melted and long since extinguished. Most of the dormitory doors were closed and the buzzing of flies filled the air.

  The air was stale.

  The dorm hadn’t been accessed for quite some time.

  “I don’t like this,” Jerri muttered, scanning the area cautiously. She slid the knife from underneath her belt and gripped it tightly, ready. Jacob made muffled cries into her chest, kicking and screaming.

  “Me either,” Martinez said.

  “At least the skylights are covered,” Andrew said, pointing up at the plywood. “We don’t have to worry about arrows.”

  “Yeah?” Martinez asked, “Then where is everybody?” “Don’t know , don’t care,” Andrew snapped. “Let’s just get inside one of the rooms and crawl out one of the skylights.”

  Martinez opened the door nearest to him and stepped inside. Many religious talismans covered the dresser. A half-decomposed man lay dead on the center of his bed, both wrists slashed. He held a razor blade in his left hand. An aged, tattered bible lay on his chest. Two pennies covered his eyes.

  The skylight above his bed had been boarded shut.

  Martinez stepped back into the hall and looked over at Andrew.

  “This shit is fucked, man,” Martinez said as he pointed towards the room. “This guy killed himself. He’s been dead for weeks...” Andrew looked inside another room and saw a similar scene and shook his head. “Fanatics,” Andrew said. “That plywood wasn’t to keep the arrows out, but rather to keep the sunlight out. Let’s just keep moving and see if we can find an empty room to work in. I’d rather not choke on decay while I’m trying to pry plywood off the ceiling with my bare fingers.”

  Jerri didn’t like any of it. She heard about the fanatics – even seen a few around - but never saw a dorm full of them. The fanatics thought that they had been left behind on Judgment Day and were tasked with making penance through various forms of mortification of the flesh. It seemed their perverse take on religion had grown popular throughout the camp recently.

  Jerri lost her religion many years ago and wasn’t too concerned with finding it again. She held Jacob against her chest and walked down the middle of the hall. The child screamed and wailed; his cries echoed down the desolate hall.

  Room after room they passed reeked with the same stench of decay and excrement. They passed the bathroom and saw
that the FEMA poster hung above the sink had been vandalized.

  A thick metal briefcase sat next to the sink inside the bathroom. A torn sticker on the briefcase read ‘Lazarus’. Empty glass vials littered the floor.

  Andrew’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the briefcase and he backed away from the bathroom. “We have to get out of here now,” Andrew said.

  Something rustled in one of the rooms ahead.

  Andrew tensed and raised his pistol.

  The rustling sound happened again.

  “It’s in that room ahead,” Martinez said, pointing towards one of the open rooms a few feet away.

  “Yeah, I hear it,” Andrew replied sharply. “Jerri, stay back.” Jerri didn’t like being told what to do, but she really didn’t want to see another dead person. She decided not to object.

  Andrew quickly entered the room and scanned the area with his pistol. The room was vacant. The blood-stained bed was empty with the exception of the shattered plywood and a rogue arrow that had struck through the skylight. Air blew through the shattered skylight and rustled the pages in the open bible that lay on the floor.

  The arrowhead wasn’t bloody and didn’t look like they struck anything.

  Andrew let out a relieved sigh and lowered his pistol. “It’s empty,” he said. “They just did a half-assed job of covering the skylight and an arrow shattered through, that’s all.” “Good,” Martinez said. “So we found a way out of here?” Andrew turned towards Martinez and nodded, smiling. He quickly lost his smile.

  A rotting skeletal humanoid frame shambled down the hallway behind Martinez. Its hair had fallen out and its skin had receded away from its mouth, revealing a toothy skeletal grin. His eyes were sunken deep in their sockets and clumps of meat hung off of its pitiful frame.

  “Martinez! Behind you!” Andrew shouted, pointing his pistol towards the creature. Martinez swung around and drew his baton, crouching, ready. “I got this bastard,” Martinez said.

  The creature reached a thin hand out towards Martinez, giving a ghoulish raspy gasp.

  Martinez cracked the baton against the creature’s outstretched hand, shattering the brittle bone.

  The creature’s hand dislocated and hit the floor with a thud. Martinez slammed the baton against the top of the creature’s skull and cracked it open like a rotten pumpkin.

  Black goop leaked from the creature’s fractured skull but it continued to lurch forward.

  “What the fuck?!” Martinez said, stepping backwards. The creature seemed to be grinning at Martinez as it shambled forward, twitching.

  “Fuck,” Andrew muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “Get away from that thing, Martinez!” Andrew fired at the creature multiple times, but the shots didn’t slow it down, despite the well-placed head shots. “Get away from that thing now!”

  As Martinez stared at the creature, he didn’t notice the hand starting to crawl across the carpet towards him like some grotesque spider. The hand climbed up Martinez’s leg under the cuff of his BDU pants and started to dig its nails into his skin. Martinez let out a terrified scream and started to strike the baton against his own leg, desperately trying to hit the hand, cracking his shin in the process.

  The creature lurched closer, making guttural gurgles, twitching violently. Jerri started to run and help but froze when she thought about Jacob’s well-being. This was something different. The creature was unlike any Acexa or PT-12 variant she ever witnessed.

  Martinez screamed out in pain and stumbled against the wall, trying to pry the hand off of his leg.

  The door across from him opened and another gruesome revenant lurched out into the hall and grabbed him.

  “GO!” Martinez shouted towards Andrew. “Fucking GO!” Two more shambled out of their rooms approaching in jerky, spastic movements.

  They pulled large sections of flesh off of him with focused intensity, staring at him with greedy, deep set milky eyes.

  Andrew pulled Jerri into the room and locked the door behind them.

  Jerri held onto Jacob, her whole body trembled. Andrew holstered his pistol, paced back and forth a second, and then flipped the bed out of the middle of the room, crashing it against the wall. He grabbed the dresser and pushed it underneath the skylight.

  “What…” Jerri started, stammering. “What were…?” “I don’t know! Okay?! I don’t fucking know!” Andrew shouted, hyperventilating. “I don’t want to talk about it! Let’s just… Let’s just go! Let’s go! Okay?! Let’s get the hell out of here and go!”

  Andrew climbed onto the dresser and climbed up through the shattered skylight. Once on the roof, he quickly surveyed the scene. The area in front of medical was empty with the exception of two badly mutilated corpses. The medical sally port was sealed and that gave Andrew a good indication that his source was still inside.

  Fortunately, medical didn’t have any skylights so tainted arrowheads wouldn’t be a problem.

  Andrew reached down into the room and frantically motioned for Jerri. “Hurry up! We have a clear path!” Andrew yelled. “The horde is still gathered around the corner at the entrance, trying to figure a way through!”

  Jerri jumped as one of the creatures started to bash against the door, almost knocking it off of its hinges. She ran to Andrew and held the bundled baby up to him, terrified.

  Behind her, the wooden door buckled and cracked. Jacob quieted down but continued to squirm in the blanket.

  Andrew took Jacob and laid him down on the roof and then reached down towards Jerri. He paused when he noticed that his hand was bloody. He looked over at Jacob and saw that the blanket he was holding had bloody splotches on it.

  “What in the hell,” Andrew muttered. “Is he okay…?” “He’s fine,” Jerri said as she climbed onto the dresser. “The blood is from one of the shamblers I fought in the alley.”

  She took Andrew’s hand and he pulled her up onto the roof, grunting..

  Andrew brushed past her and leapt off the edge of the roof, rolling off into the sand. The two mutilated corpses lying on the ground snapped and squirmed at his presence but, lacking arms or legs, there was little they could do except stare.

  Andrew stood, hastily dusted himself off, and held his arms up towards Jerri. Jerri frowned.

  “Not this again,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head.

  “Tuck him against your chest and fall back into my arms,” Andrew shouted. “It’s not even as high as the other dorm. Just trust me!” Jerri, not having many other options available to her at the moment, tucked the child close to her and tumbled down towards his open arms, screaming.

  Andrew caught her and stumbled backwards, nearly dropping her. He quickly let her down onto the ground and rubbed his aching back. Jerri scurried away, clutching little Jacob against her frantically beating heart. “Support team regroup at the left atrium! Break, break, break! 10-33 in progress! Multiple fires! Men down! We need riot support! We’re getting massacred over–”

  Jerri and Andrew turned towards the sound of the police radio. A FEMA officer, multiple arrows sticking out of his armor, lurched from around the corner and fixated his dead gaze on both of them, moaning. He staggered towards them, arms extended. A multitude followed close behind.

  Andrew hurried to the medical sally port and punched his code in. It unlocked and the door slid open.

  Jerri hurried inside with Jacob and Andrew followed.

  Inside, Andrew quickly activated the manual override and sealed the sally port shut.

  “Emergency manual lock down activated,” a female voice announced over the sally port speaker. “Please report this incident to a supervisor.” Jerri felt an uneasy sense of deja vu as she stepped into the medical lobby. It smelled like stale cigarette smoke. A single abandoned desk sat against the wall. The lights were dim and the ceiling tiles were badly water damaged. A door sat on each side of the unmanned desk. One door led into the dark recesses of the patient wing and the other led into the administrative hall.

  “Chris!�
� Andrew shouted behind her, scanning the lobby. The patient wing door swung open and a man stepped into the lobby. He was tall, lanky, and wore dirty nursing scrubs. “Thank God,” Chris said, smiling at Andrew. “I was wondering how long it would take for you guys to contain the situation out there.” He froze as he spotted Jerri.

  A long, deep and fresh wound ran down the side of his face. “You,” Chris uttered, eyes narrowing, glaring at her.

  Jerri clenched her teeth together and drew her knife, ready to attack. Andrew watched in bewilderment.

  “Came back so I can return the favor?” Chris said and spat. Jerri tried to mask her terror.

  “No,” she said, “I came to finish your other cheek.”

  “What the fuck is going on?” Andrew said, stepping between the two. “Stop!”

  “That’s the bitch I told you about earlier! She’s the one who cut me!” Chris said, seething with anger.

  “Her?!” Andrew said, flabbergasted. “He chased me!” Jerri shouted, raising her knife. She looked at Andrew for support. “I walked in on him using all the morphine! When he saw me he tried to attack me!”

  Chris looked down and muttered to himself, pacing small circles. Andrew lowered his eyes.

  Jerri searched Andrew’s face and was disgusted with what she saw. “You… knew?” she asked Andrew.

  Andrew paused and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “Remember earlier when I said that he owes me for looking the other way on a few things…?” Andrew said, ashamed.

  Jerri punched Andrew in the chest, making him stumble backwards. “So drug abuse is considered ‘just one of those things’?” Jerri shouted, stepping back. She felt like she was going to faint. “There are people in here who were in agony and he was busy getting high!”

  Andrew reached a hand out towards her.

  “Jerri, please…”

  Jerri slapped his hand aside and stepped back.

  “Don’t you fucking touch me!” she shouted. “You both are sick!”