by Dalton Wolf
Before Tripper could reply a metallic clunk clanked at them from under the front end and he yelled, “Hold on!”
The speeding car jerked left and they jumped the curb and slammed through the front window of a restaurant before he could bring it to a stop. Trip’s life failed to flash before his eyes as his favorite charcoal grey sedan smashed several red and green tables and chairs into a dirty white wall before being stopped by what looked like a very large buffet table. Stunned briefly as the air bags exploded into their faces and sides, they all grunted in pain and surprise.
I think my nose is broken, Trip thought hazily. “Eberry won’t still Adive?” he asked groggily.
“Did you say, ‘Ivy won’t stay alive?” Sarah asked groggily.
“I thought he said ‘if we run steel eyes” the doctor grunted
“Is everyone still alive?” Trip repeated, enunciating each word, but already knowing the answer now.
“That’s not even close to what I heard the first time,” she giggled. “But I’m ok.”
“I may have broken a few fingers grabbing this handle,” the doctor replied, dropping the roof handle he’d ripped away. “But I am otherwise undamaged.”
“C’bon. We’be still got a blog to go,” Tripper told them.
“We don’t have time to write a blog,” Sarah quipped, with a wicked grin.
Trip pushed his door open, unclicked his seatbelt and fell to the floor of the bistro, noticing a few red speckles splattering the checkered tiles. The other two were there in an instant, helping him sit up against the car.
“Are you ok, Honey?’ Sarah asked, concern edging her sweet voice.
“The air bag seems to have struck him rather hard. He may have a broken nose and a mild concussion.”
“I’b alright,” he said, shaking off their help. “I bean, other than probably eberything the Doc just said,” he smiled up at them.
“Here, let me,” Sarah was already wiping his nose with a napkin she’d pulled out of a container that had landed on the hood.
“My bat,” Trip said.
“No. Could have happened to anyone,” assured the doctor. “It is no one’s bad.”
“Not by bad, my bat,” he pointed to the car and mimicked swinging a baseball bat.
“Oh, I’ll get it,” the doctor reached into the car and pulled out the dented and brown-stained Louisville Slugger.
Tripper’s nose had been broken at least a dozen times before. Sarah squeezed and crunched it back into place, almost painlessly thanks to his love of green leaf, while he sat distracted by the carnage they’d created. Luckily the owners had taken the day off for the parade or someone could have been hurt.
“Ok, let’s go,” Sarah put one hand out on a shoulder of each man and pulled them gently. “Let’s get to the Station before they’re too busy.”
“Right. C’mon, Doc.”
Turning, they realized there was no way to leave the way they had entered the building, as the façade of the second floor had collapsed onto the opening. The trio easily side-stepped the debris to the door and Sarah found the lock, clicking it and carefully swinging the glass door open. Trip paused to inspect a green and red sign stuck to the glass. With a smile, he turned the sign to show ‘Open’ facing the outside and closed the door behind them.
Both the doctor and Sarah squinted the same questions at him.
“What? It’s not like they can keep anyone out now.” He grinned.
“Possibly more than a mild concussion,” the Doctor noted with some concern.
“No, he’s always been kind of an ass, Doctor,” Sarah explained.
“Hmm, I always thought someone was either a smartass or a dumbass. I’ve never before met anyone who exemplified both.”
“He thinks it’s charming.”
Tripper laughed.
“Now, about this Police nonsense,” the doctor said hesitantly, trying to pick his words carefully as they walked the remaining block, looking around to make sure there were no virus victims shuffling behind them. “I think that would be a mistake.”
“We can’t protect you, Doc,” Trip argued.
“I think the police are going to be a little busy today.”
“There will be someone to help you,” Tripper assured him. He was so wrong.
Three minutes later the trio burst through the double doors of the police station and stood gazing around in surprise. Not only was the watch desk vacant, but the entire building seemed to be abandoned. Phones rang off the hook and papers and desk items were scattered throughout the place as if everyone had just dropped whatever they were holding and grabbed a gun, which seemed like the likeliest scenario. Two large wooden double doors at the back stood wide open, leading to an eerily quiet interior. It was like a haunted house at Christmas or half of the manufacturing plants in America, the equipment was still ready to go, but no one worked there anymore.
“Crap.” Trip stated flatly.
“We can’t leave him here,” Sarah said, jumping at the whispery echo of her own voice.
“Just a second,” Tripper cried and rushed off through the double doors.
“Jackpot!” they heard him exclaim excitedly.
The other two ran to the doors to see him standing inside a large chicken coup-like weapon cage. He held a long bag with a shoulder strap into which he was stuffing three m-16 rifles and a few shotguns along with every box of shells he could find on the shelves. He handed each of them one of the remaining M-16s.
“You know how to use this, Doc?” he asked.
“Yes, unfortunately. I did three tours in the middle East.”
“Thank you for your service,” Trip said.
‘Yes, thank you.” Sarah added.
The doctor leaned back in surprise.
“We always make it a habit to thank our veterans,” Trip explained. “Our whole group does it. Anyway, no pistols here and no more vests, but these guns should get us by. Six M-16s and three shotguns with a few thousand shells should keep us until someone can come in and rescue us. Don’t know about food, though,” he amended.
“There are three food machines and a stocked kitchen at work,” Sarah informed him happily.
“Won’t help if the power goes out,” he responded.
“It will run on solar, wind, and diesel generator power if we lose the main line.”
“Nice. You never told me that before.”
“I can’t even think of why it would have come up.”
“Alright, c’mon Doctor Death, let’s get you safe so you can fix this mess.”
“I take offense at that name, Mr. Tripper.”
“I don’t care.”
“Trip,” Sarah started, but he raised a hand and cut her off.
“No! I’ve never had a reason to kill another living creature in my life and now in less than a half-hour, I’m a mass murderer. It’s because of him and those like him.” He turned back to the doctor. “Now, we’re going to do everything we can to get you someplace safe and find whatever help you might need to fix this, Doc. But if I wanna call you Doctor Death, or Toe-sucking Ass-muncher, you’d better just take it quietly until I get used to this shit and decide if I like you or not. And what’s with the lab coat?” At this the glint in Trip’s steely grey eyes glared so brightly that the elder man actually took a step back.
“I am a doctor and scientist.”
“Still, isn’t it a little cliché to wear a lab coat out in public?”
“I wasn’t in public. I was in a plane that fell out of the sky.”
“But who wears lab coats anymore?”
“Everyone. And it’s government policy,” the man explained in mild indignation.
“Whatever. Let’s move,” Trip tried to chamber a round in his rifle and realized there was no ammo in the weapon. Blushing he slipped a new magazine backwards into the weapon and tried to load the chamber…and then he did it the proper way.
“And make sure you’ve got ammo in your guns!” he huffed, tossing each of them
a clip and turning away angrily as Sarah started giggling.
“Nice angry rant, Baby. It was going really well until the Keystone Kop thing.”
“Instant Karma is a bitch,” Tripper mumbled with a grimace.
Sarah and the doctor both smiled and for a brief moment the tension flowed away. It lasted until they each realized they would have to hit the streets again and all three squared their shoulders, checked the safeties on their weapons, and strode purposefully for the door side-by-side.
The trio skulked from the station, hoping not to be spotted by anyone official now that they had stolen city property. Stealing guns from the police station might even be a federal crime for all they knew. If this thing went away, Tripper would return the stuff and take his punishment. As barren as the street was, Sarah couldn’t imagine things ever coming right again. The streets were as eerily empty as the police station had been. A few lonely leaves rattled up the street in a mild breeze and the raspy sound echoed back from the stone and steel buildings as if they strode through the Grand Canyon. She breathed in and caught the faint odor of acrid smoke drifting through the air.
“Is it just me, or does it seem…creepier now?” Sarah whispered.
“It is the adrenaline,” the Doctor explained.
“I ain’t got any left,” Trip countered.
“Yes, that’s what I mean. Our adrenal glands were excreting a large amount of…” he paused to appraise the couple. Realizing they would most likely not understand what he was about to say, with a sigh he made a few slight amendments. “We were very excited when we came through the first time. Now we have had a moment to calm down, not to mention the desolate wasteland we found inside. It’s only natural we would feel this way coming back out into the streets again.”
“No, it’s something else,” Sarah whispered. “We’re in danger. I can feel it.”
“Of course we’re in danger,” Trip started to say in a normal voice, but Sarah cupped her hand over his mouth and shushed him. “Of course we’re in danger,” he whispered, removing her hand from his mouth with a concerned glare. “There are flesh-eating Zombies crawling all over the city.” There I said it again. Zombies. They’re Zombies. Zombies are real. Oh my God, Zombies are real.
“No,” Sarah insisted. “It’s more immediate. There’s something up ahead.”
The other two glanced up the street.
There was nothing.
No people.
No cars.
Nothing.
Even the rattling of the leaves had ceased. There was literally nothing physical on which to build any suspicion or fear, but the conviction in her manner forced both men to pause. After only a few seconds they felt it, too. She was right. There was an intense feeling of foreboding flowing into them from somewhere up the street that sent a shiver through the pair, who now looked to Sarah for some kind of explanation.
Sarah, however, seemed out of sorts, unfocussed. She leaned against the stone corner of the nearest building and stared down the empty street. “Up around the corner of this building. Go quietly, Trip,” she cautioned, pointing to an indention on the building that lay between them and their destination.
He un-slung the bag of guns and handed it to the professor, who hefted the heavy bag across his back with a grunt. Trip reached into the bag and pulled out two clips for the rifle, stuffing one in each back pocket. Taking a steadying breath, he slowly edged down the street along the building to the corner. Another fortifying breath allowed him to peer slowly around the corner, hoping all the while that if there was something there, it wouldn’t notice slower movement. What he saw caused him to jump back so fast he tripped over a small pipe protruding from the sidewalk and fell back onto his back. Sheer fear pulled him instantly back to his feet and he dashed back to where the other two waited, his well-tanned face as white as a hairy man’s ass.
“Zombies!” he hissed. “A few dozen between us and your building. They’re wearing sports gear so they all came from the parade. How’d they get here already? ”
“Heading this way?”
“No, they’re about halfway up the block, kind of milling around, looking for something to eat.”
“What are they doing there?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask. They seemed preoccupied. Maybe they chased something to this area and either ate it or lost it.”
“You’re talking about a person, Trip,” Sarah gagged in disgust.
“Let’s hope it was chased and not ate,” added the doctor, patting her on the arm. “And are we certain Zombie is the word we want to use for them?”
“You got a better name?”
“I’ve been calling them Infected in my head.”
“Maybe because you’re infected in your head,” Tripper shot back.
“Nice,” Sarah congratulated him.
“Like it or not, they are zombies, Doc,” he stated firmly.
“I would feel more comfortable saying Infected. It seems more official and likely to cause fewer bouts of incredulity when we tell people. But mainly because it is accurate. They’re infected with some disease that seems to imitate the properties of death and then reanimates the person with an intense hunger for…well for Human flesh, or so it would appear. But we don’t really know for sure if they’re dead, or if it’s only human flesh they desire, or if they can be cured, or, well, or many other things that we don’t know at this point. Perhaps there might come a point at which I will feel comfortable calling them…Zombies. If they are truly dead, then I see no way in which they could be cured. They would, in fact, be the walking dead. For now, I must call them Infected.”
“Infected. OK, I guess that would work too, but let me ask you this, Professor—”
“—Doctor.”
“Right, Doctor,” Trip amended amiably. “When you’re passing this information on to someone else in the near future, which do you think is going to convey the symptoms and situation faster…all of that stuff you just said and the many other things you will undoubtedly have to say to get the point across to those like you, or just saying the one word…Zombie?”
“I don’t know.”
“Really?” Tripper asked in disbelief.
“I have to admit that perhaps I’ve been avoiding the name simply because it seems so ridiculous, having never believed in the possibility of such a thing.”
“Well, look around, Doc. We’re up to our proverbial and literal asses in the ridiculous right now.” He whispered. The absence of any other sounds or people in the heart of a bustling metropolis seemed to emphasize his words that much more. All three now subconsciously held their weapons facing the corner ahead, while their eyes darted back behind them with regularity. “The past of reality and sanity is gone; we now live in the time of Zombies.” He stated simply. “Zombies. Zombies. Zombies. Just because you don’t believe in them, don’t make them not real.”
“Excuse me, do you boys really think it matters what we call them?” Sarah hissed.
“Yes.” Both men replied together.
“OK. Fine. To most people, we’ll call them Zombies, but to the authorities and doctors, if we ever talk to any again, we’ll call them Infected.”
“Why bother to change the name at all?” Tripper asked.
“Because it’ll sound more official, and less like we’re insane if we sound like authorities ourselves on the situation. You know, like we know what the hell we’re talking about and not like we’re a bunch of Doomsdayers flipping out. We’ll need to quickly obtain their attention, adequately explain the situation, and insist on their assistance in as believable a manner as possible given the surrealism of the situation.”
The doctor’s eyebrows raised in respect.
“She’s got a Masters, Doc,” Trip said proudly. “We’re not all uneducated hicks here in the Midwest.”
“I never said you were. In fact, I believe the majority of higher educated persons come from the Midwestern communities, looking for something more out of life th
an farming and fast food.”
“Is that true?” Sarah asked, her deep, emerald eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“No idea,” the doctor admitted. “Seemed like the thing so say since we’re here.”
All three smiled, but were aware enough not to laugh.
“So what are we going to do about getting to my building?”
“Is there any other place we can go?” the Doctor asked.
“We can head back to the Police station,” Trip suggested.
“I don’t know if their doors could sustain heavy battering,” Sarah said uncertainly.
“We don’t know that it would come to that,” Trip argued.
“Hey, you’re the one who made me watch all those movies. In every one at some point a bunch of Zombies bash down some solid-looking doors and rush in, killing half the group. That won’t happen to my building.”
“Fair enough,” he admitted quietly.
“Well, me and the doc could run past the corner whooping and hollering—”
“—excuse me,” the doctor interrupted.
“What?”
“I graduated from Johns Hopkins and did my residency at the American Hospital of Paris. I’ve also had a forty year career in medicine during which I worked and taught at six of the finest medical institutions in the world,” he paused and stared at Tripper.
“And?” Trip asked.
“And I do not whoop…or holler.” It seemed distasteful to him to even say the words, much less consider actually having to perform the acts.
“Fair enough,” Trip sighed. “Me and the Doc here will round the corner making a lot of noise…” he paused and eyed the doctor, waiting for permission. At a nod, he continued. “We’ll shoot a few of them to make sure we’ve got their attention, and hopefully they’ll all chase us down the street. You’ll be hiding over on the right there ducking down behind that little wall,” he pointed to the a retaining wall in the parking lot of a tiny, but well kept two-pump gas station.
“That is asinine,” Sarah hissed.
“You got a better plan?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean yours isn’t stupid. They’ll be trying to kill you the whole time, you know?”