Plagued: The Battle Creek Zombie Rectification Experiment

by Better Hero Army

  The snow slid from under her feet, halving her momentum with each leap. By the fourth step she was actually losing ground. She dove forward, reaching for Troy’s outstretched hand, but missed it by a good foot or more. She slid back down into the ditch on her belly, feet first this time.

  “Over here,” Troy said, pointing ahead to a different spot. He hobbled along the top, his hands clawing the fence to steady him. The snow broke free beneath his feet, but holding the fence kept him from falling. He tested the snow in front of him with a stomp of his foot before putting his weight on it after that.

  Wendy was already back on her feet and ready for a second try. She edged along the frozen pool until she was lined up with Troy, then made another mad dash up the hillside. The snow broke beneath her feet so quickly her legs spun like a cartoon. She slid back down on her hands and feet, hardly getting a quarter of the way up the berm.

  It could have well been her own groan of frustration, or Troy’s for that matter, but both of them knew better. The nearest zombie had reached the berm. It halted, moaning sadly, trying to figure out which path would be easier, which person to prey upon.

  “Try again,” Troy insisted, waving for Wendy.

  That got the zombie’s attention. It started to circle the berm for Troy.

  “No,” Wendy said. She did a quick double-take between the zombie and Troy. “You go. Stay with Keith. I can catch up.”

  The zombie faltered, turning in a jerky motion toward Wendy.

  Troy looked at the zombie, then at her, obviously torn by the notion of abandoning her.

  “And I can always go back,” Wendy said, throwing a thumb at the dark shadows of the forest. She was already moving parallel to the fence, away from the horde at her back.

  Troy nodded and began his reluctant, precarious hobbling, holding the chain link fence with each step to keep from falling. The fence rattled, sounding out his progress. The groans behind her also tracked the progress of their pursuers. One was suddenly cut off, followed by a hissing and thumping. Wendy spun around just in time to see the first zombie sliding to a stop at the bottom of the berm. It sat up suddenly, the cowl of its hood falling back to reveal a thick mop of dark hair, pale skin reflecting the shallow moonlight, and a dark void where its open mouth yawned wide to let out an angry moan.

  Up above on the berm, a second zombie shuffled into sight.

  Forty-Eight

  Wendy scrambled on hands and knees to find purchase across a thick, slippery section of exposed ice, hoping it wasn’t thin ice. That’s all she needed right now, what with the zombies behind her growing in numbers. Half tried to follow Troy while the other half swayed at the top of the berm, unwilling to commit to the same course that their cousins had in spilling down into the pit.

  Which left two zombies that Wendy had to worry about the most, the one that fell in first, and the second one to come along and spill over the edge without realizing the danger.

  If Wendy had a second to think about it, the fact that the remaining zombies had enough cognitive awareness to avoid mindlessly following them was of great scientific interest with regard to their behavioral norms, but right now that part of her brain was completely shut down.

  She coughed repeatedly. Her fingers felt numb, the ice burning her gloveless palms. The six or eight feet of bare patch seemed to take hours to cross.

  “Wendy,” Troy called. She looked up the berm to where he stood. A huge wall of vines grew over the fence. He held part of it aside like a flap, but was otherwise still. She didn’t remember seeing Keith go through it. She didn’t remember seeing it at all, though, and Keith hadn’t stopped or slowed or anything when she fell. Only Troy seemed concerned for her, but the last thing Wendy wanted was him on her conscious.

  “Go,” she said, but he didn’t move. Finally reaching the other side of the ice, she clambered to her feet and coughed. “Go,” she wheezed breathlessly and waved a hand at him.

  One of the zombies that had been tracking Troy stumbled and fell, sliding down the icy berm. It flailed and spun wildly, then collided with one of the zombies already down in the ditch, the one furthest from Wendy. Of course. You couldn’t have taken out the leader? Thanks for nothing.

  “Go,” she called to Troy, this time more insistently. Troy winced, nodded, and ducked into the bramble of vines.

  Now that Wendy was off the sheet of ice, she followed a slow rise in the ditch toward the forest, away from the fence. Large, bulbous mounds of snow grew on either side where she knew bushes and shrubs probably grew. Wendy tried to use one to climb out, hoping to get high enough up the berm to grab onto the vines covering the fence, but they were too far up even when she jumped off the top of a sturdy plant base. Her one try failed, and she slid back down into the ditch.

  The nearest zombie was now struggling to crawl across the open ice on its belly, but was making good enough progress to be a concern. Wendy rolled up onto her feet and plodded further along the bottom of the pit, further away from the berm and fence, further into the dark woods.

  The zombie behind her groaned angrily, clawing at the width of bare ice as it tried to inch its way across. Another zombie slid down the berm from the path along the fence, then another, and still Wendy staggered through the thickening snow to keep her distance and hunt for a way out of this place that didn’t involve heading into the shadowy forest. The zombies would have a distinct advantage over her in there.

  The route ahead became another steep incline, but not of solid ground. When she put a foot into it, she sank. It was some kind of vine, like a thicket of blackberries. It sagged as she crawled into it, giving way to the point it started to impede her progress. For every step she took into it, the thing seemed to tighten around her like a lazy serpent. It made pulling her arms and legs out to move forward that much harder, her ski pants and jacket sounding as though they were being shredded by little, thorny teeth.

  She moved laterally along the bramble to climb the slope. It wasn’t rooted there, but it held its place enough that she was able to get ten feet up the side by the time the zombie behind her groaned so loud it startled her. She spun in place. Climbing over the vine in the path she cut was the lead zombie, a fierce, starved look to its eyes.

  Wendy was at the top of the thicket, but it wasn’t enough to get out of the berm. The vines Troy had ducked through didn’t hang very far down, too far to reach even if she leapt for them. And she was past the bulk of them now, so she couldn’t try a running leap from here anyway. The snow wasn’t as loose here. She fell onto the snow and sat in it, putting her hands down behind her back to lift her butt higher up the slope. She kept one foot straight while bending the other to dig in the heel of her boot. The snow held.

  Thank God.

  A backwards crab walk was better than nothing. She used her hands again to lift her butt up the hillside. Holding there she dug her other heel. It slipped a little. She gasped. The zombie directly below her groaned in frustration as it fought to disentangle its legs. If she slipped, she’d slide right into his waiting maw.

  She pulled herself up once more. Again the ground gave a little. It was enough that she realized the next try might be her last. She looked over her shoulder, hoping to find Troy or Keith at the top of the berm with a rope, but she was alone. That was, except for the clutch of zombies dogging her. Down on the bare patch of slippery ice, two zombies lay on their bellies, fighting with one another as much as they clawed ineffectually at the ice that trapped them.

  The realization that her only chance now was her gun felt as nauseating as the idea of being eaten alive by these relentless ghouls. She put a hand on her stomach to make sure the pistol was still there. Her hands were so numb that she only felt its hard outline against her belly and not with her fingers at all. She tugged at the hilt and grip to free it from her pocket, her eyes on the zombie beneath her more than what she was doing. She coughed into her elbow and sniffled to clear her nose. The rancid odor of urine and sweat and fecal matter and dried blood
and a litany of other foul stenches nearly made her vomit.

  She leaned onto one hip and reached back to pull the clip from her back pocket.

  Maybe if she just shot it in the leg…what a horrible injury that was. She remembered chastising Mason for doing the same thing to a zombie at Rock Island. The other zombies had torn it to pieces even as it thrashed and fought and struggled to hunt for Wendy and Mason. All she could think of was the blood and sinewy meat and shattered bone that a bullet would pulverize. The zombie wouldn’t be able to walk, but it would still come for her…right up until the other zombies swarmed in to eat him alive. In the frenzy, he might even try to eat some of them as well.

  She closed her eyes and pressed the side of the pistol to her forehead. The cold metal stung. It was just a matter of will, she told herself.

  Load the fucking gun.

  She opened her eyes and slid the magazine into the weapon. Her heart pounded in her chest. The zombie’s moaning had become a fury of enraged grunts as he thrashed to rid his legs of the vines that kept him from her. Mere feet away. So close that when he lurched forward and reached up for her, his fingers clutched inches of air from her foot.

  Wendy eased the weight of her lower footing to test the strength of her position. She didn’t slip or feel the snow giving beneath her so she lifted her furthest foot up and away from the zombie’s reach.

  She only had a minute, if that.

  Wendy slid the pistol back into her pocket. She had it if she needed it, but she didn’t need it yet. She put her hands behind her and hoisted herself further up the hillside. Once settled, she thumped her heel in again. The ground slipped a little. She held her breath, and for five or six missed heartbeats nothing changed except the thrashing of the zombie beneath her. She lifted herself up backwards again and dug her heel in.

  The zombie below realized its prey was escaping. It growled and hissed and rolled in a frenzy, pulling its leg up out of the hole it had made for itself. Gaining some kind of foothold, it lurched toward her.

  “Shit,” Wendy gasped as the thing landed on its chest again. It had closed the gap she had just made. Fumbling for the pistol, she withdrew it from her jacket pocket as the zombie’s arm swung back and forth toward her feet. He pounded the snow and clawed at it to pull himself toward her.

  She pointed the pistol at its head, but her hands were trembling. It wasn’t the cold. It was the gun. The sight of that zombie Keith had shot kept flashing in her mind. The zombies Mason had killed to save them. Even the sight of Doctor Kennedy lying in the snow, blood oozing from her skull fracture. All of it sickened her.

  “Goddammit,” she whined.

  She withdrew her aim, pointing the weapon in the air a moment. She swallowed hard, tapping her forehead with the pistol’s slide several times, hoping to knock away her morality and conscience. This was life and death. That thing was going to kill her. She had to think like that. It wasn’t a person anymore. The Consumption Pathogen had done away with any semblance of humanity he once had. It was just an animal, now.

  Fuck, I can’t even shoot an animal!

  She’d never shot an animal. She had gone hunting with her father and brothers several times, but she never aimed at a duck or a buck or anything other than bottles, cans, and street signs. Even that made her think she was going to get into trouble.

  “Dammit!” she cried out and pointed the pistol at the zombie as it made another lunge for her.

  For the first time in as long as she could remember, she put her finger on the trigger itself. Always the trigger guard. That’s what her father had taught her, his words echoing in the back of her mind. Only put your finger on the trigger if you mean to use it. She didn’t want to, but she did.

  Nothing happened. Not even a click.

  Fucking didn’t load it!

  She wanted to scream.

  Shit!

  Wendy pulled the slide back hastily and drew her aim again. The zombie’s hand swatted her outstretched leg. She cried out and pulled her leg in. She felt the snow give way, or maybe she just didn’t have enough leverage to stay put any longer. In either case, she started sliding into the zombie.

  Her cry turned into a scream as she realized she wasn’t stopping.

  The thing was all hands and teeth. Wendy kicked furiously at its face, pushing it away as she screamed and slid in the snow side to side while it groped and grabbed her legs. She couldn’t point the pistol through her own legs to fire, afraid she might blow her own foot apart, or worse. The thing got hold of her ankle and lunged in. She put her other foot into its face and pushed away as hard as she could, thinking this was the end.

  This was how she was going to die, in the middle of nowhere. Food for a pack of zombies.

  Or maybe not. She had a strange thought hit her almost as hard as if the zombie had sunk its teeth into her calf. She still had the cure. Even if it bit her, she could cure herself. She just needed to get away. She just needed to shoot this thing.

  Another body swooped in. Wendy nearly fired her pistol at it, but recognized its voice. It was Keith, shouting her name. She never felt such a wave of relief in her life, not even when she realized she wasn’t dead after Doctor Kennedy had shot her, nor when she survived the destruction at Rock Island. This was more visceral.

  Keith grabbed the zombie’s hair at the back of its head. It didn’t let go of Wendy, but he managed to turn its body and shove the muzzle of his pistol into its back. Blam! The zombie jerked, but its grip didn’t relent.

  “Hold on,” Keith grunted. He slammed his boot against her leg to keep the zombie from pulling itself to her again. The pain was excruciating. Icy zombie fingers dug in as hard as the boot rubbed against the flat of her shin, threatening to snap her leg like a twig.

  She let out a scream of agony that died out slowly, just as the zombie’s grip began to sag. It was dying. Keith had shot it in the heart. Twenty seconds. Thirty at the most. The pain in Wendy’s leg eased as the zombie’s grip did, too. Keith heaved the zombie off her and threw it down beside them. He put his boot on its back and levelled his pistol at its head.

  Blam!

  Wendy flinched as though he were putting the bullet into her.

  “Fuck,” he said. “Why didn’t you shoot him?” Keith admonished. He pried the pistol from Wendy’s frozen fingers.

  Too shell shocked to answer, she merely stared at him. His face appeared as a gray and ghostly wraith in the shallow moonlight.

  Keith trudged down the hillside and through the bramble, asking over his shoulder, “Were you bit?”

  Wendy shook her head. He didn’t see her, though. He set the safety of his own pistol and slid it into a holster at his side, then levelled Wendy’s pistol at the two zombies still crawling across the ice.

  Blam, blam!

  The head of one of the zombies jerked back and the thing sagged, lifeless. In the dark, she couldn’t see the explosion of brain and gore like she had earlier, nor the blood pouring from the wound, but her mind had no trouble filling in the detail.

  “That way,” Keith said urgently, pointing with the pistol further along the path of the gully. “I saw a fallen tree up a ways we can use to climb out.”

  Wendy looked where he was pointing, but couldn’t see it in the darkness. She didn’t want to go in there. She looked up the berm and at where the snow had slid down to expose a sheet of solid ice beneath it.

  Keith was by her side. He grabbed Wendy by the collar, hauling her to her feet.

  He narrowed his eyes, staring hard into hers. “Are you bit?”

  Wendy shook her head. “No,” she breathed. “Thank you.”

  “We ain’t out of the woods, yet.”

  Forty-Nine

  Getting to the hangar happened in a fog. Wendy blindly followed Keith, doing exactly what he told her to do, but what or when or how she couldn’t recall. They didn’t run into anymore zombies, thankfully. Or maybe they had and Keith took care of them for her, or steered them clear. She had no idea. She didn’
t remember anymore gunfire—that she would have remembered. Dim awareness of her surroundings only fabricated itself the moment Keith pushed her through the narrowly opened side door to the hangar, which he quickly shut behind them.

  A butane lantern at the far end of the interior cast a faint, eerie orange glow. It shaped the fuel truck and the two airplanes with shadowy silhouettes. She didn’t see Troy anywhere. She expected him to come check on her, at least. And where was Larissa?

  The quiet was suddenly pierced by Keith’s shifting of heavy metal tools on a workbench beside them. A muffled moan came as reply. For a split second her heart stopped, until she recognized the voice. It was Larissa. The girl rose from the backseat of the lead airplane and pressed her head against the glass. It was the most animated Wendy had seen her in days. The odd thing, though, was the size of her open mouth. It appeared enormous.

  “Is that—?” Wendy whispered, pointing.

  “Duct tape,” Keith replied softly. “So she wouldn’t eat T.” He held up a screwdriver, pointing it between the two planes. “First aid kit’s on the wall. See what you can do for him. I’ll have the bird fueled and ready to go in ten minutes.”

  Wendy nodded, still recovering from her earlier shock, but cognizant enough to know Troy was somewhere in here. She nearly cried out seeing him lying on the ground under the wing as she passed between the two planes.

  “Hey,” he said weakly, throwing an uncoordinated wave in her direction.

  That wasn’t a good sign, but he wasn’t dead, so she went for the first aid kit first. It was one of the larger, wall-mounted units with bandages and tape and scissors in handy, decaying plastic pouches. She blew into her hands to warm them as she inventoried what she had to work with. She decided to just get a little of everything, piling it against her chest and holding it with her left arm.