APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead

by K Helms

  “Ha, ha, you’re a regular comedian; now let’s get to that hotel before it gets light.”

  “Go back to sleep, you lummox.”

  Daniel drove throughout the night and after several stops to avoid military vehicles and walking troops of the undead, they arrived at the ornate iron entrance gates of the Greenbrier.

  Bodie was already awake as Daniel drove slowly up the paved drive. Dawn was beginning to illuminate the overgrown grounds; the Hotel was huge and must have been luxurious in its heyday.

  “I don’t like it, brother,” said Bodie. “It’s too quiet”

  Daniel laughed nervously. “You are really starting to sound like a B- horror movie actress Bodie.”

  “I don’t care, man, it’s true.”

  “Yeah.”

  They pulled the car to a stop in front of the main lobby. “You sure about this?”

  Daniel shrugged. “It’s either this or hole up somewhere else. Wherever we go it’s going to be the same shit.”

  “Well, let’s get moving then,” said Bodie as he grabbed the barrel of the rifle and opened the car door. Daniel did the same. “I think I’m gonna go with the shotgun,” said Bodie, exchanging the rifle.

  “Might as well,” said Daniel. The two large men cautiously crept up to the opened front doors and through to the main lobby.

  The place was a crypt, decaying corpses and body parts were strewn everywhere and the stench was intense. The Greenbrier completed the vision of a tomb with its dark and silent foreboding. Bodie threw open the drapes to the lobby and let the weak morning light filter through the room; blood streaked the floors and spattered on the walls like a cheap abstract painting. Empty brass casings littered the black and white tile floor. They also saw various small arms lying about. Bodie stepped over the mangled remains of a soldier and picked up a CAR-15, the bolt was to the rear having spent its final round. He released the thirty round banana magazine and found that it was empty. “It’d probably be a good idea to gather up all the weapons and ammo we can find,” he said to Daniel.

  “Dude, I don’t even know how to load one of those things, let alone shoot one.”

  “You didn’t cap any zombies before we got sent to prison?” Bodie asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah, with a lamp; I like to keep things simple, but you’re not exactly Rambo either, bud.” Daniel remembered the little girl at the funeral home that he’d used like a baseball bat and shivered.

  Bodie laughed. “Easy, kitten, put away the claws. Don’t sweat it, I’ll show you how to use it.”

  “Try to find me a revolver, OK?”

  They laid all the weapons, magazines and ordinance on a counter. “There must have been a boat load of soldiers here. There are twenty-six M-16’s here,” said Daniel.

  “Not much ammo left though. Looks like about enough to fill eight mags. That’s two hundred and forty rounds.” Bodie started pushing cartridges into the magazines.

  “Yeah, but where are the soldiers? They wouldn’t have just left their gear.”

  “Dead, I suppose; dead and walking around somewhere,” Bodie said not looking up.

  “There aren’t really that many zombies lying around. I counted about twenty-five, but that’s about it,” Daniel said.

  Bodie stopped what he was doing and looked up at his friend. “Yeah, you’re right. Those soldiers would have had to have killed more of them than that, and they weren’t just any soldiers either if they were carrying these instead of M-16s. These boys were pretty well-trained.”

  “I seriously doubt that the zombies are worried about dragging away the dead, hell they’re all dead,” Daniel said. “Dude, I don’t want to check out the rest of the hotel. There is a back entrance to the bunker itself; I’ll know it when I see it because it has a huge High Voltage sign on the side of it.”

  “Let’s check it out then,” said Bodie tossing Daniel a loaded M16, “but let’s put the rest of these rifles in the car first.”

  After loading the car they drove around the side of the hotel and parked the car in back. There were already a couple of cars parked and both were black Cadillac Escalades with government tags. They had obviously not been there long, as there wasn’t much dust on the black paint, Daniel pointed out to Barnes. “That means there is a good chance that some government agent dude is still in there.”

  Bodie shrugged and replied, “Well, let’s get this over with then.”

  “Before we leave we are getting one of these babies.” said Daniel as he ran a hand lovingly over the dust covered hood. Daniel opened the driver’s door, shook his head with a smile and pulled the keys from the ignition.

  “What? And leave behind the Taurus?” mocked Bodie, then added looking around, “I don’t see any High Voltage signs.”

  “I’ve seen pictures of it. It will be on the side of a hill with a drive leading up to it.” Daniel said putting the car in reverse; they drove around the grounds until they finally found it. He and Bodie lifted the latch and pulled open the heavy steel grated door. “By all accounts that door should have been locked if anyone was inside,” Daniel remarked.

  They turned on their flashlights and shined them down the long concrete hallway. More bodies, blood and brain matter was splattered in various spots here as well. About fifteen more corpses lay still and quiet in this area, Bodie kept picking up magazines when he saw them, and left the rifles where they lay. “We can use all the ammo we can get,” he said breaking the silence that made Daniel jump.

  “It looks to me like all that ammo didn’t help these poor bastards now did it?”

  “Why do you have to be a buzz-kill?” Bodie asked, as they neared the twenty-five ton blast door. It was also open. From there they entered the decontamination chamber and through the main corridor to the actual bunker. There was a lot of dried blood here too, and as they were making their way through the labyrinth they walked past a small room and stopped suddenly in their tracks.

  A shriek made their blood run cold and they swung their lights down the hall from where they had come.

  “Dude, did you just hear…?”

  Bodie held up one beefy hand, “Shhh….”

  They were quiet, and in the darkness that fell beyond the beams of their lights they heard shuffling footsteps, faster and faster the footfalls came. Bodie checked the magazine and seated it in the bottom of his M16, slapped the bolt catch and the bolt slammed forward chambering a 5.56 round. The sound of the bolt echoed through the long hallway and they heard a chorus of inhuman wails. Daniel watched Bodie and did the same to his rifle.

  A dead soldier clamored toward them and they saw that he had one arm clawing toward them, his other arm was a shredded piece of meat and bone peeked through the tattered flesh as it hung low against his thigh. The sleeve of his fatigues was torn away and they could see that the shoulder hung from the socket by nothing more than a single stretched tendon.

  Daniel pulled the trigger and emptied half the magazine in one long arcing burst that harmlessly peppered the wall to the right of the dead man and the ceiling. He laughed nervously; it had been the first time he’d ever shot a fully automatic rifle and it had startled him.

  Bodie looked at him strangely. “That thing shouldn’t have done that. It should only have a three round burst, not balls out auto.” He pointed to the side of his rifle. “Flick that switch to semi.”

  Daniel did as Bodie advised and watched as his friend ripped out three rounds that peppered the dead man’s chest. The dead man kept coming for them.

  “Shoot ‘em in the head, you dipshit!” Daniel cried, and fired, sending the soldier reeling backward with a shot that blew the back of his head onto the floor. The dead man regained his balance for an instant, righting itself, then jerked violently and stomped his right foot once before face planting with a sickeningly hollow sound.

  Bodie looked at him surprised “Nice shot.” His head whipped forward again as he heard more screams coming from the darkness.

  Daniel started firin
g blindly into the shadows.

  “Easy, cowboy…” Bodie hollered over his shoulder. “You might wanna reload that thing.”

  Daniel mimicked his friend as he ejected the magazine and replaced it with a fresh one. Bodie had flipped his selector switch to semi and began to fire, startling Daniel. He raised his rifle, took aim and fired.

  They dropped four more dead soldiers and stopped firing, their ears ringing.

  “Do you hear that?” Daniel said, screwing a fingertip into his ear.

  “I can’t hear shit,” Bodie said and listened.

  “There it is again.”

  Bodie nodded “Yeah I heard it that time.”

  Daniel pointed to a doorway behind them. “There.”

  “Is anyone there? Can anyone hear me?” The female voice cracked and whistled through the speaker of the shortwave radio. Its sudden resurrection freaked Daniel out and he began to turn to run back out, but Bodie grabbed his shirt and held out a hand.

  “Easy, brotha,” Bodie said soothingly.

  Daniel looked at his friend sheepishly, “Sorry, man. I guess I’m just a little jumpy.”

  Bodie nodded, understanding perfectly. “C’mon, let’s get in there and shut the door behind us. I don’t wanna be snuck up on.”

  Daniel composed himself, walked into the room and saw a radio on the desk; he took a deep breath and grabbed the mike and keyed it. “Hello?” He heard Bodie behind him close the door with a light click.

  “Who’s this?” was the reply.

  Daniel and Bodie looked at each other. Neither one was sure if they should answer. Then Bodie took the mic and said boldly, “This is Bodie Barnes and Daniel Tyson, formerly known as numbers 47 and 48, work camp prisoners at Dayton Correctional. If this is any part of the military, we ain’t comin’ back, so you’ll just have to come and get us.”

  There was a pause that seemed to stretch into minutes.

  “Go to Parkersburg… be at the far end of the Wal-Mart parking lot tonight. There will be someone there to meet you. If we see anything funny we will leave and you will never see us.” sounded the voice again.

  “What time?” asked Bodie.

  There was another pause on the other end. “Where are you now?”

  “I’m not telling you that,” answered Bodie, Daniel nodded in relieved agreement.

  “How far away from Parkersburg are you? In hours and minutes estimated.”

  “Maybe an hour, give or take.”

  “We’ll give you an hour and take fifteen minutes. If you aren’t there by then we will leave.” They listened quietly as the radio clicked out to static. Bodie adjusted the volume down.

  “What do you think?”

  “Didn’t sound like military, there wasn’t enough of their jargon,” answered Daniel.

  Bodie nodded in agreement “I think we should do it. She sounded hot,” said Bodie smiling.

  “You’re a dumbass.”

  “What? It’s been a while.”

  “You just nailed that anorexic chick on top the dumpster behind the barracks about a week ago.”

  Bodie giggled; it was a raspy laugh deep in his throat that reminded Daniel of Wolfman Jack. “Yeah, she liked to binge and purge…” he winked, paused for a second then said, “Listen, brotha, I would kinda like to be around a few extra people. There’s safety in numbers, you know?”

  “There is also the fact that the more there are, the bigger the target,” Daniel said smugly.

  “So you would rather stay here in this creepy ass hotel bunker where we don’t even know how to shut and lock the doors?”

  “Good point, Parkersburg it is. But we are going in style this time.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” agreed the big man.

  Chapter 31 - The Fun Factory

  Parkersburg, West Virginia

  Drew Finley called the factory home; that and the surrounding neighborhood was his kingdom. His two year Associates degree in business management had really paid off. Life was all about micro-managing. He had looted plenty of food and water, and had spent his time between reinforcing all the weak points of the huge building and setting up roadblocks through the neighborhood that might lead any chance survivor to his location.

  He had witnessed first-hand, the terror of people being eaten alive by the throngs of dead. The dead were virtually brainless, and had nothing in the way of problem solving skills. Hell, he had seen about fifty of the stupid bastards stuck in the seatbelts of their vehicles because they had turned after being bitten and had tried to go to the hospital for aid. Finley figured that these infected had known that the hospitals were pretty much empty buildings, but desperation had spurred them to do something even if it was moot. He had watched as helpless wanderers searching for other survivors to pair up with. Sometimes they yelled for someone to answer them, mostly they scurried in the shadows like rats as they looked for survivors, for food or for a way out of the city to find refuge in some peaceful cottage with white picket fences. Finley had watched from his black and white monitors as they were slaughtered one by one. It had enraged him, and he had decided to do something about it.

  It had been two weeks since he had seen anyone outside the factory alive. This morning, as he drank his coffee, the wait under his watchful eyes paid off. In one of his monitors he saw a filthy young woman running, falling down and getting back up as she shook with sobs, the tears rolling down her cheeks digging furrows in the dirt on her cheeks. He thought that she looked like the stereotypical girl in any number of horror movies. He thumbed the controller to the left and the camera panned to see about a dozen or so of the undead in pursuit, they couldn’t quite sprint, but they were moving pretty fast. They took turns throwing their heads back as their mouths widened. Though Finley couldn’t hear them, he knew they were howling for their friends. He put the cup down on the desk and ran for the door closest to the girl; he would be damned if he let those travesties kill another survivor in his front yard.

  He skidded to a stop in front of a steel door that he had braced with a thick steel bar, barring it shut. He slid the bar out, disengaged the deadbolt, and threw open the door. He called for her, “Hey, over here!” Finley yelled as he waved his left arm over his head back and forth in an exaggerated manner.

  “Help me!” he heard her scream. “Please…Help me!”

  He was reluctant to leave his bastion, he wasn’t a fool. You didn’t get an Associate’s degree in business management by being stupid.

  “Please…help!” Her scream was close by and sounded nearly hysterical. He had seen this before; people froze when they were too scared, it was like their motor skills just shut down. If she was going to get away from those things it would have to be him that did it for her.

  He took a deep breath and checked the 9mm in his belt holster at his back. It was there. He yanked it free and sprinted into the sunshine.

  He ran about thirty yards and saw her cowering alongside the scorched husk of a

  Volkswagen Jetta. As he neared her he started yelling, his breath nearly spent and he gulped air in long, deep gasps. He thought that it might be a good idea to start a cardio program. “Hey…girl…c’mon,” Finley wheezed between heavy breaths.

  She jerked her head back toward him and shook it violently back and forth.

  He almost stopped right there and ran back to the fortress. What do you mean ‘no’? Drew thought, bewildered.

  He shook his head in exasperation and ran forward a few more yards and saw the zombies were getting close. He stopped beside her, winded, his hands on his knees, one hand still clutching the 9mm. He could hear the zombies screaming and looked up. They were only twenty yards away. He was also aware that because the dead didn’t breathe, they never got winded.

  He stuck his hand out to her. “C’mon, girl,” Drew said, wheezing; his eyes pleaded with her. He saw that she was probably a very attractive woman underneath all that grime. Every time she sobbed her chest heaved and it was a mighty well-endowed chest he obser
ved, he also noticed that in her anxiety, her nipples stuck out against the tight cotton t-shirt. He had no idea why she was dressed like this in the middle of a holocaust, but that didn’t stop him from taking a few extra moments to ogle the view.

  The zombies were now less than fifteen yards away and he saw that they had succeeded in calling two more packs of the dead. The next pack numbered about thirty and they were less than one block up, and behind that pack the street was filled with walking corpses.

  The dead were ten yards away now. Finley could hear them snapping their teeth together like they were already eating.

  Five yards away and the girl finally slapped her hand in his as he fired off three rounds from the semi-automatic. One round sailed past them all, the next hit the pavement to the right and the last round managed to hit one of the zombies in the side but it never slowed its pace. Drew and the girl turned and ran as fast as they could and slowly gained a few yards as they flew into the open doorway. The girl fell onto the smooth concrete floor, her breasts still heaving, her nipples still pointing like twin turkey thermometers saying it was time for the Thanksgiving feast. Behind her, Drew slammed the door shut and clicked the dead bolt as the first of the zombies reached the door. The dead man crashed against it with a loud boom that echoed through the desolate factory as he slid the steel bar into place securing it.

  He turned his back to the door and slid down to the floor, exhausted and out of breath. “You OK? You’re not… bitten are you?” he asked puffing heavily as he fought to regain his air supply. His forehead was slick with sweat beads that rolled down his nose.

  She shook her head and her sobbing starting to slow.

  “I’m ...Drew… Drew Finley…. this is my factory,” he said in between breaths

  She raised her eyes to his and he saw that she was actually a pretty girl under the dirt and tears. Actually he thought the tears made her even more attractive, he had always been a sucker for a chick that was crying. “I’m Annie…. Annie Lambert.” she said, trying a smile. “Thank you for saving me,” she added, and stuck out a filthy hand.