“That will conclude our discussion,” the older government guest said as he cleared his throat and, by the sounds of it, got up from his microphone.
“They are leaving ladies and gentlemen, leaving without giving us a single answer. What are they hiding? What are they keeping from us? We must ask these questions. I know it’s dangerous out there, but please, try to stay safe until we have some further information for you…” The man wanted to say something else, but then several more voices came from somewhere else in the studio and before he could open his mouth again, whoever they were, took him off the air.
“The military is all over this. Well, keeping it all hush-hush, that is…”
“It’s how it goes, they’ll say what they want, when they want,” Becky said and leaned back again.
“Yeah, well, look at that.” Jill tapped her knuckles on the passenger window and shot Becky a ‘told you so’ look. “There they are. Would you look at that, the cavalry has arrived.”
To their left, most of the cars moved aside at the oncoming parade of tanks, followed by a score of Humvees and jeeps. More helicopters flew over and they were once again followed by fighter jets. Jill thought they were probably surveying the terrain and having the big guns on a standby in case of any serious trouble. But this was serious trouble.
“That’s good, right?” Becky asked and leaned over closer to Jill to see the military set up a perimeter.
“It all depends,” Jill said absently, her voice fading into a deep thought.
Maybe they were all here to hold people’s hands, rescue them, tend to the wounded and distraught. But that was the romantic side of the military people wanted to see. Deep down, Jill had a terrible feeling about the whole thing. It all just looked too sinister, and somewhat wrong.
The tanks spread out and stopped in their tracks. Soldiers poured out of the trucks, jeeps, and Humvees. Some people came out of their cars to see what was going on. A few of them cheered the new arrivals in hopes that they were their saviors. It sure looked like that.
A few soldiers began chatting with the civilians. One of the women came from the small group that gathered outside of their cars and hugged one of the soldiers.
“I’d say it looks good, so far,” Jill said and opened the door. She stepped out and leaned on the car. She really wanted a cigarette now. She started salivating at a mere thought of it. Jack would have come to the rescue if he had only been there.
Becky got out too and rested on the hood of the car. “I guess we play the waiting game now.”
“You think they’ll open whatever road block is causing this?”
“Not really sure. I hope so.”
There was stillness in the air. It all felt somewhat unnaturally quiet, as if there was a storm brewing and it was about to hit at any second. It would be a storm of epic proportions, Jill thought. Living through some disgustingly terrible moments in life, that drive you to pick a profession of killing people for money, she had seen some low points of humanity that gave her an edge and an ability to tell when a shit storm was coming.
And this was one of those times.
It just felt like the right time for it. Plus, the air smelled the same as it did all the other times terrible things happened in her life. How she never committed suicide was a mystery to her.
Then she remembered: Jack.
“Seems like that’s the only thing we have left. Hope.” Jill smirked. What a shitty thing to be left with.
“Just wait and we’ll see,” Becky said and sighed.
“Yeah…”
They both fell silent and watched as conversations unfolded between the civilians and the military until all they were pushed back to their cars and asked to remain there.
Then from the corner of her eye, Jill saw something move about further down the highway. She could only barely see it since they were stuck on the ramp and couldn’t see most of what was happening up there, but they were positioned well enough for her to see someone falling off and rolling down the little hill.
Then the screams came.
Another body fell over from the highway and rolled down, but this one got back up and started shambling toward the one that fell first.
“It’s here too,” Jill said somewhat calmly.
Becky turned and looked.
The two people that were parked in front of them got out of their truck and simply ran away. More of them came out of their vehicles and, at first, they marveled at this new terror unfolding before them, and then started running in the opposite direction.
Jill and Becky stood there and gazed in disbelief. Jill was tired of running and she was sure Becky was too. But if Jill knew anything, it was that Becky was a survivor, in spirit at least, and that she wouldn’t let them crawl into a ditch and wait for death to come down on them.
“It appears that we’ve overstayed our welcome in one place,” Becky said and ran back to the driver’s side and opened the back passenger’s door to gather their weaponry and provisions.
Jill followed her lead and before they could see the dead up close, they departed from their car. At first, they walked toward the soldiers, but then they saw them raise their weapons and open fire. The bullets flew above their heads and even hit some people in front of them. Jill screamed and grabbed Becky by her arm to pull her down.
“What on earth are they doing?” Becky said nervously, her voice shaking.
Were they just openly firing on civilians?
Jill looked back and saw that the zombies were slowly descending from the highway, coming after the people who were running away. There were four of them, recently turned and closing in fast. One of them latched onto a woman that was running away with her daughter and brought her down rather easily. The girl fell down, only to be scooped up by a man running next to her mother. The girl screamed as she was being carried away, yelling for her mother. But the dead began feasting on her immediately, ripping her apart, limb for limb in a matter of seconds.
The soldiers kept firing on the dead and civilians alike, mowing them all down one by one. Becky pulled herself and Jill up from the ground and ran down the ramp, then hid behind a red Prius.
“They don’t even care about who they’re killing,” Jill said and gripped her gun tighter, her index finger tapping the trigger.
“And here I was thinking they were here to help.”
“It’s all about protecting their superiors, the generals, the officials. They don’t care about the little people.”
Bullets hit the cars around them, and a few stray ones hit the one they were hiding behind. Jill lay down on the ground and looked at the soldiers that had taken shelter behind their trucks as they unloaded on the masses coming their way.
About a dozen zombies swarmed a group passing through the gas station by the Tops supermarket. The soldiers who saw that immediately opened fire and after only three shots the entire thing went up in flames. A giant fireball shot into the sky, blasting limbs and intestines hundreds of feet every which way.
The swarming dead looked like locust, a terrible wave of disease drowning the living. To Jill, it looked like for every one of them that got shot down, three more took its place. It was almost as if there was no way to kill them to diminish their presence, no matter how you tried. She saw three soldiers come with rocket launchers and fire at the wave coming from the east end of the Interstate 290. Cars exploded, one by one, plowing over each other like dominos.
Sure, they killed the dead, but they took out just as many of those trying to escape them.
One of the zombies caught them by surprise, grabbing Jill’s leg. She felt its mouth on her calf, but the bite wasn’t strong enough to puncture the leather. It gnawed for a brief second, slobbering all over her leg, until she kicked it like a horse, first shaking it off, then turning on her back and kicking it in the face. The woman’s jaw broke in half at the impact, but that didn’t stop her from crawling back to Jill.
“Jill!” Becky shouted over the explosions and
painful screams.
Jill felt Becky’s arms reach under her and pull her away from the zombie, but only an inch or two.
Without further struggle, Jill pulled the trigger and watched the bullet rip through the woman’s eye and come out through the back of her head. The woman collapsed at Jill’s feet, making her crawl back in disgust.
“We can’t even hear them coming at us,” Jill said trying to catch her breath. Now she finally realized that she was exhausted, thinking back to that morning and how it all felt as an entire week’s worth of events was crammed into one single day.
She saw another one coming at them, head on, running along the people who tried to find cover. She raised the gun again and fired at it. The first shot only hit the man in the shoulder, slowing him down. She waited to fire the next one, and when she did, it went in the middle of the forehead.
“Definitely not going to complain about your shooting skills,” Becky said and tapped her on the shoulder. “Now, let’s not test our luck and those skills of yours any further and let’s run while we can.”
Becky stood up and a projectile flew only a couple of feet above her head. It hit the Slam Fitness building that sat on the other side of the highway.
“It’s getting crazier by the minute!” Jill said as she followed Becky who was now crouched. That was alright by her, Jill thought as more bullets flew over their heads. She saw three men and woman get gunned down just ten or fifteen feet away from them. She then looked away in terror and stared at Becky’s back as she led the way.
“Almost there,” Becky said as they crossed the street, weaving in between the cars and occasionally going down on all fours just to make sure they didn’t get hit.
“We’ve been saying that all day!” Jill shouted over the gun fire. “Almost there, almost there.”
“I apologize for my lack of descriptiveness,” Becky said. “We either die or live, there’s not much to it.” Becky stopped, looked across the street, and pointed. “See, right there. We just have to disappear into those bushes and we should be in the clear. The tall grass and weeds will cover us at least for a little bit.”
“That’s fine. Let’s go.”
Becky looked at the soldiers who were advancing now, going in between the cars, making sure there were no dead lurking on the ground. They fired their rifles as they walked, systematically executing anything that moved.
“They’re coming this way. Look.” Becky pointed at the moving squad.
Jill looked, but only for a moment.
She turned in disgust. “They’re shooting everyone, dead or alive. They probably think everyone has this virus and it’s just when they turn and not if.”
“Well that’s not happening to us. We’re not dying at their hands.”
“Fuck no!”
Becky nodded and grabbed her by the hand. Then she pulled her and they crossed the rest of the street and disappeared into tall grass and bushes that no one ever mowed or trimmed on this side of the Twin City Highway.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Three weeks later…
The fires still burned around the city of Buffalo twenty-one days later as they did on day one, and no one bothered putting them out. Most of the city had burned down within the first ten to fifteen days and now the flames were just working on what was left.
Becky wondered if Aunt Lori and Uncle Tim were alive, but as time went on and she and Jill fought the dead and alive alike, she lost all hope. The feeling of loneliness sunk in deep within a few days. It didn’t matter that she was traveling with Jill, even though she was grateful for a very capable companion that was that easy to talk to.
There were a lot worse people to be stuck with in the apocalypse.
But nothing, nor anyone, could ever replace Tom, or Judy, or Steven. In that respect, she might as well have been dead inside.
They were walking now through the ruins of a train station in south Buffalo, not too far from Lake Erie. She could feel the breeze coming in.
The building had been beautiful once, before the flames had given it a makeover. The parking lot they walked through was littered with graffiti that mostly read prophecies about the impending doom and the apocalypse.
Next to her, Jill pulled out a cigarette from her breast pocket. She had finally found a pack that was nearly all soaked wet, but she had managed to dry it.
She lit it and inhaled.
“That good?” Becky asked.
Jill just nodded without saying anything.
She blinked once and smiled. “Whatever makes you happy, I guess.”
“It’s a shitty habit, but hey … look, it’s a shitty world. It’s all dead. Might as well enjoy my guilty pleasures, you know.”
“Sure.”
They stopped by an overhead door that appeared to be rusted shut. Above it was a sign that read PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Jill crouched and continued to smoke her cigarette.
Becky surveyed the barren landscape in ruins to make sure there were no dead ones lurking about. Unless a group of them was shambling around, it was hard to notice them coming at you. It was all about seeing them first and taking the proper course of action.
There were none here though, at least not in the open.
She leaned on the wall and rested.
“You think anyone would care?” Jill asked.
“Care about what?”
“We’re on private property. See that sign right there above your head?”
Becky turned and glanced at it, and then pointed while letting out a quick chuckle. “Oh that.” It was a dark humored attempt by Jill at making them laugh, if that was at all what she intended. Or was it the irony of it she was referring to?
“We should find somewhere indoors to sleep tonight. It’s getting colder,” Jill said. She took one last drag of her cigarette and put it out. She saved the remaining half of it and stuck it back into the pack with the others.
“Well, winter will be here in a couple of weeks so we should keep moving as far to the south as we can. What else can we do?”
“Not much, really,” Jill said and sighed.
“There have to be some pockets of survivors or something. This can’t be it. It can’t be just you and me left.”
Jill stood up and looked away from the ruins of the train station and toward the naked trees. Some of them still had leaves on them as October was slowly coming to a close. Those that remained were dressed in beautiful colors.
“We just gotta keep moving and looking. I’m sure we’ll find something.”
“Yeah.” Becky nodded and started walking. “We just have to hope it’s not one of those crazy survivalists who now think that hunting humans for their goods and provisions is acceptable and righteous.”
“There will be that. Remember the guy last week that tried to rob us with a knife?”
Becky laughed softly as she recalled the man, who had been much bigger than the two of them, come out and start swinging his blade at them. Jill had taken the gun out and had pointed it at him. Two more of his friends had come out and Jill had shot one while Becky had stabbed the other. The one with the blade had got hold of Jill eventually, and he would have slit her throat if Becky hadn’t been fast enough with her machete.
“Those lunatics are everywhere now. They’re just as dangerous as the dead.” Jill shook her head and smirked. “Always figured that in the apocalypse, we’d be afraid of each other. It’s our fault, we brought this on ourselves. Maybe that crazy preaching guy who killed Tom and Jack was right. We’re paying for raping the land for so long.”
Becky silently agreed and nodded.
They walked down the road that narrowed eventually and took them to a crossroads where they stood for a moment.
There were no cars coming, no sound of people crossing.
Continuing due south, they walked through the intersection and looked at what the world would throw their way.
TO BE CONTINUED
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Emir Skalonj
a is a writer and a filmmaker. He is the author of two horror novels, Righteous Maleficia and Born of Blood. He has directed low budget horror films such as The Plague, The Plague 2 and a neo noire action film. Jericho. He lives in Buffalo, NY with his wife Nicole and their two dogs and two cats.
Rise of the Dead Page 17