by Tony Urban
Delphine shook her head. “Haven’t seen him all morning. None of them.”
A deep, masculine scream echoed toward them from the camp. Wim took a step away from the box. His head was still cloudy but he no longer felt like he was going to collapse.
“Take me to the zombies.”
She did.
Delphine led him a few hundred yards toward camp. Along the way they passed several spots where the snow was disturbed and red, but there weren’t any bodies. Wim knew why. Because the dead were coming back.
The first one he saw was Amy Orlean, a hefty woman on the downhill side of middle age who served as the Ark’s cook. Wim and his friends usually ate out of cans but on the rare times where they were welcomed into the mess hall, special occasions mostly, to eat with the others, he often thought that Amy’s peach pie was the best he’d ever tasted. Even better than what his mama had made, although he’d never have told her that if she were still alive.
Now, Amy wasn’t baking up something sweet. Now, she straddled a man Wim only knew as Stevie. He seemed to recall the twenty-something year old jeering at him the other day, before he was sent to the box. He had little memory of the beanpole of a man aside from that and he didn’t pause before he shouldered the rifle and sent a bullet zipping through Amy Orleans’ head.
The woman toppled over, landing chest down atop Stevie who desperately, and unsuccessfully, tried to push off her corpse.
When Wim and Delphine reached the scene, Wim grabbed hold of Amy’s denim jacket with his left hand and hauled her off the struggling man. Blood dripped from the bullet wound above her temple but also from her mouth and, when he looked closer, Wim saw a masticated wad of flesh jutting from her clenched jaws. His eyes moved from her to Stevie and he saw a missing hunk of skin about the same size where his shoulders met his neck.
Stevie stared up at them, his eyes so wide Wim could see white all the way around the irises. “Oh shit man thanks. Thank you. That fat bitch was trying to eat me! Can you believe that?”
Wim had liked Amy and it made him wince to hear her called such names, but he supposed a man who had just been attacked by his first zombie might have a right to be crass. He didn’t have a chance to respond before another gunshot rang out and Stevie’s face collapsed inward as a bullet tore through the bridge of his nose. The snow under his head exploded in a crimson burst and then Stevie went limp.
When Wim looked to his side, Delphine was already lowering the pistol. She raised her wiry eyebrows at him.
“He got chomped. That meant he was gonna turn into a zombie, don’t it?”
“Yep. That’s usually how it works. But maybe you should have asked that question before you shot him.”
“Mayhap I should. Too late now though.”
They continued. Wim shot three more zombies by the time they reached the outskirts of camp and Delphine one. All were dashing about like wild animals stalking prey but there wasn’t any prey to be found. Wim hoped everyone had the good sense to lock themselves inside somewhere but whatever optimism he held on that matter vanished when he saw five zombies all huddled around some bodies on the ground. They look like pigs at a trough, he thought.
He recognized them but didn’t know any of them well when they were alive and that made it easier to pick them off one by one. When he finished he turned to Delphine.
“Have any more ammunition for this?”
She nodded and passed him a box of bullets. Wim reloaded while Delphine stepped into the fray and looked to see who they’d been eating.
“Aw, dammit,” she said with a sigh. “They got Marty Knecht. We used to play chess outside the dining hall when the weather was hospitable. Always suspected the scoundrel of cheating when I went into a daydream, as I’m apt to do on pretty days.”
Delphine stared down at dead Marty Knecht. His face looked like a pile of partially chewed, raw hamburger with two big, white eyes plopped haphazardly in the middle.
What remained of Marty’s mouth fell open and his tongue lolled out. Those eyes somehow moved within the pile of gore and locked on Delphine. She didn’t hesitate and shot him in the head. “Guess he won’t be cheatin no more.”
Wim’s rifle was reloaded and ready to go. He rubbed his palms against the denim of his jeans, using the friction to bring some feeling back into his cold hands, which were well on their way to being completely numb.
As they rounded the corner, nearing the door to the clinic, Wim saw a woman running. He assumed she was a zombie and raised the rifle but when he saw six undead monsters chasing her, he realized she wasn’t the hunter, she was the hunted. Her name was Barbra Lowe and she was a nurse who’d stitched up his calf when he’d ripped a ragged, five-inch gash in it early last the summer. She’d done a good job and it left just a thin, milky streak of a scar.
Wim shot one of the zombies pursuing her, then another. Delphine fired, hitting one in the back but that didn’t do so much as make it stumble. Wim shot the one she’d wounded, then aimed at the fourth. Just as he shot, the zombie dipped to the right and the bullet whistled by harmlessly.
The creatures were close to Barbra now and the pale, golden-haired woman kept looking back. As they neared her, her rearward glances became longer and longer.
Wim shot again, dropping the zombie he’d earlier missed. As he went to take aim at the fifth, Barbra fell. Between the snowfall and her constant, fearful looks behind her, she hadn’t seen the circle of rocks that stood guard around the fire pit and, when her foot hit them, she did a forward somersault before crashing to the ground. Her back hit the rocks and Wim heard something break. That sound was immediately replaced by Barbra’s screams. And then the zombie pounced on her.
It chomped a mouthful of flesh off her forearm before Wim could fire. Delphine beat him to the punch sending a bullet through the zombie’s head, but it was too late. Barbra tried to push herself up as blood gushed from the wound but her legs were immobilized from the fall and Wim knew it didn’t matter anyway. He was glad her face was hidden when he shot her in the side of the skull and prevented her inevitable transformation.
“Let me go!” Ramey tried to free herself from her father who had a vise grip on her wrist. She was surprised he was so strong.
“You’re staying in here. Where it’s safe.”
“People are dying out there. Your people. Don’t you care?” She saw the truth in his face. He didn’t care. She wondered if anything she’d ever believed about her father had been real.
“It’s too dangerous, Ramey.”
“I can help them. I’ve seen this before. I’ve fought them, remember?”
There came a crash at the window and both of them flinched. They turned to see a woman just a few years older than Ramey banging against the glass.
“Let me in, Doc! They’re right behind me!”
Ramey again tried to free herself, but couldn’t.
“No. It’s too late for her.”
Ramey saw three dead children running for the woman and realized her father was right this time. Within seconds they were on her. The first one latched onto her, biting a small mouthful of flesh from her side. The next got her forearm, its tiny teeth sinking in to the bone. The third jumped onto her back and started chomping on her head. Ramey saw it pull back with long, bloody strands of hair caught in its teeth.
It didn’t seem possible, but the woman’s screams were even louder than the siren. She flailed and thrashed, knocking the child at her arm to the ground. It jumped back up and buried its teeth into her stomach, excising her belly button in one extra-large bite. Her strength gave out and she fell against the window, smearing blood against the glass as she slid down the slick surface. Ramey turned away, unable to watch any more.
“Give me a gun and let me go help.”
“I told you— “
“Do it!”
Doc’s eye twitched. Ramey didn’t know if it was anger or shock.
“I don’t keep any guns here. Besides, you know how I feel about firear
ms.” He looked beyond her, grimaced.
Ramey turned to see what he was looking at, but before she could find anything, her vision went black.
Wim saw the zombies first. There were a half dozen of them, mostly children, all clumped together. He only saw their backs as they squatted down on their haunches their faces hidden, but he had a good enough idea what was going on. They were eating.
“Think that’s the last of them?” Delphine asked.
They hadn’t seen any other zombies in more than ten minutes. He hoped this was indeed the last of them, that they’d eliminated all the others. He was tired of killing, but even more so, he was just plain tired. Five days of not eating or drinking was catching up to him, leaving his legs weak and eyesight bleary.
“Might be.”
They got within eight yards of the zombies before opening fire. In under half a minute the creatures were dead. Or dead again, Wim supposed. Their bodies half sunk into the fallen snow, strewn atop each other in a haphazard pile, but all Wim cared about was finding who they’d been eating when their ends came.
He grabbed the shirt of one, lifted it free of the mass and tossed it aside like a sack of feed. Then the next. Delphine watched with her gun raised, ready to shoot if the need arose.
After Wim had moved the fourth zombie, he saw a thin, chocolate colored arm poking out from under the pile. The site of it caused his stomach to tighten up.
“Get on with it,” Delphine said, making Wim realize he’d been staring, motionless, at the arm, which had several bites taken out, and made him think of a partially eaten ear of corn.
He grabbed the zombie, which he recognized as Vince, the frequent gatekeeper and one of the men whose testimony sent him to the box. Despite that, Wim loathed seeing what had become of him.
After casting Vince’s body aside, Wim’s eyes went to the person at the bottom of the pile. He fully expected to find Emory or Mina. His gut told him to prepare for it but he still didn’t know how he’d deal with seeing another of his friends dead.
But the brown arm didn’t belong to Mina or Emory. The woman who had been breakfast for the cadre of zombies was Ellen Sideris. Her body had been protected by a heavy parka, leaving her face to bear the brunt of the assault. A good seventy percent of the skin was gone, along with all her nose, her lips and her right eye.
“Oh, Lord,” Delphine said as she peered over Wim’s shoulder.
At the sound of the voice, Sideris’s remaining eye opened and, after lolling around momentarily confused, settled on the two of them. Wim knew his rifle was empty as he reached out and pressed against the zombie’s chest to hold her to the ground.
“Hand me your pistol.”
Delphine passed it to him like a distance runner handing off a baton. Sideris’s head darted forward, lunging at him with her skinned mouth, her teeth smashing together as she bit and missed.
Wim pressed the pistol against her temple, keeping it flush as she tried to bite him, and squeezed the trigger. Sideris’s brains blew out the opposite side of her skull, spraying the white snow like red water from a hose. What remained of her head fell against the ground and her struggling ceased.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The cold air made Emory’s bones hurt. He’d been hurting a considerable amount of the time lately, to the point where thoughts of long, painful illnesses taunted and harassed him. It’s just the cold, he told himself. He wasn’t sure he believed that any more but knew worrying was pointless. Besides, at his age and under the circumstances, he knew the overwhelming majority of his life was behind him and each additional day he was given was a bonus.
The Ark’s population had been more than halved that day and that meant every man, woman, and - no children, they’re all dead now - was on deck. Emory’s job was of the janitorial variety. After the bodies were gathered, he was to clean up whatever bits and pieces were left behind, depositing them into a heavy-duty garbage bag. He scooped up a piece of skull the size of a salad plate and took a moment to stare at the long, blood-stained blonde hair that sagged off it, wondering to whom it might have belonged. Whoever it was certainly didn’t need it now and he added it to the gruesome collection.
The bag was growing heavy, a stress that made his hands ache even more, so he set it aside and pulled them inside his jacket sleeves, clenching and squeezing them in attempt to increase the blood flow.
It worked to some extent and he lifted the bag with both hands, slinging it over his shoulder as he trudged toward the next bloody scene to continue his work. Doing so, he felt a bit like a hobo carrying all his belongings in a sack, perhaps running for a train car, hoping to ride the rails to greener pastures.
As he stepped around the corner of one of the out buildings, he saw Phillip and Buck, two of the Ark’s police force, carrying a body. It took him a moment to realize what was different about this scene, which he’d seen occurring all day long, then he realized the arms and legs weren’t hanging limp and useless. Whoever the men were carrying was tied up.
Buck walked backward as they moved and he caught his foot on something, dropping to his knee. When he stumbled, the body jerked and the head swiveled side to side, purposeful. Emory could see it was a woman.
“Watch it!” Phillip barked and Buck jumped to his feet.
“Ssss- Sorry.”
“Sorry my ass. I’ve got the danger end.”
They disappeared around a motorhome.
Emory had been clustered together with all the other survivors when orders had been given out. He’d heard first hand that all bodies were to be taken to the field at the north end of the Ark to be burned. He could already smell the smoke, and the awful, acrid aroma of charred flesh and hair that came with it. And he knew that no one had been injured and survived. So, who were these men carrying?
I’ve got the danger end.
They’ve got a zombie, Emory realized. But why hadn’t they destroyed it?
He set the garbage bag aside and followed, keeping a healthy distance and making certain no one was watching him being a nebby nose. When he reached the travel trailer, he peeked around the corner and saw the two men approaching the medical clinic. Emory also knew that, somewhere in that building, were Doc’s private labs. Scuttlebutt around camp, into which Emory was always eager to insert himself, was that he was doing research for a cure inside there. Emory had his doubts.
From his vantage point twenty yards away, Emory couldn’t discern if Phillip used a key or a card, but a door opened and the men disappeared inside. It banged closed behind them, the sound so loud it made Emory flinch.
Emory crossed the gap to the building. He knew it was pointless, but tried anyway. Locked. He then moved to the front where the entrance to the medical clinic was located. That door was unlocked and he leaned halfway inside where the office appeared empty.
“Hello?”
No response came. He considered continuing in but thought that unwise. Tensions were at an all-time high on the Ark today and 80 plus years of life experience was more than enough for Emory to know that there were times to keep your head down.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The female zombie laid on its back atop the gurney, naked save for an opaque hood which was pulled tight around her neck and shrouded her head. Her arms were bound behind her back, unseen under her pallid flesh. Her legs were tied to stirrups, spread far apart to put her crotch on display. Black fluid, the consistency of cool honey, seeped from her vagina, a fetid ooze that Doc sponged away with the same amount of concern he’d have shown dusting off an end table.
“I don’t think I can do it Doc.”
Doc looked to the edge of the lab where Phillip waited. The man was naked except for a pair of boxer briefs and his skin had broken out in gooseflesh. Doc realized Phillip was shivering.
“I can turn the heat up a bit if that will make you more comfortable. I’m quite used to the cold down here myself and I forget that others aren’t.”
Phillip stared at him, his beady eyes wide
. “It’s not the temperature. It’s…” His eyes drifted back to the dead woman who laid spread eagle before him.
“Oh, come now. We’ve had many discussions about this. You know how important this experiment is. You assured me you were up to the task, Phillip. I put my trust in you.”
“I just don’t know. This is gross as hell. I mean, she’s dead, Doc.”
Doc had been sitting on a wheeled stool for his up-close examination of the zombie’s nether regions. Now he spun and used his feet to move himself toward Phillip. “But is she? Perhaps by conventional standards. Yet, she breathes. She eats. She moves. Is that not life?”
Phillip looked from Doc to the zombie, then back. It was clear he wasn’t convinced.
“Yeah, but you can shoot her in the heart and she’d still be able to walk around. Live things don’t do that.”
“That’s true. But you act as if that’s a flaw. Phillip, that makes them better than us! Humans like you and I are dependent on our variety of organs. If one fails, the whole ship goes down. Yet these creatures, they don’t require a liver or kidneys or a heart. All they need is their brain. It’s astounding! Miraculous even!”
He couldn’t understand why Phillip was being so uncooperative. The dead woman had a fit, toned body. He’d even taken the time to put a bandage over the ragged hole in her shoulder where she’d been bitten.
“I understand you find yourself in a quandary, Phillip, but she is perfect for you.” Doc pivoted on the chair and glanced at the dead woman. “When I first saw her, I suspected she had breast implants but that assumption was incorrect. Check for yourself.”
Phillip hedged.
“Do it, Phillip.”
Phillip crept closer to Doc and the zombie. Doc nodded approvingly and Phillip stepped to her side. He reached out, slow, cautious, and rested his bare palm over the woman’s breast. Doc thought he saw some relaxation come over him. Phillip even gave her partially erect nipple a flick with his index finger.