Elements of the Undead: Fire (Book One)

by Esmont, William

  Maybe the infection will run its course…Maybe it won’t affect her the way it does everyone else… He knew he was avoiding the inevitable. A simple bite wouldn’t cause a person to go stiff, to pass out. Maddie was infected, and she was going to turn soon.

  Jack pointed at the rear of the house. “Ellie! Go to your room and lock the door! Don’t come out until I call you!” Ellie looked uncertain, began crying harder.

  “I don’t want to, Daddy. I want Maddie to be okay.” She was shaking like the last leaf on a tree, threatening to blow away forever.

  “Ellie! Do as your father says!” Becka commanded in her sternest mother voice. “Right now, young lady!” Ellie’s tears increased, her whole body convulsing with sobs as she tore her gaze between her sister and her parents. With a glare of condemnation that broke Jack’s heart, she turned and fled to her room, slamming the door shut behind her.

  Jack stared at Maddie, knowing full well she was about to become a zombie. Her skin was already losing its ruddy tone, changing to a sallow gray as her body shut down.

  “She’s gone, Jack.”

  He looked up, surprised at the finality in Becka’s voice. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “I know... but I can’t do it.”

  “Jack.”

  In his mind’s eye, he saw the days and hours from Maddie’s birth up until this awful moment. He tasted salt on the back of his throat, his eyes burned, he felt like he was about to vomit.

  Becka put a hand on his shoulder.

  Their eyes met. Only for a moment, but it was enough.

  “Okay. Get her feet,” he said.

  Together they had carried their daughter from the house to the rear of the wood shed. Jack had chosen the shed because there was no way Ellie could see it from inside the house. As gently as he could, he placed Maddie on the ground, propping her against a log he had been meaning to split all summer. She was so small and delicate she didn’t even reach the top. She started to slump to the side, but Becka caught her, straightening her and making sure she was planted firmly against the tree. She kissed the top of Maddie’s head and sat back on her haunches with her eyes closed.

  Maddie jerked, her leg skittering a few inches to the side. “Becka!” Jack cautioned. “Watch out!”

  Becka stood quickly and moved to his side. She clutched his arm. Jack withdrew his pistol. The metal was cold in his hands. A blocky chunk of death and destruction being put to a use he had never imagined in his worst nightmares. They embraced quickly, squeezing each other with all of their might. Jack never wanted to let go.

  Maddie stirred again, and Jack broke their embrace. He took a step back and sighted on the thing that used to be his daughter. Becka sniffed and turned away. His grip on the pistol was sweaty and the gun wavered. He forced himself to focus.

  Maddie’s eyes twitched under their lids as the disease worked to figured out how to operate its new host.

  Then they opened.

  Jack’s gun went off with a deafening roar, scattering the remains of his previous life to the winds and ushering in the brutal reality of the new.

  Seventeen

  The sun was finally below the mountains. Candles flickered softly, creating a sense of intimacy in the room—a warm bubble perfect for the discussion at hand.

  “You’re both right,” Megan said.

  Pringle frowned. “What makes you say that?” Cesar remained silent, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. The door creaked opened and Alicia entered.

  “Hey, Alicia,” Megan said.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Alicia took a seat on the far end of the couch.

  Megan pressed on. “Where was I? Oh, yeah. I agree we’ve grown too fast. I mean, look at us. We’ve got all of these people jammed in here, and only a few who know what the hell they’re doing.”

  “That’s an understatement,” Pringle spat out, squaring his shoulders for battle. Megan gave him a nod of encouragement. Engaging him was the key. He needed to debate. It was in his nature.

  “Yes. It is, and I’m sorry for oversimplifying things. The four of us have been carrying this community on our backs since the start. As much as we want it to succeed, we’re doomed if we don’t change.” Pringle nodded in enthusiastic agreement.

  “But…” Megan’s voice dropped an octave, becoming deadly serious. “We can’t turn people away, not without giving them a choice. That’s not who we are. It’s not who I want us to become.” She paused, letting her words hang in the air for emphasis. “We’ve got a good thing here. We’ve got a steady food supply, a decent climate, excluding the summers, and access to a city that wasn’t leveled by nukes…” In an uncharacteristic move, Pringle didn’t object, instead sinking into his seat and giving her his full attention.

  “When was the last time a swarm passed this way?” Megan asked.

  “Never,” Pringle admitted.

  “That’s right. Never. The undead aren’t bothering us. The only time we ever see them on this side of town is when they stray from their pack.”

  Cesar shifted in his chair and coughed into his hand. “We will have rules,” he said, taking over from Megan. “Strong rules. Everyone will have responsibilities that they must fulfill if they wish to remain. I know many of the refugees are reluctant to venture into the dead zones, but that can’t continue. We have to spread the risk…”

  “And limit the number of newcomers?” Pringle asked, warming up to the idea.

  Cesar shook his head. “No. We don’t impose limits. Not yet, at least. However, we will require that anyone who joins us agrees to our rules. If they don’t, then we’ll send them on their way without exception.”

  Pringle chewed on this for a moment before responding. “How do you enforce these new rules?”

  “That’s where you come in. I want you to be in charge of implementing them, ensuring that they’re fair for everyone in the compound.” Here’s the carrot, Megan thought.

  Pringle’s face lit up. Up until now, his responsibilities had been largely undefined. From collecting supplies to shooting undead stragglers and checking for infection in the inbound population, he did it all.

  Cesar continued, “The key, Mike, is fairness. These rules don’t mean a thing if they’re not applied to everyone. And as much as I hate it, we’ll have to turn people away at some point. We’ll probably have to eject a few as well when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.”

  “I can think of a handful that we should send packing right now,” Pringle said bitterly.

  “He’s right,” Alicia said, breaking her silence. “Just yesterday I got into it with a guy who left the gate unguarded while he took a leak.”

  Megan turned to her. “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was.” Alicia sat up straighter. “And that wasn’t the first time. We can’t afford that type of attitude. If someone screws up like that, my opinion is they’re out of here. No exceptions.”

  Cesar held up his hand. “I understand your frustration, Alicia. We’ll take care of it.”

  Pringle’s face took on a pained expression. It was clear he had some bones to pick—that he was hoping he could get rid of some particularly useless people. “Okay,” he agreed finally. “I’ll give the newcomers a chance to shape up. One chance.”

  Cesar stood and put out his hand. Pringle took it, and they shook, their disagreement buried for the moment. Megan breathed a silent sigh of relief. She knew that the last part pained Cesar. The thought of banishing anyone was anathema to him. Cesar believed every man, woman, and child could contribute to the community if given a chance, and the notion that someone would choose the alternative just didn’t factor into his worldview. After all, it took only one person not taking their guard duties seriously to allow one of the undead inside the perimeter. Once that happened, things would move too fast for anyone to react. They could all be dead or infected within a matter of minutes.

  “I think I can make this work,” Pringle added. “I mean, it’s a good step toward what I
was thinking.” He scratched his chin. “What about...? Never mind.”

  Cesar raised an eyebrow. “What is it, Mike?”

  Pringle shook his head and stared off into the distance. “It’s nothing.”

  Cesar narrowed his eyes. “Okay then. I’m glad we were able to come to a resolution. This,” he gestured toward the window, “is too important for us to fight among ourselves. It’s all we have left.”

  Megan stood. “Is anyone ready for a beer?” It was time to celebrate before the hard work began.

  Eighteen

  Kevin Salerno ran a torn piece of t-shirt along the barrel of his pistol, taking care to catch all the oil he could see in the glow from his red LED flashlight. His other pistol, a .22, lay on the table beside his right knee, ready in case he needed it. The boy scouts had been right all along. Always be prepared. In four practiced motions, he reassembled the pistol, jammed in a fresh fourteen-round magazine, and chambered a round. He clicked the safety on. Done.

  He set the pistol aside, picked up the .22, and began taking it apart by memory. He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders, and listened for his pulse. The process of cleaning his guns always stirred up conflicting emotions. On one hand, he felt an overwhelming sense of calm, a meditative peace in which everything else in his life faded into the background. Disassemble the weapon, clean it, apply oil, wipe, and then reassemble. Simple, repeatable, and predictable. At the same time, by the time he was finished, he always had a raging hard-on and wanted to fuck. This reaction had embarrassed him until his shrink told him it was normal, something to do with power.

  He rolled his shoulders again, cracked his neck, then listened for sounds from outside. No change. A few minutes later, he was done with the second weapon. It went into the holster strapped on his thigh. He picked up the first pistol and went to the window. He peered outside. Although it was dark, he sensed movement around him, a lurking presence, rustling, shifting, ebbing and flowing like a deep, raging river. It was a swarm of the undead, the biggest he had ever seen.

  Kevin was camped on the top floor of a mostly-complete condominium complex in Marana, just north of Tucson. Loading his motorcycle with camping gear and bugging out of town before things completely fell apart, he had barely escaped from Boise as the zombie uprising mushroomed out of control. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the extent of what was happening to the world, and he correctly figured the best place to be was anywhere but a major city. He had watched the bombs fall from the side of I-25, weeping uncontrollably as they blanketed his beloved western landscape with brilliant, incandescent flashes and far-off rumbles. The only direction untouched by the bombs was south, so that was where he had headed.

  Now that he was there, at the far corner of what remained of the United States, he was second-guessing his decision. There were a lot of undead, far more than he ever expected. It hadn’t been that way when he arrived. When he first rolled into town, he was pleasantly surprised to discover only a few stragglers. He avoided them easily, collecting supplies for the next leg of his trip and allowing himself to relax for the first time in as long as he could remember.

  Tucson seemed as good a place as any to take a break, to figure out what to do next—keep going south into Mexico, or head east into New Mexico, Texas, and the Gulf Coast beyond.

  But then the undead had arrived. Where they were from, he didn’t know, and it didn’t matter at that point. What did matter was that the swarm seemed to have no end. Thousands upon thousands of undead milled just outside his door. He imagined what it would look like from the air, probably like the great wildebeest migrations in Africa.

  He wasn’t able to discern any sort of pattern from his hideout; he couldn’t tell if the swarm would eventually pass by or if it was circling back on itself, a hurricane of rotting flesh. Maybe there wasn’t a pattern; maybe they communicated telepathically, or through their moans. He had no fucking idea.

  He crept back from the window and returned to the enormous master bathroom where he had set up camp. Big enough for a couch and his pack, the bathroom served as an adequate hideout in the midst of what was most definitely hostile territory.

  The noise was the worst part, a constant rustling, the occasional crash as one of the creatures bumped into something. Fortunately, they didn’t moan unless they saw something they wanted to eat, and thank God, that hadn’t happened. Yet. It freaked him out, put him on edge, and messed with his head. At any moment, one of them could catch his scent, and he would be screwed, with nowhere left to run. He shuddered at the thought. He had long ago decided he would take his own life before he became dinner for one of those sick bastards.

  Sinking into the couch, he put his feet up on the dressing table and scratched his forehead with the barrel of the loaded pistol. Before he knew what he was doing, the barrel had traced a line under his jaw and was pressing into the soft flesh of his throat. He caressed the trigger, running his finger along the delicate steel as he would touch a woman. Why not? he asked himself. Why the fuck not? He cocked the hammer. Dug in a little deeper. He scratched at the scruff on his jaw, bending the hairs backward and letting them snap back to attention one by one. It hurt, but in a good way. It reminded him he was still alive.

  What else do I have to live for? He had no family to speak of. No wife. No girlfriend. No close friends, at least none that he knew were alive. His parents were both dead, and his brother had died in high school. He was alone in the world. The last man standing. He laughed, a thin, reedy cackle that to his ears sounded like someone else.

  The trigger beckoned. Kevin exhaled and removed his finger. Not today. Not now. He eased the hammer down and lowered the gun, laying it on the couch cushion beside his leg. This had become a nightly ritual for him, and he was sure some day he would get the balls to pull the trigger. But not today.

  Feeling around in the space under his feet, he retrieved his sleeping bag. He pulled it up and over himself, making sure to tuck it around his feet. He didn’t like sleeping with his feet exposed. These days the monsters under the bed really would bite.

  He was snoring within a minute.

  ~~~

  Kevin awoke thrashing and bathed in sweat. Sun streamed between the partially open blinds, hot white lines slicing the room into equidistant pieces. Fuck, it’s hot. Yawning, he staggered to his feet and shuffled to the window. He pulled the blinds back a fraction of an inch.

  He blinked, unable to believe the sight before him. There wasn’t a single undead in sight. The only evidence of their passing was a few twitching appendages and splattered stains, bodily fluids ground into the asphalt by tens of thousands of feet. He dashed over to the window on the far side of the condominium and peeked out. Nothing. Where the hell did they all go?

  His internal clock told him it was around eight or nine. When did they leave? As hard as he tried, Kevin couldn’t recall the moment he had finally fallen asleep. One minute he was curled up on the couch thinking about… something, and the next thing he knew, it was morning. He didn’t like losing control like that, and he especially hated blacking out.

  The passing of the horde brought both opportunity and a renewed sense of urgency. He was out of food, and he needed to get back on the road before they returned.

  A few minutes later, carrying his backpack and his helmet in his left hand and his pistol in his right, he bounded down the stairs of the condo to the first floor. He put his eye up to the peephole and methodically checked the street in front of the house. The upper floors overhung the ground-level entry, creating a narrow carport barely big enough for a family sedan. All clear.

  With as much stealth as he could muster, he unlatched the deadbolt and nudged the door open a crack. The leaves of a young fan palm rustled in the hot breeze, their woody shh shh the only thing he could hear. He listened for a moment and inhaled deeply, searching for the scent of rot. Still clear.

  Nudging the door all the way open, he stepped outside, careful not to make any noise. The wind shifted, and
with it came a sickly-sweet whiff of putrescent flesh, like a piece of forgotten beef jerky rotting on the floor of his car in the summer. Kevin flattened himself against the wall and raised his .45. Why can’t this ever be easy?

  The creature was trapped in the carport of the next condo unit, stuck between an oversized recycling bin and the front bumper of a faded-blue minivan. It was silent, staring in the other direction. Waiting.

  Kevin crept to the edge of his carport and peered around the edge. The wind was in his favor for once. The street was clear in both directions. There were no others… that he could see. Hard experience told him where there was one, there would be more. Like deer, the undead traveled in threes.

  Slipping his .45 into his leg holster, Kevin withdrew the.22 and clicked off the safety. It was a much quieter gun, perfect for up-close work and unlikely to draw other undead. Running on the balls of his feet, keeping his body low and out of sight, he dashed to the rear of the minivan. The zombie hadn’t caught his scent yet.

  He stuck his head around the side of the van and inspected the creature. One thing was clear; it was once a woman. Beyond that, he couldn’t tell. Dark brown and leathery, wrinkled like an old shrunken head, this one was a wreck. Probably radioactive, he decided, noting random bald spots where the creature’s hair had fallen out. He looked closer. Ahh. That’s why it can’t move. It was tangled in a garden hose coiled by the front wheel.

  Kevin glanced over his shoulder, ensuring he had an escape route if things went bad. He tapped the muzzle of his pistol against the minivan. Once. Twice. The monster whipped its head around, teeth bared, nostrils flaring as it tried to capture his scent. Its arms came up, reaching for him. Man, that’s an ugly fucker, Kevin thought as he aimed. Must be from Phoenix.

  The creature opened its mouth to moan, but before it could make a sound, Kevin pulled the trigger twice. The bullets entered the creature’s head through its left eye socket. They didn’t come out the other side, instead rattling around like rocks in a can, liquefying the remains of its diseased brain like ice cream in a blender. The creature crumpled to the ground, finally at rest.