by Oliver, Carl
How to do it would be the challenge. He knew that tricking them wouldn’t work. They were too well armed, and planned things out too thoroughly to be done in by simple tricks. He had watched them barricading the stairwells of the office building they had stayed in the night before. They also stayed together, he couldn’t lead one or two away, and use them to lead the others into a trap as he had done in Tawneyhill. Nor could he simply pick them off. He had a pistol, but he wasn’t a sharpshooter. And one pistol against six well armed people, he didn’t like those odds. He wasn’t worried about dying, but he wanted to ensure he saved all of them before he left this earth. He wanted to fulfill this mission from his savior.
He knew he would need a much grander plan to free these souls. It looked as though they were splitting up. Better to follow the bigger group. They would be easier to track, and if he got the chance, he would be able to save more of them at one time.
After walking another three blocks North, the group of four gentlemen turned East, moving towards the familiar shape of the Willis Tower looming overhead in the distance, unaware that a shadow was tailing them, a few blocks behind.
“There’s really not a lot of zombies on the roads, I wonder what’s up with that?” Scott commented nonchalantly.
“I think they get stuck indoors, like they can’t figure out the door knobs?” Chris suggested, miming in the air what it might look like to claw at a door with zombie claw hands.
“Maybe there hasn’t been much moving around out here to attract them outside?” Tyler offered, holding his arms up in the air to emphasize the dead silence that was surrounding them.
The group had become so accustomed to the new silence that had once again fallen on civilized areas that this was the first time it had struck them how eerie it was. They were walking in downtown Chicago, in broad daylight, and the air was basically silent. The only sound was the far off noise of birds chirping happily in the nearby parks. Tyler realized that this might be the quietest that it had been on this street for over a hundred years.
They walked on for another twenty minutes before they reached the base of the Willis Tower. The walk was boring, however they did begin to notice a few more zombies in the street as they got close to the tower. They passed one apartment building where a mob of the creatures were spilling from the front door and tumbling down the front steps. They went around this block, as the mob was quickly growing from a dozen, to two dozen, and more. It was like a faucet, only instead of water, the door poured out zombies.
Once they had reached the base of the towering structure, Chris pulled a bottle of whiskey from his backpack. “Here boys, drink up.” He offered the bottle around. Tyler took a long drag from it before wincing a little as the dark flavor burned down his throat.
“Really? Whiskey? This is my item from the list, and I want to enjoy it.” Scott said, with a haughty look on his face.
“Dude...it’s for safety.” Justin said as he took his own pull from the bottle, “We don’t know what we’re going to run into in there, and we know that being drunk protects us if we get bit by the zombies. Ergo, the safest thing to do is to get shitfaced.” Justin took a second pull before handing it back to Chris. Tyler noticed that Justin hadn’t winced at all from the burn, and he felt a twinge of jealousy, both at the lack of twinge, and that he had used “ergo” and “shitfaced” in the same sentence.
Scott took a deep sigh, the kind of noise that indicates a person knows they just lost an argument. He drank hard from the bottle, which was now less than half full. Chris up ended the bottle and drank an absurd and disgusting amount of the amber liquid while his eyes filled up with tears. He passed the bottle around the circle of friends once more, and then threw it nonchalantly over his shoulder. The empty glass bottle flew end over end before shattering into a thousand pieces on the pavement, glinting in the morning light.
The front doors of the Willis Tower had already been broken in. The two revolving doors looked like some kind of sick carnival ride, a rough metal frame holding broken glass in place. The handicap accessible door looked as though it had been broken cleanly enough, so the four friends crept through it.
****
Three blocks to the south, hidden behind a dumpster at the edge of an alley, Father O’Connell watched in fascination as the group of young men huddled together in the shadow of a familiar towering structure. He was sure that it was the Sear’s Tower, but the sign out front seemed to declare it was the Willis Tower. It was so hard to keep up with how fast everything changed these days.
The group huddled together for a few minutes, talking quietly and passing something around the group. Father O’Connell couldn’t get a clear look at what they were doing. He considered moving a little closer, but didn’t want to risk being seen. This group was clearly on edge. They were each armed, and he couldn’t risk tipping them off to his presence too soon. It might make them even more cautious, or worse, they might send the good father to heaven before he had the chance to free them from this mortal coil.
Caution turned out to be the better choice. Father O’Connell watched from his hiding place as one of the men, the heavy set one, threw a glass bottle that they had all been drinking from and it shattered on the sidewalk. Then the four men calmly walked into the tower, and Father O’Connell felt an idea strike him.
God? Is that you? Are you speaking to me, through this vision?
Father O’Connell looked back over his shoulder, watching a swarm of zombies push out from a side street onto Wacker drive.
Perfect.
Father O’Connell could see it all so clearly. This wasn’t a dark tower in front of him. It was a stairway that would lead his young charges right to heaven. They only needed an appropriate chaperone. Rising to a standing position, Father O’Connell looked to the sky and whispered a silent prayer to himself. Turning completely toward the mob of zombies that now blocked half of the street, he began walking toward them.
Not too close. Just enough to chase.
****
Despite the bright morning sunlight outside, the lobby of the Willis Tower was dim. It was like switching from morning to dusk. There was enough light to see, but there were still dark corners for things to hide.
Chairs and debris had been strewn about the expansive lobby. It looked like someone had tried to barricade off the stairwell, as there were a few tables leaning against the stairs.
Walking gingerly through the lobby, Scott felt the familiar buzz of the whiskey hitting his brain. This warm, mellow sensation came in interesting contrast from the alarm bells that his brain was trying to send out. Everything about the space made him uncomfortable, but still they moved through the lobby.
They arrived at the bank of elevators which would take them to the top of the building. It was at this moment, a significant fact dawned on the increasingly intoxicated group.
“Oh....fuck...” Chris mumbled, seeing the same recognition of fear and frustration in his friends eyes. “We’re gonna have to take the stairs.”
***
At or around that same moment, twenty blocks away, Jessica and Amy had just stumbled into their own adventure. After wandering aimlessly for a half hour, they arrived on the commercial section of Michigan Avenue. There were boutiques and shops for as far as their eyes could see. Many of the big display windows had already been smashed in, and there were a few dozen zombies loitering around, but otherwise the block was exactly what Amy imagined heaven might look like.
“Where...” Jessica was having trouble with her words, so overwhelmed by the sights around her. “Where do we start?” Amy, not wanting the nature of the situation deter her, pointed at a nearby shop.
“There.” Amy began running toward the storefront without waiting for a response from Jessica. The store was a mid sized shop, with a French name that Amy didn’t even want to try to pronounce. Three impossibly thin female mannequins stood in the window styling spring clothing that would have made it to suburban Illinois in about five years, assum
ing that everyone in the world hadn’t turned into zombies, which meant that it might take as long as ten years now.
Jessica admired bright orange shorts that the middle mannequin wore, and was about to comment on how cute she thought they were, when a dark shape flew past her head and smashed through the shop’s front window, toppling all three mannequins like bowling pins. Jessica’s instinct had her fall back and pulled her arms over her head to shower herself from attack. When none came, she looked up to see Amy climbing through the broken window and picking up her backpack from a pile of shattered glass. “C’mon. Let’s find some cute shit.”
The duo spent only fifteen minutes in the shop. Jessica picked out a pair of the orange shorts she had liked, and Amy had grabbed a few tops she thought were cute. They tossed the clothes into a large designer bag and climbed back through the broken window into the street. They repeated this shopping experience through another five stores. Grabbing what they liked and moving on, until the women had around a half dozen outfits. All adorable, but of varying functionality. Some of the clothing was light and bright colored for spring, shorts and tops and shoes to look cute on the beach adventures they assumed they would soon be having. While others were more functional for living on the road, long sleeve wool shirts and rich denim jeans with real leather boots for kicking zombies. Each outfit chosen had a combined price tag of at least a thousand dollars, clothing that neither had even dreamed they would own in their entire lives.
Through the entire shopping trip, the few dozen zombies loitering in the streets didn’t bother them much. Amy had shot a few that had followed them into a shoe store, and she had made Jessica shoot one that had followed them into a lingerie boutique as well. Jessica hadn’t wanted to go into the boutique at first, but Amy had a compelling argument.
“If I’m going to have to live without electricity, I’m at least going to wear the finest underwear that money can buy.”
When the zombie followed them in, Amy had insisted that Jessica be the one to dispatch it. “You have to pop your cherry.” She said, offering one of the handguns. Jessica shied away from the weapon, as if the mere proximity to it was causing her discomfort and harm. “This isn’t exactly an option, kiddo. At some point in time, you’re going to have to learn how to shoot one of these things. Would you rather do it here, alone, with me? Or when all the guys are around to see you whimper and whine?”
“I’m not whimpering.” Jessica mumbled in response, reaching out one shaky hand toward the pistol.
“Well today, you become a woman.” Amy coached Jessica through how to hold the pistol in both hands, to disengage the safety and to prepare for the kick. Hands shaking, Jessica pulled the trigger, aiming for the relative area of the zombie’s head.
The first bullet sailed wide right, connecting with a mannequin at the front of the store. “It’s okay, Amy reached her arms around Jessica, holding the gun in her hands as well. The position vaguely reminded Jessica of when she was a teenager, and Brian Rowley had taken her on a date to go mini golfing and had tried a similar move, just to ‘show her how to move her hips when she swung.’ It was mildly erotic, having Amy’s arms around her, and Jessica didn’t hate it. She noticed that Amy smelled a little bit like cinnamon. With Amy’s hands to steady her, she squeezed the trigger gently, and the bullet found it’s mark in the forehead of the zombie.
Jessica felt a little rush of power as the zombie’s head snapped back, and then followed it’s body to crumple onto the floor, purple blood oozing out of the two new holes in the front and back of his head. The rush of control that Jessica felt continued. This wasn’t bad. She could do this. They weren’t alive anymore, anyway. She wasn’t killing a living thing.
With the rush of endorphins, Jessica felt as if her brain was running on overdrive, she noticed things that she hadn’t previously seen around her. The rich grain of the hardwood floors, the terribly tacky recessed lighting, the fact that the mannequins had belly buttons for some reason. As all of this information flooded her senses, she lost track of time for a moment. Suddenly Amy was across the room, past the dead zombie and getting ready to jump back out of the front window. She turned back to Jessica, still standing dazed, holding the pistol at her side.
“You okay? I saw a couple of other stores down the block that I still wanted to check out. Then we can start making our way to meet up with the guys, unless you just wanted to ditch ‘em.”
Jessica was snapped out of her daze. “Oh, yeah. Sure. We can check out a few more stores first. She made her way out of the store, stepping carefully over the crumpled corpse of the zombie that she had shot through the head. Her first kill. This thought brought her back to her childhood. Watching her brothers go out hunting for the first time with dad. It was always such a big deal, she had always wanted to go, but her mom didn’t want her playing with guns. Now she understood why. Because guns were fun, they made you feel sexy, and her mom really was a prude.
Amy had gotten a headstart out of the window, and Jessica saw that she had turned right when her feet hit the pavement. Jessica jumped out and turned in the same direction. Her heart skipped a beat when Amy was gone.
The wave of confidence she had just found in her first kill was suddenly gone. She heard her voice sheepishly call out, “Amy? This isn’t funny.” She looked around, saw a few zombies down the block, but nothing close enough to be worried about. No close zombies, but no Amy either.
Jessica had walked a half dozen timid steps in the direction she had seen Amy turn. She had just come alongside an alley when she saw movement out of her peripheral vision. Jessica turned to see Amy struggling with two men. By the looks of how they moved, they weren’t zombies. Both men wore expensive suits, and some part of Jessica’s brain which was not concerned with the emergency of the situation was deciding if the jackets they picked were a size too small or the pants were a size too big. One was holding a hand over Amy’s mouth had a fedora hat on. The other, who was wearing an obnoxious gold chain, was struggling to pull her pistol away. Jessica felt panic rising, and she heard herself scream, in the same sheepish voice that had called out for Amy all of fifteen seconds ago. “Let her go. Or I’ll shoot!”
Jessica held up the pistol, her hand and arm were shaking so much, it would have looked comical if it had been under any other circumstances. Her voice caught the attention of Amy’s attackers, but her wild swinging gun-hand seemed to keep them feeling confident. Mr. Gold Chain had finally wrestled the gun away from Amy’s grip, but she continued struggling. She was able to get her mouth free from Mr. Fedora’s grasp for a moment, to shout “Run” before Mr. Fedora got his hand back over her mouth. Jessica’s attention was drawn in by Mr. Gold Chain though.
She saw that he had black hair that was at least a month overdue for a haircut, and he held it slicked back with oil, or some other disgusting hair product. He was a few days overdue for a shave as well, as his jaw and cheeks were peppered with black and gray stubble. His skin had a pale look to it, so much so that she would have mistook him for a zombie if he had been moving like one. He was twenty feet away and Jessica could smell the gin on him, like dirty pine sol. His eyes were small and dark, and for a moment Jessica thought that he looked remarkably like a rat, a drowned rat in a poor fitting suit. He locked eyes with her and licked his lips, which Jessica saw, even at this distance, were incredibly chapped. Jessica wasn’t sure if it was a nervous twitch or he was attempting to be as creepy as humanly possible.
“Heyyyy there missy. You’re still alive.” He didn’t make a move to put his hands up. In fact, Jessica noticed that he had shifted Amy’s pistol into his right hand, and looked as though he was ready to raise it at any moment. “We should all stick together. We’re alive, you’re alive. Two girls for two guys. How about you put down the gun and we can talk about re-populating the planet?” His tongue flicked out again, licking his cracked lips, which curved into a painful looking smile. The smile didn’t reach Mr. Gold Chain’s eyes, which were locked on Jessica’s gun,
which meant they were moving all over the place.
Jessica tried to remember the zombie she just shot, tried to reconnect with that feeling of power and control she just experienced. Could she do it again? She imagined what it would be like, aiming the gun between those beady little eyes and pulling the trigger. She could see his eyes roll up and hear a scream of agony as he died. Then the blood would come. Red, wet, sticky. She couldn’t do it. Not a living person. Not even someone like this.
Mr. Gold Chain, whose actual name is Greg, although that’s not here nor there, saw this internal struggle happen behind Jessica’s eyes. He could see her look away with dejection on her face. He knew that look. He had seen it on dozens of victims throughout the years, she had given up. Feeling his own confidence swell, Greg turned back to check on Mr. Fedora, who’s name was actually Richard, although he preferred Rick. Rick was still struggling with the shorter girl. She had a lot of fight in her. That might last a night, maybe two, depending on whether or not Rick got really rough with her.
He turned back and saw that his instinct had been correct. The taller, awkward girl was lowering the gun, tears beginning to stream down her face. The smile on his face crept up toward his eyes now. This new world was going to be so much fun. Greg made a mental note to remember to congratulate Rick on the idea to come downtown to see if any women had survived. Licking his lips again, Greg spoke to the crying girl. “That’s a dear, now how about you give that big scary gun to the big man so he can protect you.
Greg took a step forward, paused, waiting to see how she would respond. He was pretty sure she was about to run for it. If that was the case, he could try to chase her, or he could always just make Rick share his girl. One girl should be more than enough for two close friends, right?
Greg took a second step, still waiting for the girl to run. She didn’t. He felt a surge of excitement in his chest, as well as a place a foot and a half lower, excitement both for what was about to happen for him, as well as a really positive outlook for what this world would have in store from him.