Blood on the Sand (Z Plan)

by Lerma, Mikhail

  Rainbows and Zombies

  A few hours later, Cale woke to the far off sounds of thunder. It was cloudy today, and would most likely rain.

  “Great, just what I needed.”

  Back downstairs he found his spare uniform partially dry. He stood in the dining room putting his clothes neatly into his bag. They weren’t perfectly clean, but good enough to get by. Cale slung his rifle, and equipped himself with the two pistols. He was leaving Zach’s rifle behind to lighten his load. Lifting his pack onto his back he proceeded up the stairs.

  In the upstairs living room he charged his firearm and leaned out the window. There were only three today. Cale carefully took aim and shot one of the undead pounding at the door. All of them looked to be elderly women. Their garments had been disheveled in their attack. The remaining two turned and looked up at him in the second story window. Their faces were covered in lacerations; one had her entire jaw bone showing. No flesh covered her chin, bloody bone was all that showed. Their eyes were glazed and lifeless. Cale took two more shots, making sure not to miss, and put them both down. He waited for a moment, to see if any more would turn up. No one else appeared. Cale did one last check while walking down the steps.

  His uniform was all there. He’d returned his lucky charms to his pocket, had all of his weapons, and Zach’s knife. Cale was ready to go. He unbarred the door and stepped out quietly. The yard and street were deserted except for the three he’d put to rest moments ago. Cale closed the front door behind him. He did this just in case someone alive needed a place to go, and they happened to stumble across this house. It would already be fortified and secure.

  “That’s my good deed for the day,” he told himself, as he walked to the street.

  He looked at the scorch mark that stained the road. Some parts of the bodies he’d piled up and burned had been pulled away. Most likely the work of a hungry dog, Cale thought.

  He approached the G112, but then noticed movement on the backside of the vehicle. A resurrected corpse began to walk toward him slowly. This time it was a child. A little girl, dressed in what looked like her Sunday finest. Parts of her brown hair had been ripped out. Half of her face had been eaten off, and her book bag, with cartoon characters he didn’t recognize, dragged behind her. The bag had managed to be caught around her wrist. She had to have been at the most seven or eight years old. Cale wanted to conserve ammo, but there was no way he could use his knife to kill this child.

  Granted, she was already dead, but he still couldn’t do it.

  Carefully he aimed; she was well within grabbing distance now. What was left of her facial expression looked confused, like she didn’t understand why he would be pointing a gun at her. Or, she was confused when whoever ripped her face off did it. She opened her mouth to bite him. Cale pulled the trigger and she slumped to the ground. He moved toward her, and then he scooped her up neatly. He didn’t want to leave her body in the street, sprawled out across the pavement. Gently, he took her to the grass of a yard. He laid her down and clasped her hands together over her stomach. Cale crouched over her in silence; he wondered which house was hers. The house he kneeled in front of had busted out windows. A curtain was all that covered the opening now. Cale walked over and ripped the curtain down from the outside. He returned to the little girl and covered her from head to toe, hiding what had happened to her from the world. It started to rain. It was sad that he had to do things like this. He didn’t like it at all. It was his friend that convinced him to join the army.

  “We’ll be truck drivers’ dude.” Chris said, “All we’ll do is drive. No big deal.”

  Cale had no intentions of being a .50cal gunner. Nor did he ever feel the need to shoot anyone. Chris was the one who talked him into it, but when the time came, Chris backed out, leaving Cale to go to war with strangers. Luckily, he made friends quickly. It was just as much his fault as it was Chris’s for his being here. But that was all pointless to argue now, given his current situation. It didn’t matter how he got here, just how he’d get back. Cale walked to the vehicle and opened the door. The breeze was chilly and the rain drops that hit his face were cold. Cale climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. It started easily, and the heater worked. He checked his mirrors; it was definitely time to leave. In the mirror he could see he’d drawn the attention of what was left of the neighborhood. Twenty, maybe thirty approached the back of the vehicle. The wind had pushed their scent away from Cale, masking their approach. He put the vehicle into gear and pulled away. He watched as the village disappeared in the rearview mirror.

  He followed the roadways west; he knew he was headed in the right direction now. Every now and then he’d see a sign for Jericho, and then Jerusalem. He drove slowly due to the rain. It had become heavy and obscured his visibility. He journeyed cautiously. Even if he was in a Humvee, he could still get bogged down by those ‘things’. The roadways he took kept him mostly out of the heart of the cities, but he’d still run into massive groups of them. Cale speculated that there were thousands, even hundreds of thousands of them as he drove. He could see large pillars of smoke to the south. A sign said that Jerusalem was in that direction. He spent the rest of the day avoiding the large groups and continuing west. It would be dark soon, and he wanted to sleep where no one would surprise him, dead or alive. The area he was in was more congested than he would have liked. He parked in the middle of the road and combat locked the doors. The road was already littered with abandoned cars; this place would be as good as any. He pulled his sleeping bag out and opened it. Once comfortably inside it he listened to the rain hit the top of the truck. It began lulling him into a deep sleep. He didn’t even have a dream, at least not that he remembered.

  The next morning, he woke to the moans of the undead. Lots of them. They crowded the area, but weren’t aware of his presence. His driving through the day before must have stirred them up.

  “Holy shit,” he whispered.

  He was surprised at their determination. Then again, the need to feed was the only thing driving them. The rain continued to fall. The sound of it would hopefully mask some of the noise he was about to make. Cale didn’t even bother to pack up his sleeping bag. He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. The sound drew a few of them in, but he quickly put the vehicle in gear and drove off, avoiding halted vehicles. Cale also avoided hitting the undead as he went. The sound it made was sickening when he did. He didn’t even know how to describe it.

  The roads were confusing, and curved back and forth. Not to mention their names. Even though he was headed west, he still couldn’t help but feel lost. The journey was taking longer than he wanted. These areas were too congested. The full populations of these cities had to be represented in the sheer mass of the infected wandering around. Occasionally, Cale could hear an explosion or gunshot.

  “At least I’m not the only one left,” he thought.

  But there was no way he would try to find any survivors. The roads were packed with the undead. He would often have to leave the roadway to get around them, and then return after he’d passed a group. The vehicle was now at one quarter tank, and he definitely didn’t want to stop and fuel anywhere near here. He took a couple of wrong exits when he thought he understood the signs. If only he’d had a map. He double backed and corrected his route, until finally, there it was. The Mediterranean Sea. It was a little after 1540 when he checked his watch. The area was still crowded. Large buildings all sat quietly, untold horrors lurking within their walls. He exited the larger motorway as it curved to the north, and drove down onto another. Two lanes, divided by a median, ran east and west. A green bordered sign with the number 441 was mounted to one of the wooden poles.

  Cale continued west. The area changed into a street with stores on either side, most likely a tourist community. He drove down until the road curved back around. It was a dead end. No way to get to the water from here. Some of the undead shambled aimlessly, not even attempting to reach for the vehicle. They must
have realized that it was pointless. He tried street after street until he turned toward the north on one of them. A sign read ‘HaRav Nisanboim’. That certainly wasn’t Arabic. He took the next off ramp to go west again. He knew he needed to stay by the water’s edge. The sign for this street read ‘HaKomemiyut’. He followed it back to the sea. Along this strip were high-rise hotels, restaurants, and convenience stores, it was clearly a popular tourist spot before the zombies turned it into hell. From here Cale could occasionally see a beach, but no marina yet.

  The undead were scarce in this area and of no threat to him in his up armored vehicle. Most of them had gone toward the cities to the east. Larger populations meant more food. To his right, he could see an amphitheater as he drove by. Cale paralleled the water as he journeyed north. He passed by a cemetery, and he hoped those that occupied the graves stayed there. He shuddered at the thought of one crawling out of the ground, and he thought about Return of the Living Dead as he went by. The zombies in that movie were smart. Smart enough to use a radio to call for more policemen and paramedics. He was glad that these ones, these real life ones were not. He quickly accelerated away. The rain let up and the clouds now drifted apart. Sunlight blasted through, and above the deserted streets, with their abandoned cars, and undead shuffling around, a rainbow arced across the sky. The moment seemed surreal to him.

  “Rainbows and zombies,” he laughed.

  The whole scene was a contradiction. He slowed the vehicle to better glimpse the view. He felt like laughing, but immediately felt ashamed at the thought. These were once people. Now they were soulless ghouls that prowled the streets for the rest of eternity, or at least till they rotted beyond the point of being mobile. He felt sad for a moment, thinking about their inevitable fate. Eventually they would all fall, unable to move. An endless limbo, this would be their purgatory. Cale looked back out toward the beach. At least they’d have a decent view.

  He wasn’t looking where he was going. Cale never even noticed the small passenger bus left in the middle of the street. G112 slammed into it, stopping instantly. The force caused him to lurch forward and bang his head against the steering wheel. Dazed and confused, he sat up, seeing stars. Luckily, he wasn’t going fast enough to do any real damage. He put the vehicle into reverse and inched his way around it. One of the infected threw himself against his window, startling him.

  “FUCK!” he yelled.

  He pulled away, not bothering to deal with his visitor. He wasn’t a legitimate threat. He couldn’t even open the door, but it still unnerved him. He continued north on the decimated streets. A sign for a ‘Jaffa Port’ with an arrow to the left went by.

  “Oh my God,” he whispered.

  He was in disbelief that he’d actually made it this far. He took the following left. It opened up to a boardwalk that ran the length of the port. Through the windshield he could see boats, lots of them. Now all he had to do was commandeer one. Cale felt better referring to what he was about to do as commandeering, rather than stealing, even though he had no idea how he would return the vessel. He slowly proceeded forward. The building to his left had a mural painted onto it. It looked like a woman holding a child. Overturned tables and chairs littered the ground. He speculated it had been an outdoor restaurant. He looked out over the port. Cale had plenty of seaworthy vessels to choose from. Many of them had sails, which was something Cale would have to avoid. He had no idea how to even prepare a boat like that. As he scanned, looking for suitable transport, he looked left, and there sat a large boat. It was possibly a tourist ship. There were infected standing along the route to it. A few motorbikes and even a small truck had been left in his path as well.

  “Looks like I’ll have to get out and fight for it.”

  He moved as far as the obstacles would permit. He wanted to make this quick; he’d already drawn a lot of attention driving up the street. Now he was going to be dispatching as many as he could. Cale shut the vehicle off after putting it into neutral and engaging the parking brake. His heart was thumping now. He was going to have to thin out the crowd before he could get through. Then he needed to transport the food and water he had to the ship as well. Cale opened the gunner’s hatch, readying his rifle. He noticed another mural on the building. It was a woman holding her own severed head.

  “What the fuck?”

  He supposed there was some kind of artistic message in it, but whatever it was it escaped him. He did however find it ironic, since the infected could only be stopped by severing the brain from the rest of the body. He charged the rifle and situated himself. He wasn’t the greatest marksman, but he had great form when it came to the basics. Position, breathing, trigger, squeeze. He was proficient at all of it. He was feeling a surge of adrenaline, so breathing was an issue for him. By now, some of the infected had noticed him, and slowly moved in his direction. He hadn’t witnessed any of them climb over anything before, so he wasn’t in a hurry to start shooting. If he did, he’d get sloppy and start missing, something he couldn’t afford.

  Cale took aim at the closest one. She was a few yards from the truck yet. He slowed his breathing and went to work. Headshots for the first few, but he missed on number seven. Avoiding getting flustered, he took a deep breath and shot again. This time he put the infected down. He took a moment to look back the way he’d come. It was clear, for now at least. He continued firing. He lined up his next shot, but when he tried to pull the trigger it didn’t move.

  “Shit,” he said to himself.

  He reloaded quickly. There were only a half dozen or so left. He made quick work of them, missing only five times. Once they were all down, he pulled himself up out of the hatch and on to the top of G112. He moved down the path leading to the boat quickly, and at the ready. Trash was blowing about the port. He stepped over the bodies of the things he’d just killed. A small pickup truck sat angled in the path. He had just enough room to walk in front of it without falling into the water. As he did so, he looked down. He could see something down there, but didn’t venture a guess as to what it could be. Cale’s leg got caught on something, and he fell to the ground, hard. An undead pinned underneath one of the truck’s tires had grabbed his leg. He scrambled away from the crippled assailant. Once he was on his feet he pulled out Zach’s knife and stabbed it on the top of its head. He removed the blade and wiped what had been deposited on it on what was left of the corpse’s clothing. Cale approached the yacht. White with blue trim, the vessel had the words ‘Freedom Runner’ stenciled on her bow and stern.

  The Freedom Runner

  A portable walkway served as a bridge between the ship and the pier. Cale looked at it, and noticed for the first time, that blood was smeared on it. Someone had been dragged aboard the vessel. Boxes of canned food and pallets of water sat next to the walkway. Someone had already attempted to leave land as he intended to. Even though it made him feel guilty, Cale was pleased that he’d have more supplies now. He looked up at the boat. The noise he’d made had alerted the infected on board that their next meal was outside. He could see them pressing themselves against the windows. Three of them banged against the glass. But what was left of their hands only smudged the glass. Cale walked up the walkway and onto the vessel. He circled around to the stern of the ship. There, a door led to the interior. He didn’t enter; he only kicked the door open.

  “HEY! OVER HERE YOU FUCKS!”

  The three he’d seen pounding at the windows now moved toward him. They were joined by three more he hadn’t seen from land. He took aim and killed all six of them. He’d need to be quick about searching the boat for more; his first shot was already like ringing the dinner bell for the rest. He quickly went from room to room. It wasn’t a tourist vessel, as he’d believed. It was some kind of miniature cruise ship. In total it had three bedrooms equipped with full bathrooms, a galley, dining area, ship’s bridge, and a hot tub. He didn’t foresee himself using the hot tub anytime soon. The water had been tainted by one of the infected.

  Cale rushed back t
o G112. One of the abandoned motor bikes had a small trailer attached to it by a chain. Cale unfastened it; he would use it as a wheelbarrow. Two infected approached as he loaded food, water, and fuel into the makeshift wagon. Awkwardly, he pulled the cart down the path, weaving around bodies as he went. An undead emerged from a door in the building to his left. He hadn’t noticed it before. He picked up speed and moved passed her. Not wanting to lose momentum, he continued up the walkway without stopping, letting all of the provisions fall and scatter along the deck. He readied his rifle for the second wave, and more of them came pouring out of the doorway he’d passed. Cale began dispatching his pursuers with precision. Soon, bodies of the fallen tripped up the infected in the next wave. He seized this opportunity to collect what supplies waited on the dock. The infected were still twenty yards away, a comfortable buffer zone for Cale. He only stopped once to shoot one that had navigated the corpse gauntlet. He finished up, and swiftly untied the vessel from the pier, pulling the walkway on board. The deck was a mess, but he managed to crawl over it. Once on the bridge of the vessel he found the key still in the ignition.

  “Almost fucked the pooch on that one.”

  He hadn’t bothered to make sure the keys were on board before. He turned the key to start and the Freedom Runner roared to life. He pulled away from the dock, and as he did, he could see G112. Some of the infected were beating against it. His scent was probably still lingering there. As his view blocked, a surge of remorse came over him. It was his truck. It was Zach’s truck. It was McGregor’s truck. It was their truck, and he had to leave it behind, just like he left everyone else behind.