by D A Madigan
On that crazy day that the General insisted on calling the Rapture, when corpses were smashing their way out of hospitals and funeral homes and morgues and falling ravenously on the living, Cass had been home on leave. Things had happened so quickly and the social order had fallen to pieces so utterly that there hadn't even been time for anyone to cut orders for soldiers on leave to report anywhere. Nonetheless, Cass had put on her urban camo uniform with her fresh new lieutenant's bars, strapped on her military issue M9 and then shoved her personal Kimber 1911 Custom II Warrior into the custom kevlar half holster attached to her web belt. The Kimber would ride comfortably at the small of her back; she could get it out in one easy move and anything the M9 wouldn't stop, the Kimber would.
Then she'd gone out to the car, intending to drive to Fort Knox and volunteer for any duty she might be needed for.
When the first swarm of zombies had surrounded her car on Broadway, she hadn't panicked, just powered down the window and emptied the M9 out it. One thing she loved about the M9 was the fifteen round clip, and Cass had seen enough zombie movies to know she had to aim for the head. 13 rounds meant 13 head shots, which was no problem for Cass – blam blam blam blam blam DIE you little shitheads! The little dead fuckers had been blown backward by the bullets and she'd hit the gas to drive on – only to see them all getting back up again in her sideview mirrors. Many of them didn't have fucking heads left from the eyebrows up, but, still, they were getting back up and running after her.
Which was when she got her first inkling just how seriously this particular zombie apocalypse was going to suck.
She'd been seriously starting to panic when she'd gotten to 25th Street and Broadway and a howling mob of ravening dead were there, swarming stalled cars, dragging the screaming drivers out and ripping them apart right there on the blood drenched asphalt, and there was no way around them. She'd been pulling the Kimber, wondering if she should put the first bullet in her own head – when out of nowhere, the General had showed up, driving the lead of two snowplows in convoy, "Ride of the Valkyries" blasting from the rolled down cab windows. The plows had hit the whole mess and knocked that shit sideways out of the road, but one zombie, more agile than the rest, had jumped up on the passenger side running board and was grabbing through the open window on that side. Cass had snapped a shot that took most of the geek's head off, which wouldn't kill it, but the big .45 ACP slug had knocked the gibbering fuck spinning into the street. The General must have seen the shot, because he slammed the wheel over like a NASCAR driver and brought the snowplow grinding to a halt right next to Cass' parents' Volvo.
“Now that's what I like in a little lady,” the General had said in his ridiculous Foghorn Leghorn accent, “she's got a pistol in her pocket AND she's happy to see me! C'mon up here, honey, we goin' to the Kroger's!”
Which was how Cass had met the General, and his daughter Dorothy, who had been sitting on the passenger side. She'd sat in between them on the ride to 'the Krogers'. Of course, he hadn't meant this Kroger's, he'd meant the one down on the west side. But in a week and a half they'd eaten everything worth eating in that Kroger's and moved on up to the ValuMarket just down Bardstown... and in another ten days, they'd eaten that place empty, too. The AHCETSB was quite the little locust horde. Sometimes that worried Cass... the General didn't seem to be much on long term planning. But he'd kept them alive so far...
So now, Captain Cass moved around the new Kroger's, eyes watchful. The fencing outside would keep the geeks from getting up next to the store, which meant all the glass windows weren't the security hazard they seemed. But nasty as the geeks were, Cass had learned that the real danger in the post-Rapture world was – as always – the living. The dead would drag you down and eat you, sure... but the living would stab you in the back, strip your corpse, and then throw you out in the street. Which, to Cass, was worse. Being dead was bad, being eaten by ghouls was worse, but worst of all, to her mind, was having someone else take her guns...
Dorothy had asked her once if she didn't want to maybe take a couple other armed officers and go see what had happened to her folks. Cass had advised that her folks had died shortly after the whole shitstorm had started. Dorothy had said she was sorry – and nearly seemed sincere about it, which was a good trick for the little sociopath – and hadn't asked any more questions.
Even if she had, Cass wouldn't have told her that when she'd first gone out to the driveway to get in her parents' Volvo, the clip in her M9 had only had 13 rounds in it for a reason – and the reason was, when it had become clear to Cass that the world as she knew it was pretty much gone, she'd decided to settle up with her folks, once and for all.
The look in her daddy's eyes, when she'd drawn down on him -- her mother on her knees, praying for God to strike down this hateful, rebellious, sinful child (begging for mercy and apologizing for the sheer hell her childhood had been might have worked better, but that never would have occurred to either of them, of course) -- those were the memories that kept Cass warm at night. That, and the orgasmic feeling of the trigger pulling, the kick as the bullets drove out the barrel of the M9, the wet splatter of their brains slooshing against the kitchen wall. Oh, yeahhhh. Good fuckin' times. Finally, Cass had some family memories to treasure.
Such were the musings of Captain Cass as she wandered the aisles of the Bardstown Kroger's, although none would have been able to see past her renowned poker face to discern anything of her feelings, much less her thoughts.
When she saw Dorothy slipping through the swinging metal doors into the deeply dark butcher's area of the store, behind the meat counter, though, her eyes became... thoughtful.
Silently, she moved closer, so she could listen...
ix.
On the roof, Dan was roused from his misery -- physical and emotional, possibly spiritual -- by the sound of the trap door cracking open behind him.
He turned and started to get to his feet. Doing so, he brought his right hand down to the gravel roof to help bear his weight; the white hot lance of pain that stabbed up his arm into his brain reminded him that he was, at the very least, burned, and possibly... more like probably... dying of a zombie bite.
Just to the left of the jury rigged TV antenna, Skip was on one knee, reaching down into the open trap door. As Dan finally got to his feet, shaking and sweaty, Skip brought up -- not the gun Dan had expected, but a lit torch.
Of course. A gun wouldn't have been any help, if Dan had turned, or there had been zombies on the roof. A torch worked much better.
"I'm still alive," Dan said, his voice little more than a rusty croak.
"Good to hear, good buddy," Skip said. He took the pistol out of his pocket and handed it back down to someone... had to be Vivian, he'd never give it to Franklin... and said "Go back down and watch our resident douchebag now, hon."
Dan heard Vivian's voice saying something, but couldn't make it out. Skip looked back over at him. "Sheila?" he asked, his voice gentle.
Dan closed his eyes. "Dead," he said, or tried to say. It actually took him two tries to get the word out.
"Man," Skip said, his face falling. "Oh man. Oh man, that sucks. Dan, I'm so sorry."
He stepped away from the trap door then, reaching down to grab its edge, pull it up, and slam it closed. Dan could hear the sounds of the bolt on the other side being thrown.
Dan sat back down again. He was soaked in sweat and felt exhausted just from the effort to stand up.
Skip walked over to him. "Franklin said you were bit," he said.
Dan nodded and held out the hand with the bite on it. The bite actually didn't look bad, most likely because it had been instantly cauterized by the flames when the zombie that had had its teeth clamped in Dan's hand had explosively ignited. Dan's entire hand was blotchy looking, swollen, and covered with blisters. Skip knew that meant second degree burns at the very least.
"You feverish?" Skip asked, kneeling to hold Dan's arm gently by the wrist and forearm, turning his burned hand back a
nd forth to look at it.
"Dunno," Dan said. "Feel like I'm burning up. Skip... you gotta get ready. I'm gonna jump off the roof in a sec. I dunno how much I'll remember when I'm a zombie... you need to be ready to light one of those charcoal bags and drop it on me."
"You ain't jumpin' off shit," Skip said. "This is a bad burn. We need to keep it elevated, get some ointment on your hand, get it wrapped up. But it ain't gonna kill ya. You might lose some use of the hand but I think you'll get back 80, 90%. It's gonna look fuckin' horrible when it heals, but at least it ain't your face. You're gonna go through some of our pain killers, though. That's fo' sho."
"Skip, I've been bit," Dan said, feeling absurdly resentful that Skip was making him state the obvious. "I'm going to turn and I can't be on this roof when I do."
"Oh, fuck that," Skip said. His voice was strangely hoarse. "This ain't a George Romero movie, good buddy. This is real life and so far in real life the shit ain't worked like in the movies at all. Remember that family that came runnin' out into the street, countin' on head shots to take zombies down? Or Sheila's friend Jerry?" Sheila had told all of them about how Jerry had stepped out of the call center building counting on head shots working, too... and what had happened to him.
Dan shook his head. "We can't take a chance," he said. "I'm feverish and I feel like shit. Whatever those things have, I've...."
"Whatever those things have," Skip interrupted him, "hates fire like the Westboro Baptist Church hates gay soldiers, Danny boy. You've got second degree burns all over your hand there, boy. Of course you're feverish and feelin' shitty. But it ain't gonna kill ya." He shook his head. "C'mon, man. You can't leave your little girl with no parents at all. You gotta fight this thing."
"I can't go back down there with her and the rest of you until I'm sure," Dan said. "You know that's true, Skip. You know it."
Skip fell silent. He couldn't argue with that. If they had been in a Romero zombie film, well, Dan turning wouldn't necessarily be all that bad... one bullet would take care of it, although that might be pretty traumatic for the kids to have to see. But this wasn't a Romero film. If Dan went back downstairs and he did turn... hell, if he just died from shock... once he was a zombie, the only thing that would stop him was fire, and fire...
"I don't suppose you have any idea if the oxygen did anything to the zombies?" Skip asked, quietly.
Dan shook his head. "No clue. She..." His voice broke. It took an effort for him to finally say "She didn't get a chance to say anything."
"Okay," Skip said. "All right." His mind was racing, and it was greatly to his credit that at that point, he did not once even think about the fact that the insulin bottle he'd been using was going to be completely empty in another five days at most.
"So," he said. "We're gonna get some medicine and bandages up here. Something you can bed down on. I can get some of those tarps from the back room and rig some kind of shelter up here. Get a grill... we got plenty of charcoal, we can use that to keep you warm." What he didn't say, and what really worried him, was that with his own leather jacket now gone, the group had absolutely no cold weather gear whatsoever. Dan wasn't dressed at all appropriately for late November weather, and staying up here wasn't going to help him at all... but...
And that was when both of them heard the muffled but unmistakable sound of gunshots from inside the Walgreen's.
x.
He hadn't been sleeping anyway.
He was pretty motherfucking tired, true fuckin story. But every time he closed his eyes he saw that goddam Magu. That goddam look on his face, in his eyes, behind those big thick glasses of his, when Derrick had unscrewed the metal cap from the can of lighter fluid and started pouring it all over the little wog fucker.
He saw Magu walking up to the store and waving his arms back and forth in front of the big glass windows. Saw the geeks come rushing out of the doors someone had smashed all the glass out of. Saw them swarm on that poor sad fuck, dragging him to the ground, biting into him, tearing big chunks of that brown skin off, chewing, gulping, their crazy murder-screams muffled by big mouthfuls of Magu-flesh.
Saw his own hands, striking that match, lighting the whole cardboard matchbook on fire, dropping it into the stream of lighter fluid that poor fucker's soaked clothing had left behind him.
Saw the flame-trail shoot along towards the whole screaming clusterfuck. Saw them all go up in a gigantic fucking pillar of flame, Magu screaming, geeks screaming...
Goddamit. God DAMN it.
He'd only suggested it so the General and his crazy ass white armed officers would think he was a bad ass, and give him some space. He'd been sure that even someone as completely fucking batshit insane as the General wouldn't do something like that.
But the motherfucker had loved the idea. LOVED it.
And made Derrick do it.
But once he'd made the suggestion he couldn't puss out. They'd have thought he was chicken shit, and he could read it in their motherfucking eyes... if he'd tried to puss out, they'd have done it to him. And maybe to his gram. And then what?
He'd personally gone into the store and found food on the ethnic aisle for Magu's wife and kid. Goddam Pakistani shit. Curry and whatever. Fucking rice. Beans. And if they didn't like that he'd gotten them some Campbell's Chunky Soup and some Dinty Moore Beef Stew and some Wolf Chili. Good shit, as good as the armed officers were eating. And he'd gotten them to the head of the line at the one working microwave set aside for enlisted, too. And he'd gotten them that papaya juice shit they liked to drink, too.
So what if the kid wouldn't even look at him? So what if Magu's wife had pulled back away from him like he had some kinda disease... and then, he could see her makin' herself be still, and look at him... and he could tell. She was scared of him, and she'd let him do... whatever... she'd do whatever... to protect herself, and her kid, from the psycho who'd burned up her husband.
His plan had worked. He'd scared the shit out of someone, he sure as fuck had. He'd convinced someone he was a totally crazy bad ass that no one should mess with.
Fuck.
He was going to take care of them. He was. Just like his gran. He had to. Now, after what he'd done... he HAD to.
Goddam him. Goddam him. Goddam him...
So, anyway, when he heard the set of stealthy footsteps trying to sneak across the tiled floor towards him, he hadn't been asleep. Gram was, next to him on the cardboard under the canvas cover he'd filched for them, breathing in those thin, shallow breaths of hers, and that shit scared the fuck out of him, too. He thought she probably needed one of those CPAP things. Oxygen would help her, sure. He'd seen a couple of tanks behind the druggist's counter. Maybe... if he asked the General...
Fuck it. As the shadowy hand touched his shoulder to shake him awake, he was already grabbing the wrist behind it, and whispering "What the fuck you think you're doing?"
"Owwwwwwww," came a soft, pained whisper out of the dark... and Derrick very nearly shit his pants. (Not that they smelled all that great anyway; laundry wasn't high up on the AHCETSB's list of priorities.) He knew that voice, everyone in the AHCETSB did. But what the fuck did the General's 14 year old slut daughter want with him in the middle of the fucking night?
Being 17 years old and a very heterosexual male who hadn't gotten any trim in weeks, Derrick kinda hoped the cunt was looking for the obvious. Being smarter than most people took him for, though, he simultaneously dreaded finding that out. Because that was a WHOLE fucking hot mess just waiting to blow up in his face.
But she was keepin' her voice down, so at the very least, she didn't want people to catch 'em.
"Please," she whispered, "I gotta talk to you. Please."
Derrick tried to think it through. If he went off with her, and the General found out about it, then... but if he didn't go off with her and she got pissed off at him, then...
Fuck it. Derrick got up, as quietly as he could, which was pretty quiet... C Dog hadn't frequently called him a 'fuckin sneaky ninja mot
herfucker' for nothin'.
"Over here," he whispered, his voice just barely audible, pulling the little bitch behind him by the wrist. After two steps she twisted her wrist out of his grip and, before he could say or do anything, caught his hand in hers, squeezing it, stroking her thumb over his knuckles in a flirtatious, even suggestive way. Oh, here we go, Derrick groaned silently to himself.
But that ol' black snake down south was certainly ready, willing, eager and able to go, if that's what the little slut was looking for. Damn the General's crazy white ass, full speed ahead, motherfuckers!
He led her over to the gloomy butcher's space behind the meat counter, took her to the far corner behind a series of wheeled metal tables almost like the gurneys you saw on all those hospital shows, except Derrick knew these metal tables had once held up big slabs of beef and pork and whatever the fuck all else kinds of meat the Highland Kroger's might have had that needed cutting into steaks and chops and sausages... buffalo, for all he knew. Fucking dolphin, maybe, who knew what rich white shit-asses ate, anyway.
He pulled her down in the corner and she came without protest or hesitation and he could feel her, could feel the heat radiating off her body, and he knew, if he wanted her, all he had to do was unzip and let it out and she'd be all over it, she'd be out of her clothes and down on all fours for him, she'd be kneeling and gobbling him like a pig in a food trough. And he wanted the little bitch just as much, maybe more...
"Okay, what?" Derrick asked, his voice coming out as more of a growl than he meant it to, but maybe that was good. Scare the little cunt a little, just a little, and maybe he'd get out of this without someone blowing his fucking head off or spiking him to a length of wire mesh fence for the geeks to chow down on.