by Bryan Way
“What gives?” I ask.
“Just making sure…” Anderson replies.
“…well?”
“Got a few Zs.”
I retrain my eyes on the complex, eventually finding a few bodies lurking around the spot where I killed Mike. For some reason, I concentrate less on our approach and more on how awkward it is to sit in a car with a katana on my belt. When Anderson pulls up in front of the broken window, the undead begin ambling toward us. “Melee only…” He intones, pulling up his crowbar. I feel as though this direction is implicit, but realize the sensitive nature of gunning them down when we might have one or more assailants listening inside.
As we cut down the bodies, including the resurrected Mike, I consider that the remaining Zombies may be the first clue that we got them all. If anyone had survived, they’d have cleared out the surrounding area before taking stock of their supplies and considering the next course of action. “You bagged him?” Anderson asks me. I don’t fully understand the question; when I turn around, he motions to the slashed throat on Mike’s corpse. “Yeah.” I respond finally.
“Next time you do that, make sure he doesn’t come back.” This instruction rouses an unexpected level of irritation that bubbles up into word vomit. “Saying that now is about as useful as telling me to wipe a week after I’ve taken a dump.” The suddenness and aggressiveness of my response catches Anderson off guard. “Well, either way, you didn’t finish something you started.”
We both chuckle at the remark and I get the sense that he may varnish his orders in the future. The five of us then loot the bodies for supplies. I quickly locate Mike’s wallet and discover his full name: Mike Moretti Jr. I recall at least one Moretti within three years of me at high school, and I have to wonder if he belongs to the same family that owns a contracting firm in Broomall. The odds favor this assumption, but I can’t imagine this fact being useful.
Before we get any further, Anderson asks me to detail the specifics of our assault, and once he’s satisfied, we head in. Our first target is the room where Dave and his compatriots met their end; Anderson enters first to assess the damage, the increasingly rancid smell gasping into the hall when he opens the door.
“This looks internal to me…” Anderson starts, covering his beard. “Can’t be sure though.”
“What do you mean?” Karen asks with a cough.
“The shots… doesn’t look like a firefight… there’d be bullet holes in the walls. I’m guessin’ someone got infected and it just went downhill from there. Got ammo here.”
Anderson carefully hands some loose rounds off to Jake, and I get the impression that he’s trying to mask the lingering handicap from his concussion. The fact that there is still ammo in here would further support his assertion that these people killed each other; if Moretti’s group had, they would’ve disarmed them and taken the ammunition as well. Anderson lifts Dave’s Benelli shotgun from the floor, essentially confirming this fact.
A wave of nausea passes through me, likely a partial result of the smell, but the major contributing factor is the certainty that our prior assailants were too unsettled by this scene to so much as set foot in the room. Not only does this effect my perception of them as cold-blooded killers, it makes me consider our own ruthlessness, since we can apparently scour this room without difficulty.
As I watch Anderson remove Dave’s tactical armor, I think back to when Tracy Dantis arrived at the high school. If I was preoccupied when she showed up, I was certainly absorbed by the mess afterward, so I didn’t give credence to the fact that her first question was whether Dave was with us. Was that some ludicrous cosmic coincidence, or was she looking for this guy?
After dressing himself in Dave’s tactical armor, Anderson leads us out of the room and shuts the door. Shock blasts my nervous system when I see the undead closing in on us from either side of the hall, their reflections on the dark floor-to-ceiling windows making it difficult to tell how many we’re facing. I temper myself with the knowledge that we seem to have them outnumbered, but a significant concern is raised by the fact that we hadn’t noticed them until now. Anderson lays into the group to our right while Mel and Karen go after the bodies to the left, and a showdown of a few seconds ends with an easy victory.
However, they weren’t done. As Anderson finishes off his batch, three more round the corner. Jake joins him to deal with them, and I head down the hall and turn left to find a few more stragglers. I decapitate the first one with a katana strike, but the end of my swing sees the blade lodged in the wooden handrail aligning the windows to my right. Rather than attempt to extricate it, I pull out my trench knife and take out the next one.
With the next two about a dozen feet away, I put my foot into the handrail and pop the katana free. I quickly decapitate two more and pay heed to the ones behind him before trotting back to the corner, where I find Anderson crumpled in a heap on the floor. “You alright?” I ask. His response comes as a thumb up as he takes a few deep breaths. Noticing that I’m winded myself, I loose the inhaler from my belt and take a hit as my next victim draws closer.
I remove his head as well, figuring that the next one will reach me before I can wind up for a full blow. I grab the trench knife and rupture the front of her forehead. She doesn’t stop trying to bite me, but the spike in her skull allows me plenty of leverage to keep her away. Once I’ve pulled her head back, I pull out the trench knife and force it back in as hard as I can, twisting it around, ramming it in over and over until her skull snaps open from the top and I pound my fist directly into her exposed brain.
She lets out a painful sounding groan as I push her body to the floor and step on her skull; it cracks open, gushing dark purple pulp and oily blood. When the next one gets close, I sock her in the jaw and take down the one next to her. I then continuously punch the remaining corpse with the knuckle duster until shattered teeth begin dribbling out of his mouth, knock him to the ground, and finally puncture the base of his skull. “Is that it?” I ask back into the hallway.
“Looks it.” Jake says back. I remove my weapons, wipe them off on the clothes of my victims, and sheath them. Looking at my katana blade reveals that it is overdue for another cleaning. My first conceptions of this weapon were that it would last forever in combat with the undead, but I now must wonder how much more mileage I can get out of it before I have to replace the blade. If it comes to that, I will be without a primary melee weapon.
We take a few minutes to have some water and rest up before sweeping the rest of the first floor, finding nothing more than an empty vending machine and two more wandering corpses. Jake opines that if there were anyone else in the building, they surely would have heard our assault and arrived to inspect. Anderson and I agree before insisting that we rest again before taking on the second floor.
Befitting our prior visit, the second floor features nothing of interest, just two more ambling bodies, one of which Mel previously peppered with M-16 rounds. Explaining this to Anderson brings about another lecture concerning the necessity of headshots. After another brief rest, we head up to the third floor where Anderson finds my ruined Kevlar and has me explain how I got shot. We then find the immobile corpses of our last victims and move them into room 302 after we’ve searched their clothes. Finally, we discover that turning right instead of going straight on this floor would’ve introduced us to their supply room. We score a lot more 9mm bullets, five fully loaded clips for the M-16A4s, a crate of 5.56 ammo, another hunting rifle, cases of food and water, a few pairs of night vision goggles, and some limited body armor.
Once I’ve walked Anderson through the final aspects of our assault, he makes a few appropriately modest comments and we return our haul to the Humvee; unsurprisingly, the ammo crate takes four of us to cart out to the vehicle. It’s just starting to get dark outside, but since the lights in the college are still working, we agree that we’re better off trying to search the whole building before heading home. Anderson loads up on food, Mel empties her ba
g, and the rest of us leave our wares in the Humvee. After looking over the M35, Anderson decides that we should just leave it since it’s too bulky and loud to suit our needs, but he does enlist our help to remove the snowplow and secure it to the Humvee.
While we make a second sweep of the third floor, Anderson abandons humility to give us crap about having improperly cleared the hallway. Just when I think he’s beginning to realize that we’re losing patience with him, he starts in on something else. Mel finally interrupts to insist on a bathroom break and subtly hints that I should follow her. Once at the door of the lady’s room, she makes her opinion clear: “He needs to shut the fuck up.” I laugh before replying.
“Well… what are you gonna do?”
“Tell him he’s pissing me off!” Mel hisses.
“I can’t imagine that making the situation much better. He’ll just get defensive, then he’ll never shut up.”
“Ugh. He’s so annoying.”
“We all have our faults.”
“Really? What’s yours?”
“…I dunno… and say what you will about Anderson… he saved our asses a bunch of times.” I say bluntly. “I can let it slide… I’m alive because of him.”
“Whatever, I’m just saying it’s like he’s trying to impress us with this shit…”
“I won’t disagree… just remember that he never puts himself before anyone else.”
“Yeah, I guess…” Mel replies. “So, you wanna get out of here so I can take a piss?”
I laugh, and then she apprises me of her seriousness and I’m forced to walk away. Anderson is waiting just down the hall from the bathroom, smoking a clove. “Bum one?” I ask as I approach, and he obliges.
“Where’s Jake and Karen?” I ask.
“Looking around.”
“How’s your noggin?”
“Holdin’ up… I’m no Lindros.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Hey, uh… heard anything from Lissy?”
“She’s in a small safe-house in Michigan with her husband and Jo.”
Lissy, short for Alicia, and Jo, short for Joanna, are his sisters. He also has two brothers, Eric and Brett. Brett is autistic and goes to a special school, while Eric has had a drug problem severe enough to cause physical altercations between him and Anderson. Though I guarantee Anderson remembers his last confrontation with Eric, he most assuredly can’t remember how long ago it was. In fact, he rarely brings up his siblings unless asked, but this feels like an appropriate moment.
“What about Eric and Brett?”
“Dunno.” He mutters, exhaling. “Eric was trying to get Brett.”
“Oh good…”
During the reasonable pause that ensues, I vow to remember that he’s spoken to Eric in the last two months. I can’t imagine what it’s like to worry about four siblings. Is that worse, or is the fact that I have only one that much more devastating? The question engages a level of bias that leaves me too uncomfortable to make suppositions. Reflecting on our potential voyage to Penn State, I feel it’s only appropriate to extend the same type of treatment for Anderson’s family.
“You know…” I start. “We can talk about gettin’ ‘em…”
“Nah…” Anderson responds quickly. “I mean… think about it tactically… our chance of surviving a trip to Michigan and back…?”
“Yeah…”
“And I’d have to find them… no network, no intel… I tried calling… that’s all I can do. I want ‘em here… don’t doubt that for a second… but we step ten feet off our property, our chance for survival drops fifty percent.”
“That much?”
“Whatever, you know what I mean… we can’t control it. You misfire, trip, run out of breath… that’s it.”
“I’m still shocked that we can talk about this like it’s a video game. You’re talking about our lives.”
Anderson gives me a thoughtful nod by way of ending the conversation. It would seem that most of our time hanging out before the arising was spent avoiding tough issues, as it was my preference to let him forget whatever was troubling him and just have a good time. We stand silently, smoking our cloves, firing up three more as Mel comes out of the bathroom and joins us. When Jake comes around the corner having found nothing of interest, Anderson stomps out his butt.
“Alright, Anderson, what now?” I ask.
“You said it seemed like they were only in this part of the building?”
“Yeah, I mean, that’s where all their bodies are…”
“Wait, Jeff, don’t you have asthma?” Mel asks suddenly.
“…yeah?”
“Then why are you smoking cloves?”
“I don’t inhale. Besides, it’s not, like, life-threatening…” She stares hard at me for advancing his logic. “You know what I mean… ask Karen, I’ve seen her bum a few puffs from Anderson now and then…”
“Where is Karen?” Jake asks.
We all freeze and look past each other.
“I thought she was with you?” Anderson asks.
“KAR!” I shout.
“Shh, don’t yell…” Mel says.
“Wait, wait, be quiet for a second…” Anderson says. We all listen to the silence in the building. “No one heard her scream?”
“What if there’s someone else inside?” Mel asks quietly.
“Alright, Melody, Jeff, go left, me and Jake go right.” Anderson says quickly. “Radios on, weapons ready.”
We immediately go into a doorway, open it, scan inside, and then shut it as Anderson and Jake jog down the breezeway. Mel and I run into different bathrooms, and once I’ve checked under the stalls I run back into the hallway again. There’s an open door in the hall a few feet from where we were smoking, so I run in and find Karen on the floor in the corner, balled up and shaking slightly. “Anderson, got her, 308, over and out.” I walk over quietly, motioning for Mel to stay in the doorway. “Karen.” I whisper. She doesn’t respond, so I kneel down next to her and put my hand on her forehead, finding it quite warm. I take off my trench coat and drape it over her.
“What is it?” Anderson asks from the doorway. “She’s sick,” I murmur. “We’ll let her rest.…” I turn around to see Mel, Anderson, and Jake staring at me fearfully. “Did you say she’s sick?” Jake asks. My response at first is a shrug and a quick shake of the head, then it hits me like a bucket of ice down the back of my pants. She’s sick. We all go outside the room, close the door, and sit on the floor. Mel is the first to talk after an awkward silence.
“What do we do?”
“Let her sleep… when she wakes up, ask if she can diagnose herself.” Anderson says.
“Well Ally’s a shrink, so she went to med school…” I add.
“We don’t have anything… specific in our supplies.” Anderson opines. “High school nurses can’t give prescriptions, so all we can do is treat symptoms.”
“And right now, everything is a serious illness.” Jake adds. “Even a cold.”
“We’ll just have to wait,” I offer. “We’re certainly not making any decisions now. Let her sleep. When she wakes up, we head home.”
“We have to be careful…” Mel starts. “We don’t want whatever she’s got…”
“If we don’t have it already.” Jake says.
We sit in silence for a few moments before Anderson reaches into his backpack for dinner and the rest of us join in. Between the four of us, we split two MREs. As we finish, Jake starts up conversation again.
“So what do you think our chances of getting rescued are?”
“Moderate.” Anderson says, glaring at me. That means non-existent. “I mean, slowing them down isn’t gonna happen unless they find some magical way to kill them. If the government puts together some strongholds with enough ammo…”
“What about the militia rescues?” I ask.
“Oh, you must have missed that part of the last broadcast…”
“Yeah,” Mel breaks in. “A militia showed up at a news station in DC…
and that was the last they heard of ‘em. They were supposed to keep the network informed.”
“So, no news is bad news. Grey, you talk to Alan?”
“He left me about twenty messages… they’ve got about a week.”
“Shit…” Anderson replies. “He’d better be prepping.”
“I’ll call him when we get back tonight, maybe he can use MapQuest to plot a reconnoiter.”
I notice Jake looking around pensively. After a moment, he speaks. “What happens if we lose Karen?” Everyone is quiet. I didn’t want him to say that, but it’s a valid point. “Well… we’ll have to move on.” I say, recognizing it’s a terrible answer. A loud crash downstairs interrupts the possibility of further conversation, so we get up and run into the room next to 308 for a look out the windows, finding about twenty undead entering the complex in a swarm around the Humvee. “Ah, shit…” I say flatly. “We’d better wake her.” Jake says as he walks toward 308, but Anderson grabs him before he gets to the door.
“That’s our way out. So don’t talk. They may just move on.”
“And if they don’t?” Jake asks.
“We can take ‘em…” I reply.
“Oh yeah? What about Karen? We’re not leaving her up here alone, and we’re not taking her downstairs like that. That means at least one person stays with her, so only three people can fight.”
“Oh come on, it’s like, twenty.” I add. “I’ve taken twelve on my own. Christ, Mel and I can take care of it…”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Mel asks.
“That two of us can do it… so, Jake stays here and the rest of us go down.”
“No way.” Anderson replies sternly. “We don’t know how many are already in, or how many are behind them.”
“It’s not your decision.”
“It’s not yours either… so, what… call Rich or flip a coin?”