Knight in the City:
A Zombie Apocalypse Survival Tale
Stephen J. Beard
Copyright 2015 Stephen J. Beard
All Rights Reserved
For Lindsay
A novella in the series entitled ‘A Zombie Apocalypse Survival Tale.’ Unlike the previous two books, Dead of Knight and Knight Terrors, this book is told from the point of view of Tabitha Knight.
Monday, January 12, 2015
I look over at John and he attempts to smile. At least I’m not by myself. It’s not that cold today but we’re all huddled in the wheelhouse of the Beauregard. It’s always colder on the water.
Ben and Tyler, Captain Ron Rendina’s two trusted lieutenants are acting like everything is fine and dandy. Or, as fine and dandy as the apocalypse gets. Tyler is piloting the boat as the Coast Guard station comes into view. We’re not far from the City Marina now. Not far from Ben and Tyler trying to kill us.
My dad, Ryan, told John and I before we left that he was sure we were being set up on this supply run. He was sure Capt. Rendina was sending us to be killed.
I close my eyes and I can see my dad in the pillory. Every lash to the skin of his back goes by in slow motion. He’s crying out in pain. I’ve only seen him cry twice: getting whipped in the pillory and when my mom, Samantha died. It’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve seen so far in my life. I hope I never see him cry again. But, the world has gone crazy and I don’t think I’ll get my wish. Well, I will if Ben and Tyler do what Capt. Rendina told them to do.
Ben and John handle the lines. Maybe John can take Ben out while they’re out of Tyler’s sight. Then we can take out Tyler and be safe. I’ve killed plenty of zombies now, but I don’t know how I’d do killing a living human. Ben and John come back up to the wheelhouse together.
“All right,” said Ben. “Get your gear together.”
“Do we have a plan?” asked John.
“Find a vehicle in the lot here at the marina and head to the hospital. Roper is closest,” he replied.
“What medical supplies are we looking for?” John asked.
Tyler held up a slip of paper.
“We have a list,” he said.
There were only a few zombies on the docks. Ben was in front and he pushed the first few into the water rather than shooting them with the crossbow and losing the bolts. I could see zombies on some of the boats as we went by. Some were behind glass sliding doors. Some were on the decks. One fell into the water trying to get to us. I watched him drift away with the tide still trying to get at me.
At the end of the pier was a marina store and a parking lot. There were plenty of cars for us to take but even I could see it wasn’t going to work. The road was blocked.
Tyler climbed up onto the hood of a car to get a better look, ignoring the zombie inside.
“New plan,” he said. “We’re walking.”
“That’s a pretty horrible plan,” said John.
“You have a better one?” asked Tyler.
“Yeah, we get back on the boat and go back to the fort. Downtown Charleston is going to be full of zombies. The hospital is too far on foot,” said John.
“Captain Rendina tells you to do something, you do it. We can’t go back to the fort empty handed,” answered Ben.
John just shook his head.
Tyler led us out of the parking lot with Ben in the back of the group. They kept John and me in the middle. I noticed we came off the boat like that. I guess that way they could keep an eye on us. They had to suspect we knew that something was up.
Cars were everywhere this close to the western bridges. Some were where they were supposed to be but many more were scattered about as people panicked trying to get out of the city. The center lane was blocked with accidents and other cars were on the sidewalk where they’d tried to get around the traffic.
A lot of cars had zombies in them. A few people were by themselves but many cars had zombie couples in them, fighting to get to us as we walked by. The families disturbed me the most. I can imagine the horror of being stuck in traffic with nowhere to go. Then one person, who has been sick or bit dies, comes back and eats everyone in the car. One SUV had a mother, father, daughter and son. The daughter and son were close in age to me and my brother, Malcolm.
Some people had gotten out of their cars and tried to make it out of the city on foot. Those people became zombies and now roamed through the traffic jam looking for a meal. We were the meal. Most of these zombies were trapped by the traffic.
We made our way carefully through the traffic, weaving as necessary to avoid the pockets of trapped zombies. Sometimes we were forced to climb up onto trunks or hoods to get through. Mostly I tried not to look into the cars. I could hear them trying to get to me and that was bad enough. I only looked when I couldn’t help it.
But, one time I looked I saw a couple in a minivan who didn’t look like zombies. I thought maybe they were still alive but I could see flies and such around their heads. They were so scared that they didn’t leave the car and eventually died of dehydration.
I remembered watching the news with my family when this all started and figured a hospital would be the absolute worst place to be. But, Ben and Tyler were determined to get us there. And then, if my dad was right, they’d be determined to kill us.
God, I felt stupid. If I hadn’t pushed dad to let me go on a supply run, I wouldn’t be here. Now it feels like I’m marching to my death. I’m glad John is with me but I wish it were Mike instead. I miss him.
“Tabby!” I heard my name called out. “Keep up.” It was Tyler.
I nodded and jogged to where the other three were waiting next to a delivery van up on the sidewalk.
“You Okay?” asked John.
“Yeah, just thinking,” I replied.
“Well, keep your head in it. You never know what might happen out here,” he said. As he said it he raised his eyebrows and I realized what he was really saying. ‘Hey dummy. I’m trying to keep us alive. Help me out.’
“Sorry,” I nodded. “I’m here.”
“We’re almost to the hospital,” interrupted Tyler.
Across Calhoun Street was Roper Hospital. Calhoun Street looked a lot like Lockwood Drive in front of the marina. It was packed with cars, trucks and zombies. But even from here we could see plenty of zombies in front of the hospital.
“We will continue down Calhoun Street on this side until we can cross easily. Then we’ll turn left on Jonathan Lucas Street, move alongside the parking garage and in the Emergency Entrance,” said Ben.
“You guys think the ER is the best way to go?” asked John.
“It provides the best opportunity for us to find what we need,” replied Ben.
“It’ll be full of zombies,” I said.
“The whole thing will be full of zombies,” he replied. “But this way we won’t have to maneuver through the rest of the building.”
We made our way down our side of the street, dodging zombies and climbing over cars. Once across the street it became obvious just how difficult this was going to be. The front entrance of the hospital was clogged with vehicles. There were regular cars, police cars and ambulances. Some of the vehicles had their doors open. There were half eaten dead bodies everywhere. I tried not to look. This was easily the most blood and gore I’d been exposed to since dad made me watch the hospital video that first day when all this really began.
But I did look. And I was scared. I didn’t want to die. Not today. Not like this. Not at the hands of Ben and Tyler, either. Not without my family here to protect me. Could Ben and Tyler even go through wi
th it? Were they really up for killing a teenage girl just because their boss told them to?
Then it occurred to me: They didn’t have to kill me or John outright. They could just leave us behind or trap us and let the zombies do it for them. I didn’t want to become a zombie. Whatever they tried to do, I vowed I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
As we walked past the hospital parking garage some zombies came shambling after us. Ben, John and Tyler took the first few. But soon there were too many and I stepped up with my tomahawk and started pulling my weight. After I took out three or four I began to tire. This wasn’t like shooting the crossbow. Swinging the tomahawk around was tiring. And I had to kill more before we reached the ER entrance.
There were several ambulances packing into the drop off area. Many sat with their doors open. Corpses and dried blood covered everything. Twenty or so zombies were milling about this area and quickly turned their attention to us. This time we fired our crossbows first to thin the herd. When they got close there were only five left and we went to our tomahawks again. I killed two close up. We retrieved our bolts and felt like we were being watched the whole time.
The door to the ER was a sliding glass door like they have at the grocery store, only bigger. Behind it were a lot of zombies. We couldn’t tell how many because all we could see were zombies. And they were looking at us like we were dinner.
“Now what?” I asked as I leaned up against an ambulance.
“Same as usual,’ said Ben. “We open the door a little and control the flow of zombies. Then take them one at a time.”
John volunteered to go up and open the door. I guess he thought that Ben and Tyler wouldn’t shoot him in the back. Not while we were still needed anyway.
The door slid open and we fired one at a time. One at a time, the zombies went down. Soon the doorway filled up with corpses. We were getting low on bolts anyway. The three men went up and began getting bolts from the heads of the corpses as they pulled the bodies from the doorway.
As Tyler bent over and reached for a corpse, a zombie from inside grabbed his coat. The zombie fell onto Tyler, biting and snarling. John grabbed the zombie off of him and flung it to the ground. With a quick, practiced motion, he pulled out his tomahawk and plunged it into the zombies head.
“Thanks,” said Tyler as he took John’s hand and stood up.
“You’re welcome,” replied John. “Now maybe you won’t kill me and Tabby.”
Tyler froze and Ben just stared for a moment shifting his gaze from me to John and back. They both looked as if they might say something but the glass doors exploded outwards, covering all of us with shards. Zombies poured out.
I froze.
I was maybe thirty feet from the door. Zombies shamble slowly but I stood there like a statue for what seemed like five minutes. It’s funny how time slows in these situations. I thought that was only something that happened in movies. Then John was grabbing my hand and yelling.
“Run,” he yelled. “C’mon Tabby.”
We ran to the closest ambulance and climbed up to the top. Ben and Tyler were right on or heels. Zombies surrounded the ambulance. There must’ve been sixty or seventy below us. Enough to rock the thing back and forth. As long as they all didn’t end up on one side I don’t think they would tip it over. We were definitely the center of attention.
“Fuck,” said Ben. “Now what?”
“We don’t have enough bolts for all these things,” said John. “And we can’t reach down that far with our tomahawks.”
“And if we shoot our rifles we’ll bring every zombie in downtown,” I added, wanting to contribute.
“I’m still trying to figure out why the two of you haven’t killed Ben and me, said Tyler. “If you knew we were told not to bring you back, why didn’t you take us out?”
“That’s not who we are, Tyler. That’s not what we do. We invited your group in, remember? That’s who we are as a group,” said John.
“But you and your father turned on Tabby’s father,” said Ben.
“We didn’t turn on him, Ben. Yes, we were angry after Keith’s death. We were ready for some new ideas. But, we never thought Capt. Rendina would forcibly take over and make the fort his private island. We never wanted that.” John turned to me.
“I’m sorry about all of that, Tabby. I’m sorry we lost faith in your father. He’s a damn good man.”
I just nodded. John turned back to Tyler.
“And’ that’s why we haven’t killed the two of you, Tyler. We’re good people. Remember that as you kill us for your boss.” John turned away and a silence descended over the roof of the ambulance. Except, of course, for the banging and moaning of the zombies down below.
“We lie down in the middle of the roof, stay quiet and wait,” I said, breaking the silence.
Everyone turned and looked at me.
“We can’t just lay here,” said Ben.
“Yeah, we can,” I replied. “When this all started, we were in the backyard and zombies came up to the fence. We went inside and they lost interest in less than an hour.”
“You think they’ll just wander off?” asked John.
“Uh huh. If they don’t see or hear us, they’ll go away and we can deal with what’s left.”
“I don’t have a better plan,” said Tyler.
So, that’s what we did. We lay on the top of the ambulance until the zombies lost interest. After about thirty minutes the banging stopped. We waited another fifteen minutes or so then looked down over the edge. Most of the zombies had shambled off. There were only a few zombies between us and the ER.
“Let’s take out as many as we can with crossbows from here,” whispered Ben.
Everyone nodded.
We each fired twice and cleared out most of the remaining zombies. The noise didn’t attract too much attention. We climbed down as quietly as possible and started inside the ER. The broken glass crunched beneath our feet. It was louder than I expected and it attracted the attention of a few nearby zombies. We dispatched them quietly with our crossbows. But, we were running out of bolts and didn’t want to risk retrieving them with so many zombies around.
Once inside we needed our headlamps in the dark room. We each covered the others as we got our headlamps out and put them on.
The lobby was deserted. All the zombies that were in here went outside and tried to eat us.
Every step echoed off the walls as we cautiously moved towards a set of double doors. I’d been here once before a few years ago after hurting myself in a fell. So, I knew that what was on the other side of the doors was where they took you to be treated. There were exam rooms and an area with beds for the more serious medical stuff.
But, what else was behind those doors? I almost wet myself when the doors outside broke and all those zombies came through. What was going to happen here?
Now, paused outside the double wooden doors, Ben and Tyler looked concerned. That scared me more than anything else. These guys have been in a war, I couldn’t imagine what these two gung-ho military types were scared of. I was terrified.
“We don’t know what we’ll find on the other side of this door,” said Ben.
“Bet it’s zombies,” I said.
Ben just looked at me.
“It could be ten zombies or it could be a hundred zombies. If it’s a hundred we go back to the roof of the ambulance and hope they follow us out there then disperse,” Tyler said.
We all nodded.
Ben went through the left side of the door and Tyler went through the right. John and I were right behind them. There were only about twenty zombies in front of us. I never thought I’d live to see the day when twenty zombies was a relief but here I was. As our light fell upon them, they all turned as one and stared at us. Then they began shambling towards us as one big group.
I heard the three men make some sort of war cry as they waded forward into the zombies, raising their tomahawks as they went. I froze with fear. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been
close to zombies and fought up close to. But, a zombie in the dark was terrifying. A whole bunch of zombies in the dark is petrifying. I couldn’t get my feet to move. All I could do was move my head.
The scene in front of me unfolded in glimpses because of my headlamp. As my head turned, my light illuminated different parts of the battle.
The swing of Ben’s tomahawk.
Tyler turning as he pushed a zombie that had gotten too close.
John using his knife to hold a zombie while he swung his tomahawk into the head of another.
All of this unfolded within the scope of the light from our headlamps.
One by one, the zombies fell and the guys moved farther into the room. Farther away from me. Then something grabbed my leg and my headlamp lit up a zombie on the floor as I looked down.
I screamed and kicked out at the zombies head with my foot. It was a good kick, catching the zombie right under the chin. In my headlamp, I could see the head roll across the floor leaving a trail of dark gore. It was enough to get my feet moving.
I ran to catch up to the guys who were just finishing up with all the other zombies. They were breathing heavily as they leaned up against the nurses’ station.
“Fan out, grab all the medications, bandages, whatever you think is going to be helpful,” instructed Tyler. “Be careful opening doors.”
As we stood there for another moment with everyone trying to catch our breath I could see everyone covered in blood and gore. It was just dripping off of them in some places. Zombie blood is darker than human blood; almost chocolate syrup. I’d never seen dad or anyone else come back from a supply run covered in that much zombie.
“Keep an eye out for threats,” said Ben. “C’mon, let’s get moving.”
There were supplies everywhere. When the end came, doctors and nurses were trying to stop it not worry about putting things away.
I kept seeing John stop and couldn’t figure out why at first. Then I realized he was trying to watch Ben and Tyler. They were together, talking. I could hear whispering but couldn’t tell what they were saying. They were both angry. I didn’t think that was good. John appeared at my side and whispered.
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