by Tristan Vick
“We’ll see,” Jennifer replied in a playfully devious tone. Then she feigned to push Zanato out of the window. Overreacting he gripped the window sill with white knuckled terror and screamed.
“Not funny,” he mumbled as he gathered himself together and stepped back a few feet away from the ledge. Zanato motioned with his hands for Jennifer to go ahead of him. “Ladies first.”
“What a gentleman,” Jennifer said with a touch of sarcasm.
“Hey, what goes around comes around.”
“I suppose so,” Jennifer replied as she peered down the edge of the skyscraper. Looking back at Zanato she winked. “Well, here goes nothing,” she said, and stepped out onto the ledge.
5
A Bad Day
BREATHING A SIGH OF RELIEF, Alyssa spotted her car and limped over to the lavender Toyota Prius. Edging up to the driver’s side door she tugged on the handle but it was locked.
Feeling her pockets, she realized too late that the keys were probably still inside one of the pockets of her lab coat. “You’ve gotta be friggin’ kidding me!” Alyssa grumbled in frustration. Nothing was going right today.
Looking back, flames jetted out of the clinic’s windows and smoke wound its way into the blue sky, and Alyssa realized that she wouldn’t be retrieving her car keys anytime soon.
To make matters worse, Alyssa knew that it would be too difficult to walk all the way back into town, given the condition she was in. By foot it was over an eight mile hike. She’d have to call a taxi to come pick her up. She pulled out her cell phone to call someone but it flashed the warning signal that only five percent battery life remained. Instead of risking the phone shutting itself off mid call, she turned it off and tucked it into her side pocket. She’d have to find another way to get ahold of a taxi.
Hobbling down the street she made her way toward the Seven Eleven down by the junction. It was no more than a mile away, and she felt that she could tough it until she was able to use their payphone.
Entering the convenience store she promptly headed toward the payphone on the back wall. Picking up the receiver she began to dial, but there was no response. All she heard was a dial tone. “What was going on with the phones today,” she wondered out loud.
Agitated, Alyssa slammed the received back into its cradle. She looked back up at the front counter, but there wasn’t any cashier working. It took her a moment to realize there wasn’t anybody else at all. Scanning the room, she realized that she was alone. The store wasn’t just empty. Come to think of it, apart from Dr. Beckford, she hadn’t set eyes on anybody else at all today. “What the hell is going on here? Where is everybody?”
Alyssa had the strangest feeling that things weren’t right. Something about the atmosphere and the strange silence that blanketed everything unnerved her. Whatever was going on, she was sure it wasn’t good.
Not wasting any more time, Alyssa shifted into survival mode and picked up a blue shopping basket and started dumping in supplies from off the shelves. She made sure to get the bottled water first, then bent down to the bottom shelf and found some more hydrogen peroxide and some dental floss. Knowing that she was going to have to make the long trek back into town, she was going to need to redo her stitches and redress her wound.
Standing back up, there was a suddenly dark figure filling the doorway. Alyssa let out a scream. Catching herself, she began to laugh nervously. “Sorry. You startled me.”
The man didn’t respond. He merely remained fixed in the doorway, staring at her relentlessly. This unnerved her even more. Slowly, Alyssa started to back away from the entrance way. Making sure to keep her distance, Alyssa cautiously moved toward the end of the aisle, and asked the stranger, “Are you alright? Were you in an accident? Do you need some help?”
The man had on a red flannel shirt and looked like a trucker come in to get a refill on his morning coffee. Then he stepped forward and came into the light. Alyssa froze in her footsteps as her legs became wooden. Suddenly she was trembling and her breathing became stilted. As the man turned to face her, she saw the blood dripping from the stump of what used to be his left arm. His dark beard was matted with dried blood. That’s when she noticed that his eyes were the same milky white as the doctor’s.
“Gnahhh!” he growled, lunging at her.
Alyssa screamed in fright and stumbled back to dodge his grasping fingers. Barely escaping, she ducked behind the shelf, knocking bags of chips and other items off the shelves as she frantically scurried away. Alyssa ran to the door at the back which read “employees only” and passed through. She immediately locked the door behind her and then made her way to the rear exit.
Stepping outside, Alyssa paused to catch her breath. As she looked back up she suddenly saw a group of people, but her relief quickly turned to dismay when she saw their milky-eyed gazes.
The four loiterers standing in the parking lot seemed to be unaware of their surroundings. Most just stood around loitering, stuck in what appeared to be a drunken stupor. A few of them were drooling uncontrollably down their own chins, while others stared aimlessly up at the sky. Their gazes were unfixed as if they were all caught up in some sort of simple minded daydream.
Of the lethargic group a corpulent woman with yellow frizzy hair, who wore a blue waitress uniform and a white apron with bloody handprints all over it, looked the worse for wear. One of her eyes was gouged out while the other eyeball was missing the flap of skin where her eyelid used to be. It gave her a crazed look.
“Oh my God,” Alyssa said in a whisper. She couldn’t believe these people were even walking with the sort of injuries they had. But they appeared to have caught the same disease that Dr. Beckford had.
The one-eyed frizzy haired zombie waitress heard Alyssa’s voice and cocked her head to the side. Then she looked right at Alyssa with her one wild eye.
The sight of fresh meat stirred an excited fit of moaning. The waitress’s moans caught the attention of the others, and soon enough all four sluggish creatures moved clumsily toward her position.
Alyssa slowly backed up and looked for a way to escape the closing circle but they were too evenly dispersed. Ten paces in every direction with no more than an arm’s length between them. She didn’t dare attempt to cut through them. Not on a bum leg. She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to out run them.
Deciding that a strategic retreat would be better than getting torn to shreds by a mob of mindless flesh-eaters, Alyssa had no choice but to go back the way she had come. She made sure to lock the door of the convenience store behind her. Hopefully, that would hold them long enough for her to get the heck out of Dodge.
Alyssa took a deep breath and, from behind, a hand grabbed her by her shoulder and spun her around. Alyssa screamed. She began swinging her fists furiously at the man standing before her.
“Owe! Owe! Stop hitting me!” the young black man yelped.
Alyssa pulled back and looked at him with relieved eyes. “Boy, am I glad to see you!” Alyssa said, trying to catch her breath. He was the first normal person she had seen all day. By his outfit, a clerk’s uniform with the Seven Eleven insignia stitched into it, she guessed he was just late to work. He couldn’t be more than seventeen, she guessed.
“No kidding,” the young man replied. “I came to work as usual and nobody was here. Not a dang soul. You’re the first normal person I’ve seen all day.”
“Same here.”
“What do you think is going on here?” the kid asked. “Some kind of flu bug? Swine flu? Bird flu maybe?”
Alyssa looked at him and shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
“What happened to your leg?” the kid asked, glancing down at Alyssa’s bandages.
“I was attacked.”
“That bites,” the kid answered. Turning toward the rear exit, he motioned for Alyssa to follow him. “Come on. My car is out back. I’ll give you a lift to the nearest clinic.”
“Wait!” Alyssa cried out. “There are a bunch of those things back there.
I wouldn’t open that door if I were you.”
“Gotcha,” he said. “This way then.” Walking to the doors which led back into the store, he looked back at Alyssa as he turned the door handle and opened it. “We’ll go out the front and walk around.”
Alyssa’s face turned white as a sheet when she realized that the one armed man was standing directly behind the kid. He didn’t even see it coming. One moment he was looking at Alyssa’s worried face and the next he had razor-sharp teeth biting into his trapezius muscle. With an uncanny strength, the one armed man jerked the clerk’s head back and pulled strands of muscle tissue out from the kid’s neck with his teeth.
Alyssa shrieked but her screams were drowned out by the clerk’s. The tendons and red meat stretched out like threads of a weaving machine running through the shed of a loom. Alyssa knew she couldn’t go back, so she dashed forward and body-checked the gimp cannibal while the crazed beast continued to feed on the kid’s face.
The one armed man toppled over the clerk’s still twitching body, and they both crashed to the floor. This afforded Alyssa the opportunity she needed to make her getaway. Stepping over them, she quickly limped to the front of the store and didn’t dare look back.
Stepping outside her heart pounded in her chest like a jackhammer chipping at concrete as she frantically scanned the parking lot for a car she could break into. That’s when a hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back.
Alyssa screamed and ducked out of the way. She evaded her attacker, who was too clumsy to keep up with her darting and dodging. But the added strain of playing cat and mouse caused her leg to experience sharp pains as the stitches threatened to tear out of her leg-wound.
Clutching her leg, Alyssa hop-skipped her way over to a nearby pickup truck with the creature nipping at her heels. Thank God, she thought as the door handle clicked open. It was unlocked. Throwing herself into the vehicle, she promptly shut the door behind her and locked it.
The one armed man stood outside the driver’s side window scratching at the glass, leaving red blood streaks where his recently moistened fingers clawed.
Alyssa turned her head to see the bloody maw of the one-eyed woman gazing at her from behind the glass of the passenger side window. She couldn’t help shrieking, as if by reflex, but quickly caught herself with cupped hands firmly pressed over tight lips.
Her screams had attracted more of the things, and soon enough she found herself surrounded by a small mob of mindless flesh-eating zombies. Moaning impatiently, the monsters clawed at the glass and rocked the truck’s cab violently to and fro.
Hanging on the back window of the pickup truck was a hunter’s rifle. In her moment of frenzied terror Alyssa hadn’t noticed it there. She smiled. Finally, a streak of good luck, she thought.
Gathering her nerves, she pulled down the rifle, which was heavier than she expected it to be, and leaned over to check the glove compartment for ammunition. Another stroke of luck! Inside she found some .375 caliber shells for the rifle. What on earth could anyone need such a big gun for, Alyssa wondered. Hunting grizzly bears and moose, in Newcastle? Not likely. But people would rather give up there arm than give up their guns. Thank God for America, she thought, as a drooling armless Joe stared through the blood encrusted window at her.
Alyssa had barely any training with firearms. By barely, she meant practically none. When she was sixteen her uncle had taken her grouse hunting once, so she remembered enough to get the gun to work. But that was the extent of it.
Hastily dumping the shells out onto the seat, she picked up a hand full and crammed them into her pants pocket. Then she took a couple of bullets and loaded them into the firing chamber of the rifle, cocked it, and them aimed squarely between the eyes of the one armed man. “Back off, or I’ll shoot!” Alyssa warned, hoping he’d heed her words. But he didn’t listen.
Alyssa slid her finger around the trigger and began to squeeze down. The thought of actually killing someone, even in self-defense, upset her deeply. She didn’t have a mean bone in her entire body. It’s probably what made her so good with animals. But over the past eight hours she’d killed Dr. Beckford, a whole kennel of infected animals, and now she was pinned down and being attacked by a blood thirsty mob.
Before the day was over, she knew, she’d have to do some more killing. She didn’t like it, but she had no other choice. These people were clearly crazed. They were eating each other for god’s sake! Now they were trying to eat her too.
With a loud bang, and the shatter of glass, Alyssa squeezed off a shot. Fracture veins in the safety glass cobwebbed out of the bullet-sized hole, passed through, and pierced Armless Joe’s head. He immediately dropped to the ground, a single bullet hole marking his forehead where the bullet drilled in.
The rifle’s kickback threw Alyssa off her balance and she fell backward and slammed into the passenger side door. Walloping her head against the window with a loud crack, she fought hard not to black out. Picking up some bullets, she began reloading the gun. Her trembling fingers made it difficult to slide the shells into the chamber smoothly. They rattled around something fierce as she shivered with fear and adrenaline.
“Shit!” Alyssa cursed as she dropped the bullet she was trying to jam into the chamber. The other zombies were coming for her. This time it was a frizzy haired Jane Doe, with the crazy eyeball, who was pushing her arms through the broken glass and trying to get at Alyssa.
Alyssa lined her up in the cross-hairs of the rifle scope and pulled the trigger. The monster’s head flew back, blood splattered, and she dropped to the ground with a thud. But it seemed futile. Every time Alyssa took one of the mindless creatures out there was already another one there to take its place.
“Jesus Christ!” Alyssa exclaimed, recognizing the next monster’s face. It was the boy, the clerk from the convenience store. But how could this be? He should be dead. She saw him torn to pieces not more than a few minutes ago. There was no way he could be standing here. Yet here he was, standing before her with half of his face torn off and giant chunks missing from his neck and shoulder.
A strange, sickly looking, white puss oozed from the corners of his eyes, but it was definitely the same kid. Alyssa continued reloading the gun with trembling fingers. Looking back up at the kid, she whispered, “Sorry,” and closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger.
Once he fell out of sight she pulled back the lever of the rifle, reloaded, and kept firing until there weren’t any of the monsters left standing.
Waiting a few minutes after the last one fell away, Alyssa cautiously stepped out of the pickup truck. Her legs almost went out from under her as her body felt like a thousand tons. She rubbed her sore shoulder as she looked around at the dead bodies that littered the ground all around her. It looked like something out of a bad action flick, she thought.
It was strange, although she had just killed what used to be living breathing human beings, for some reason it didn’t feel like she had committed murder. Why should that be, she wondered? At the clinic, she’d once lost a child’s pet rabbit and it sent her into a month’s bout of severe depression and too many nights of emptied ice-cream cartons. Killing these crazed, poor souls, however, didn’t cause her even a sliver as much grief. Maybe it was the adrenaline talking? She blew out a heavy sigh and gave up trying to wrap her mind around it.
Behind her, the animal hospital was now completely engulfed in flames. Nothing remained now but for a charred skeleton. Alyssa turned and watched as the fire hungrily ate up what remained of the clinic’s wooden frame. With a disgruntled sigh, Alyssa slung the rifle over her shoulder and began limping up the road toward Newcastle City. Hopefully someone there knew what in the blazes was going on.
6
Extraction
STAFF SERGEANT JARED BARNES CLAPPED shut the cover to the scope to his M24 sniper rifle and leaned back up against the ventilation unit which sat atop the roof of the high-rise building.
“Are they still at it?”
Barnes
looked over at Sergeant Ulysses Noble and shrugged. “Actually, they gave up the gratuitous end of the world shag and decided to crawl out onto the ledge.”
“How many times did they…?”
“Three.”
“Dayyyum,” Ulysses said, with great emphasis. “What I wouldn’t give to find a woman as primed and willing as that.”
“Well, it looks like she got bored with him pretty fast. Besides, the kid was having performance problems. Kept on getting distracted by the monsters pawing at the glass.”
“So now they’re scaling the edge of the skyscraper, you say?”
“Yup.”
“Always full of surprises those two.” After a moment of silence, Noble turned to Jared and asked, “Hey, if Tyra Banks was turned into, I mean, you know, would you still fuck her anyway?”
Looking at Sergeant Noble with a slack jaw Jared Barnes simply replied, “The morbid fucked-up shit that comes out of your fucking mouth. Truly goddamn fucking disturbing as shit, man.”
“Shiiiiat… I’m just saying,” continued Noble, doing a mock humping gesture in which he swatted the imaginary ass of hot zombie Tyra, “I would so give her the miracle fuck she deserves.”
“Miracle fuck?” Barnes inquired.
“I’d jump-start her fine rear derriere and fuck the living life back into her! You better believe it. Mmmm-hmmm.” Caught up in the moment Noble continued to gyrate his hips to the thought of his imaginary zombie girlfriend. Before Jared Barnes could even protest, his radio crackled.
“Skrrrkt. Unit Sixteen, this is headquarters, over.”
“Thank God,” replied Barnes rolling his eyes as he reached for the radio. Clicking the button on the handheld transceiver, Barnes replied, “This is Unit Sixteen, over. What’s up?”
“The General requests you head to the Quarantine zone and report in, over.”
“Roger that,” Barnes replied. “Over and out. Skrrrt.”